♪ It's time for Fish Fact Friday ♪ (Valentines edition!)
The white-spotted pufferfish (not to be confused with the white-spotted puffer) is a species of pufferfish known for its intricate courtship displays!
Males construct complex nests in the sand to attract females to mate, often spending a week or more to create a single nest measuring ~2m (6.5ft) in diameter. This process takes significant effort, given that male puffers only grow to ~10cm (~4in) long!
These circular nests are sculpted using their bodies, and are decorated/stabilised using bits of seashells and coral. If a female approves of the courtship display, she will mate with the male and lay her eggs in the centre of the nest!
The nest is not just decorative, however - the grooves in the sand channel fresh water towards the eggs, keeping them healthy while they develop!
written for steddiebigbang2024 and belatedly posting here!
This part includes the Russian torture scene, so adding a warning for gore/violence just to be safe!
-----
Eddie comes by Scoops, once Steve gets the job there.
The first time, he laughs at the sailor hat for a minute straight until Steve rolls his eyes and calls back, “I'm taking my lunch!”
“Now?” Robin bitches. “Did you actually get a girl to fall for those ridiculous li-” She cuts off as she comes out of the back room and sees Eddie. “Oh. Huh.”
Eddie flashes a sharp toothed smile at her, and Steve rolls his eyes again and elbows him.
“I'll be back before the actual lunch rush hits this way,” he tells Robin, untying his apron and depositing it to the side of the counter.
To Eddie, he says, “Here, since this brought you so much joy,” and drops the sailor hat onto the top of Eddie's head.
Eddie gives a squawk and squirms around like he's trying to bat him off, though Steve notices he doesn't actually push him away as Steve adjusts the hat to his liking.
“There,” Steve says, shooting Eddie a teasing little grin as he steps back. “You keep that on the whole time, and I'll buy you lunch.”
“A small price to pay for a free meal,” Eddie says solemnly, but his eyes are crinkled a little like they do when he smiles, and he doesn't take the hat off the entire time they eat together.
—
He and Eddie sit out back behind Scoops, passing a cigarette back and forth. It's the end of Steve's shift, and technically he doesn't have to stay anymore, but he's not in a hurry to get home.
Dustin's away at camp, after all.
“Why the hell are you working here?” Eddie asks, sounding like he's been mulling it over for a while.
Steve snorts. “Needed to work somewhere.”
“Okay, fine, but haven't you done the lifeguard thing for like three years?”
Steve - didn't actually expect Eddie to know that, and he shoots him a little smile before he rolls his eyes. “Not a real job, according to my dad. It's just hanging out at the pool all day.”
Eddie scoffs. “Would your dad even know a real job if it bit him?”
“My dad's never really had to work for anything,” Steve mutters. “I didn't get into any of the colleges they wanted me to, so I needed to be taught a lesson. Pretty sure he was hoping it'd humiliate me.”
Eddie tips back, looking him over. “You don't look very humiliated.”
Steve shrugs. “Because I'm not. Yeah, sure, the outfit and the hat are stupid, but work is work. Ice cream makes people happy, I make people happy, it could be worse. Besides, he has no idea what I'm even making here. Every paycheck is a little more I can stash away where he can't touch it.”
Eddie's watching him very closely now, in a way that Steve's never seen before.
“How long have you been doing that?” he asks quietly.
“What, saving money that my dad doesn't know about?” Steve asks.
“Yeah.”
Eddie's face is serious - far more serious than Steve's ever seen him, than he thinks the situation warrants. Steve frowns.
“Since I got my first job, I guess? Anything I ask for from him comes with some kind of string attached, and I got tired of paying for it.”
Eddie's quiet again. “You've gotten in a lot of fights the last couple of years,” he says, slow and careful like he thinks Steve might bolt. “Lot of bruises.”
He clocks on to what Eddie's trying to get at, then, and a rush of relief washes over him as he hurries to set him straight. “Oh, no, my dad's not abusive or anything, just an asshole. He's never hit me.”
Eddie considers that. “Your dad can be an abusive piece of shit without ever hitting you.”
Steve licks his lips, takes his turn watching Eddie a little more closely. “Sounds like you're familiar with it.”
Eddie laughs, sharp and humorless. “Come on, man, you know who my dad is.”
“I know what people say about him,” Steve agrees. “But I've learned not to listen to rumors.”
Eddie flicks the cigarette butt off into the distance.
Steve gets out another one, puts it between his lips to light it. He takes a long drag, then - pulls his heart out of his chest, setting it between them before he passes the cigarette over.
Eddie's eyes drop down to his heart as he takes the cigarette, but this time he doesn't say anything.
Steve still doesn't ask to see his, even though he's tempted.
“You can listen to these ones,” Eddie says after a while. “They're mostly true.”
“You deserve better,” Steve tells him.
He looks over when Eddie doesn't say anything, finding him watching his heart. It's beating strong and steady.
“So do you,” Eddie says without looking up.
They sit in silence for a while longer, until the cigarette is gone.
Then Steve tucks his heart back into his chest and stands up. “Come on, I'll get us lunch.”
Eddie scowls at him. “You bought last time.”
“Yeah, but a conversation like that deserves a burrito bigger than your head, and I've got employee discount,” Steve counters, holding out his hand.
Eddie concedes, accepting his hand up.
—
Steve keeps making up excuses to buy Eddie lunch after that, every time he comes by at the end of an early shift or close to his lunch break on a later shift.
One day he gets them both pizza from Sbarro, and they sit at one of the sticky plastic tables in the food court. It's so small their knees knock together as they devour their slices, but -
But it also means that Steve can tuck his ankle up against Eddie's, hook his foot half around it, and have an excuse if he needs one.
He doesn't need one.
Eddie doesn't move his foot away, but he does shoot wide eyed little looks over at Steve like he's not sure whether this is a joke or not, and -
“Hi,” Steve says, soft and ridiculous and holy shit, he has to have something better than hi.
But apparently hi works, because Eddie ducks his head, looks back up at him with something soft and wary and surprised all at once.
“Hi,” Eddie says back.
And that's -
It's something.
—
Steve gets closer to Robin - their bickering has started to become playful, and even though her teasing's never been mean, now it sounds almost fond. She still gets annoyed when customers watch them work in complete sync and think they're a couple, but now she just rolls her eyes and complains to him later instead of throwing things off by trying to protest it.
It's nice. He thinks he might be winning her over, and it makes the days pass a lot quicker.
—
He doesn't see Eddie for a week after their pizza lunch.
He tries not to think much about it, just tells himself that if he hasn't seen him by the time Dustin comes back from camp, he'll call him.
—
This isn't like any beating he's taken before.
Steve'd thought he was prepared. He was prepared, at least in the beginning. Billy did just as much damage, even if it was in a shorter span of time, and the ache in his ribs and stomach and face is familiar.
He can handle it.
Besides, it doesn't matter how much they hurt him - protecting Robin and Dustin and Erica is more important than anything else.
"Let's take a look at his heart," one of the soldiers says. "See how honest he's really being."
Steve's pretty sure he makes a choked off little guh.
He doesn't want to let them anywhere near his heart.
But on the other hand - he isn't lying as much as they think he is, and maybe that will prove it? They'll have to undo his hands to get him to take it out, and he briefly considers trying to get the drop on them, but he has to concede that probably won't go very well for him.
It's not like they're really asking for his opinion, anyway.
They aren't making any move to untie his hands, either, and Steve's brow scrunches in confusion.
He sees one of them holding what looks like a mix of a gun and a taser. It - honestly, it looks pretty stupid, like a prop in a bad movie, and he wrinkles his nose at it.
They press it up against his ribcage, pull the trigger - and fuck, he jolts back with the force of it.
His chest splits open.
The shock of it makes him numb for a precious few moments, staring down at the gaping hole in his own chest. The pain doesn't hit him until they take his heart out. It feels like it's being carved out of him, ripped from his chest as though he were being mauled by a wild animal, and he has the somewhat hysterical thought that he shouldn't be alive for this.
His heart was torn out of his chest, and somehow it's still beating, erratic and racing.
"Hmm," one of the soldiers says, tilting his heart this way and that. "Feels real."
The soldier squeezes it, and this time Steve screams at the pressure tightening around his heart, making him convulse in his bonds.
The second soldier laughs.
"They're making such good fakes these days," the second soldier says.
The first soldier relaxes his grip, and Steve sucks in ragged gulps of air, too disoriented to really understand what they're saying.
"Much more sophisticated than patches and paint," the first soldier agrees. "What good would a spy be if he showed his real heart?"
"No," Steve protests. "It's real, come on, you can feel it."
There’s no sign of deception from his heart, but it's beating too wildly from the pain to really make a difference.
"We'll see about that," the second soldier says, handing a switchblade to the first.
The first soldier presses the flat of the blade against his heart. "Let's see what's underneath if we shave a little off?"
—
Steve doesn't really remember anything after that. He must have passed out, because the next thing he hears is Robin's voice, and he realizes he's in a different room, tied back to back with her.
His chest aches.
Everything aches, really, but his chest is the worst of it.
Steve looks down, sees himself solid and in one piece again. He might have thought the whole thing was just a pain induced hallucination if it weren't for the unstable beat of his heart. It's pulsing unsteadily, and he feels as though if he even breathes too hard, it might burst into pieces with the next beat.
But he's not alone now.
He's with Robin, and she makes everything better, and even though his heart beats too fast when he thinks of how much he likes her - it's the good kind of too fast, not the kind that makes him think his heart is going to explode.
He is pretty sure that his heart is going to explode, though, that they're probably going to die here. He knows Robin is thinking the same thing - he just knows, like going through Russian secret agent torture together has made them automatically on the same wave length.
They were heading towards being friends before this, he knows, wonders if maybe they could have ever been for real.
It's a shame he doesn't think he'll ever get to find out.
—
Dustin and Erica find them before Steve loses any fingers.
Which is good. He might not be on the basketball team anymore, but he still plays with Lucas sometimes, and he likes all of his fingers attached to his hand and not on the floor of a secret Russian base.
He tells Dustin that as they're escaping from said Russian secret base. Dustin looks a little pale, hugs him tight around the middle, which makes Steve laugh - it should hurt, he thinks, but he doesn't feel a thing.
The only thing he feels is kind of floaty, and the itchy, overheated sensation he always gets when he's had his heart locked inside his chest for too long.
When no one's looking, Steve takes his heart out of his chest.
His stomach turns.
Whatever he's feeling about it seems distant, too far removed for him to be able to react to it, but the physical sensation of his stomach heaving is present and accounted for.
It only barely looks like a heart. The shape of it is hardly visible, more like a double handful of the precut chuck roast he gets to use as stew meat, sluggishly oozing every time it beats.
The thought of putting it back in his chest makes his stomach heave again, but even like this, he knows he can't keep it out in the open.
He rips off the red scarf from his Scoops uniform, wraps it around his heart to hold it together, and ties it off.
There.
Now no one will notice.
-----
This is already written, and my plan is to post one part a day until it's all up here!
Taglist (always happy to add more to this if anyone wants): @fairytalesreality @lostonceandneverfound @wheneverfeasible @awkwardgravity1 @theintrovertedintrovert @thewickedkat @ravenfrog @scarlet-malfoy @missmagillicuddy @xxfiction-is-my-realityxx @ollyxar @cringe-culture-is-dead-99 @thedragonsaunt @makewavesandwar @ajeff855 @mae-liz @the-fantastical-asexual @jettestar @warlordess @samsoble @persnicketysquares @cryptid-system @my-love-of-books @mydysfunctionallife @dreamercec @holyangelstudentuniverse
Hello! Sorry for the delay! This week was very busy with student conferences and my own midterms so I haven't had a lot of time to work on this. This is more of an interlude building up to bigger things, but I hope you enjoy it!
Also! Get in the comments if you have any ideas of an actual name for this series so I can stop calling it AITA Steeddie Au. I can't think of anything good 😓
------
Eddie takes Steve on that second date.
And then a third and a fourth and eventually he stops counting because he's seeing Steve as often as he can between their jobs and other responsibilities. He feels high off it, giddy with possibility and hope for this new thing that he's never had before.
Eddie has done relationships before, a couple of times. A small handful of boys and girls he took out on dates and tried his best to woo all went up in flames one way or another, but none of those relationships left him feeling so gone so fast. He felt like he was always holding himself back from giving himself up completely, too afraid of falling without a safety net to reach for that deep devotion he's always craved.
Steve makes him feel like they're plunging into that unknown together.
Still, no matter how much he's been trying to avoid it, the looming specter of what the hell to do about his friends is looming over his head.
------
"Are you fucking serious right now dude?" Eddie asks, a complicated mix of righteous anger, humiliation for himself and Steve, and complete disbelief at Gareth's unwillingness to back down from this making it increasingly difficult to keep his cool.
"Look man, all I'm saying is that Steve is like, the complete antithesis of literally everything we stand for. He's a nepo baby business major who's never had an original thought in his life! I would know! I've read one of his papers." Gareth says, forced nonchalance coloring his tone and riling Eddie up even more.
He rears up, shoulders pushing back and hands grasping at the air like he could pull down his frustration from the either and condense it into a solid ball he could lob at Garteth's head to finally knock some goddamn sense into his brain.
"Hey, hey, hey. Okay, Eddie, I'm really sorry about this. It was a fucked up idea, I don't know what we were thinking." Jeff interveins before the frustrated banshy noises Eddie is letting out turn into another yelling match that won't get anyone anywhere.
"I think we just got too caught up wanting to help you get out of this rut and it all turned into something completely insane. You don't gotta forgive us Eddie, but if there's anything we can do to try and make up for it, we'll do it. Isn't that right Gareth?" Jeff pointedly asked with a look that says agree with me right now or else.
Gareth doesn't say anything.
The thing about all of this that Eddie just can't wrap his head around is the why. Why would his friends, his sheepies, do something so cruel? He knows none of them have ever looked kindly at people like Steve. Too many traumatizing high school humiliations behind them all to trust when someone who looks so much like all the guys who bullied them in high school tries to reach out, but Gareth and Jeff have never tried something like this. In fact, it's used to be Eddie doing most of the anti-jock revenge planning back in the day, even if nothing ever actually came from it.
He thought, incorrectly it seems, that they had grown out of the worst of it by now. It's been three years since Garteth graduated, and five since Eddie made his final attempt, and leaving their hometown behind did a lot to heal old hurts.
So why this? Why now?
"Is this seriously how it's going to be man? You won't tell me what the fuck any of this was really about and you're not even going to try and apologize? Seriously?" The righteous anger is starting to seep out of him, leaving behind a bone-deep exhaustion.
Gareth just continues to stare at him defiantly, not saying a word.
Eddie pinches his nose and takes a deep breath, "You know what? Fine. Whatever. If this is how it's going to be then I'm out. Jeff, I'll talk to you later, probably not for a little bit though. Gareth?" The other man lifts his head from where he'd been looking down at his shoes. There were tears in his eyes, just a little bit but enough for Eddie to clock it. Face red from some unnamed cocktail of emotions Eddie doesn't have the energy or desire to interrogate right now. "Call me when you're ready to grow the fuck up. I've got a second date to plan."
With that, Eddie turned on his heel and made for the open garage door.
"What about the band, man?!" Gareth called.
Eddie kept walking.
-------
That was over four weeks ago.
He hasn't spoken to Gareth for most of that time. The first couple of days he blew up his phone with angry to half-apologizing texts that Eddie promptly ignored. After the second day, he sent a single text back letting him know he didn't want to talk unless he had a real explanation and apology to give both him and Steve and that he was going to block his number for a little while. He could let Freak know if he was ever ready to talk like adults. Eddie trusted him to tell if Gareth was being genuine.
In other news.
Waking up to strong arms secured around his naked waist is fast becoming Eddie's favorite way to start the day. He and Steve slept together for the first time last week, and since then it's like neither of them can get enough of each other.
"Hey, baby." Steve rasps in his ear, tilting his head down to smear sleepy kisses onto his shoulder. The hand that was resting against his ribs meanders its way down to the trail of hair under his navel, scratching just a little and making Eddie feel like a contented mutt. He's not sure if he should feel horny or like he could sink into the mattress and sleep for another full 8 if Steve keeps holding him like his.
"Mornin' sweetheart." he says deciding that a couple more hours of sleep is definitely the way to go. Steve, it seems, has other idead.
"What you thinkin' about this early in the morning?" He asks, hand continuing to scratch lazily at Eddie's stomach like he's not completely destroying Eddie's will and ability to focus on anything but the warm body behind him.
But it's been a long time coming, and as much as he doesn't want to, Eddie needs to start thinking about what he wants to do about his friends? former friends? estranged family? band and Steve deserves to be a part of the conversation.
Eddie sits up, bringing Steve up with him to rest against the headboard. "I've been thinking about the band. Gareth and Jeff, that is." He pauses, waits for some kind of reaction that doesn't come. Steve looks concerned, but not in the way he thought he would.
"Ok." Steve responds, waiting for more.
"I guess I just don't know what to do." He looks out into the middle distance of Steve's bedroom. Takes in the display of swim, basketball, and baseball trophies displayed proudly on a shelf, catching the early morning light. "I'm still so fucking mad. It's honestly kind of irritating how mad it makes me to think of what they did. It was so fucking stupid."
Steve hums a little, letting Eddie get it out.
"But at the same time I can't help but fucking miss them. Miss the music and the campaigns and everything else." It's honestly been eating him alive, the mix of anger and longing he's been feeling for his friends. The constant longing to go back in time and stop them from concocting this shit show but also, like, stalk Gareth to his 8 AM Business class so he can run into Steve and they can fall in love at first sight or some shit.
Silence.
Steve shifts. Moves so he can look Eddie right in the face. He looks thoughtful in a way that Eddie had to get used to. Sometimes when Steve is thinking hard about something, he scrunches his face in such a way that it makes him look like he's judging you. He isn't, it's just an unfortunate fact of life that his baby has a resting Judgemental Face™.
Steve heaves out a big breath, bringing Eddie back down to earth. "I mean, I don't want to, like, cloud your judgement or whatever but maybe you should try and talk to them one more time. Jeff appologized right?"
And, ok that's definetly not what Eddie was expecting to hear. It must show on his face because Steve is suddenly looking away, embaraced.
"I just..." He trails off, taking his own turn staring out at the dull shine of his old acomplishments. Eddie watches as his face once again turns pensive as he stares harder at the remnents of his high school acheivements.
"I used to be a pretty shitty guy. Did the same kind of shit your buddies did a couple of times." This isn't necessarily news to Eddie. They've talked a little about who Steve was in high school and how much work he put into himself before he decided to go back to college. It's still a bit of a shock to hear, though.
"So I get how someone can make a mistake like that, y'know? So if you want to try and talk it out, I won't be offended. I know we're in this together, now." Peace said, Steve reaches for Eddie's hand and gives it a squeeze.
It hits Eddie again, just how good Steve Harrington is. It hasn't been long, not really, since they got together but they've fallen together so completley, so easily, that it's easy to forget that there's still so much they have to learn, so many layers for Eddie to peal back. Behind every judgemental remark and complaint about the frequent phone calls he gets from chuldren he used to babysit in his hometown is a man who cares deeply and is capable of great forgiveness, even if it hasn't been earned yet.
Eddie squeezes his hand back.
"Are you sure?" Eddie asks.
"Yeah, it's not we have to totally forgive them, right? But I think you need to get a real answer from both of them about why it happened. Maybe you can find a way past it, maybe they'll say something that puts the nail in the coffin." He responds.
Eddie takes a deep breath, and thinks.
Steve is right. Eddie isn't satisfied with any of the answers he got last time, and he knows that there has to be more to the story than "trying to get Eddie out of a rut" and he's not going to be able to put any of this to rest until he understands.
"Ok, yeah. I'll call them." Steve gives him an encouraging smile at that, rubbing the back of Eddie's hand where they haven't let go yet.
"Good, I'm glad. And I can come with you if you want. Hit em from both sides." he says. Eddie think's he'll take him up on that offer, but right now he had more imporant things to do. Namely, tackling his sweet boyfriend onto the mattress and having a mid morning tousle.
"We'll see. Right now I've got more imporant things to do." He says in his best aproximation of a sultry voice. He doesn't know how good it really is, but it seems to work based on the way Steve's eyes get hooded and he looks down at Eddie's mouth.
Gotcha.
Before Steve can lean down and kiss him, Eddie snaps his hands down to his boyfriend's sides in a well executed tickle atack. Steve immedietly jolts and starts howling with laughter, yelling between breaths that Eddie is "a fucking asshole" as he continues his relentless atacks.
Eventually, Steve manages to regain his bearings and go on the offence, turning them over and trapping his boyfriend's hands beneath his knees so he can atack Eddie's equally ticklish sides.
Once the late morning has passes into early noon and they've both settled back into Steve's signifigantly more rumpled be, Eddie takes one more moment to think about the furute to come before he shelves it. He knows that whatever conversation is to come, it won't be easy, and even if things go as smoothly as possible with Gareth and Jeff, things will never be the same between them all.
Looking down at Steve, who is sporting the most outrageous bedhead in human history, laughing at the stream of reals Robin sent him in the middle of the night, he thinks he'll be okay either way.
can you see the stars in your dreams (and do they have a lot to say about me) - Part 19
Or: a secret Admirer AU
PART 1 || PART 2 || PART 3 || PART 4 || PART 5 || PART 6 || PART 7 || PART 8 || PART 9 || PART 10 || PART 11 || PART 1 || PART 13 || PART 14 || PART 15 || PART 16 || PART 17 || PART 18
Steve makes a noise of pain, and Eddie pulls back like he’d been burned. With how hot his face feels, he might have been. Eddie holds his fingers up to his own mouth. His lips hurt enough when he touches them that Eddie’s sure it’ll go down in history as the worst kiss in Steve Harrington’s life.
“Um,” Steve says, voice high and wobbly like he’s going to cry.
Eddie’d almost rather die than have Steve see him right now, but he needs to see the look on Steve’s face to ascertain how the hell he can fix this. So, he reaches up, fumbling blindly until the van’s interior light clicks on.
He blinks, momentarily blinded by the spots sparking in his eyes with the sudden light. When he finally blinks them away and catches sight of Steve, his breath catches.
Steve’s pressed hard enough into the van’s door that it looks like he’s trying to become one with it, and his eyes are wide and panicked, fingers clenching the fabric of his jeans over his raised knees. There’s a speck of blood on his mouth and all Eddie can do is hope that it’s his own.
“I am so sorry,” Eddie rushes out, shuffling forward in his seat, hand outstretched to wipe off the blood, but when Steve flinches away, smacking his head against the window, Eddie flings himself back, palms raised in supplication. “I shouldn’t have done that!”
It’s only as something shutters beneath Steve’s wide eyes that Eddie realizes how many wrong ways Steve could be taking what he’s saying. “Not like that!” Eddie continues, words tumbling over each other in his rush to get them out. “It’s just you were saying all that shit like I don’t want to be here? And I panicked, and just sort of…did that?”
Steve doesn’t say anything in response. He just sits, frozen, eyes unfocused. Eddie really wishes he’d say something, if only so Eddie can stem the stream of bullshit flowing from his mouth.
“Only, I’ve never kissed anyone before, and you’re supposed to ask first, right?” he rambles, still panicking. “Oh my god, I just like, attacked you? I’ll take you home if you want, oh my god, why did I—”
“You want to be here?” Steve blessedly interrupts. Eddie takes gasping breaths, eyes laser focused on the little furrow between Steve’s brows. “Wait, that was your first kiss?”
Eddie feels whatever blood had drained from his face rush back as Steve squints across at him. He’s not crowded into the door, but Eddie’s not sure the way he’s leaning toward Eddie with disarming focus is actually much better.
“I mean—well, you see—I’ve just never—” Steve’s still staring at him unerringly so Eddie takes a shuddering breath and finally spits it out. “I’ve never been on a date, kissed anyone, any of that stuff.”
“Oh,” Steve whispers, a look Eddie can’t read dawning across his face.
“Yeah, oh,” Eddie replies, chuckling weakly when Steve just keeps staring. Eddie looks away, unable to hold the intensity of his gaze. “Sorry I blew it like that. I just sort of panicked, you know?”
“Oh,” Steve says again, a different intonation this time, still just as indecipherable to Eddie.
“Yeah, oh,” he mutters again, picking at a loose thread on his sleeve, unable to look at Steve.
It’s silent again—Eddie wishes it was dark, too. He wants to go home, drag his comforter back into his room and hide beneath it until he forgets any of this ever happened. He might be under there for a long, long time.
But then there’s cool fingers against his chin, and when he jerks his gaze toward him, Steve’s golden brown eyes are very, very close to his own, his lips even closer with the way his breaths are puffing against Eddie’s open mouth.
“Can I?” Steve asks, making it clear what he means as he looks down at Eddie’s lips.
Eddie gasps, body aflame with the power of his blush. “You—you want to?” he stutters out. When Steve nods, still holding Eddie’s chin, he responds, “okay, yeah, yeah, okay—” his affirmations only being cut off by the soft press of Steve’s lips.
It’s soft and dry, pressed chastely against Eddie’s own. Eddie shudders, mimicking the minute movements of Steve’s lips against his own. It’s a revelation to feel Steve’s lips on him, even more so when he feels Steve’s mouth quirk up against his own, like he’s happy to be kissing the bumbling fool Eddie’s become.
Eddie laughs, just a little against Steve’s mouth. It turns into a groan halfway up his throat as Steve threads his fingers through Eddie’s hair, using his grip on the back of his head to pull Eddie closer to himself. As Eddie gasps, Steve brushes his tongue into Eddie’s open mouth, barely delving in before pulling it back and sucking Eddie’s bottom lip.
Steve leaves his lips wet as he pulls back. Eddie tries to chase his mouth, drunk off the feeling of it, but Steve’s fingers fist in the back of his hair, holding him in place. The feeling zings through Eddie from his scalp to his palms, that gentle pull hitting him like electrocution as he gasps back to life.
When he opens his eyes, Steve’s still close, smiling smugly at Eddie. It’s all King Steve without the bite. He wants more, hopes Steve keeps him around long enough that he can see it all.
“You said stargazing?” Steve asks, eyes twinkling brighter than any star in the sky.
Eddie laughs, something bright and bubbling filling his chest as he watches Steve laugh along with him, eyes crinkling almost shut, hand still clutched in Eddie’s hair.
He hopes, ardently, desperately, that a second date is on the table, no matter how disastrously this one has gone because right now, in this moment with Steve’s buoyant laughter echoing in his skull? Eddie’s obsessed with him.
“Yeah, big boy, let’s go.”
***
Steve leans against the cold metal of Eddie’s van and watches as Eddie bounces around in the light of the van’s headlights, helplessly endeared as Eddie fusses with the edges of his blanket until it finally lays wrinkle-free in an empty spot in the clearing. He rushes back to the van a few times, holding snacks and drinks behind his back like Steve won’t see them the moment he drops them to one side of the blanket.
He fusses with it all, too, making sure everything’s lined up just so. It’s so unlike Eddie that Steve might think he’s stalling if he wasn’t beaming the entire time. To finish it off, he grabs a smaller folded blanket and lays it perfectly parallel with all the snacks. Only then does he turn back to Steve.
“My lady,” he says, bowing low and gesturing down to the blanket at his feet. “Your chariot awaits.”
Steve laughs and follows his directions to the middle of the blanket, feeling absurdly guilty about his shoes on it. He drops, crossing his legs beneath him. Once he’s rushed over to the van to turn his headlights off, Eddie follows his lead, sitting close enough that their knees just barely overlap.
Steve blinks away the spots in his vision from the change in light before looking up at the sky. It’s bursting with stars, and the moon’s full enough to illuminate their clearing so that Steve can see the shadows of Eddie’s dimples as he smiles at him.
“So, I was thinking we could smoke a little?” Eddie says, pulling a joint out of the pocket of his vest with a raised brow. “But if you don’t want to, we can just relax.”
Steve grabs the joint from Eddie’s hand, letting his fingers brush against Eddie’s before plucking it free and putting it in his own mouth. Eddie stares, mouth parted, hand still held out despite now being empty.
“Well? Got a light?” Steve asks around the blunt, leaning a bit toward Eddie as he comes back to life and fumbles in his vest pocket like he’s on some sort of time crunch.
Eddie flicks his lighter and watches avidly as Steve sucks in until the cherry catches and burns. He inhales, trying for cocksure and suave, but it’s been a long time and instead he coughs a cloud of smoke right in Eddie’s face.
Steve rolls his eyes as Eddie throws his head back and laughs. “Yeah, yeah, yuck it up,” he says around each little, sputtering cough.
“Sorry,” Eddie replies, but he’s still laughing as he plucks the joint from Steve’s fingers and takes a much smoother drag, using his free hand to pat Steve on the back like he’s burping a baby. “Been a while, Stevie?”
Steve’s eyes are streaming, but he feels light enough that he could float away on the smoke as Eddie smiles across at him, joint still in his mouth.
“A bit,” Steve replies, cheeks heating as Eddie’s fingers brush against his lips as he puts the joint back into Steve’s own mouth, tip now wet with Eddie’s spit.
“Nice and easy, now,” Eddie says. Steve follows his instructions, taking a small, shallow breath in, fighting against the spasming of his lungs as he lets the smoke leave his mouth and float up into the night’s sky. He’s rewarded with Eddie’s quiet murmur of, “good boy.”
Then the asshole takes the joint back, raising his eyebrows tauntingly as Steve shudders.
“Shut up,” Steve mutters, no heat behind the words as he flops back on the blanket and looks up at the stars. “Now show me some constellations, Munson.”
Eddie laughs, dropping down so their sides are pressed together, heads close enough that Eddie’s hair tickles Steve’s neck. Eddie takes one more drag before offering it back to Steve. Steve’s enough of a lightweight now, that the few hits he took have him floating a few feet above his body, so he shakes his head. Eddie reaches over to stub it out in the grass without complaint.
“Okay, see those three stars?” Eddie asks, pointing up into the sky. Steve squints, nodding when he finally locates three stars that seem brighter than the ones around them, forming a wonky sort of triangle. “Well, that constellation’s called, How The Fuck Should I Know?”
A barking laugh bursts out of Steve as he turns to stare at Eddie, incredulous. “You planned a stargazing date and don’t know anything about stars?”
“Well, I thought it would be romantic!” Eddie cries, gesturing wildly enough that one of his hands smacks into Steve’s chest lightly.
Steve rolls his eyes. “Doesn’t even know anything about stars,” he repeats teasingly.
“Well!” Eddie sputters, wrapping his arm around Steve’s shoulders and shaking him around on the blanket as he laughs. “Wayne thought it was a good idea.”
Steve stops laughing, unease curdling in his gut as he asks, “you told your uncle about me?”
Eddie sits up, wriggling his arm from beneath Steve suddenly enough that he flops bonelessly onto the blanket as Eddie peers down at him, eyes wide and manic beneath the moonlight. He latches both hands onto Steve’s shoulders like he’s trying to keep Steve stationary.
“I didn’t mean to!” he blurts out before biting his lip. “It’s just, I tell him everything, and he knew I was upset, and asked what was wrong, and it just spilled out!” One of Eddie’s hands lets go of Steve’s shoulder so he can gesture wildly, like they’re playing charades and he’s depicting a clown pulling a ribbon from his sleeve. “And then he told me that he thought I was gay, can you believe that?”
And honestly? Steve can. But Eddie looks riled enough, and Steve just wants to go back to the calm intimacy of minutes before, so he grabs the hand still propping Eddie up with his own shoulder and yanks it out from under him.
Eddie goes sprawling, landing half on Steve’s chest where he wriggles around like a worm until Steve wraps his arms around him and holds Eddie tight to his own chest. Eddie shutters, then slumps, tucking his head beneath Steve’s chin with a groan.
“First Chrissy, then Jeff, and Robin, now your uncle?” Steve mutters, tightening his hold on Eddie when his words start him squirming again. “Who’s next, the pope?”
“Robin knows?” Eddie asks, breaths puffing against Steve’s sensitive neck. “That explains so much.”
“Hey, Rob’s great,” Steve defends, unsure what Eddie’s weird tone means. “I’m going to spend the rest of my life with her.”
Eddie snorts, but burrows his face further into Steve’s neck, planting a little kiss on the skin there. “You’re so weird.”
“Coming from you?”
“Oh, baby, you had me beat like three deranged decisions ago,” Eddie teases, but Steve barely hears him, too busy replaying baby, baby, baby, over and over again in his head like a cheap record.
“Shut up,” Steve mutters.
Eddie fights against Steve’s restricting arms until he’s propped up, smirking down at him, his curly hair curtained around them. “I’m serious! First, you write secret letters? And to me of all people?” Eddie crows. Steve wishes desperately that he could think of a way to shut him up before this gets even more embarrassing. “And the Chrissy of it all, Stevie, what the hell were you—mph!”
Eddie goes blessedly silent as Steve plants one on him, opening his mouth just enough to hear Eddie make that delightful groaning noise again. Steve wraps his arms around Eddie’s waist, pulling Eddie down until his full weight is atop Steve, anchoring his stoned brain back into his body.
Steve bites at Eddie’s lip, once, twice, before soothing it with his tongue and pulling back, high again off the pitiful groan Eddie lets out.
“I finally found a way to shut you up,” he says softly, but he’s smiling and running his hands up and down Eddie’s back as he pants.
Eddie groans, flopping off Steve, body still pressed up against his side. “You’re evil Harrington,” he mutters, reaching out to take Steve’s hand and squeeze.
Steve reaches for Eddie’s chin again, this time pointing it back up to the sky.
“You see those stars there?” he asks, pointing up and to the left of them. “It looks sort of like a weird rectangle with legs and a swirly neck?”
Eddie squints up, gaze unerringly facing the way Steve’s pointing. Steve watches close enough that he sees the moment recognition lights up his eyes. “That’s Leo.”
At that, Eddie whips his head around to stare at Steve suddenly enough that he breaks Steve’s hold on his chin. “Are you kidding?” Eddie demands, but he’s grinning now. “You gave me all that shit, and you ‘know the stars?’” He throws quotations around his words, making it clear that he’s mocking Steve.
For his part, Steve shrugs, still lying down and grinning right back as he replies, “I learned all the star signs to impress girls. And boys, now.”
As Steve reaches out to tuck a dangling lock behind Eddie’s ear, Eddie stares back at him, no longer grinning. “I’m a Leo.”
“I know.”
Eddie whines, “you’re going to kill me,” and drops back to the blanket, curling into Steve’s side.
“Nah,” Steve replies, uprooting Eddie just enough to reach over and grab the folded blanket to drape over the pair of them, cutting the chill in the air by halves. After all, they’ve got a high to wear off before Eddie can drive him home like the gentleman he promised to be. “What fun would that be?”
***
Steve’s asleep—Eddie can tell by the steady rise and fall of his chest beneath Eddie’s head and the way his breath whistles out of his nose. Eddie doesn’t wake him up. This moment feels too precious, this feeling bubbling up in his chest too new to disturb it, especially after the disaster that was the beginning of the night.
It’s just, Eddie’s never been on a date before, and he hadn’t accounted for the way the popcorn would make his hand too slippery with butter to even imagine reaching across the distance between them. And Steve had been very clear: he wanted to hold hands. And it’d all spiraled out of control from there.
He’s never buying popcorn again.
But, now he’s resting against Steve’s side, head propped up on Steve’s chest, hand clutched in his even though it leaves his arm at an awkward angle. And he’s contending with feelings he’s never experienced before.
It’s like there’s moths attacking his heart and lungs before fluttering down into his stomach, tickling his insides, making his whole being damn-near squirm with the foreign feeling.
He feels almost sick with it—is this what everyone means by lovesick? It’s awful, it’s spectacular. He wants to wake Steve up and tell him about the moths and their fluttering, see if he feels it, too.
But, Steve sighs, and even in his sleep, his arms reflexively pull Eddie tighter against himself, and Eddie lets himself bask in the warmth of his embrace until he falls asleep.
He wakes, his entire body cold and shivering convulsively.
It takes another shake to his shoulder to remember where he is and who he’s with. He opens his eyes to Steve’s face hovering over him, his hand shaking Eddie’s shoulder.
“Wha’s it?” Eddie murmurs, reaching up to rub clumsily at his eyes.
“We fell asleep,” Steve replies, voice gravely in a way that hits Eddie right in the gut. “Come on, man. It’s freezing out here.”
Eddie groans, but dutifully drops his hand from his face to grab Steve’s, letting the other boy pull him upright. It takes him a minute to reorient himself with the concept of standing upright.
By the time he’s upright, Steve’s stacked the uneaten snacks back into the bag Eddie’d brought them in, and is halfway through folding up Eddie’s blanket.
“Is it morning?” Eddie asks, squinting up at the sky accusingly as dawn’s light filters through the trees.
Steve laughs. “You’re cute when you first wake up.” Eddie stands there, brain now fully offline, cheeks heating even in the cold. “Now, come on! It’s cold as hell out here.”
The sound of his van’s passenger door slamming as Steve climbs inside sends him running; he climbs into his freezing van and turns the key in the ignition.
“The, uh, heat’s on the fritz,” Eddie mutters, embarrassed, as the van sputters to life. “Sorry.”
“It’s fine,” Steve replies, and when Eddie glances at him, he’s smiling over at Eddie even as he wraps his arms around himself.
It’s a quiet drive, more out of sleepiness this time rather than the awkward journey of the night before. Steve reaches out to play whatever’s in the tape deck—Metallica this time, and he bops his head along to the beat while Eddie taps the steering wheel.
He pulls into the Harrington’s driveway, and puts the van in park and lets the engine idle.
“Well, I had fun,” Steve says, smiling as he unbuckles his seatbelt. “Thanks for the ride.”
Steve’s already out of the car and walking up to his front door by the time Eddie’s tired brain catches up. He’s out of the van in a shot, forcing his cold legs to move fast as he calls, “wait!”
Steve pauses, hand still on the doorknob, halfway through the door. But he turns around, and waits as Eddie rushes up to him, already breathless from his short dash.
“A gentleman always walks his date to the door,” Eddie says quietly, conscious of listening ears, even this early in the morning.
Steve beams, clearly ready to play along as he curtsies like one of the fine ladies in the movies and replies, “well, you’ve done your gentlemanly duty.”
Eddie shuffles his feet, anxious now about all the other things that usually follow the end of a date. “Uhh—well—can I—?”
Steve waits indulgently while Eddie sputters over all the things he wants, all the things he can’t figure out how to say. It’s okay, Eddie planned for this, so he reaches into his vest’s pocket, and pulls out a folded piece of paper, passing it to Steve like they’re in class.
Steve looks down at it, smile growing as he asks, “what’s this?”
“Open it,” Eddie replies, but he already is, smile only growing as he reads what’s on it.
Second Date? Yes ☐ No ☐
First Kiss? Yes ☐ No ☐
“I, uh, didn’t think we’d have already done the whole first kiss thing?” Eddie rambles, the longer Steve spends just staring down at it. “But, it’s customary at the end of a first date, right? I mean not that I have any experience. But, in the movies—”
“I probably have morning breath,” Steve graciously interrupts, holding a hand over his mouth like he’ll be able to contain the stench. But he’s smiling down at the note, Eddie can see the edges of his upturned lips between the gaps in his fingers.
And that’s decidedly not a no, so Eddie crowds Steve until he stumbles through his open front door. Eddie takes a precious moment to close the door to obscure them from view before he cups Steve’s cheeks in the palms of his hands.
“I can’t tell you how much I don’t give a shit about that, Harrington,” Eddie murmurs right before he presses his lips against Steve’s, gently this time because say what you want about Eddie, but he can learn from his mistakes.
It’s slow this time, languid. They’re both tired, and cold, and this date has gone on hours longer than it was ever supposed to. But it’s just as good as their second first kiss. Eddie’s mind goes blank—there’s nothing past the heat of Steve’s lips, and the way those foreign moths squirm within him as arms wrap around his waist.
Eddie pulls away first this time, pecking Steve’s lips once, twice, thrice, when he groans a complaint. “Now, now, I’m trying to be a gentleman,” Eddie replies, hoping Steve doesn’t notice how breathless he sounds.
Steve pouts, but pulls back, Eddie’s note still clutched in his hand. Eddie stares at it, gut churning much more unpleasantly as he asks, “uh, and the other question?”
“Hold that thought,” Steve replies, and then he just—walks away.
Eddie stands at the threshold of the Harrington’s big, empty house as Steve disappears from view. Luckily for the health of Eddie’s heart, he reappears a few moments later, the cap of a pen in his mouth as he scribbles quickly on the page before handing it back to Eddie.
Eddie looks down at it, smile blooming as he sees the little X’s Steve had written in next to the Yes’s of both questions.
“But it’s my turn to plan the next one,” Steve mutters, and when Eddie tears his gaze away from the note, Steve’s cheeks are dusted with a light pink blush that Eddie has to resist the urge to lick.
“I can live with that,” he replies, damn-near buzzing with excitement.
“I’m going to knock your date out of the park, Munson, just you wait.” Steve’s got a cocky eyebrow raised like he’s challenging Eddie to a competition and knows he’s going to win.
He’s such a bitch; Eddie’s obsessed with him.
“Good luck, Harrington. We both know I knocked this one out of the park.” Steve laughs as Eddie mimes hitting a baseball with a bat with the best form he can manage, trying to appeal to Steve’s jock sensibilities.
“You brought it back around,” Steve concedes.
“But, hey,” Eddie starts, finally breaking eye contact with Steve so he can slip the ring off his finger and hold it out to Steve. “It’s no letterman jacket, but something to remind you of me until our next date?”
Steve’s eyes are wide as he looks down at the ring cradled in Eddie’s palm, and his fingers tremble slightly as he scoops it up. Still, he doesn’t hesitate in trying out fingers until he finds one that fits—the blue gem shines brighter affixed to Steve’s thumb than it ever did on Eddie’s hand.
Steve’s cheeks are darker now; Eddie wants to reach out and see if he can feel the heat through his skin.
Steve swallows, Adam’s apple bobbing as he looks down at the ring on his finger with what looks like wonder. “Thank you,” he murmurs quietly before finally looking up and meeting Eddie’s eyes. “Good luck getting my letterman back from Chrissy, though. She’s obsessed with it. I swear I even saw Jeff wearing it the other day.”
“I’ll fight her for it,” Eddie replies, mostly joking as he throws a couple half-hearted punches just to make Steve laugh again.
“You do that,” Steve says, still smiling as he leans forward to peck Eddie’s lips one more time before ushering him out the door. Eddie’s lips tingle the whole drive home.
When he walks through the trailer, Wayne’s on the couch, watching a game of sportsball on the TV, a mug of coffee clutched in his hand. He looks up when Eddie enters, smirking as he catches sight of whatever look is on Eddie’s face.
“Still straight, Ed?” Wayne asks, before taking a sip of his coffee like the meddlesome bastard he is.
“Shut up, old man,” Eddie replies, walking past his laughing uncle to fall into his bed for a few more hours of much-needed sleep.
can you see the stars in your dreams (and do they have a lot to say about me) - Part 7
Or: a secret Admirer AU
PART 1 || PART 2 || PART 3 || PART 4 || PART 5 || PART 6
Robin’s been keeping her eyes peeled, and things have only gotten weirder.
Chrissy and Steve are still tied at the hip, still holding hands sometimes in the halls, she’s still wearing his letterman jacket any chance she gets. It all screams perfect textbook couple destined to win prom king and queen in a few months and pop out boring babies with glorious hair a few years later.
Except, she’s seen Chrissy leave two more notes in Eddie’s locker, has seen her and Steve pick up random books out of the library and pull envelopes out of them. She’d think the pair were pulling some sort of horrible prank on Eddie, if Chrissy wasn’t so goddamn nice.
And she’s seen Steve staring down the other boy, more caught in Eddie’s pull then even Chrissy is. It’s like he’s trying to melt Eddie’s eyeballs straight out of his skull with the force of his gaze. For his part, Eddie never even seems to notice.
That’s not even mentioning whatever the hell had happened in the cafeteria last week when Eddie had kissed Chrissy’s hand, and then Steve had whisked her away before Jason could start some sort of pissing contest.
Even the band nerds were all atwitter with that development.
And then there’s the other guy: Jeff.
Before this whole cluster of a situation, she hadn’t known Jeff from Adam, but now he’s everywhere. It feels like every other day now he’s climbing into Chrissy’s passenger seat and they’re speeding away, not a Steve Harrington or Eddie Munson in sight.
Or they’re in the library doing the same mail pick-up that Chrissy and Steve do together. Once, Robin had even seen Jeff by her side as she’d dropped a note into Eddie’s locker, which might be the wildest part of the whole situation; Robin had been under the impression that he and Eddie were friends.
There’s some benefits to being invisible: no one notices her.
So, she’s got all these building blocks to the juiciest gossip in Hawkins High for probably decades, but, no matter how she stacks them together, she can’t make them into a picture she understands.
All she knows is this: Steve Harrington is up to something shady.
Robin’s got her eyes open and a mission of the heart. She’ll protect Chrissy with all she has, and if Steve gets caught in the crossfire? That’s fine with her.
***
Chrissy’s still all over Harrington. He doesn’t get it, can’t comprehend why someone who leaves him such lovely, lovely notes has stuck herself to that douche’s side.
Eddie doesn’t get it.
Is it the status bump? No, can’t be, even Eddie knows the guy’s fallen a few pegs down the ladder since whatever the hell had happened with Wheeler last year.
Maybe it’s the looks? He’s got that swoopy hair all the girls fawn over, and the features to back it up. But Chrissy’s never struck him as that shallow, no matter how hot the guy is.
Is it the money, the car, the nice clothes? What does Steve Harrington have that Eddie doesn’t?
Is it the way he leans up against lockers, smiling at every girl in his sight like they’re his whole world? The way he tucks a lock of hair behind their ears, eyes smoldering, touch gentle? Steve goddamn Harrington with his jockish good looks and sweeping charms.
He just—doesn’t get it.
He also doesn’t get why he hasn’t received a note in his locker for a couple days now, not since Eddie’d come up to her table in the cafeteria and kissed her hand.
Her nails had been painted a perfect pink, and when Eddie looked away to stare Harrington down, he’d noticed the guy had nail polish on, too: a bright yellow that would have suited him if it wasn’t chipped to hell.
It was such a small, incongruous detail, but it niggles at Eddie late into the night. It doesn’t fit with who Eddie knows Harrington to be.
It didn’t fit, and he’s tired of nothing fitting together the way it should, so he’s been avoiding Harrington like the plague.
So, when he catches Chrissy in a rare moment where Steve’s not loitering in her periphery, he approaches again, hands raised like, see here, I’m harmless!
She smiles at him, white teeth damn-near glinting where they peek out from behind her lips. Eddie’s reciting sonnets in his head.
“Miss Cunningham,” he says, bending over at the waist and bowing low as she laughs at him. “Would you give this lowly Dungeon Master the honor, nay the privilege, of accompanying him on his quest this Thursday?”
Chrissy’s head’s tilted to the side like an inquisitive dog as she asks, “in plain English?”
He bounces closer, pleased to have even gotten his foot in the door. “My Dungeons and Dragons club is starting a new campaign tomorrow,” he says. “Want to come play?” When she purses her lips instead of answering, he scrambles to continue. “Or even just watch?”
Chrissy’s lips are still pursed, but she’s nodding slowly, like she’s thinking about saying yes. “That might be fine,” she replies. “Where should I meet you?”
And that’s how he finds himself with Chrissy Cunningham sitting in at the next Hellfire session. Gareth’s awkward because he always is when there’s a pretty girl in his vicinity, but Jeff smiles and chats with her like they’re old friends. Doug doesn’t seem to care one way or another, too focused on getting the newest campaign started to care about an interloper.
It goes off without a hitch, Chrissy’s presence blending into the background. He forgets her entirely until the end of the session when she starts slinging questions at them, and Jeff starts patiently explaining what a modifier is, and how they know which dice to roll as Eddie packs up his supplies.
He’s got grand ideas about taking Chrissy home, had even cleaned out his van for it, but Chrissy was always destined to pop his ego.
“That was great, Eddie!” Chrissy cuts in, barely waiting for the party to finish celebrating to speak. “But, I’m already late to meet Steve, so I’ve got to go.”
“Uh,” Eddie says, staring at her retreating back, “okay.”
She turns back around right before she’s through the drama room door, still smiling as she calls, “see you guys next week!”
She’s going to see Harrington, the bane of Eddie’s current existence, but she did say it was great. No, she’d said Eddie was great.
Truly a mixed bag.
Eddie takes his time wrangling the boys out of the room and into his van, determined to hold onto the high of Chrissy Cunningham watching him DM—no way would he let Harrington of all people ruin his night.
***
She damn-near runs out of the drama room, lie leaving a bitter taste on her tongue—she’s not late to meet Steve, isn’t planning to see him at all.
It’s just, she knows what that gleam in a boy’s eyes means; Eddie was about to do something stupid. Ask her out, or try to flirt, or do something else both embarrassing and heart-crushing for Steve.
So, she’d done what she’s best at in uncomfortable situations: she’d lied.
Now, she’s just gotta get out of the school before anyone can call her on it.
The school’s eerily empty, the fluorescent lights only on in patchy segments, luring all the lingering students into the poorly-lit parking lot where Chrissy’s car waits. She just wants to get into her bed and wait until she can debrief with Steve in the morning.
She’s just twisted the key in the lock and begun pulling it open when a hand reaches past her and slams it closed. Chrissy jumps, fear coiling through her stomach and rapidly churning into anger. She turns, back to her car, ready to curse out Eddie or one of his other club members, but the words die unsaid in her throat.
It’s not Eddie; it’s Jason. His hand’s still slapped onto her door, keeping it closed, and in the dim light of the parking lot, his eyes are almost glowing. She wants to take a step back, but he’s effectively boxed her into the side of her own car.
“Are you serious, Chris?” he asks. The nickname sounds wrong in his mouth, all toxic and chopped up. Not at all like when Steve says it. “You really are hanging out with freaks now?”
“Jason, I—” Chrissy starts, hating the way her voice trembles.
“Are you sleeping with that freak now, too?” he demands, crowding farther into her space. “Harrington was one thing, but Munson?”
He says Eddie’s name like it’s a curse. She’s scared, still, but suddenly she’s furious that she wasted years of her life with this douche, that she’s still wasting time being afraid of him.
“He’s better than you’ll ever be,” she snarls, unsure if she means Steve or Eddie. It doesn’t matter, it’s true for both.
Without wasting another word on the jackass who’s made it his mission in life to make her feel small, Chrissy yanks her door open. It hits him in the face, sending him stumbling to the asphalt with a groan.
Even still, she rushes to slide into her car, ramming the key in and backing out without even checking her blind spots for unsuspecting pedestrians.
Jason’s just making his way back to his feet when she glances into her rear-view mirror before turning out of the parking lot and onto the street.
Her hands shake on the steering wheel making the car jerk about.
She doesn’t go home.
All the lights are on in the Harrington house, and she worries for a second that his parents are home for once before she sees the solitary car in the driveway. She parks behind it, taking the extra minute to line her car up perfectly parallel to it, hoping her hands will stop shaking by the time she’s done.
Steve’s waiting on the stoop by the time she makes it out of her car and up the driveway, hands still shaking with aftershocks of flight or fight. His arms are crossed, and he’s scowling down at her from his casual lean against the closed door.
“Will you come to Hellfire with me next Thursday?” she asks, voice wobbling around the request.
“Was it that bad?” Steve asks, scowl shifting into a teasing smile before she steps into the halo of the porch’s light and he catches sight of the expression on her face. “Are you okay?”
His hands are on her shoulders, warm and grounding against the chill that’s seeped into her skin. She reaches one of her hands up to brush the wetness from beneath her eyes. “Will you come?” she asks again, question firming up and sharpening now that she’s here, safe.
Steve’s hands squeeze, warm, warm, warm. “Course, Chris,” he replies, and she was right—it is better coming from his mouth. “Want to come in?”
She follows him into the house, curling herself up small in the corner of his couch, relieved when he sits close. He doesn’t say anything, doesn’t rush her at all, just waits, patient the way Jason never was.
“You’re a great fake boyfriend, you know,” she says, smiling when he laughs and knocks their shoulders together.
“Well, as your fake boyfriend, do I need to kill Eddie?” he asks, and when she looks up from her knees, his eyes are almost shining with sincerity. “Because I will, you know.”
“I know,” she says, cheeks warming, not because she likes a boy, but because she has a friend, a real one who would pick her even over his crush. “But, Eddie was nice.”
Steve hums, slumping into her further. “So, who am I killing?”
“No one!” Chrissy replies, laughing just a little. Steve’s just like a dog with a bone; she’s always been a dog person. “Or Jason, maybe?”
“What?” Steve barks, all playfulness gone from his voice. “What the hell did he—”
“He didn’t do anything!” she rushes out, making space between their bodies so she can meet his heated gaze. “He just freaked me out.”
“But, he can’t—”
“But, you’re a good friend, and will come to Hellfire next week to keep it from happening again, right?”
Steve groans, slumping back into her and hiding his face in her hair. “You’re the worst,” he grumbles, only continuing when she pinches him hard right beneath his ribs. “But, fine! I’ll go!”
“Thank you,” Chrissy replies, glad she hadn’t gone home to recover alone.
Steve rubs his face against her head like the freak he secretly is. “Anytime.”
They stay there, bathed in the quiet of their shared companionship and the frankly alarming number of lights Steve has lighting up his entire house.
She’s almost dozed off, slumped into his side when Steve asks, “but, like, how was it?”
She laughs, body shaking with delight instead of fear this time as she replies, “Eddie Munson is such a nerd.”
Update: this is the best post I've ever made because everyone is sharing their Warm Beverage recipes in the notes. Go check the notes for more Warm Beverages That Will Fix You.
Don't Call Me Kid - Rafe Cameron x Reader series masterlist
series summary: You'd had a crush on Rafe Cameron since you were six years old, but he friend zoned you at every turn. Once shy and insecure, you found new confidence and self-love after high school. When your high school friends go on a reunion beach trip, Rafe finally sees what he lost, but he isn't going to give you up without a fight.
tropes: unrequited crush, glow up, she fell first/he fell harder
table of contents:
Prologue (3k words)
Chapter 1 (3.9k words)
Chapter 2 (4.9k words)
Chapter 3 (5.7k words)
Chapter 4 (6.6k words)
Chapter 5: part one (4.8k words) & part two (3.8k words)
Chapter 6: part one (5.3k words) & part two (4.1k words)
ok I’m not fully caught up with this series but I want to reblog now because I cannot stop thinking about it!! Their banter is SO. FUCKING. GOOD. Everytime they speak to each other I literally squeal out loud. It’s giving me the same giddiness as when I read acotar/fourth wing/enemies to lovers that makes you kick your feet and giggle. I love the main character but I love Carter even more because she is just the world’s greatest sister and it makes me wish I didn’t have such an age gap with my sisters.
Also the rate at which you write this story is insane!! Every night it seems there’s a new chapter and I think it’s possibly AI because no way you’re that quick until I read it and it’s a goddamn masterpiece.
Summary: Bradley Bradshaw, blindsided by a team he trusted like family has been traded to the San Diego Dogfighters. Across the country from the place he calls home, Bradley feels lost and betrayed. Not to mention the familiar faces and ghosts from his past that he now has to face every day at work. Bradley’s caught between wanting to show his former team the mistake they made in double-crossing him and wondering if it’s time to hang up his skates after one final season. You’re living your dream as the PR representative for the Dogfighters. When Coach Maverick made a bid to bring his godson to the team, you hadn’t batted an eye. Bradley was a good teammate, and a good player. Unfortunately, the Bradley that shows up in San Diego is nothing like your research suggested. He’s moody, irritable, aggressive, and angry, throwing a wrench in all your careful planning. What’s caused such a drastic change in him? And can you figure out how to help him before he makes a mistake you can’t fix?
Series CW: 18+ ONLY, swearing, dead parents, drunkenness, alcohol consumption, violence, sports violence, blood probably, angst, fluff, eventual smut, age gap (28 and 38), enemies to lovers, suggestive language, hockey inaccuracies etc. There will be individual chapter warnings. No use of Y/N.
Word Count: 4.1k
A/N: This is a repost of my completed series, You Catch More Bees With Honey. It was originally posted in November-March 2023, and was lost when my blog was deleted.
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“Bradley Bradshaw apologized to you? Oh, that man is down BAD.” Your head shoots up from where you’re going over some paperwork to glare across your desk at Javy Machado where he’s casually sprawled across the armchair across from you.
“You’re disgusting, Machado.” He snorts in response as he leans over the desk to get closer to his face.
“Says the girl who’s just as down bad for him.” You feel heat rush to your cheeks at the accusation as a smirk spreads across his. “Never would have pegged you as the type of girl who likes angry guys, Zam.” He waggles his eyebrows and you scoff in his face, leaning back to put distance between the two of you before he can feel the heat radiating off your skin.
“I don’t.” You manage as you struggle to maintain your composure. You don’t have feelings for Bradley, it wouldn’t make any sense. He’s been nothing but rude and cruel to you. One dinner and apology shouldn’t have you suddenly running for his arms. You have absolutely no proof that he would even catch you, despite Javy’s theories.
“You want my advice?” You look up from your work again, fixing Javy with an exasperated look.
“Not really, no.” You clip as sweetly as you can, your saccharine smile hiding your bared teeth.
“Just fuck one of your system.” He says with a shrug and your jaw drops, fangs out.
“Javy Machado!” He grins at your expression.
“What? You know I’m right. Fuck one out and you’re done.”
“Because you’re a professional in that department.” You scowl at him and he shrugs nonchalantly.
“Call it an expert opinion.” You roll your eyes as he continues. “I don’t know about you? But that man needs to get laid. He has all that anger and nowhere to put it. Best case scenario you fuck one out, your feelings go poof and so does his anger. Worst case scenario, you get what you need, and he follows you around like a pussy-whipped puppy for the rest of the season and we can get on with things.”
“And why I should be the sacrificial lamb for that? Why don’t you guys just find him a girl, isn’t that what teammates do?” Javy raises his eyebrows.
“I thought we were supposed to be settling down, minding our reputations.” You groan and he knows he’s got you.
“Well, it’s not like you’re LISTENING.” You growl at him and he shrugs again.
“Look Zam, all I can say is that maybe I’m the only one who noticed the way you were looking at him this morning but if you keep it up, it’s not going to be just me next time.” Your cheeks flush with more heat. He stands with a stretch before leaning across your desk so you catch his whispered words. “That being said, it looks like you didn’t catch him looking at you the same way whenever you weren’t.” He turns on his heels as you grapple with the implications of his revelation.
You spent last night at Bob’s and Mickey’s house, where they demanded to know everything about your dinner with Bradley. For a pair of supposedly rough and tough hockey players, those two are insatiable when it comes to gossip. You’d managed to keep details to a minimum and distract them with other things like flowers or what Bradley’s dinner order consisted of but you knew Mickey was on to you.
Truth be told, you want to respect Bradley’s privacy. That’s your job after all and the things he’d shared at dinner last night were just that, private. He’d been real and genuine with you and you didn’t want to betray that tiny sliver of trust that he’d extended to you. You keep turning the events of dinner over and over in your mind, your thoughts snagging on stray details. Bradley’s hand on your back. The scratch of his flannel against your bare skin when he draped it around your shoulders. The woodsy scent clinging to it had enveloped you in a comforting warmth. The scent of daisies mixed with it in the confines of the Bronco.
Maybe Javy was right. Maybe you spent too long looking at him this morning during the team meeting. His walls were back up, his mask snugly back in place, and his expression was unreadable. You tell yourself that he’s just a puzzle, something you want to solve and unravel. That that’s why you’re putting in a meeting request with him. That it’s just professional responsibility that’s making you reach out to him and not the quiet yearning to see behind the curtain again, to see the Bradley that he’s only shown to you. You long to be a private audience again, watching as he becomes that man that you saw last night. Awkward and bumbling but sweet, concerned, and hurting. Hurting so fiercely that it steals the breath from your lungs because sometimes it’s like staring into a mirror.
It’s been eight years but you were just like him once, the pain so raw in your chest that you’d lashed out, pushing away every person that cared because you’d blamed yourself, blamed your ambition. If you’d just gone home for Thanksgiving maybe your mother would still be alive. You know that realistically that’s not true. Your mother’s heart attack was sudden and unexpected, unpreventable according to the doctors but there’ll always be a part of you that blames you for not being there. At the time you’d been so torn apart by grief that you’d destroyed your support system, only Mickey remaining amidst the wreckage, stubbornly holding onto you. He’d broken his lease and moved in with you, sleeping in your bed and holding you through the nightmares that would make you wake up screaming bloody murder. He brought you to his games, keeping an eye on you even as you stared at the ice like it was some kind of monster. Slowly your fear faded but you’ve still yet to set foot on a rink since your mother passed.
***
You’ve almost forgotten about the meeting when the knock at your office door startles you out of the groove you’ve fallen into. You call out absently to the knocker and finally look up to see Bradley squeezing his broad form into your little chair. You give him a sympathetic wince. “Sorry about the chair.” He just shrugs, and you can’t help but think of Javy shrugging in the same position just a few hours ago. You shake your head to clear your conversation with him out of it as you focus on Bradley.
“Did you make it home okay?” You try your best to quell the fluttering in your stomach at Bradley’s perfectly reasonable inquiry. You give your own shrug.
“I spent the night at Mickey and Bob’s place.” You don’t miss the way his shoulders tense at your words and find yourself trying to ease the tension so you add, “I stay over there all the time since Mickey and I used to room together in college. Their guest room is practically my second home.” You don’t know why you feel the need to make it clear that you’re not sleeping with Mickey or Bob, but you do. The air is thick with awkwardness as Bradley gives you a curt nod in response and you feel heat creeping up your neck. “Anyway, I wanted to let you know that tonight’s game night.” He looks at you half confused and half like you’re stupid.
“I know there’s a game today, that’s what we’ve been practicing for all morning.” He points out and you realize your error.
“Oh, not that game! It’s a board game night. Mickey and Bob host it every other Saturday at their house, it gets a pretty good turnout. You’re coming.” You debated inviting him and giving him the option but you’re almost certain that he wouldn’t show without a push so here you are, roping him into it.
“After a match?” He seems bewildered at the idea.
“Yeah, it’s a nice way to wind down, and there’s plenty of snacks and stuff. It’s a good way to bond as a team.” You emphasize this with a pointed look.
“Board games? What are we, twelve?” He’s not budging and you roll your eyes.
“Wake up, Bradshaw, there’s plenty of adult board games these days, and they're actually pretty fun. Don’t come crying to me when you lose.”
“And you’re going to be there?” Your heart flutters at the directness of his question like he’s basing his decision to attend based on your presence. You swallow down your nerves as you flash him a smile.
“Of course, and you’re my ride.” His face falls into a frown at that, but you barrel on ahead. “I don’t have my car because I spent the night at Mickey’s and they gave me a ride this morning.”
“So they could just give you a ride tonight.”
“But then how am I supposed to guarantee that you show?” He blinks in surprise as you go for the kill, eyebrow raised in question. His eyes narrow into a glare that you meet head-on. Last night Bradley promised you that he wouldn’t hurt you so you’re not scared of him now. You meet him head-on.
“I don’t have to go.”
“Actually, you do.”
“And what gives you that kind of authority?”
“Look, I’ve been tasked with getting you back on track. How I decide to do that is up to me. If you have an issue with my methods, take it up with your captain, or your coaches, or if you feel like braving the beast, go to Cyclone. I’m asking you to come because as I pointed out last night, you don’t seem to have any friends and you need to interact with your team more. Also, you could use some new hobbies that don’t involve eating or drinking alone.”
“Sometimes I eat AND drink alone.” He deadpans and it takes you a moment to realize that he’s just cracked a joke and you snort out a laugh on accident. You barely catch the way his face relaxes at the sound as you slap a hand over your mouth to muffle the unladylike noise. Collecting yourself as best as you can you manage to reply.
“Well, maybe you could eat and drink with company tonight?” The stubbornness is still in his shoulders but it’s depleted considerably. He lets out a heavy sigh before he shrugs.
“Fine, but we have to stop by my place first, I’m going to need to change.” You shrug back.
“Fine by me.”
“Fine.” Silence falls between the two of you again, not as uncomfortable as before but still awkward. Bradley’s head cocks slightly as he examines you and you feel your skin heat under his intense gaze. “Your hair’s different today.” Your cheeks are aflame as you fight the urge to reach up and touch your head self-consciously.
He’s right. You’ve abandoned your typical ponytail for a crown braid today. It was your mother’s signature look. After talking to Bradley last night you’d awoken to feeling like you could feel your mother with you so you’d let yourself wear your hair like this today. You used to wear it like this all the time back in college, proud of your resemblance to your mother. It was almost otherworldly the way you looked just like her, and when you wore your hair like this? Sometimes you caught yourself in the mirror when you passed by too fast that you could convince yourself that you’d seen her.
“Oh yeah, it’s how my mom used to wear hers. I don’t know, I just felt like doing something different today.” You watch the faintest hint of a smile ghost his lips.
“I like it, it suits you.” You feel your cheeks heat even more at the compliment. Javy’s voice is in your head again and your eyes slip to Bradley’s lips before you pull them back up to meet his whisky eyes that make you want to squirm under their intense gaze.
“Anything else I can help you with?” You curse the way your voice comes out breathy. Bradley just shakes his head and makes to stand. Your voice calls out to him as he gets ready to leave. “Bradley!” He turns and you feel your cheeks even more as he fixes you with that gaze of his again. “Good luck tonight,” you pretend you don’t hear your voice shake as the words pass your lips. He just gives you a tight-lipped smile and another of his curt nods. “And Bradley,” you blurt out before you can stop yourself. “Try not to end up in the box tonight, if you can help it.” He doesn’t respond, disappearing through the door and you sigh, leaning back into your chair as you glance absently at your calendar that’s pulled up on your screen.
FUCK. You’re scheduled for a meeting with Cyclone in, you glance at the clock in the top corner of the screen, five minutes. You scramble to your feet, sliding your feet back into your heels and grabbing your clipboard before you all but sprint for the door. As you run to the elevator you sprint past Bradley who raises a single eyebrow in question but you’re running too late to answer, electing to avoid the elevator in favor of the stairs. If you were thinking straighter, you would have taken your heels off before attempting to take the stairs two at a time and as a result, you lose your balance about halfway up and come crashing down. Your yelp of pain bounces off the walls of the stairwell as you gingerly make to push yourself up onto your hands. The echoing sound of footsteps somehow doesn’t meet your ears until a sneaker appears in your peripheral vision as Bradley squats down next to you, a gentle finger pushing a tendril of hair away from your eyes.
“You okay, Honey?” Usually, the pet name is sarcastic acid on his tongue but this time it’s different. He sounds sweet like the name suggests and genuinely concerned. You’ve just had the breath knocked out of you so you can’t do much more than grunt in response. Bradley’s hand comes into your field of vision and you raise an arm to grab it and he pulls you up so effortlessly that you know you should be at least a little concerned. His brows are furrowed as his brown eyes look you over for injury, his hands remaining on your hips, holding you up. You try to steady yourself by gripping his arm as you attempt to take back control of your limbs and whimper as pain shoots through your body. You favor your right ankle instantly and hiss as pain radiates from your abdomen in response. You’re bruised for sure and you’ve definitely sprained your ankle. You glance at your watch as Bradley’s concerned eyes train in on your ankle. You’re officially late. You’re in for it now. You groan before reaching for the banister, eager to be on your way despite your body’s protests. Bradley’s hand on your arm stops you and you turn to meet his eyes, the amber in them swirling and he tightens his grip on you.
“Where do you think you’re going, Honey? You’re hurt, we’re going to Bugs.” His voice is a low rumble that dares you to disagree with him. All the same, you lift your chin defiantly as you take another shaking step up away from him but his grip anchors you, keeping you from getting any farther.
“I’m late to a meeting with Cyclone. I’m already probably getting yelled at for that so I’d rather not exacerbate that by not showing up at all.” You try to step with your sprained ankle but pain shoots up your leg and your stiff lip wobbles as a squeak gets caught in your throat. When you don’t break your determined gaze away from Bradley’s, he lets out a huff of annoyance and then he’s scooping you into his arms before you can protest. You scramble to wrap your arms around his neck as he carries you up the stairs. You know better than to argue so you sulk in silence until he deposits you at Cyclone’s office door. You mutter your thanks, taking a moment to straighten your clothes before you head in, not sparing Bradley another glance.
“You’re late.” Cyclone doesn’t look up from whatever he’s currently reading as you walk in, doing your best to hide your new limp. You know better than to show weakness in front of a man like him. You’re just about to sit down, head dipped slightly when he finally looks up. “Katarina?!” You start with surprise as you look up to see that Cyclone’s face has gone ashen like he’s seen a ghost. You’re sure yours has a similar look since he’s just called you by your mother’s name.
“Why… why did you just call me that?” Your voice is trembling as the terrible dominoes tumble into place as your eyes snag on the Yale logo embroidered on the breast of his quarter zip. The same one you’ve seen on numerous trophies and faded college t-shirts of your mother’s. Your mother’s fairytale hockey player is sitting across a desk from you.
“You look just like her, just like Katarina.” Cyclone’s still in a stupor as he answers you. You’re just as shaken so your tongue is looser than you’d ever hoped it would be in front of your boss as you bluntly reply.
“I-I should hope so. She’s my mother.” Cyclone’s eyes nearly bug out of his skull at the revelation. He’s considerably more surprised than you, but you suppose that’s because you’ve heard plenty of stories about him and he’s had no effect on your life. You can’t imagine what it’s like to see the daughter of your college girlfriend standing in your office over thirty years later.
“You’re Katarina’s daughter? You’re Katarina’s daughter.” He murmurs to himself, followed by your name, turning the words around in his mouth as you take a seat, your sprained ankle making itself known as pain starts to shoot up your leg again. You’d rather be doing literally anything else right now but here you are sitting across from your mother’s ex-boyfriend who also happens to be your boss.
You try your best to distract yourself while you wait for him to wrap his mind around the revelation. Your mind drifts back to being in Bradley’s arms. Your nose twitches at the memory of that familiar woodsy scent. It makes you feel warm and safe. Not unlike the way he carried you. He’d felt so stable and sure as he climbed the stairs with such ease as if he wasn’t carrying you. Then you remember the way he so easily pulled you to your feet with one hand. You’d been all but deadweight at the time and he’d still done it so easily. Suddenly you felt bad for the guys you saw him grind into the boards. The idea of all that strength turned against you made you suppress a shudder. You shouldn’t be surprised, you suppose. After all, even drunk he had packed quite a punch.
“How is she?” You’re wrenched from your thoughts by Cyclone’s voice and you’re met with an expression you’ve never seen on his face. His green eyes are wide, equal parts nervous and earnest. It’s so foreign that it makes you want to squirm.
“Sorry, what?” You stammer, having completely lost the question that he asked.
“Katarina, your mother,” he still stumbles over the words like he’s still coming to grips with it. “How is she?” You can hear the blood rushing in your ears as you comprehend what he’s asking. He doesn’t know. Of course, he doesn’t. They never kept in contact. That being said, you've never had to say it. Not since the week it happened. The words are stuck in your throat, threatening to tear your vocal cords apart. Suddenly you’re in the restaurant from last night again and Bradley’s sitting across from you, avoiding the word, shielding you from the pain in a way that he knows, that he understands. Bradley would never ask you to say it.
And then you’re thinking about her. You’re imagining her, looking the way you did in college, wearing those t-shirts before they faded. Standing side by side with the man across from you. You wonder if anger had its claim on him then the way it does now or if the man that your mother fell in love with was simply this. A man with eyes so green and eager that they reminded you of the first days of spring. They remind you of her. She always reminded you of a sunny day in the dead of winter. The way it’s almost too bright as the light reflects off the snow that would trap the ground below until March, cutting through the dreariness of the season. The gray sky breaking into a brilliant blue and the clouds dispersing. She was a snowdrop, delicate and yet capable of pushing through all that snow, reaching for the sun and its warmth.
“She’s dead.” The words slide free, eased in their passage by the warmth of her memory. You’ve thought more about her in the last week than you have in years. It’s not that you actively avoid it per se but you’ve never been a masochist. You avoid her the way you avoid the ice, keeping a respectful distance that leaves enough room for nostalgia but not longing, because the longing could kill you. You feel the tear splash onto your hand. You don’t remember it leaving your eye. Your vision is uncomfortably clear as you watch your words hit Cyclone. The way the brightness in his eyes gives way to something darker, more familiar. It’s like peeking under the door that houses the unending rage you’ve been on the receiving end of one too many times.
“What?” His voice is hoarse and you don’t have it in you to say the words again.
“She had a heart attack. Eight years ago, there was nothing they could do.” You try to stick to the facts, deliver them as cut and dry as you can, taking as much emotion out of them as you can. You watch the storm in his eyes pick up and you have a feeling that Cyclone grieves the way that you do, violently. Every part of you wants to run for the hills. You feel you’re the captive audience of a show that neither of you wants you to see. You’re not sure which part finds the courage to excuse yourself.
“Sir, I think we should circle back to this meeting another time.” You know when she looks at you that he’s not seeing you.
“Of course.” His voice is rough with emotion and it makes you uncomfortable as you stumble to your feet, almost forgetting your ankle, and you almost fall on your face as you make for the door, desperate to get out of there. Your hand has just curled around the door handle when Cyclone calls out to you again. You turn at the sound of your name, white-knuckling the handle. “Could we get dinner sometime, and talk about some things?” You hear yourself agree. Anything to get out of here now. He dismisses you and you all but throw yourself out the door.
You stumble into the fluorescent lighting of the hallway and as your eyes adjust to the change you make out Bradley leaning against the wall. His features twist into concern when he sees you. Absently you wonder why, but when he reaches for you, you throw yourself against his chest. “Honey, what’s going on? What happened in there?” You can tell he’s fighting to keep his voice calm as you fist the fabric of his shirt tight enough to tear.
“He knew my mom. Cyclone knew my mom.” The words feel like cement on your tongue. Bradley’s arms are around you in an instant, holding you against him while you struggle not to fall apart. “And he didn’t know,” you sob against his chest. “He didn’t know that she’s dead.” The words hurt coming out but it’s easier even if they end in a strangled sob. “Oh my god, she’s dead, Bradley. She’s dead.” Now that you’ve finally said it, it consumes you and you crumple against him, repeating the words over and over as you sob into his chest. Bradley’s silent, simply holding you as you fall apart, his hands smoothing over the back of your head in a repetitive motion that serves as a constant in the backdrop of your breakdown.
While Steve was still part of the timeline, Bucky was his prodigal best friend recovering in Wakanda while you were steadily becoming a close, trusted friend to Captain America. Bucky blipped out, and you were there for Steve when half the world disappeared. Steve's departure leaves a wake of absence, and it takes a desperate situation to bring you and the White Wolf to face what's between the two of you. And then what?
Content Warnings: [check individual parts for their respective warnings] kidnapping, sex pollen ergo DUBIOUS CONSENT in one chapter, consensual sexual situations (referenced/hinted, and outright explicit physical intimacy), medical elements (needles, IVs, experience of medical distress)
VERSE:
↠ part one: Desperate [3k]
↠ part two: Uncertain and Sure [550]
↠ part three: Insatiable [1.8k]
↠ part four: Big Conversation [1.1k]
- after discovering something that forces all of your relationship’s problems to the surface, you seek solace in your only potential friend in san diego. (bradley “rooster” bradshaw x fem!reader, hurt with future comfort, part of the series “out of touch” ⚠️ ADULT TOPICS, please be 18+ to read)
OUT OF TOUCH: It’s been twenty years since you last saw Bradley Bradshaw, and, suddenly, you realize he’s finally grown up.
word count: 3,111
a/n - this chapter is lowkey crazy 😭 i hope y’all enjoy because i’ve had a blast writing this. the next chapter might take a bit to write up because i need to plan out the rest of the series, but it hopefully shouldn’t take tooo long!!
The next few days were relatively uneventful as you attempted to get your life in perfect working order. There were a few visits from the navy men, with Fanboy (who you learned was actually named Mickey) being one of your best customers until he witnessed firsthand your boyfriend giving you flowers and a peck on the cheek. He seemed a bit crestfallen after that, but you knew he would perk up eventually. He hadn’t gone through it for nothing, though- you always slipped him an extra cookie sample when he came by.
The best part of your life was not interviewing potential employees or ordering more vintage tables, but instead, it was Derick. He was truly your rock in the midst of a change that otherwise would’ve thrown you into chaos.
He handled your calls, he mopped the floors and shined the counter, and he took you on amazing dates. You can firmly say that you’ve never had a boyfriend as respectful and supportive as him.
Too respectful, however, is an ever-present problem.
You’ve been with him for almost fifteen years and you can reasonably count the times he’s been anything other than a perfect family-friendly gentleman. If you look back on it, it was probably around fifty-two instances.
That seems like a lot, but spread out over fifteen years of young adult antics, it’s almost like he didn’t want to be intimate. He didn’t want to make out, or put a hand just a bit too low on your waist, or do anything passionate or fiery or heated. He just wanted dinner dates, a kiss on the cheek, and a hand to hold. You were fine with that, because in essence, that’s what you needed at the time, right? Stability. Comfort. Romance. Someone to wipe away your insecurities and hold you down at ground level.
A lingering thought, always bouncing around in the back of your mind, whispers that it shouldn’t take hours of tempting and teasing for a guy to want you.
You ignore all of that for right now. Derick is currently sitting across the table from you at the fanciest restaurant in the area.
Fancy places always make you a little nervous. You’re afraid to say the wrong thing or mispronounce a word on the menu, and your dresses get rumpled as you fidget with them. Even your nail polish doesn’t survive as you pick at the edges with your thumb. Derick smiles.
“What are you thinking about ordering?” He asks, setting his own menu down. You cease your picking and clear your throat. He looks especially nice tonight, with his dark hair gelled back and his black suit nice and crisp. It doesn’t quite fit with your dress, though you suppose it doesn’t need to.
“Uh, the caprese salad sounds good.” It’s the cheapest thing on the menu. He always pays, but you know that he gets a bit bothered when the bill racks up too high. You’ve offered to pay for yourself numerous times, but he waves the suggestion away, even when his face makes it known that he doesn’t want to.
“I make more money than you, babe, just let me take care of it.”
You try to smile sweetly, but it doesn’t reach your eyes. If he can tell, he doesn’t show it.
“Sounds good. I’m having the truffle alfredo myself.” He flags down a waiter, and you shrink a bit in your seat.
You can tell that this night is going to be another awkward one. After being with someone for so long, you come to expect certain things. Despite that, you wouldn’t trade this stability for anything. He makes good money, he buys you gifts, and once or twice a year, he’ll even sleep with you. What more could a girl want?
Bradley hasn’t had stability in a long time. He has a home in San Diego, sure, but going out for drinks every once and a while with people who have vastly different schedules isn’t really enough to make him want to stay. In truth, he almost misses being deployed because, at least then, he has a purpose.
When he saw you, he thought he might have an opportunity to right a wrong that has been tearing him up inside. He despises what he was like as a teenager, taking nothing seriously except his dreams to be a naval aviator. He’s learned throughout his life that everything matters, especially the feelings of other people, and even the small, mundane things he couldn’t care less about. The small, mundane things are what keep the world working.
He’s sitting on his couch, enjoying a small, mundane thing (a shitty reality show with acting so bad it makes him laugh) when an unknown number lights up his phone. He perks up, staring at the number as the reality show carries on. It’s probably just a spam number, but on the off chance it’s you, he picks up.
“Hello?” He hates how shaky his voice sounds. Just the idea of you sets his nerves on fire.
“I need a friend,” your soft voice mumbles. “Where can we meet? A place that serves strong alcohol would be preferable.”
Right after your early dinner date with Derick, you walked into your shared apartment, boxes lining every walkway. You really ought to have put everything away more quickly, but after a long day’s work, all you and your boyfriend could seem to do was pull out a few objects and give them a place in your new living quarters.
He immediately went to take a shower, as he usually did after a long day, and placed his locked phone on your nightstand. You collapsed onto your bed and looked up at the ceiling, still dressed, and began to dread opening shop in the morning. You love the cafe, but your lack of employees hits harder every day.
Derick had been handling most of the hiring process, with the good majority of the interviewees being his connections. It was helpful having a business major boyfriend, as his college networking and current accountant networking proved extremely useful for managing an actual business. He was always so enthusiastic about helping you run the place. You seriously don’t know what you would do without him.
His phone lit up next to you with a series of texts. You lazily let your gaze drift over to see what was going on. He wouldn’t mind if you checked who was texting, right? When you picked up his phone, the name that popped up was “employee candidate 4”. You smiled to yourself; Derick was so responsible, you thought. He must have given the candidates his number to see if they needed anything.
You unlocked his phone with your thumbprint, which you so sneakily added to his password bank a few months ago when you first started collaborating on the cafe’s business plan. What you saw made your heart drop down to the floor, splintering into a million little pieces that got stuck in your fresh linoleum floor.
Bradley hands you another drink, a strong one at that, and you gulp half of it down in one breath. “Want to tell me what’s going on?”
You look up at him through your eyelashes, makeup half-rubbed off from tears and friction. The sun began to set when you first entered, and in the dimming light, Bradley could tell that you were rattled. You still are, evidently. He waits for a moment before you clear your throat and offer a few gut-punching words.
“I checked my boyfriend’s phone.” He can tell where this is going. He doesn’t want it to be true, because who in their right mind would cheat on you?
“What was on it?” He prompts gently. You take another breath. You don’t want to dump this all on someone that you barely know, with the only history you have being a failed almost-relationship when you were teenagers, but you don’t have anyone else. When you moved to San Diego, you left everything behind, including your friends and family. You haven’t even talked to your friends in ages, as you’ve been so busy with the cafe and Derick that you couldn’t so much as call them. The idea of having Bradley nurse your broken heart is both gut-wrenching and just a little bit like a dream.
“A lot. I… I don’t want to ruin your night by bothering you. I should go.” You try to stand up from your bar stool, but he catches your wrist in his warm hands.
He shakes his head, eyebrows creased. “Just tell me. I’m here for you; I meant what I said in the cafe.” You nod, fresh tears welling up in your eyes as you sit down.
“I’ll get a few drinks in me first.”
You keep your word, managing to take down a sizable amount of alcohol within a few minutes. It’s not enough to get you passing out or throwing up, but enough to loosen your lips.
“Do you want to know what I saw?” Your face is warm, either from the alcohol or Bradley’s hand on your back. “Twenty-eight photos of his dick. It isn’t even good enough to warrant one photo, Bradley, one! None of them were sent to me, of course. Just the girls he would chat up online and fuck.” The words tumble out of your mouth, every pent-up frustration making its way into the light of the bar. “I looked through his search history, too, and then our finances, because I was suspicious of everything at that point. I found four subscriptions to porn sites in our bills and three more for online dating premium memberships. Who the fuck even needs a premium membership? God. I hate him.”
“Slow down, princess.” He says. His lips are quirked into a small smile as you ramble on and on about every small thing Derick has ever done to piss you off. “He seems like a real piece of work.”
“He is! He so is. I never get to order what I want, he always makes me feel responsible for his mistakes, and not once has he made me finish. I mean, we’ve had sex maybe twice in the last two years because he can’t get it up. Probably because he’s been sticking his dick in STD central.” Those last few items slip through your internal filter, but even in your state, you recognize that you probably shouldn’t be talking about your sex life with a guy you re-met a few days ago. “Sorry. That was personal.”
Bradley lifts his shoulders in a shrug. “Nothin’ I can’t handle. I can’t believe you stayed with him that long when he can’t do a single thing for you. If you were my girl, you wouldn’t know a day without pleasure.” It’s his turn to be embarrassed about what he said, but as his cheeks turn red, you don’t even seem to notice.
If you were his girl, he thinks, he’d treat you so well. He’d actually get you your favorite flowers instead of the ones he thinks would look nice in the aesthetic of your apartment, and he’d cook for you, and he’d never make you feel bad for loving him.
“Exactly.” You say. “He just wanted someone to come home to without even thinking about how I would feel. I wanted stability, and he gave me that, but nothing else.” You suddenly sound sober, but the tears are back, and they’re stronger than ever. “I loved him.” You choke out. “I don’t think I could ever get something better, not after so long.”
Bradley feels bad for even considering picking you up after this. You’re distraught, more than he’s ever seen anyone before. It’s clear that this is something you’re going to take a while to heal from. “You can and you will. He’s a dick, and I’m sorry you wasted so much time on him, but you will find some kind of relationship that deserves you. You can have a fresh start, and he’ll just be another asshole that you put in your past.”
You nod, taking in his words as you sip your soda. Bradley cut you off a while ago, which you’re eternally grateful for. If you had one more sip of alcohol, you think you'd either be dancing on a table or crying on the floor. Now, at least you’re crying upright in a stool, with the man across from you handing you tissues once in a while. The lady running the bar seems to know him, and she also seems to know that an endless supply of tissues is necessary for you tonight.
The doors of the bar open, and though you don’t want to peel yourself away from the sight of someone caring about you, you turn around anyway. When you do, your blood runs cold.
Bradley sees you stiffen and follows your line of sight to the person that just walked in. He’s handsome, in a way, with short, dark brown hair and a five-o-clock shadow. He seems like the stuck-up type. Your eyes are blown wide at the sight as the man walks over, a sort of fake concern lacing his expression.
“Baby-“
“Don’t fucking call me that, Derick. How did you even find me?” Oh. The soon-to-be ex. Bradley sits up on his stool, pulling himself to a position where he can easily stand if the moment calls for it.
Derick pulls out his phone sheepishly. “You left your location on.”
Goddamnit. Fuck.
“Get out. I don’t want to see you right now.” You’re seething, the anger coming off you in waves. You think that if you weren’t angry, you’d be sad, and you can’t handle that right now. The devastation of finding out your boyfriend is a freak and a cheater is something you just opened the box to, and you don’t feel like unpacking it in front of him.
“I’m sorry, okay?” He protests. “They didn’t mean anything to me. I love you, and I want to marry you, and I’ll never do it again. I- I have the ring right here, see?” He pulls out a familiar velvet-lined box, and you scoff.
“You should’ve thought about that before you cheated. Multiple times.”
Bradley stands up, placing a soothing hand between your shoulder blades. “Leave, man. She’s made it pretty clear that she doesn’t want you here.”
Derick bristles, his pasty face tinged red with anger. Bradley almost rolls his eyes at how small he looks. “You don’t need to stick up for her.” He takes a step forward. “If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you were fucking her behind my back. That’s what this is, isn’t it? An excuse for you to leave me because some navy fucker had some nice enough sex with you?” He’s approaching fast. By the time he finishes his sentence, Derick’s fist is wrapped around your wrist tightly.
You let out a soft sound as his bruising fingers close around you, but as soon as he’s there, Bradley shoves him away and loosens his grip on you. “Okay, that’s enough. You’re either going to walk through those doors or you’re getting dragged out. I don’t care which.”
Derick scoffs. “Fine with me. I never liked you anyways.” He gives you a pointed glance, tucking the ring box into his jacket pocket.
“You have tonight to get your stuff out of the apartment that I paid for.” You say, rubbing the space between your eyebrows with your thumb. “I never want to see you again.” The second part comes out as a mumble, but he clearly gets the message.
“Fuck you.” He walks out, and the group of navy men by the door give him a dirty look. He’s more than ruined multiple peoples’ nights by this point. It went from one crying girl at a bar to the start of a bar fight in the two minutes he stood in front of you.
Bradley, concerned, gives you a soft look. “Do you have anywhere to stay tonight?”
You shake your head as more tears drip down your jaw. You hate this. You hate Derick, you hate yourself, and you hate the pitiful way Bradley is staring at you. Your California dream has turned into a nightmare. “No, but I’ll get a hotel somewhere. It’s not that big of a deal.” Your attempt to downplay the situation has Bradley on the verge of running after Derick and slapping the back of his big groomed head. You’re too nice for this, too sweet to be cheated on and forced to sleep in a cold bed that you paid $200 for.
“You can stay over at my place if you want. I’ll sleep on the couch.”
“I don’t want to put you out like that. It’s fine,” you assure him, though your voice is the least sure it’s ever been. “There’s a nice enough place a few streets away.”
Bradley shakes his head. His warm hand is on your shoulder, like he’s trying to ground you. “It won’t put me out. C’mon, princess, it’s not a big deal. You can rest up and we’ll figure out what else to do in the morning.”
He called you “princess” again. It’s nice, you think, in your drunken mind. Right now, you’re too tired to fight anything about the situation you’re in. “Alright. As long as you’re sure.”
He pays your tabs, slipping a look to the lady running the bar. She nods at him and mouths something that you can’t quite make out. As he leads you to his car, a nice, blue, vintage bronco, he keeps one hand on the small of your back. The heat feels nice, like you have someone securing you. Like you won’t ever stumble or fall before his strong arms catch you. He must be a real nice guy if he’s doing all this after so long.
He buckles you into your seat, and you let your head fall back onto the headrest. Your eyes close, and you desperately try not to think about what your life has come to. You feel a buzz in your jacket pocket, but you don’t pick it up. Everything is fine, you assure yourself. You didn’t just break up with the man you were going to marry, and he didn’t cheat on you, and your phone isn’t going off wildly through the fabric of your coat, and you’re not strapped into the car of your high school self’s dream boy. You ride that feeling, that denial, right into sleep.
You’ll deal with the real life problems in the morning.
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Taglist (bolded cannot be tagged): @m1dnightsnackz @itsarabellebabes @shanimallina87 @sadgirlgiselle @callsignstingray
Summary: You had been working at the bar for six months. And you'd been crushing on Rooster since the first night he handed you his credit card, called you Babydoll, and asked you to start a tab for him. And it only got worse from there, until one night you asked him about more than just his drink order.
Warnings: Fluff, swearing, age gap, and smut
Length: 5800 words
Pairing: Bradley "Rooster" Bradshaw x Female Reader
This was written for my Top Gun Rocktober playlist! Check out my masterlist for more!
"Oh, my god," you whined softly, drying and polishing the rack of pint glasses in front of you as Rooster Bradshaw came strolling into the bar. "Fuck me," you sighed, barely able to keep your eyes off him as you fumbled one of the glasses.
"Yeah, you'd like that," Lizzy said with a laugh as she cut up some lemons before the Friday evening rush.
You didn't even know you spoke out loud. That's how much of a ridiculous crush you had on that big, sexy man. But he strolled right past you on his way to the pool table, barely even sparing a smile in your direction.
"I really would," you told her, watching the flex of his bicep as he high fived Hangman. It wasn't like your coworkers didn't know you had a thing for Rooster. You'd been working here for six months, and you'd been crushing on him since the first night he handed you his credit card, called you Babydoll, and asked you to start a tab for him. And it only got worse from there.
He still occasionally called you Babydoll. He never called Lizzy or Jasmine by a pet name. Just you. And you held onto that little glimmer of hope that it meant something. That maybe one day, he'd look at you as more than just one of the bartenders.
"What's wrong with you?" Jas asked, waving a hand in front of your face. But then she looked where you were staring, and she asked no further questions. "Oh. Rooster's here."
"He sure is," you added, forcing yourself to focus on the customer in front of you who looked impatient for a drink. As you finished pouring him some tequila shots, you looked up eagerly, and Rooster met your eyes. It had been a solid week since you'd seen him, and he just always looked so good.
You pushed the shot glasses across the bar and collected payment, trying to stay as cool as you could. Because Rooster was heading your way now in his snug vintage wash jeans and bright tropical shirt.
"Hey, Babydoll," he rasped, and your whole body clenched with need as your eyes fluttered closed. When you met his gaze again, he was leaning on the bar, closing in on your personal space.
"Hey, Rooster," you replied, sounding a lot calmer than you felt. When he smirked and looked down at your shirt, your heart pounded even harder. Your name was embroidered on your Hard Deck top, just above your breast. He knew your name, but he always called you Babydoll anyway. So was he just simply staring at your tits?
He cleared his throat and asked, "Get me a beer? Please?"
"Am I starting a tab?" you asked, reaching for one of the pint glasses you'd just finished cleaning. He responded by humming and sliding his credit card across the bar. He held eye contact with you while you expertly pulled the perfect pint of his preferred beer. The way his lips parted in a soft smile that matched yours, the twitch of his mustache...it all felt like foreplay that had been going on for months.
"Thanks," he muttered when your fingers brushed against his. He winked at you before turning back to the pool table, leaving you with his credit card and a desperate need inside of you.
As you set up his tab, Jasmine ran her hand along your lower back so you wouldn't bump her as she walked behind you. "Why don't you just invite him to join you in the bathroom and fuck him out of your system?" she joked.
"Because," you sighed, "that would only make me pine harder. Getting a small taste of him would be worse than nothing at all."
"Oof," Lizzy replied. "You're a mess over Bradshaw."
"I wonder how old he is?" Jas asked.
You hummed and shrugged, watching him drink his beer across the room while you shook a vodka martini. "Gotta be at least thirty five."
"Ask him," Lizzy said. "Next time he comes over, ask him how old he is."
Your cheeks were warming up. He was bending at the waist, playing pool, and you were taking way too long to serve this martini. "No. What if he thinks I'm being rude? Or worse...what if he catches on that I like him, and he shuts it all down."
"Fine," Jas said, uncapping some ciders. "Next time Rooster comes up, I'll wait on him."
But that really didn't sit well with you. Rooster always came to you for his drinks, anytime he could. You liked that about him. You liked his attention. Jas wouldn't pour his pints quite as well as you could. You knew so well how much foam to let spill and how close to the top of the glass you could get. You loved pulling those pints of lager for him. And you loved pouring him bourbon when he asked for that instead. You knew which brand and that he liked it neat. You didn't have to ask. He didn't have to tell you.
No, you should always be the one to wait on him. And when he finished his pint and strolled back up to the bar after Phoenix beat him at pool, you stepped in front of Jasmine. "I got it," you said confidently, and Jas walked away chuckling. This time Rooster eased himself down onto an empty stool between two women who looked at him like they'd just won the lottery. But his eyes were on you.
"Lager or bourbon?" you asked, and you were rewarded with those perfect, white teeth and his deep laughter.
"You got everyone's regular drinks memorized?" he asked as you reached for his empty glass. But he didn't let you take it. He kept one hand on the glass for a few beats while your fingers met his.
He was making you feel bold tonight. He was even more gorgeous up close like this, with a few gray hairs at his temples and some laugh lines around his eyes. His eyebrows shot up, and his smile faltered when you said, "No, Rooster. Not everybody's regular drinks. Only the hottest guys. Lager or bourbon?"
He grunted and swallowed hard. "Dealer's choice." Then he finally let you take the empty glass, and it was a good thing, too, because you needed to turn away from him. You took a few extra seconds to reach for the bottle of Wild Turkey. Your nipples were hard, your skin felt like it was on fire, and you were turned on just talking to him.
When you turned back to face him, his gaze was neutral again. You uncapped the bourbon and poured it for him, neat.
"Thanks," he murmured, moving like he was standing to leave.
And then your mouth worked before your brain, and you said, "Anytime, Sexy."
You watched him pause halfway out of his seat, his eyes dipping down to watch you nervously lick your lips. If he left for the pool table, you really were going to have to let Jasmine wait on him next time. Embarrassment flooded your veins, leaving you uncomfortable with a sheen of cold sweat on your neck. But he eased himself back down onto the stool and kept his eyes on you. "Alright. Babydoll."
You laughed softly, pulling out some glasses for the woman who wanted two cosmos. Rooster sipped his bourbon and kept his focus on your face and your body. He grunted as you took a shaker in each hand, and as you poured them out at the same time, he asked, "What's your favorite drink?"
He was hyper focused on you now, leaning in just the slightest bit further as you served both pink drinks. "To have or to make?" you asked, taking more orders.
"Both. I want you to tell me both."
You smiled at him, and he matched it right away. "Nothing is more fun to make than an expertly crafted Bloody Mary, but those are best as breakfast cocktails."
He nodded, accepting your answer, and then he asked, "And what do you order when you go out?"
You shrugged. "I don't often get to have someone make my drinks for me, but when I do, I usually order a Manhattan."
"A Manhattan?" he asked, balking at your answer. "How fuckin' old are you, Babydoll? People in their seventies drink those things!"
"I'm twenty three," you told him, laughing so hard you were doubled over. He looked delighted when you were finally able to stand up straight again. Your smile was still bright as you leaned on the bar until you were only two feet from his face and softly asked, "How old are you?"
The song on the jukebox changed as Rooster rubbed his mustache and said, "I'm a lot older than you are." His little self deprecating laugh just made you want to get closer to him. He looked amused by you and also resigned to the fact that he thought his age was something you wouldn't like about him.
"How old?" you asked again, biting your lip.
His brown eyes found your mouth, and you thought for a moment that he was going to kiss you. Oh god, you wanted him to, so badly. "I'm thirty eight."
You hummed softly as Phoenix came to stand next to him, and you started to get her favorite kind of beer ready.
"You coming back to the pool table?" she asked Rooster, but he just grunted something about needing to finish his bourbon first. When you handed Phoenix her drink, Rooster told you to put it on his tab, and he looked relieved when she walked away.
"Thirty eight," you said, watching him down the remainder of the drink in his glass. "That's why you're so good at flirting? You've had time to practice?"
He coughed a little bit as he set his empty glass down on the bar top. "Babydoll, I'm fifteen years older than you."
"So?" you asked, pulling another perfect pint for him. "You don't want to flirt with me?"
"Now wait, that's not what I'm saying at all. Just surprised you don't want to flirt with someone your own age."
"I don't like boys my age," you told him fearlessly. "I like men."
"Oh, hell," he groaned, taking a long sip of his fresh beer. "Just look at you. You're gonna get yourself in trouble if you don't find a nice guy."
He looked flustered now. You were making Lieutenant Bradshaw flustered. His cheeks were pink, and he kept sipping his beer, avoiding your gaze. He looked adorable and boyish, and you didn't know quite what to do about this. Or about the fact that talking to him was making you wet.
"Hmmm," you hummed, and his eyes met yours immediately. "Are you a nice guy?"
"Fuck," he groaned, adjusting himself in his seat. "Sometimes."
"You're always pretty sweet to me," you whispered. "What's it like when you're not a nice guy, Rooster?"
You wanted to touch him for more than a few fleeting seconds. After six months, you thought you were going to. His long, thick fingers were just resting there in front of you. But then Fanboy came to the bar and asked you to close out his tab. And then you had to help Lizzy pour a massive round of shots. And then when Rooster asked you to close out his tab as well, you did it with a pout on your lips.
As you slid his credit card, the slip he needed to sign, and a pen across the bar, he smiled at you. "Aww, come on. Don't give me that look. You know how it is."
"I don't, actually," you replied, watching him sign the credit card receipt for you. "How is it?"
He looked up and studied your face. "You're too perfect to mess with, Babydoll. Too young. Too pretty to touch."
You chewed on your lip and squeezed your thighs together. You had to know. Your voice was soft and unsure as you asked him, "Do you wanna touch me?"
He didn't meet your eyes again as he scribbled on the receipt and then left it and the pen for you to collect. He stood up from his stool, gave a quick salute to his friends and then headed for the door.
You moaned helplessly. You blew it. He thought you were just a kid, and you never stood a chance. And now he'd probably never even look at you again.
But when you picked up the receipt, you read one word written there under his name. YES.
-----------------------------
When you strolled into the bar the next evening, you got right to work. You had no idea if Rooster would show up, and you weren't sure if you even wanted to see him or not. You'd torn off the bottom of his credit card slip and taken it home with you. That little scrap of paper on which he'd admitted he wanted to touch you was hanging on your bedroom mirror. But it was the fact that he was probably never going to touch you, even though he was more than welcome to, that was making you frustrated.
"What's wrong with you?" Lizzy asked as she arrived a minute later. "You look hot."
You glanced down at your Hard Deck top, denim skirt and beat up sneakers. "I look the same as I always do," you told her, continuing to dump buckets of ice into the cooler behind the bar.
"Maybe it's your makeup," she replied. "I think you're hoping Rooster comes in tonight."
You rolled your eyes. "I always hope he's going to be here. He's pretty. I like looking at him."
"I'm not going to dispute that," Lizzy said as she cut up the lemons again tonight. "But I think you actually like him. Not just the way he looks."
You didn't respond, because it didn't matter. You'd keep the flirtation to a minimum the next time you saw him. The last thing you wanted to do was make him think you were desperate. He wanted to touch you? He could go right ahead. But you weren't about to beg him to.
As the bar got crowded, Jasmine showed up as well. The three of you got into a nice rhythm. A lot of the aviators were back again tonight, and you were serving them drink after drink. And then it was like you knew he was there before you saw him. After you handed a couple their drinks, your eyes automatically shifted toward the doorway, finding it filled with Rooster's big body. And he was already looking at you.
"You want me to wait on him?" Lizzy asked you softly as Rooster approached the bar.
But you just shook your head and reached for two different glasses, holding them up as he took a seat in front of you. When he pointed to the pint glass, he said, "Lager. Please."
"Sure," you replied, setting the smaller glass aside and pulling a perfect pint of beer for him. "Start a tab?"
"Nah, I'm not staying long tonight," he told you as you placed the beer in front of him without meeting his gaze. "Just wanted to see you and get one drink."
"Mmkay," you said. But when you pulled your hand away, he reached for it.
Stunned, you let him take your hand in his large one, and then he asked, "Does this mean you're done flirting with the old man now? You got it all out of your system yesterday?" His eyes were guarded, cautious, and he held onto your hand, expecting an answer.
You shook your head slowly, running your fingertips along his rough calluses. "I was just getting started."
A crooked little smile danced across his lips. "I am too old for you, Babydoll. And it's a shame."
Your heart jumped in your chest, hand still tangled up with his on the bar top. You could hear Lizzy and Jasmine working extra hard to take all the orders, trying to give you a moment here. So you smiled back. "You think you're old. So what? You expect me to call you Daddy?"
"Shit," he grunted, squirming a bit in his seat but keeping your hand in his.
When he didn't respond right away, you leaned a little closer, one eyebrow raised. "I asked you a question."
His eyes were wide, and that little grin was back. "I could be a... Daddy. Maybe for the right girl."
You pulled your hand free of his and planted both palms on the bar top and leaned closer to him. "And just how is a girl supposed to know if she's the right one?"
But his cheeks were tinged with pink once again, and he looked flustered. It was flattering, such an ego boost. You were the one who made him like this. But he wasn't responding now, and you needed to help Jas pour some chardonnay for the impatient ladies at the end of the bar. You sighed and said, "Well, I work until eleven. So just think on it."
But he wouldn't let you leave. Rooster reached for your hand again, but this time he was the one leaning closer. "The right girl would be one that I can't seem to stay away from. You said you work until eleven?"
"Yes," you replied softly, his large hand completely covering yours on the bar top.
"Right. Then ask me again if I want to start a tab."
You pressed your lips together, trying not to giggle. "Would you like to start a tab, Rooster?"
"You're damn right I would, Babydoll. I can't get enough of you. Think I'll just hang here until eleven. If that's okay with you."
This time you did giggle. "Yeah. That's okay with me." As he pulled his wallet out and handed you his credit card, you asked, "Bourbon or lager?"
"Make it a Manhattan."
"I've been told these drinks are for people in their seventies," you said with a straight face as you reached for the vermouth, secretly pleased he wanted your favorite. "You're only thirty eight."
"Listen," he said, watching you fix his drink. "You said you don't like boys your own age. And maybe I'm a little older than you, but all the parts are still in working order."
You felt giddy. When you set the glass down in front of him, you couldn't help but ask, "Does that mean you'll let me take you for a test drive?"
You had to work to keep an innocent expression on your face as Bradley's blush deepened. He took a sip of his Manhattan, licked his lips and said, "I don't do test drives anymore."
"Oh," you said with a little pout. "You don't?"
"No," he replied a bit cautiously, taking another sip of his cocktail. "I'm getting too old for that. I like at least a little bit of commitment from the driver. Don't wanna feel like I'll get dinged up."
You shivered at his words, mesmerized by his voice and his demeanor as he looked down into his glass. Could you do more than a test drive? Of course you'd thought about it. You were crushing so hard, you'd imagined what it would be like if he was your boyfriend. But you'd barely even let yourself hope for a one night stand. Even that much seemed too good to be true.
"Oh," you said again in a softer tone. When he glanced up, his dark eyes were no longer guarded, and he was looking at you warily. Without giving it much thought, you pushed up onto the bar and leaned until he met you halfway in a kiss. It was just the softest brush of your lips against his. But the sound he made and the prickle of his mustache on your skin left you wide eyed and out of breath as you eased yourself back down. "No. You're too handsome to get all dinged up. I'm a great driver."
"Yeah," he said with a little laugh. "I can already tell. And that's what I was afraid of last night. There's just something about you, isn't there?"
"You have a thing for me?" you asked him, gripping the edge of the bar top. "Because I definitely have a thing for you." You had stopped breathing now, and your heart was pounding in your ears.
With a little grin, he said, "Yeah, I do, Babydoll."
"Well, what are we going to do about it, Daddy?" you asked with another giggle as Jasmine thrust a bottle of prosecco into your hands.
"We're going to go out my Bronco the minute your shift is over. We'll figure it out there."
You nearly dropped the bottle when you met his eyes. "A quickie?" you asked softly, but you were sure he heard you.
"No," he groaned, running his big palm along his mouth and shaking his head at you. Then he finished the rest of his Manhattan in one gulp and pushed the glass your way. "Nothing about this is gonna be quick. I'd like to take my time, especially with someone as perfect as you."
You sounded like a feral animal, thighs clenched together and gripping the bottle of prosecco with both hands.
"Shit," Rooster grunted. "You're making it hard to just sit here, Babydoll."
"Hard?" you asked with a grin.
"You'll find out."
After another embarrassing noise, you had to excuse yourself to the other end of the bar for a few minutes. Jesus, you needed to keep your job, after all. But his eyes followed you everywhere. Any time you looked his way, he was transfixed on you. When you pulled a pint of lager and set it down for him, he whispered, "Thanks, Babydoll," sending shivers along your skin again.
"Anything else you want, Rooster?" you asked him sweetly.
His gaze dipped down to your chest before returning to your face. "Nothing I'm allowed to have inside the bar."
"At least not when we're open to the public, sir," you replied, giving him a little salute that had him reaching for you across the bar. But you managed to skirt away from his grasp with another laugh.
"You coming back over here?" he asked between sips of his beer. "I didn't get a chance to ask you if you'll make me a Bloody Mary for breakfast tomorrow morning."
"Breakfast?"
"Yeah. Breakfast," he confirmed with a smile. "At my place?"
You pressed your lips together to keep from screaming. "So since this isn't a test drive, what are my options, exactly? Am I looking at a lease? A financing package?"
"I'm sure you'll know what you want to do when the time comes. And I'm going to need you to stop saying package right now."
"Just go," Jasmine told you suddenly. "It's after ten, and you're useless. You and he have had hours of foreplay already. Go."
"Are you sure?" you asked, already reaching for your bag and Rooster's credit card.
"Yes," Lizzy confirmed. Then she looked at Rooster who was already standing up and told him, "Pay your tab next week. And get her out of here."
"My pleasure," he rasped, and you practically ran for the opening in the bar, ducking underneath the counter. And when you stood up again, he was right there. He was so tall and broad, and with a coy smile, you slipped his credit card into the pocket of his jeans. When your fingers trailed closer to his zipper, he grabbed your wrist gently.
"Just checking for myself to make sure all the parts are working," you mused as he raised your hand up to his lips and kissed your knuckles gently. In the middle of the crowded bar. Then he wrapped your fingers around the back of his neck, and you pulled him down for a kiss.
He kept it pretty clean as he promised, "Wait until we get outside."
"Now," you demanded, pulling him along behind you by his shirt collar. As soon as the cool, night air met your hot skin, he had your bare thighs in his hands, and your back was pressed against the side of the building. "Oh my god," you gasped. Your body was pinned between the siding and Rooster, and the rough denim of his jeans was rubbing you deliciously through your underwear.
"I told you I'm not going to rush," he whispered, pressing into you as you held onto his shoulders. He teased you with that delicious mustache and his lips on your neck before he kissed your ear and said, "Now, I'm gonna need verbal confirmation, Babydoll."
"Yes!" you nearly shouted. "Everything!"
He chuckled next to your ear and asked, "You wanna fuck in my Bronco?"
"Yes," you moaned so loudly, you were sure Jasmine and Lizzy could hear you.
"I don't have any condoms with me," he said, looking you in the eye. "Do we need them?"
"No, I'm clean, and I take the pill," you said, leaning in to kiss his lips. He tasted you, running the tip of his tongue along yours before pulling his lips away.
You whined for him, but he was undeterred. "I need you to tell me that you'll come home with me and make me that Bloody Mary in the morning while I make you breakfast."
He already wanted you to sleep over with him. He wanted to make you breakfast. He didn't want to have a one night stand. He was waiting for an answer. "You'll have to let me know if you want it traditional or extra spicy."
"Fuck," he grunted before his lips came crashing against yours. His big hands held your thighs wide as he rolled his hips gently against you.
"Rooster," you moaned against his lips as he let you gently slide down his body until your feet hit the ground.
"Please call me Bradley," he whispered as he wrapped his hand around your waist and quickly guided you across the dark parking lot.
When you saw the Bronco, you ran the last little bit hand in hand. His laughter mixed with yours as he unlocked the door. "Come on, Bradley," you sang, looking up at him over your shoulder before climbing up onto the driver's seat on your hands and knees. "Do you wanna touch me?"
"Babydoll," he moaned, keeping you still as he guided your skirt up over your butt and around your waist. You cried out as he kissed the backs of your thighs. He slipped his fingers inside the thin strips of lace fabric that made up your thong, and you couldn't ever remember being this turned on before.
"Bradley!" you gasped loudly when his lips and tongue met the globe of your rear end. He slid the lace to one side and kissed your slit from behind until you were panting. You might cum. You might actually have an orgasm on your hands and knees with your ass in his face. Boys your own age couldn't get you like this no matter what they did.
He gently swatted at you before palming your ass and saying, "Get in the backseat."
Oh yes. He was about to show you what else his age and experience had to offer, and you were already shaking with need. "Yes, sir," you whispered, and you heard him mutter a string of obscenities as you scrambled onto the backseat. As he slid the driver's seat forward and climbed in the back, you carefully pulled your underwear down your thighs. He helped you and then pressed the lace to his nose before pulling you onto his lap.
"I've thought about this so many times when I touched myself," you blurted out as he teased your clit with his thumb. "Bronco sex," you whined, head tipped back, enjoying the perfect pressure he applied to your body. "Bronco sex with Bradley Bradshaw."
"Forgive me, Babydoll," he whispered, voice harsh. "But last night was the first time I jerked off thinking about you. Too afraid to go there before that, thinking there was no way in hell you'd want me."
"I want you," you swore, meeting his eyes in the near darkness. If anyone else was out in the parking lot, you couldn't see them. And you didn't care if they could see you, because he was slipping one thick finger inside you. "Wanted you for so long. Months and months."
"Jesus, you're tight," he groaned, sliding your snug top up to your chest as you rode his hand. "And you skipped a bra tonight like a good girl."
"Bradley," you gasped as he cupped your bare breast in his big hand. He lazily swirled his thumb around your nipple before bending to take you into his mouth. "Oh my god!"
Your orgasm was already building. You had only been in the backseat with him for a few minutes, and he was still fully clothed. But now you were riding two fingers, and his thumb was delicious against your clit. As he licked and sucked on your breast, you started to clench.
"Damn," he muttered against your body. "Already?"
You just nodded before guiding his lips up to yours, and you came as you moaned loudly against his mouth. "Bradley." You raked your fingers up into his hair and kissed him. He was hard through his jeans, and when he withdrew his fingers, you felt them trail up your body.
"You're so pretty," he whispered, pulling your top over your head. "You'll look even better in my bed."
You wanted him to fuck you here first, but you'd be lying if you said you hadn't already thought about his place and what he might make you for breakfast. And as you sat straddled his hips in nothing but your skirt up around your waist and your sneakers on your feet, you felt adored by him. He was kissing a trail down between your breasts and rubbing his thumbs along your thighs.
"Bradley," you whined, rubbing your pussy against his jeans, already feeling a little wrung out. "Please."
The street light at the corner reflected in his eyes, letting you know he was looking at your face as he raised his hips and unzipped his jeans. And a few seconds later, they were down around his knees along with his underwear. Your lips met his as you felt the velvety soft tip of his cock resting against your core. As you kissed him and tugged on his hair, he throbbed for you. And suddenly you weren't in such a hurry either.
"Let me make you feel good," he whispered, and as you slid down around him, Bradley guided you with his hands on your hips. "You're so wet, my god."
"You always make me wet, even when you just talk to me at the bar," you admitted softly, your voice shaking as he kept pushing deeper inside you. "Oh. You're huge."
"Am I hurting you?" he asked, pausing where he was. But you just shook your head and rolled your hips slowly until he was completely inside you. He kissed you softly as you gasped and got used to him. "I don't wanna hurt this sweet pussy," he whispered next to your ear. "Perfect."
And then he brushed his knuckles along your clit and leaned his head back, watching as you rode him. "Take it off," you gasped, and he let you push his shirt down his arms and pull his tank over his head. You explored his broad chest with your hands and his shoulders with your lips. He was warm and rough and oh so sweet. His chest hairs brushed against your nipples as he guided your hips with his hands.
"Bradley?"
"Hmm?"
You wrapped your hands around his neck and kissed his lips. "Fuck. So good." He felt delicious, his big hands everywhere, sliding up to span your back and keep you close. He fucked you in long, fluid movements that just got faster and faster. His pubes were coarse against your clit. His little grunts and words of praise kept you going as you started squeezing around his cock.
"Don't stop, Babydoll," he coaxed as you got closer. When his lips met your sweat slick chest again, and he pulled your nipple between his teeth, you came for him.
"Oh!"
As your legs shook and your fingers went loose in his hair, Bradley fucked up into you until you were screaming his name.
"Good girl," he grunted, and suddenly you were on your back along the seat with your legs spread wide. He fucked you with long, hard strokes that made your tits bounce and prolonged your orgasm. His lips were everywhere, and you were surrounded by his voice in the dark, holding onto his biceps as he came inside you.
You scrambled to get your mouth on his as you both caught your breath together, and as your heartbeat started to return to normal, you pressed a dozen soft kisses to his lips, one after the next. "Will you take me home?"
His hands stilled on your thigh and your neck. "Yeah," he said with a tone of sadness. "I can drop you off at home."
When he started pulling away without so much as another kiss, you reached for him, keeping him firmly inside you. "No, no. Take me home with you, Bradley."
"My place?" His voice was still soft, but it sounded hopeful now.
"Of course," you reassured him, and his kisses returned. "I'll spend the whole morning tomorrow making you Bloody Marys with little heart shaped garnishes."
He smiled against your lips before he said, "I'd like that, Babydoll."
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The Hard Deck was pretty busy the following evening, and you were so physically exhausted from your night with Bradley, you could barely keep up. The Sunday crowd was keeping you on your toes, and Jasmine wouldn't stop asking you how your night ended.
"Did you go home with him? You did. I can tell," she said as you just shrugged at all of her questions. "Are you going to see him again? Come on! Tell me!"
When you saw movement on the other side of the bar top, Jasmine's eyes went wide. "Hey, babydoll." The deep rumble of his voice was so distinct, you didn't need to look at him to know it was Bradley. He had whispered dirty, sweet things in your ears all night and all morning. You knew the sound of his voice by heart now.
When your eyes met his, you reached for a pint glass and filled it with his favorite beer. "Hey, Bradley. Wanna start a tab?" you asked with a soft smile.
You giggled as he reached for your hand and tugged you closer. Then he leaned across the bar and kissed you as his nose brushed against yours. "For you? Always. And don't close the tab until your shift ends."
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No more test drives. I'm sure she's already considering her options to make him hers permanently. Thanks @beyondthesefourwalls and @mak-32. Also, the pretty banner was made by Mak!
