Garrett Graham | #44
Blow Off Steam Universe (FigureSkater!Reader):
⛸️Blow Off Steam
⛸️Drop Dead (Blow Off Steam pt. 2)
⛸️Cigarette Smoke (Blow Off Steam pt. 3)
⛸️Social Media AU
⛸️Reader Moodboard
Kiss Me More Universe (Ballerina!Reader):
🩰Kiss Me More
🩰Room For One More? (Kiss Me More pt. 2)
🩰Jealousy, Jealousy
🩰Reader Moodboard
Other Works:
✨ Agora Hills (GG x HistoryMajor!Reader)
✨ Play Grown Up Games, Win Grown Up Prizes (GG x BostonBaby!Reader)
Dean Di Laurentis | #66
-> Currently writing
John Logan | #22
-> Currently writing
John Tucker | #46
-> Currently writing
Requests are open (prioritising Garrett Graham works) ✨ Don’t be a stranger
summary: in which y/n pulls away from garrett, unable to be intimate with him as the weight of tomorrow becomes impossible to ignore.
notes: hi! i hope you're all well! 🤍 this one really hurt to write..oh garrett 🥺
ꪆৎ
the night before the ncaa shoot is painfully ordinary.
garrett finishes practice just after six. by the time he knocks on your dorm room door, he looks exactly like he always does after training.
tired, hungry, and happy to see you.
“hi, baby.”
you open the door before he can knock a second time. “hi.”
he smiles immediately, the kind of smile that reaches his eyes, the kind that has always made somewhere inside your chest feel quietly safe.
he leans down to kiss you, you kiss him back.
“i brought dinner.”
he lifts the takeaway bag between you, eyebrows raising, eyes gleaming with excitement.
“bribery?”
“absolutely.”
“come in.”
he slips off his shoes by the door without thinking twice, the action so familiar it feels instinctive.
your room smells faintly of vanilla from the candle allie lit earlier before disappearing to the hockey house. she'd tried her best to convince you to come with her, reminding you that tucker was making salmon for everyone.
but all afternoon, anxiety had sat quietly beneath your ribs, growing heavier each time tomorrow crossed your mind.
the thought of sitting in a room full of people, knowing every conversation would eventually drift back to the ncaa shoot, made your chest tighten.
you'd told allie to go without you. tonight, one person felt manageable.
a house full didn't.
garrett drops onto your bed with a dramatic groan. “i think jensen seriously hates us.”
“only on weekdays.”
“today is thursday.”
“exactly.”
you laugh quietly. he looks at you for a moment longer than necessary, a small smile lingering at the corners of his mouth.
"what?" you ask.
"nothing."
he pats the space beside him. "c'mere."
you sit. he immediately reaches for you, gently pulling you sideways until you're tucked against his chest, your back resting against him. his chin settles lightly on top of your head.
the room fills with easy things. shared chips, stolen bites, garrett complaining about practice, you telling him about a tutorial that ran overtime.
it's comfortable, entirely familiar, the sort of evening you've had dozens of times before. eventually the containers are pushed aside, and garrett stretches out properly on your bed.
you curl beside him instinctively, your head settling against his shoulder as his fingers drift lazily through your hair. the television plays quietly in the background, neither of you paying it much attention.
the silence is comfortable, familiar.
the kind that only comes after years of knowing someone so well you no longer feel the need to fill every quiet moment.
eventually, you glance up at him. "big day tomorrow," you murmur, trying your best to sound supportive. regardless of who would be standing beside him, you knew this was a huge moment for garrett.
he sighs. “don't remind me.”
“camera shy?”
“i play hockey. he groans dramatically. "i don't stand in front of cameras pretending to smile naturally.”
you tip your head back to look at him properly. “you do smile naturally.”
“not when someone tells me to.”
"well…" your thumb brushes absentmindedly over the back of his hand. "just pretend they're not there then."
"that's your professional advice?"
"mhm."
"wow." he says, nodding once. "that's really groundbreaking, baby."
you burst into laughter at his words. garrett grins immediately, the corners of his eyes crinkling as he laughs with you.
there's a beat of silence.
his fingers continue moving slowly through your hair. “apparently they want interviews.”
“you'll be fine, you're a natural.”
“i hope so.” he pauses, as if to think for a moment. “still don't know why they picked me.”
you look up at him, as though the answer is obvious. “because you're one of, if not the best player in college hockey.”
garrett snorts. “did logan pay you to say that?”
“no.”
“jensen?”
“definitely not jensen.”
he laughs, the sound settling warmly through your chest. for a moment, neither of you say anything, until, almost absentmindedly, he adds, "it'll be interesting meeting him properly."
your stomach tightens, so suddenly that you almost miss the next thing he says. “we've only played against each other, i've never really had a proper conversation with him before.”
you nod, once, hoping that's enough. garrett notices the movement, “what?”
“nothing.”
“you made a face.”
“did i?”
“yeah.”
you force yourself to shrug. “just tired.”
he studies you, only for a second, before smiling softly. “long week hey.”
“very.”
“come here.”
you already are, but he means closer. he shifts onto his side until you're facing each other properly. his hand finds your cheek, his thumb brushing gently beneath your eye. “missed you this week.”
you smile. “you saw me yesterday.”
“too long.”
"you're so dramatic."
"i've been told."
you smile, rolling your eyes. he only smirks, one hand coming up to gently cup your jaw, his thumb brushing once across your cheek before he tips your face towards his.
"c'mere" he murmurs.
he kisses you. slowly, patiently, the way he always does. never hurried, never demanding, just enough that the rest of the world seems to disappear.
your hand slips instinctively into his hair as he lingers there for another moment, his forehead coming to rest against yours when he finally pulls away.
"i love you, y/n."
a smile tugs at your lips. "i love you too."
his hand moves, settling gently against your waist before slipping beneath the hem of your sweatshirt, warm fingertips splaying across your skin.
it's familiar, comfortable. the sort of touch you've leaned into countless times before.
normally, you melt against him without thinking. your kiss deepens, your fingers curl into his hair, and somewhere between another kiss, another laugh, the two of you end up tangled beneath the sheets together.
but tonight-
your body stiffens before your mind can catch up. only for a heartbeat, still, garrett notices immediately. he pulls back at once, his hand stilling where it rests against your side before sliding away completely.
"hey."
his voice is soft enough that it almost disappears beneath the noise of the television.
"you okay?"
you blink, you hadn't even realised you'd frozen. "yeah."
he searches your face, clearly not believing you. "are you sure?"
"mhm."
another small pause, his expression doesn't change. there's no frustration, no confusion, only quiet concern. "are you just not feeling it tonight?"
your throat tightens in response. he's making it so easy, so safe, and somehow, that only makes the guilt settle heavier in your chest.
tonight, when all garrett wanted was to be close to you, all you could think about was tomorrow, about tom.
tom wasn't even here, yet somehow, he was still getting to you. you hated that he'd managed to follow you here, into the safest part of your life, without even being in the room.
you lower your eyes, shame settling heavily in your chest. "i'm sorry."
"hey."
he shakes his head immediately, his thumb brushing lightly over your cheek. "you don't need to apologise, y/n."
"i just..."
the words refuse to come.
how do you explain that it has nothing to do with him?
that every time he kisses you tonight, your mind drifts elsewhere.
tomorrow.
tom.
garrett standing beside him, smiling, shaking his hand, being completely oblivious as to who he's talking to.
your stomach twists at the thought. "i'm just..." you swallow, settling for an excuse that barely scratches the surface, "really tired."
he nods immediately, without hesitation, without question. "okay."
there's no disappointment evident in his tone, no attempt to convince you otherwise, no teasing, no sigh. he simply leans forward, pressing a gentle kiss to your forehead. "that's all you had to say."
his hand slips completely from beneath your sweatshirt, reaching for the blanket instead. he tugs it higher around your shoulders before resting his hand lightly over the top of it, content to simply have you close.
"movie?" he asks.
you nod. "please."
he reaches for the remote, never mentioning it again, never making you feel guilty. halfway through the film, you fall asleep against his shoulder.
garrett glances down, smiling to himself, before pressing a gentle kiss into your hair. you're just exhausted, he thinks, feeling guilty for not reading the room sooner.
summary: in which the boys unknowingly praise y/n's ex-boyfriend, before garrett reveals he'll soon be spending a day filming ncaa media content with him.
notes: hi! get your tissues ready… we're diving into some angst. i hope you all enjoy the first of these 🤍 💌
ꪆৎ
sundays at the hockey house are rarely productive. by midday, every plan has been abandoned.
the television plays quietly in the background, some game nobody is paying proper attention to, while takeout containers cover half the coffee table.
grace is curled into one couch with her legs across logan’s lap, while sabrina and tucker argue from the floor over whether the movie they watched the night before was actually bad or whether tucker simply didn't understand it.
“i understood it” he insists.
“you asked me who the main character was forty minutes in, tuck.”
“there were too many men with the same haircut.”
“there were three men.”
“exactly.”
dean is stretched across the armchair with allie sitting sideways over his lap, eating fries from a carton balanced against his chest despite his repeated claim that they belong to him.
“you said you weren’t hungry” she reminds him.
“that was before you started eating my food.”
you barely notice any of it.
you're lying along the larger couch with garrett settled partly behind you, one arm wrapped around your waist, his chest warm against your back. your legs are tangled beneath a blanket someone dragged downstairs, his chin resting near your shoulder.
it's comfortable, quiet in the way only a full room can be quiet.
garrett’s thumb moves beneath the hem of your sweatshirt, brushing slowly over the skin at your side. not suggestive, barely conscious, just there.
you're halfway through reading an article for class when logan suddenly sits forward.
“wait.”
grace’s feet nearly slide from his lap. “what?”
logan points at the television. “did they just show highlights from the eastwood game?”
tucker looks up. “probably. they won last night.”
“no, but did you see the third-period goal?”
dean lifts his head. “the one from the top of the circle?”
“yeah.”
something inside you stills.
logan reaches for the remote, turning up the volume. the screen cuts back to the previous night’s highlights. players in dark uniforms spill across the ice, the commentary sharp with anticipation and excitement.
you know the colours before you see the number, you know the number before you see his face.
your thumb stops moving over your phone, the replay begins.
a clean pass across the blue line. the puck settles, then the shot comes hard and fast, the net moving before the goalie seems to understand what happened.
logan lets out a low whistle. “that’s fucking insane.”
“goalie had no chance” tucker says.
dean sits forward as the replay slows. “look where he releases it.”
the clip plays again.
you stop breathing for half a second. garrett feels it, his hand pausing against your waist.
on the screen, your ex-boyfriend turns towards the boards after scoring, teammates crowding around him. the camera catches his wide grin as he's pulled into the celebration.
you've seen that exact smile before.
outside your high school gym, through the windscreen of his car, across your kitchen table while your father joked that he was practically family already.
it used to make you feel chosen, later, it only made you feel stupid, incredibly, undeniably stupid.
“he barely had any space” logan says.
“he didn’t need it,” garrett replies behind you, his voice casual and thoughtful. “he gets the puck off too quickly.”
tucker nods. “goalie thinks he’s going high glove, then he changes the angle.”
“he does it all the time” garrett says. “defenders start closing too early.”
“then he passes through them" dean adds.
“exactly.”
the praise lands quietly.
garrett isn't exaggerating or trying to impress anyone. he simply means every word.
your body instinctively tightens before you can stop it. noticing, garrett’s arm shifts around your waist.
“you okay?” he murmurs, lips brushing your shoulder as he says it, absent-minded more than deliberate. the conversation continues around you as logan searches for another clip.
you force your shoulders to loosen. “yeah.”
garrett’s thumb brushes once over your side. “you sure?”
“mhm.”
you keep your eyes on your phone, refusing to look back at the television, at your ex.
garrett hums quietly, clearly unconvinced. a second later he reaches across the coffee table without moving away from you, stealing one of dean's fries.
dean points immediately, "oi."
"it's an emergency."
"what emergency?"
garrett drops the fry into your hand instead of eating it himself, "y/n forgot to eat."
"i've literally been sitting here."
"exactly."
you laugh before taking a bite. garrett doesn't mention the conversation again, yet continues to keep an eye on you.
logan finds another video. your ex carries the puck through the neutral zone, drawing two defenders before slipping a pass between them without looking. his winger catches it cleanly, before scoring.
dean whistles. “that pass is filthy.”
“he pulls both defenders towards him” tucker says.
“because they know they can’t give him space” garrett adds. “that’s what makes him dangerous. it isn’t just the shot itself.”
“he controls the whole shift” dean says.
“pretty much.”
“you’ve watched a lot of their tape” dean observes.
“jensen makes me.”
“that wasn’t a denial.”
garrett smiles faintly, answering dean easily, as though the answer is obvious. “he’s worth watching.”
the words go through you slowly.
he’s worth watching.
once, you had believed that too.
you spent entire winters following him from rink to rink, sitting in freezing bleachers with your hands hidden inside the sleeves of his jacket.
you watched the early mornings, the private coaching, summer training. you listened while he spoke about the nhl like it was less a dream and more an appointment he had to attend.
you had been proud of him, terribly, faithfully proud. until you found him tangled up in sheets, moaning your best friend's name.
“he’s probably going first round” logan says.
dean scoffs. “top ten.”
“he’ll play centre professionally” garrett says.
“even with his size?”
“he’s strong enough, and his defensive game is better than people realise.”
tucker checks his phone. “he’s above fifty-eight percent on faceoffs too.”
dean stares at him. “do you have his entire season memorised?”
“no.”
sabrina leans over, glancing at tucker's phone. “he's on his player profile.”
grace looks up, clearly bored with the conversation. “are any of you capable of discussing hockey without pretending you’re scouts?”
all four boys answer at once, in complete unison. “no.”
allie reaches across dean for another fry. “who exactly are we talking about?”
the name leaves logan’s mouth easily, you feel it like a hand closing around the back of your neck, suffocating you.
tom langford
allie hums in recognition. “is that the captain everyone online is obsessed with?”
“yes” dean says.
“he looks smug.”
logan points at her. “thank you allie!”
“you’ve never seen him play” dean says, turning his gaze onto her.
“i don’t need to. i have instincts.”
“terrible ones.”
“you’re dating me.”
“exactly.”
the room laughs. you try to join in, but the sound comes out thin.
beneath the blanket, garrett absentmindedly intertwines your fingers again. he doesn't even look at your hand when he does it, as though holding it is something as automatic as breathing.
the highlights end, but logan continues scrolling. “you know what’s worse?” he asks. “apparently he’s a really good captain too.”
garrett nods. “he is.”
you feel his chest move behind you.
dean turns. “you’ve heard that?”
“everyone has. he stays late with younger players, watches extra film, takes the blame publicly when they lose.”
“coach jensen likes him” tucker says.
“jensen respects him” garrett corrects.
“same thing from jensen.”
logan drops his phone onto his lap, before bringing his hands up to shield his eyes. “fuck sake. he's really making the rest of us look bad.”
garrett laughs. normally, you love the feeling of it against your back, yet today, it only twists strangely through your chest.
once, long before garrett knew you, you sat in bleachers and watched that same boy skate. you wore his number, waited after games in his jacket, knew which skate he tied first, what song he listened to before warm-ups.
you believed you understood him better than anyone, until you discovered someone else had been receiving the same messages. the same promises, maybe even sitting in the same passenger seat when you weren't there.
it was awful, really
dean looks at garrett, crossing his arms over his chest. “you’ll probably get matched against him if both of us make the frozen four.”
garrett shrugs. “probably.”
“golden boy against golden boy” logan says. “that’s the matchup everybody wants.”
something competitive sharpens in garrett’s expression. “it’d be a good game.”
dean scoffs. “boring answer.”
“you want me to start threatening him through the television?”
“a little.”
garrett laughs, before inhaling deeply behind you. “speaking of, jensen pulled me aside yesterday.”
dean turns, his eyebrows narrowing in confusion. “that sentence never ends well.”
“nah this time it's actually not bad. ncaa media wants to do some frozen four promotional stuff.”
logan sits up. “with you?”
“apparently. interviews, photos, some skills content.” garrett’s hand remains beneath yours. “they’re doing a captain campaign.”
you already know. your body knows before your mind catches up, your fingers tightening around his. garrett glances down at your joined hands, before looking back up, meeting the gaze of his friends. “they want the two of us together...”
"tom and i."
he says your ex's name, out loud. he says it here, in the hockey house. between his own easy, calm voice and the approving reactions of the people you love most, he unknowingly lets the one part of your past you've worked so hard to keep outside these walls slip inside.
for a moment, the room sounds very far away.
“that’s sick!” logan says.
dean gives a low whistle, “they know what they’re doing.”
“that’s going to be everywhere” tucker adds.
everywhere, it's going to be plastered everywhere. you won't be able to escape it, no matter how hard you try.
“they’ll probably make you compare shots" logan says.
“or do accuracy challenges” tucker adds.
something inside you folds in on itself.
speak up.
speak up.
speak up.
“when is it?” tucker asks.
“next week, i think. they’re still finalising it.”
“whole day?”
“sounds like it.”
logan leans back. “you’re going to come home best friends.”
garrett snorts, shaking his head, yet smiling. “doubt it.”
“why? you clearly admire him.”
“his hockey” garrett corrects.
“same thing to you.”
dean grins. “g’s going to ask for his autograph.”
garrett huffs. “alright, i’m leaving.”
“you can’t. you live here.”
you stare straight ahead as the conversation around you fades into background noise.
next week, garrett and him in the same room. talking, laughing, being photographed together.
your past and present standing side by side.
garrett shifts beneath you, clearly eager to hear your opinion. “what do you think, y/n?”
everyone looks over, you turn to meet his gaze.
garrett's expression is open. not excited exactly, because he never enjoys media obligations, but there is interest there. professional respect and the quiet satisfaction of being chosen because he earned it.
you force a smile, squeezing his hand gently in assurance, “sounds like a pretty big deal.”
garrett nudges you gently, attempting to downplay the opportunity being presented, “nah, probably just a lot of standing around.”
“with one of the best players in college hockey” logan adds.
garrett glances at him. “you done?”
“not remotely.”
the conversation moves on to the kind of questions they might ask.
“best hands” dean says.
“tom” tucker answers.
“fuck you” garrett mutters.
“best defensive game.”
“garrett.”
“hardest shot.”
“garrett.”
“best release.”
there's a pause before dean points at the television, “tom.”
garrett exhales through his nose. “i regret ever telling you guys.”
“best overall player” logan says.
“garrett” you answer automatically, the words falling from your mouth before you're even able to stop them. the room goes quiet for half a second.
garrett looks down at you, surprised by how quickly you'd answered.
not because you've compared them, but because you need it to be true. if there was one thing to be certain of, it's that garrett is everything your ex never was, never could be.
garrett's expression softens, before he presses a delicate kiss to your temple, “thank you, baby."
you grab your phone, shifting your gaze onto it before he can see too much on your face.
“you really okay?”
you nod quickly, his eyes remain on you.
“you feel tense, y/n.”
“i’m just tired.”
“you weren’t tired ten minutes ago.”
you swallow. “headache, maybe.”
his thumb traces another slow circle beneath your sweatshirt. not fidgeting, soothing, almost as though he's trying to settle something he can't quite identify.
he's careful not to put you on the spot. “want to go upstairs?”
the offer is soft, private. part of you wants to say yes, to let him take you away from the name being passed around the room as though it means nothing. to curl into his bed and tell him the truth while there is still time.
garrett, that’s him.
my ex.
the one who cheated.
the one who made me feel impossible to love.
you imagine the change in garrett’s features, the promotional shoot disappearing, the boys never speaking about your ex the same way again.
the questions, the anger.
you shake your head. “no. i’m all good, i promise.”
garrett doesn't believe you, you can tell.
but he knows the difference between avoidance and a boundary, even when you're not brave enough to name which one this is, so he doesn't push. he only adjusts the blanket higher over your legs, pressing a kiss behind your ear. “tell me if it gets worse.”
“i will.”
another lie, small enough that you can pretend it doesn't count.
across the room, dean is still talking. “you need to ask him about that shot.”
“i already know how he does it” garrett replies.
logan points at the television. “then stop him.”
“that’s the plan.”
tucker leans back against the couch. “honestly, if anyone in college hockey can shut him down, it’s probably you.”
“probably?” garrett repeats.
“definitely” dean corrects.
logan grins. “that matchup is going to be insane.”
before reaching for the remote, garrett ducks his head slightly. "do you want a tea or anything?"
you blink. "what?"
"you said you had a headache."
your chest tightens in warmth, admiration. "i'm okay."
he studies you for another second before nodding once, "alright."
grabbing the remote, garrett rewinds the highlight before pressing play again.
the shot flashes across the television once more. the room falls back into analysis. release point, angle, timing, tom's passing, tom's edge work, tom's captaincy, tom's draft prospects.
the boys keep talking, not carelessly or cruelly, but with the uncomplicated admiration athletes have for talent that cannot be denied.
you hear every word. elite, smartest player on the ice, future nhl captain, the kind of player every coach wants.
garrett’s hand remains beneath yours the entire time. warm, steady, safe.
you tell yourself that this is enough.
this is only hockey, the shoot is only a day, your ex is nothing but a name from somewhere you no longer belong.
when the replay ends and his face fills the screen again, smiling beneath the arena lights, you feel garrett’s thumb move slowly across your skin.
he's still watching you, quietly, carefully, already noticing the first crack in a story you have not yet told him.
pairing – garrett graham x nursing student!reader
summary – garrett finds out his girlfriend got his number tattooed on her body and reacts about as calmly as anyone could expect.
warnings – 18+, explicit smut, oral sex, fingering, rough sex, doggy style, spanking, praise kink, dirty talk, tattoo reveal.
notes from me – ANYWAAYYYYYYY!!!!!! as promised, yeah sorry i had to do it. this comes at the most 'recent' end of their timeline!! so i'll be going back and filling in gaps now, i was just desperate to post this!
word count – 6.9k
navigation – masterlist |
The second-skin comes off on Tuesday morning in the shower, which is less ceremonial than the tattoo probably deserves. She peels it carefully from one corner beneath warm water, watching the clear film lift away from her lower back in the fogged mirror with the awkward concentration of somebody trying to inspect a body part positioned almost specifically to prevent self-assessment.
The little forty-four underneath is darker than it will be once it settles completely, the skin around it faintly pink and shiny, but the numbers are clean. No leaking. No angry redness. No warmth beyond what she would expect from a healing tattoo and a hot shower.
She pats it dry with a clean towel, applies a thin smear of unscented moisturiser and spends the next two days pretending she hasn’t developed a habit of turning sideways every time she passes a mirror.
Garrett still doesn’t know. That part becomes funnier with time.
He spends Wednesday night in the hockey-house kitchen complaining that she’s been suspiciously affectionate since the weekend, as though her sitting sideways across his lap is evidence of organised crime. He pulls her closer each time she tries to stand, mouth finding the side of her neck while Dean watches from across the island with the hollow expression of a man being punished for sins committed in a previous life.
“What’re you hiding?” Garrett murmurs against her skin.
“Nothing.”
“You said that too fast.”
“You ask stupid questions.”
His hand slides under the back of her sweatshirt, warm palm settling over the curve of her waist less than an inch above the tattoo. She goes still for one sharp second, then catches his wrist and drags his hand around to her stomach before his fingers can wander lower.
Garrett narrows his eyes. She kisses him before the investigation can advance.
By Friday, the secret has begun to feel hot, because it’s his. A tiny private mark resting beneath her clothes while Garrett walks beside her across campus with one hand hooked through the strap of her bag, completely unaware that forty-four is inked into her skin.
He complains about practice. She complains about an exam question that used the phrase most appropriate intervention despite three answers being clinically reasonable. His thumb finds the bare strip of her wrist where her sleeve has ridden up. All the while, his number is sitting just above the waistband of her jeans.
The thought stays with her when he arrives at her dorm that night.
Her roommate has gone to visit her parents for the weekend, and Garrett appears just after nine in grey sweats and a black hoodie and cheeks pink from the cold. He has a backpack over one shoulder, though she doubts it contains a single item remotely connected to studying. The last time he brought a textbook to her room, it remained unopened beneath her desk for three days while Garrett insisted proximity counted as academic effort.
“Hi, baby,” he says when she opens the door.
She barely gets the lock turned before his hands are on her. It begins with one kiss, which is how most of their poor decisions begin now. Garrett catches her waist and pulls her into him with the deep, satisfied exhale of someone who’s spent the whole walk across campus anticipating exactly this.
His mouth is cold from outside and warm beneath it, lips moving over hers slowly while she hooks both hands into the front of his hoodie and walks him backward toward the bed.
“You missed me,” he murmurs.
“I saw you this morning.”
“Exactly.”
“You slept in my bed.”
He shakes his head. “Not long enough.”
The backs of his knees hit the mattress. Garrett sits and draws her down with him before she can pretend she intended anything else, her legs opening around his hips as she settles over his lap.
The first press of him beneath her is enough to strip whatever remained of the evening’s patience. He’s already half hard through the soft fabric of his sweats, heat and shape caught between them when she rolls her hips forward.
Garrett’s head tips back slightly. The smile that moves across his mouth is slow and knowing, his hands spreading over her hips beneath the oversized hoodie she’s stolen from him so many times it’s practically transferred ownership.
“There she is,” he murmurs.
She catches his curls at the back of his head and brings his mouth to hers before he can become any more pleased with himself. The kiss turns wet and deep almost immediately, Garrett’s tongue sliding over hers while she grinds down again, a little harder, friction catching warm between her thighs through the thin cotton of her sleep shorts and underwear.
He groans against her mouth. His fingers tighten. “Fuck, baby.”
Her hoodie is too warm suddenly. The dorm room is too small, too dim, the little lamp beside her bed throwing everything into soft amber while rain ticks faintly against the window. Garrett’s shoulders fill the space beneath her hands. His thighs flex under hers every time she moves, and she can feel him becoming fully hard beneath her, thick and insistent and still separated from her by several deeply unnecessary layers of clothing.
He kisses across the corner of her mouth, along her jaw, down the side of her neck with the greedy familiarity of someone returning to a favourite argument. His teeth scrape lightly beneath her ear.
She inhales and tightens her fingers in his hair. “Garrett.”
“Mm?”
“That feels good,” she breathes.
“I know.” His mouth drags lower. “You’re humping me like you’re trying to start a fire.”
She rolls her hips again because Garrett’s smugness has always been more effective encouragement than he understands. His hands guide the movement, pulling her forward over the hard line of him and then back, slower on the return so the pressure catches exactly where her body has already become embarrassingly sensitive.
Her next breath breaks against his cheek. Garrett smiles into her throat. “Yeah?”
“Don’t.”
“Wasn’t saying anything.”
She tugs hard enough on his curls to lift his mouth back to hers. Garrett laughs into the kiss, low and rough, then grips her beneath the thighs and stands. The movement steals a startled sound from her. Her legs tighten around his waist on instinct, arms locking behind his neck while Garrett takes one step, turns and lowers her onto the mattress. The bed gives beneath their combined weight, springs creaking a small complaint that neither of them acknowledges.
He comes down over her immediately. Their mouths meet badly at first, teeth knocking, her laugh caught between them while Garrett braces one hand beside her head and uses the other to drag her higher beneath him. Then the angle settles and everything goes hot again. His body fits heavily between her thighs, hips pressing down until she can feel the full hard length of him through his sweats.
She arches into it. Garrett’s breath catches. “Jesus.”
His hoodie becomes an obstacle. He sits back just long enough to grab the hem and strip it over his head, hair coming up with it in a dark, disordered mess. The shirt underneath follows, both pieces dropped somewhere near the foot of the bed while she pushes herself onto her elbows to watch.
Garrett catches her looking. His grin flashes. “See something you like?”
“Not especially,” she grins.
“Liar.”
He climbs back over her before she can improve the insult, one hand sliding beneath her hoodie and over her stomach. His palm is hot against her skin, callused fingers spreading over her ribs while he kisses her again and starts working the fabric upward.
She lifts her arms. The hoodie catches briefly around one wrist. Garrett frees it with a sharp tug and tosses it toward the chair, where it lands halfway over a clean pile of scrubs.
The air moves cool over her bare stomach and the little green lace bra she chose that morning with absolutely no ulterior motive. Garrett stills above her. His gaze drops. His eyes travel slowly over the lace, the soft rise of her breasts above the cups, the way her nipples have tightened beneath the fabric from cold air and attention.
“Fuck,” he says.
Her face warms. “You’ve seen this bra.”
“Don’t remember.”
She tilts her head. “You took it off with your teeth.”
“Must’ve been distracted.”
He bends before she can answer, mouth closing over one breast through the lace. Her head drops back. The thin fabric turns damp and warm under his tongue as he mouths her through it, one hand slipping beneath the other breast to lift it while his thumb presses over the sensitive peak. He sucks harder. Pleasure catches bright and immediate low in her stomach, dragging a helpless sound from her throat.
Garrett hums against her, he likes this part too much. Seeing the change in her breathing. Feeling her thighs shift more restlessly around his hips. Learning which pressure makes her voice climb and then repeating it with the focused persistence he brings to anything he has decided matters.
“You’re so fucking pretty,” he murmurs, mouth moving across the centre of her chest. “Know what you looked like all week?”
She swallows. “What?”
“Like you were thinking about me.”
“I was doing other things.”
“Mm.” He slips one finger beneath the edge of the bra and drags it slowly along the skin there. “Didn’t say you weren’t.”
His mouth finds the other breast. One hand reaches behind her, and the clasp opens with the efficient little flick he’s far too proud of having mastered. Garrett pulls the straps down her arms, drops the bra beside them and immediately puts his mouth back on her.
His lips closing around one nipple while his hand covers the other, squeezing and rolling it between two fingers until her whole body pulls tight beneath him. She grabs at his curls. “Oh, fuck.”
Garrett looks up at her without lifting his mouth, dark eyes warm and wicked beneath the hair falling over his forehead. He gives one slow suck, then releases her with a wet little sound. “Sensitive tonight.”
“It’s been days,” she whines.
“Four.”
“That’s days.”
“My poor baby.” His voice drops into false sympathy while his thumb circles the damp nipple he has left behind. “Been walking around all needy because her boyfriend had practice?”
“I’ve had exams.”
“Those are over.”
“Exactly.”
His grin presses against the skin beneath her breast. “So now you’re mine.”
The words send a hot, liquid pull through the centre of her body.
Garrett feels the way she shifts against him. His hand slides down her stomach, fingers hooking into the waistband of her shorts. “These off?”
She lifts her hips. He drags the shorts and underwear down together, impatient once they catch around her thighs, his mouth following the movement over her stomach and hip. The clothing disappears over one ankle and lands somewhere beyond the bed.
Garrett spreads her knees. The air touches her first. Then his eyes, and his face changes.
There’s something shamelessly gratifying about Garrett looking at her like this, the same boy who can stand beneath arena lights in front of thousands of people without blinking now visibly losing the thread of his own breathing because she is naked on a dorm bed. He presses one palm against the inside of her thigh and opens her wider. “Baby.”
She covers her face with one arm. “Don’t make it weird.”
“Make what weird?” His thumb skims along the crease where her thigh meets her body, close enough that her hips lift toward it. “How wet you are?”
Her entire face heats behind her arm.
Garrett laughs softly, then kisses the inside of her knee. “That’s not weird. That’s hot.”
“Garrett.”
“Been like this since I got here?”
She lowers her arm just enough to glare at him.
His mouth curves. “Longer?”
“Come here,” she groans.
“I am here.”
“Higher.”
“No.” He presses another kiss farther up her thigh, then another, slow enough to make every inch between his mouth and where she needs it feel deliberate. “Like it down here.”
She knows that. Everyone in a three-mile radius may know that.
Garrett Graham treats getting his mouth between her thighs less like foreplay and more like a personal calling. He’s arrived late to parties because he refused to stop. He’s missed the beginning of a movie, let Tucker’s dinner go cold and once remained there long enough that she had to pull him up by the hair and remind him she possessed other body parts.
Now he settles onto his stomach like this is where he intended to spend the evening, one arm hooking firmly around her thigh while the other hand spreads her open.
His first lick is slow. It moves from low to high with the flat of his tongue, collecting the wetness already gathered there before pressing deliberately over her clit. Her hips lift from the mattress. Garrett keeps her there with his forearm and does it again.
“Fuck,” she breathes.
His mouth closes over her. There’s nothing tentative about the way Garrett eats her out. He licks like he’s hungry and has never been embarrassed by appetite, tongue circling and flattening and flicking until her legs are tense around his shoulders and the fitted sheet has begun to twist beneath her hands. He kisses her between strokes, wet open-mouthed presses that feel obscene in the quiet room, then drags his tongue lower and pushes it inside her.
Her breath punches out. Garrett groans into her. The sound vibrates through her body, low and rough, while he fucks his tongue into her with one hand still holding her open. She reaches down blindly, finds his curls and pulls, to keep him exactly there.
He understands. His fingers tighten around her thigh. “Missed this,” he murmurs against her, the words broken by another slow lick.
“You saw me yesterday.”
“Didn’t do this yesterday.”
His mouth closes over her clit again before she can argue, sucking with enough pressure to make her legs jump. She gasps his name. Garrett answers by pressing two fingers against her entrance.
He pushes one in first, slow only because her body is already clenching around the intrusion. The second follows quickly, stretching her with the familiar pressure that makes her thighs fall wider even as the rest of her pulls tight.
His fingers curl. Pleasure strikes deep and sharp, the angle exact enough that her back arches from the mattress.
“There,” Garrett murmurs.
She makes a sound that has no language left in it. His fingers begin moving properly, pumping into her while his mouth stays fixed on her clit, the rhythm deliberately uneven at first as he listens to her breathing and watches the twitch of her stomach. Then he finds it. The pace that makes her hips start chasing him, makes her fingers clench in his hair and her other hand grab uselessly at the pillow beside her head.
The room has narrowed to wet heat, the sound of Garrett’s mouth and the steady drag of his fingers and rain brushing softly at the window like the whole campus has agreed to look away.
“Oh my God,” she whimpers. “Baby, I’m–”
Garrett moans against her, his fingers curling harder. He knows. The fact that he knows makes it worse. She comes with her thighs clamping around his head and his name breaking high out of her throat. Pleasure rolls through her in hard, pulsing waves, stomach tightening beneath the drag of his forearm while Garrett keeps licking her through it, slower only when her body begins jerking away from the sensitivity.
By the time he lifts his mouth, she’s breathing like she’s run somewhere.
Garrett wipes the lower half of his face against the inside of her thigh with no dignity whatsoever and starts kissing his way back up her body. Her skin feels loose and over-warm beneath him, every place his mouth touches sparking faintly in the aftermath.
He kisses her stomach, between her breasts, the base of her throat. Then he comes over her and catches her mouth.
She tastes herself immediately. Garrett doesn’t ease her into it, tongue sliding between her lips while one hand wraps around the side of her neck, thumb resting beneath her jaw and fingers spread gently along her pulse.
The hold is firm without pressure. Familiar. Enough to keep her face angled exactly where he wants it while he kisses her slow and filthy, swallowing the little post-orgasm sound she makes when his hips settle between her thighs again.
He pulls back by half an inch. “Hi,” he murmurs.
Her mouth curves before she can stop it. Her body is still humming, muscles heavy against the mattress. “Hi.”
Garrett kisses her once more, quick this time, then brushes his nose over hers. “Roll over.”
His eyes are dark, cheeks flushed and mouth still wet from her. Whatever version of Garrett arrived smiling at her door has disappeared beneath something rougher and hungrier, the easy confidence sharpened now that he has her naked and loose beneath him.
She turns. The movement exposes the tattoo before she remembers it exists.
For the last twenty minutes, she’s been too occupied by Garrett’s mouth to think about anything except Garrett’s mouth. Now she settles onto her stomach, forearms folding near the headboard while the cool air brushes over her back.
Behind her, the mattress shifts. Garrett stands long enough to shove his sweats and boxers down, fabric dragging over his thighs before landing somewhere near the edge of the bed.
Then his hand slides over the back of her thigh. He lifts one knee onto the mattress, catches the pillow near her head and says, “Up a little, baby.”
She raises her hips obediently. Garrett tucks the pillow beneath them, adjusts her with both hands and goes completely still. Every muscle in her body remembers at once.
Her eyes widen into the pillow. “Baby–”
Garrett’s hands close over her hips before she can turn. Firm enough that the message is immediate. Stay.
She swallows. The room is silent behind her.
Garrett’s thumbs rest on either side of her lower back, just beneath the small square of skin where the tattoo sits. She can feel him looking at it. The attention is almost physical, a line of heat dragging across the freshly settled numbers.
“Fuuuck,” he says eventually.
The word leaves him slowly, low enough to move through the mattress. She tries to glance back over one shoulder. His grip stops her from twisting too far.
“Is that real?”
The disbelief in his voice makes her want to laugh, though her stomach has gone tight beneath the pillow. “Mhm.”
“Is that…” He trails off. His thumb moves closer, hovering beside the tattoo without touching the healing skin. “That’s forty-four.”
She presses her face into her forearm. “Yeah.”
“When?”
“The other night.”
“What other night?”
“The girls’ night.” She bites her lip. “When we went out to the bar.”
Garrett says nothing. The silence stretches long enough that the heat in her body begins rearranging itself around nerves. She had imagined Garrett shocked. She had imagined him smug, turned on, maybe insufferable enough that she would have to threaten to remove his number with a vegetable peeler.
She hadn’t imagined silence.
She pushes herself onto one elbow. “Baby, are you… are you mad?”
“Mad?” His hands tighten and release against her hips. “I mean– shit. It’s…” He breathes out hard through his nose. “Baby, that’s a tattoo.”
“Yes.”
“That shit’s permanent.”
“I know how tattoos work,” she breathes.
“I’m just saying.” He sounds dazed. “You put my number on you.”
She turns her face enough that she can see part of him over her shoulder: broad chest, flushed skin, curls fallen over his forehead, eyes fixed helplessly on the tiny forty-four as though it's altered the known structure of the universe.
“Well,” she says, and the laugh caught in her voice makes it softer than she intended. “I love you.”
Garrett’s gaze lifts to her face.
She shrugs carefully beneath his hands. “And I think it’s hot.”
His mouth opens. Closes. Then his hand slides over her ass. The touch is slow, almost absent at first, his palm following the curve of one cheek while he continues staring at the tattoo. His thumb presses into the soft flesh. His fingers spread wider.
“Hot,” he repeats.
“Mhm.”
“You think this is hot.”
“I did when I got it,” she nods.
Garrett bends. His mouth lands on the curve of her ass, one open kiss followed by another. She gasps softly when his teeth catch the lower edge of one cheek, biting just enough to sting before his tongue smooths over the mark.
“Garrett.”
He kisses higher, across the small of her back, careful when he reaches the tattoo. His mouth stops just beneath it, breath warm over the healing skin without touching.
“No liquids on this yet, right?” he asks, voice rough.
A giggle slips out of her before she can stop it. “Not yet.”
Garrett closes his eyes. She feels the exhale against her lower back. “Fuck.”
His hands move suddenly. One catches beneath her hip and pulls her higher over the pillow. The other spreads firmly between her shoulder blades, pressing her chest down as Garrett shifts closer behind her.
She feels the blunt heat of him at her entrance. “Baby–”
He pushes in. The first thrust is controlled only in the technical sense that Garrett doesn’t injure either of them. He fills her in one hard, steady drive, stretching her around him so quickly that her mouth falls open and the sound tears out before she can soften it.
“Oh, fuck, Garrett.” His fingers dig into her hip. “Holy shit.”
He withdraws nearly to the tip and drives back into her. The force sends her forward against the pillow, breasts dragging over the sheets while pleasure catches deep and hot through her body. She reaches blindly for the headboard. Garrett catches her other hip and sets a rhythm before she has finished taking the second breath.
Hard. Fast. No adjustment period because her body is already wet and open from his mouth, already clenching around him with every rough stroke. The bed knocks softly against the wall. Her dorm mattress squeaks beneath them with increasing distress.
Garrett’s breathing turns ragged behind her. “This is…” Another thrust drives the sentence out of him. “Shit. This is the sexiest fucking thing I’ve ever seen.”
She whimpers into the pillow. His palm comes down against the side of her ass – a sharp, hot smack that makes her body jerk and tighten around him.
Garrett groans. “Fuck, baby.”
Her hands lose their grip on the headboard. One slips back toward him, finding nothing but his thigh for half a second before Garrett catches her wrist and pins it against the centre of her back. The position lifts her shoulder slightly and arches her deeper over the pillow. Garrett looks down at the curve of her ass. His cock disappearing into her. His number sitting neat and dark above all of it.
Something in him breaks. He fucks her harder. There’s no uncertainty left in the movement now. Garrett’s hips slam against her with enough force that the bed shifts beneath them, one hand holding her wrist while the other grips her hip and drags her back to meet every thrust.
The room fills with the wet slap of their bodies, her broken moans and the low, filthy things Garrett keeps saying every time the sight of the tattoo seems to hit him again.
“My fucking number.” She nods into the pillow, though he cannot see it. “On this ass.” His hand tightens around her hip. “Jesus Christ. You’re insane.”
The laugh that tries to leave her turns into a cry when he changes the angle, lifting her slightly higher and driving in deeper. “Oh God!”
“That it?” Garrett’s voice is rough and breathless now, all the usual smug control fraying at the edges. “Right there?”
“Yes.” She twists her pinned hand beneath his palm. “Baby, yes.”
He gives it to her again. Same angle, harder. Her whole body pulls tight. The pleasure is building too quickly, dragged out of the soft aftershocks of the first orgasm and sharpened by every deep stroke. Her thighs have begun to shake against the mattress, knees slipping wider while Garrett keeps her exactly where he wants her.
“Look at you,” he murmurs. “Pretty girl can’t even hold herself up.”
She presses her forehead harder into the pillow, voice breaking. “You’re fucking me too hard.”
“You want me to stop?”
She shakes her head so fast her cheek drags against the pillowcase.
Garrett’s hand leaves her wrist only so he can reach around and catch her jaw, turning her face enough that he can see it over her shoulder. “Use your words.”
“Don’t stop.” Her eyes meet his badly from the angle, vision already blurred at the edges. “Please, baby. Fuck me.”
His expression goes wrecked. “Good girl.”
He pushes her hand back to the mattress and drives into her hard enough that the next sound comes out of her as a sob. The orgasm hits before she has time to announce it. Her body clamps around him, hard pulsing contractions that make Garrett swear and lose the rhythm for one brutal second. Then he keeps going, fucking her through it while her legs tremble and her fingers claw at the sheets.
“Garrett,” she cries.
“I know.” His hand spreads over the side of her ass, holding her open. “I know, baby. Give it to me.”
She comes apart around him, hips jerking beneath his grip. Pleasure rolls through her so hard that her ears ring faintly, body suspended in the bright, breathless place where everything hurts in exactly the right way.
Garrett doesn’t stop. He slows for perhaps two strokes, just enough to let her breathe, then pulls her hips higher again.
“Baby,” she gasps, oversensitive and loose beneath him.
His palm slides gently along her spine, avoiding the tattoo, while his hips continue moving. “You good?”
“Yes.”
“Still want me?”
“Yes,” she breathes, the answer comes without hesitation.
Garrett bends and kisses between her shoulder blades. “Then take it.”
His pace builds again. The third climb is different. Messier. Her body is already shaken open, every nerve sparking too close to the surface while Garrett keeps driving into her with the relentless focus of somebody who has discovered a new reason to lose his mind and intends to study it thoroughly.
He reaches beneath her, a two fingers find her clit. She squeals.
Garrett laughs once, breathless and filthy against her shoulder. “There she is.”
“I can’t,” she whines.
“Yeah, you can.”
His fingers circle faster while his hips maintain the same punishing rhythm. She tries to close her legs, but Garrett’s knees are between hers, keeping her open. The pressure builds with nowhere to go, every thrust feeding it higher while his number burns invisibly at the base of her spine under his fixed attention.
“My girl,” Garrett says. “Look so fucking good with my number on you.”
She nods helplessly.
“Whose good girl, huh?”
Her mouth opens. Nothing useful comes out. Garrett’s fingers slow. The loss is immediate. She whines and pushes back against him.
He catches her hip. “Asked you something.”
“I am,” she gasps.
“Yeah?”
“I’m your good girl.”
The words hit him like contact. Garrett groans and drives into her, his fingers returning to the exact pressure she needs. “That’s right.”
Her third orgasm catches at the edge for one impossible second, body stretched between too much and not enough. Then Garrett’s thumb presses harder.
She comes with a sharp little cry that turns into a squeal halfway through, legs shaking so violently the mattress trembles beneath her. Her arms give out completely. Garrett catches her by the waist before she collapses awkwardly, holding her up while he keeps moving through the contractions with short, desperate strokes.
“Fuck.” His forehead drops between her shoulder blades. “Fuck, baby.”
She’s barely inside her own body now. Everything feels warm, loose and distant, Garrett’s hands the only clear edges left. He slows. His breathing is rough against her skin. His cock is still hard inside her, every small movement enough to make her twitch.
She swallows, trying to rebuild language. “Lemme…”
Garrett stills. “What?”
She turns her head toward him, cheek against the sheet. “Want you to finish… in my mouth.”
The words come soft and dazed. She tries to roll. Her body responds in pieces, thighs trembling beneath her and arms gone soft enough that Garrett takes over almost immediately, pulling out with a low, wrecked groan before catching her hip and turning her carefully onto her back.
He snatches the pillow away before it can drag across the tender skin at her lower spine, tosses it somewhere toward the wall and hooks both hands beneath her arms to draw her upright.
For a second, she only sits there between his knees, naked and thoroughly ruined, hair tangled around her flushed face and lips parted around breaths that still haven’t found a sensible rhythm.
Her thighs keep giving tiny, involuntary tremors against his, the room blurred pleasantly at the edges while Garrett kneels in front of her with his chest heaving and his cock hard, wet and flushed between them.
He looks at her like she’s done something genuinely dangerous. The tattoo. His number sitting permanently above her ass, still hidden from this angle and branded into the centre of his brain now that he knows it exists.
His hand comes to her face, thumb dragging slowly over her swollen bottom lip. “Look at you.”
She turns her mouth into his palm and kisses it, then reaches for him. Garrett’s breath catches when her fingers wrap around his cock. He’s slick from her and from himself, hot and heavy against her palm, and the first slow stroke makes the muscle jump visibly beneath his stomach.
“Baby,” he groans.
She looks up at him through lashes still damp from everything he has already done to her. Her body feels boneless, loose and warm enough that even lifting her chin requires concentration, but wanting him is simple. Wanting to give something back after he has spent the last hour pulling pleasure out of her until she could barely remember her own name feels simpler still.
She loves him. Stupidly. Completely. Enough to put his number into her skin and kneel there afterward with her legs shaking, wanting to watch his face when she makes him lose whatever control he has left.
Garrett cups the back of her head. His fingers sink into the tangled hair there, holding without directing her, his thumb moving once near the base of her skull. “You don’t have to, baby.”
“I want to.” The answer comes quiet and a little hoarse.
Something in his face shifts. His jaw tightens, eyes dropping briefly to her mouth before finding hers again. “Yeah?”
She nods and leans forward. The first drag of her tongue along the underside of him tears a rough sound from Garrett’s chest. She feels it more than hears it, low and helpless above her while she kisses the tip, lips closing softly around him before taking him into her mouth.
Garrett’s head falls back. “Fuck.”
His hand tightens in her hair as she works him deeper, tongue flattened beneath the hot weight of him while her fingers curl around the base. She’s sloppy from exhaustion and want, mouth already wet, movements slower than they usually are because her whole body is still recovering from him.
Garrett seems to like that more. The soft mess of it. The way she has to pause for breath with her lips still brushing him. The way she looks up at him like there’s nowhere else in the world she has any interest in being.
“That’s my girl,” he breathes. “Fuck, you’re so good to me.”
The praise moves warmly through her, settling somewhere lower than the soreness and higher than her ribs. She takes him again, deeper this time, cheeks hollowing as her hand follows the rhythm her mouth sets. Garrett looks down, and his expression breaks open.
She can see the tattoo still living behind his eyes, the disbelief of it layered into every filthy, affected look he gives her. His girlfriend kneeling between his thighs with his cock in her mouth and his number newly inked above her ass. The thought appears to have stripped away the final useful part of his brain.
“Jesus Christ,” he says, voice catching when she swirls her tongue around the head. “You put my number on your fucking body and now you’re looking at me like that.”
She hums around him. Garrett’s stomach jerks. His hips push forward on instinct, not enough to take over, only enough to slide him deeper across her tongue. Her eyes water faintly. She keeps looking up at him through the blur, one hand braced against his thigh and the other stroking what she cannot fit.
His thumb brushes gently beneath one of her eyes, catching the dampness there. “So fucking pretty.”
Her thighs tighten beneath her. She takes him again, eager despite how tired she is, mouth moving wetly over him while Garrett praises every little thing she does as though he cannot stop the words now that they have started.
“Good girl. Just like that.” She sucks harder. “Fuck, baby, your mouth.” Her nails catch lightly against his thigh. “Love when you look at me.”
She does. She watches every part of it: the tension sharpening his jaw, the rise and fall of his chest, the way his curls cling slightly at his temples, the hard flex of his stomach each time she takes him deep enough to make his breathing fail.
Garrett’s fingers spread more securely over the back of her head. “You know how fucking crazy you make me?”
She pulls back just far enough to breathe, her hand continuing its slow movement over him. A thin line of saliva connects her bottom lip to the flushed head before breaking, and Garrett watches it disappear with an expression bordering on pain.
She kisses him there once. “How crazy?”
He gives a breathless laugh that contains no real humour. “You tattooed forty-four above your ass.”
“Mhm.”
“Then let me fuck you until your legs stopped working.”
She smiles, dazed and soft. “They still work.”
“Barely.”
His thumb passes over her cheek. She turns and kisses it, then takes him into her mouth again before he can say anything else. Garrett groans her name.
The sound makes her try harder, because she loves hearing him come apart for her. Loves that Garrett, who carries entire games on his shoulders and makes confidence look effortless, cannot hide a single thing when her mouth is on him. Every rough breath belongs to her. Every flex of his hand in her hair. Every broken piece of praise dragged out of him while she strokes and sucks and watches him lose control.
“That’s it,” he murmurs. “Fuck, baby. Don’t stop.”
She doesn’t. Her hand slides lower, fingers tightening around the base as she takes him deeply enough that her throat works around him. Garrett’s hips jerk once. His free hand braces hard against the wall beside her bed, forearm flexing while he tries to hold himself still.
“Gonna come,” he warns, voice wrecked.
She looks up at him and keeps moving. Garrett says her name again, rougher this time, but she only tightens her lips around him and strokes faster, wanting it. Wanting all of him. Wanting the moment his face finally loses every trace of control because of her.
His eyes drop to hers. That does it.
Garrett comes with a deep, broken groan, hips pushing forward once as his hand tightens helplessly in her hair. She takes him, swallowing around the first hot pulse while his whole body shudders above her.
“Good girl,” he breathes. “Fuck– such a good fucking girl.”
The praise turns even rougher as she keeps her mouth around him through every pulse, swallowing everything he gives her while his fingers stroke shakily through her hair. She doesn’t pull away until he has gone sensitive, easing him gently from between her lips before pressing one last kiss to the tip.
For several seconds, neither of them speaks. Garrett stands over her panting, one hand still cradling the back of her head while she kneels between his thighs with flushed cheeks, wet lips and the loose, pleased smile of someone who has been fucked far too thoroughly to experience shame.
His eyes move over her face. Then past her shoulder, toward the lower half of her body as though he can somehow see through her.
“Fuck,” he says again, apparently the only word left available to him. “Roll over. I need to see it again.”
She starts laughing. “Garrett.”
“Please.”
“You’ve seen it.”
“Not enough.”
Her legs are not especially reliable, so Garrett handles most of the repositioning. He lowers her carefully onto her stomach, makes sure the sheet beneath her is smooth and then shifts down the bed until his face is level with her lower back.
He doesn’t touch the tattoo itself. He only rests one hand across the top of her ass and stares at the little forty-four with the solemn concentration of somebody studying an artefact behind museum glass.
She folds her arms beneath her head. “You’re being weird,” she mumbles.
“I’m having a moment.”
“You’ve been having a moment for, like, an hour.”
“Yeah, because my girlfriend got my number tattooed above her ass.”
“Lower back.”
Garrett looks up. “Baby.”
She presses her smile into her forearm.
His thumb strokes the skin beside the tattoo. “You really did this.”
“I really did.”
“For me,” he murmurs.
He kisses one cheek, then the other, his mouth soft now, all the feral heat of ten minutes ago settling into something heavier. His chin rests briefly near her hip.
“You won’t regret it?” he asks.
The question is quiet enough that she turns her face toward him. Garrett’s still looking at the tattoo, but the thought behind his expression has moved farther than the bed. Farther than tonight. Permanent isn’t an easy word for him, no matter how hot the evidence looks above her underwear. Permanent has always carried too many promises made by people who didn’t know how to keep them.
“I might regret letting Paige choose the bar,” she says. “I might regret wearing jeans to get it done. I’m almost definitely going to regret whatever you tell Dean tomorrow.”
Garrett’s mouth twitches.
“But not the tattoo.” Her fingertips move gently along her own forearms. “Even if something changed one day– and I’m not saying it will– I’d remember how I felt when I got it. I was happy. I love you. You’re my favourite thing in my life right now.”
“Right now?” he asks, because he’s still Garrett.
She groans. “Don’t ruin it.”
His laugh presses warm against the side of her hip. Then he kisses the skin just below the tattoo again, careful, lingering there without touching the ink. “My girl,” he murmurs.
She closes her eyes. Garrett stays behind her for another minute, one hand moving lazily over her ass while he continues looking at the number like he expects it to disappear if he blinks incorrectly.
Then he says, “Can I take a picture?”
Her eyes open. “Absolutely not.”
“For me.”
“No.”
“Baby,” he argues.
“You’ll show the boys.”
Garrett starts laughing, forehead dropping against her lower back. She can feel the effort he makes to avoid the tattoo.
“Fine,” he says. “No picture.”
“Thank you.”
“I’m memorising it.”
“You’ve been staring for ten minutes,” she giggles.
“Need another ten.”
She sighs into the pillow, but her body goes softer beneath his hand. Garrett kisses her hip once more, then crawls back up the bed and folds himself around her without asking her to move again. His chest settles against her back, one arm sliding beneath the pillow and the other wrapping around her waist.
His mouth finds the back of her neck. “You’re the sexiest person alive,” he says.
“Mm.”
“Objectively.”
“Garrett.”
“And fucking insane.”
She smiles into the pillow. “Yeah, well, you match my freak.”
His arm tightens around her. “Yeah,” he murmurs, laughter warm against her skin. “Definitely.”
to be notified when i post new fics, follow @kooksandpearls-library and turn on notifications! i no longer use a taglist for garrett fics.
best friends don't call each other baby ! garrett graham x childhoodbestfriend!reader
summary.ᐟ when your new roommate observes your 'friendship' with hockey captain garrett graham, she can't help but think your relationship with your childhood best friend is more than platonic
notes.ᐟ 2 year age gap (garrett is a junior and reader is a freshman) occ as garrett didn't go to boarding school (whoops!)
"Jesus, women. Is there anything left in your house or did you pack it all?"
You turn to look at your bestfriend, your eye's shifting down to the brown cardboard box he was lifting up into his arms. The box was nearly busting at the corners, threatening to break at any moment from the sheer weight of its contents.
"G, be careful. That ones really heavy" You gasped, reading the 'books' label you had scrawled onto the side during packing.
Your concern didn't phase him, Garrett not even bothering to look over at your dramatic expression.
"It's fine, baby. I got it" He spoke, rolling his eyes as he shifted the heavy box into one arm before reaching up to close the trunk of his jeep.
You huffed in reply, your eyes drifting down to his arms before you could consciously register it. His biceps strained against the fabric of his t-shirt, looking as if the fabric could rip at any moment at the sheer size of his arms. His tan skin glowed under the sun, the box you had to get your mother to help you lift seeming as if it weighed nothing to him as he held it with only one arm.
The sound of the trunk door closing snapped you back into consciousness, silently cursing at yourself for checking out the boy you had been best friends with since the in 1st grade. Thankfully, Garrett didn't seem to notice your clear ogling.
"Ok, We should only have to do one more round after this" He said, referencing to the fact you only had two more boxes of stuff left to bring up to your dorm.
You nodded in reply, your arms wrapping around your own cardboard box you were holding. One admittedly much smaller and much lighter in comparison to the one Garrett had.
He looked at you for a moment to make sure you were ready before he began leading you to your dorm building.
Garrett was two years older than you, being a junior while you were just a freshman at college. Meaning that he knew his way around Briar while you were still currently clueless on the layout of campus.
The age gap between you never bothered you and Garrett much, until it meant he was going to college while you stayed stuck in your hometown.
Saying it was a shock to your system would be an understatement, going from living a few doors away from Garrett to him moving hours away to Briar U.
But, the distance didn't mean he let you go, even though a small part of you thought the second he went to college he would forget about you.
He called you multiple times a week, staying on the phone with you for hours while you updated each other on your lives until you eventually dosed off on facetime. Thankfully, Garrett also came home to visit during the year. Once whispering to you as he fell asleep in your arms that he only came to see you, and not his father or friends from highschool.
You really didn't plan on going to Briar U.
I mean sure, you would have loved to ended up here because of Garrett, but he isn't the reason you ended up enrolling.
Ok, maybe his presence had a little, tiny influence on your decision to apply in the first place
However, you had received a full ride scholarship to Briar. And you knew you couldn't pass up on it, refusing to burden your Mom with college fees she would refuse to let you get student loans for.
Garrett almost squeezed you to death when you told him about your enrolment, hugging you so tight you could barely breathe.
Although he strongly, strongly encourage your apply to Briar, he would never admit to you how much he wanted you here, knowing this decision was yours to make without his influence.
Garrett had drove back home the night before the day you were moving to Briar to help out. Despite your insistence that it was definitely not necessary, he didn't budge, arriving to your house with his signature grin slapped across his face as he told you how excited he was for you to be with him at Briar.
Both his and your mom's car was packed to the brim with boxes, both of them rolling their eyes at your obvious overpacking.
Garrett wiped the tears that rolled down your face as you said goodbye to your Mom, you insisting that she didn't have to stay to unpack the rest of your things from Garrets car as you knew more time would only make the goodbye worse.
You were now trudging up the stairs to your dorm, your legs embarrassingly sore from having to go up and down them all morning.
"Garrett, you really didn't have to do this" You huffed as you finally reached your level and began walking beside Garrett who had been a few steps infront of you.
"What are you talking about?" He responded dumbfounded, scrunching his eyebrows in confusion.
"Help me move in. You've been lugging boxes upstairs all day, and you start classes tomorrow as well. Go home, please" You sighed, feeling terrible guilt about him helping you all morning and having to drive hours to and from campus.
"First of all, Rude. And that's stupid, of course i'm gonna help you. Now shush" Garrett replied, shutting down your unnecessary worry and pushing the door to your dorm open.
You rolled your eyes at his comment, deep down relieved he truely wanted to help and didn't just feel obligated to. Because, knowing Garrett, he would have just said so.
Your eyes drifted into the expanse of your dorm room, boxes filling your side of the dorm as the other half lay bare. Due to it being the morning, you knew your roommate probably wouldn't arrive till mid-day, about an hour from now.
Garrett closed the door behind you as you drifted in, placing the box you were holding down on your bed. He followed closely behind you in your actions, effortlessly placing the heavy box he had onto your draw.
He swiftly waltz over to you, standing behind you at your position stood at the foot of the bed. Bringing his hands to wrap around you at your waist, he held you close to his body as his head dipped to your shoulders, burying closely into the crook of your neck.
It was the night of your sixteen birthday party that you first noticed you and Garrett acted in a way that was closer than being solely friends.
He stared closely at you as you blew out your candles, his normally stubborn and blank face cracking into a grin and a twinkle in his eyes. He held you close in his arms as you two were hidden away in the corner of the room away from your guests, tucking your hair behind your ear and kissing you tenderly on the crown of your head.
It was only when your friends observed your actions with Garrett that you first noticed this was more than what childhood friends do. You denied their comments to the grave that you were more than friends.
Because you genuinely believed it, oblivious to the fact that you two acted like more of a couple than anything.
"Who brings books to college?" He teased, observing the label that was scrawled onto the cardboard, remembering the other 'textbooks and assigned reading' box he had lugged up earlier, signalling these books were simply for pleasure.
You could feel his breathe littering goosebumps on your skin, his teasing intertwined with soft chuckle that make his words vibrate onto your skin.
Ignoring his smartass comment, you turned around in his arms to look up at him, his dark curls creating what looked like a halo around his head. His hands didn't move from your body of course, only shifting slightly to lay warm around your waist once again, his hands pressing against you as he caged you into him.
He only brought you impossibly closer to his frame as you rested your head into his chest, sighing into his black shirt as he brought his head down to rest atop of yours. Your hands now wrapped around as well, feeling how his back muscles rippled against your palms.
"I'm so fucking glad your here with me now" His voice was almost a whisper, filled with relief. You could feel his lips press against the top of your head as he placed a tender kiss upon your hair.
You lifted your head to look up at him, finding his eyes filled with adoration swimming in the dark brown of his irises.
"Me too, G. Missed you" You replied softly, always quick with your the admittance of your feelings.
His lips up turned into a smile at your comment, bringing a hand up to your face and cupping your cheek, dragging his thumb softly up and down on your skin.
A soft silence fell around you as you rested in each others arms, a sense of relief filling you both at being together again.
"Ok, gonna go get the last boxes. You stay here, yeah?" While the words Garrett said left his mouth like a question, you knew it really wasnt.
You nodded at his words, untangling yourself from his arms and watching him grin at you once more before opening the door and striding out.
The room felt cold without his presence, the white bareness of your sterile dorm becoming more clear to you now.
Softly peeling off the tape off one cardboard box, you lifted your folded sheets up and placed them on the desk. Your fingers softly smoothed the light pink fabric, dainty flowers decorating the sheet.
After a few minutes, more than it should have probably taken you, you had got all of your boxes off your bed, reaching over to grab your matress cover.
The sound of your turn knob turning rang through your ears, the door creaking softly as it was pushed open.
Instead of Garrett returning, a girl stood in the door, holding an overflowing box and a suitcase handle in another. She squealed excitedly as she almost ran into the room, placing the box down on the bed on the other side of the room and dropping the suitcase to the floor.
"You're my roomate!" She said joyfully, pulling you into a tight hug before you could process it.
"I am!" You replied, laughing softly as you hugged her back.
She pulled back, looking at you. "And you're so pretty! We are gonna have the best year"
You smiled at her compliment, happiness flooding through you that you're roomate you were nervous about meeting was so kind.
"It's so nice to meet you" You exclaimed, introducing yourself with your name.
"You too! I'm Phoebe" She replied, grinning from ear to ear.
"I got here a bit earlier so i just put my stuff down on a random side, but we can totally switch if you want" You said, Phoebe replying instantly with a shake of her head "It's ok, i don't mind"
You two began to chat as you floated to either side of your room, eventually making no progress in packing and sitting together on your bed.
You learned that she lived only a couple of hours away from Briar, and her parents were crying so much this morning she sent them on a mindless task to the administration office so she could have a moment of peace.
You laughed at her bluntness, but was interrupted shortly after by the door of your room opening once more.
"Baby, we really gotta talk about your hoarding tendancies-" Garrett started, his voice floating into the room before he cut himself off at noticing your roomate had arrived.
You jumped up at his arrival, watching as he stood awkwardly in the doorframe, the last two boxes in his arms.
"Oh! Phoebe, this is Garrett. Garrett, this is my new roommate, Phoebe." You said, drifting over to stand near Garrett's side as you introduced one another.
"Hello" Garrett said shortly, barely polite as he came back to your side after placing the boxes on your desk.
"Hi" Phoebe replied, waving at him softly with her hand
"He's just helping me move in" You started, breaking the heavy silence "I promise you he will not be in here often" Garrett rolled your eyes at your comment, knowing you didn't want to make your new roommate uncomfortable with the thought of him always lurking in your dorm.
She laughed at your comment, walking over to her suitcase and packing more things into her draws.
"I'm just gonna walk him out, be back in a sec" You said, grabbing Garrett's hand as Phoebe replied with a wave of her hand to signal 'no worries' as she continued unpacking.
The door of your room shut with a click as closed it, turning to Garrett infront of you.
"Isn't she so nice! I'm so relieved." You exclaimed to him.
He nodded at your comment, reaching down to your other hand so he was not holding both infront of him. "See, i told you. Didn't need to be so worried" His voice calm as always.
Whenever you were around Garrett, you noticed he always needed to be touching you in some way. Whether it was simply holding your hand, resting his palm on your lower back, or holding you in his arms.
He watched as your lashes fluttered softly against your cheek as you blinked, your smile so radiant he thought it would probably put literal angels from the heavens above to shame.
Your eyes floated down to his watch, reading the time and sighing to yourself. "Garrett, you're late to practice."
"Nah, can't be late. They don't start without me" He quipped, your eyes rolling at his arrogance.
"Thank you" You said softly, pulling him into a hug that he gladly reciprocated, wrapping his arms tightly around your frame.
"For what baby?" He replied, the less than casual but ordinary nickname rolling off his tounge smoothly
"For helping me. For being there for me, always" You breathed out, refusing to look at him as you spoke.
You felt his his hand come down to your face, bringing his finger under your chin and tilting your head to look up at him.
"Hey, don't do that. Don't thank me for that" He whispered, his voice soft and sincere.
Garrett brought his face down to yours, resting a searing kiss onto your forehead. "Always be there for you"
You smiled softly at his words "You're the best bestfriend a girl could ask for G"
His body tensed under yours so subtly you didn't notice, a soft "Yeah" falling from his lips at your words
"Ok, go to practice now please Mr. Graham" You said, jokingly pushing him away, oblivous to how his face had fallen slightly at your words.
"Call me later, okay? Need to know you're all good" Garrett said, you nodding softly at his comment.
"See you, Baby." He said, walking away as you replied with a small bye, watching as he neared the end of your hallway before taking one look back at you and grinning.
You found yourself sighed at the interaction, bringing your hand up to the doorknob of your room and walking in before shutting the door behind you.
"You know Garrett Graham!?" Phoebe almost shrieked, all composure from before dissipating as her tone made you jump in surprise.
You laughed, slightly shocked "You know Garrett Graham?" You mimiced back, only your tone was one of genuine confusion.
"Uh, Duh. Of course i know Garrett Graham. I don't think there's one person at Briar who doesn't. I think i saw almost 10 posters of him walking in to campus today alone" Phoebe said
You knew how popular Garrett was. It had been like that since Middle school. People parting way for him in a crowd, whispers as he walked past, eyes glued to him for no apparent reason anywhere he went.
It wasn't any different at Briar. Especially since Garrett was the captain of the Division I Hockey Team, and had a grin that could make your knees lock and your heart beat out of your chest.
You noticed the way girls watched him as he walked through the hallway of your dorm building. Conversations that had stopped the second he walked past, but never taking his eyes off of you to notice.
"Oh, right. Yes." You replied, not knowing what to say in the moment. Phoebe's face quickly morphed into one of horror before she replied in a ramble. "Oh my god. I'm so sorry, that was weird to say. I didn't mean to make you uncomfortable"
"No, no. It's fine" You replied in earnest, laughing softly to lighten the mood.
"I'm just in shock that my roommate is dating Garrett Graham" She said, genuine in her words as turned back around from standing in front of you.
You nearly spit out your metaphorical drink at her words, your eyes widening. "Oh, um. Garrett's definitely not my boyfriend."
Phoebe quickly turned at your words, her face written with confusion. "Shit, sorry. I shouldn't have assumed" She said honestly, cursing herself for saying another thing that probably offended you.
"No worries, we're just close friends. We've known each other since we were little"
Her eyes glinted curiously at your words, raising an eyebrow but not saying anything more.
You squinted your eyes at her expression "What?" You asked, dumbfounded.
Phoebe looked at you more seriously now, staring at you as if she were looking into your soul. "Sweetheart" She started, a mischievous, knowing look on her face.
could you do a part 2 of kiss me more where we see ballerina reader going to malones with garretts friends? looveee your writing!
Room For One More? | GG x Ballerina!Reader | Off Campus
Words: 1.5k | 18+ MDNI Blog | Part 1
"Garrett, I'm going to be sick."
You were in the front seat of the Jeep. Passenger Princess was usually a role you fit into really well. You usually teased Garrett, applied lip gloss and had a spotify queue so elite, even Garrett would sing along. Sometimes, when it was late at night and you were feeling wild you'd take your seatbelt off and lean over the console, reminding Garrett Graham of how much you wanted him.
Tonight was different.
It was Thursday. Malone's Thursday. A week had passed since you were invited to join Garrett's friends in their weekly tradition.
Garrett simply chuckled, lacing his fingers into yours, and bringing them to his mouth.
"There's nothing to worry about, baby." You knew he was right, but it didn't make you feel any better.
You had to remind yourself to unclench your jaw, to stop grinding your teeth, stop picking at your skin around your nails. You were an anxious person, Garrett knew that about you. That no matter how much you convinced yourself that there was nothing to worry about, that his friends have already welcomed you, that you already knew Allie, and by extension, Hannah. You still felt like shit.
You just wanted to be liked, to be wanted. Fuck, maybe you were more insecure than you had originally thought.
Garrett Graham was the only person in the world that made you feel free, wild and confident. You liked yourself more when you were with him. Yet, it had only been a month, and you were extremely casual. No conversations about exclusivity had even been had. You needed to remind yourself of that, too.
Yet how could you? When his hand finds where your neck and shoulder meet, at a red light. When he rubs soothing circles into your skin, imprinting your soul, and smiles at you like his life depended on it? How could you want to be anything other than his forever?
"I've told you baby, you don't need to be anxious about anything if I'm there, I'll never let anything happen to you."
God. Especially when he said things like that.
I love you tingled at the tip of your tongue.
"It's very hot when you say things like that, Graham." Was what came out of your mouth.
˚˖𓍢ִ໋🌷͙֒✧˚.🎀༘⋆
"Baby, this is the part where we get out of the car." Garrett said chuckling. He held open the passenger door open in the Malone's parking lot, waiting for you to take your seatbelt off, waiting for you to be ready to get out of the car.
You had been sitting there for five minutes already.
You knew you were being dramatically anxious, and that's why you were on 60mg of Duloxotine, but unshed tears burnt their way to your lashes, nonetheless.
Garrett leant over you, unbuckling your seatbelt and planting a kiss to your temple. His large hands finding your thighs.
"I was just teasing, darlin', don't cry," Garrett said, kissing your face until you giggled, despite yourself.
"I'm just weird, I guess, I just want them to like me-"
Garrett stole any more words coming out of your mouth with a hard, solid kiss.
"Firstly, you're not weird, you're you." Garrett said sternly. Captain voice on in full swing. His hands cupped your face, like you were getting the instructions for a serious play. "Secondly, they're going to love you..."
You tried not to focus on how Garrett stopped himself short, how he stumbled over his words. How you could easily imagine him saying: They're going to love you because I love you.
"They're going to love you, because you're mine and they see that." Was what Garrett settled with, and though it's not exactly what you wanted him to say, it fitted well enough in the 'i love you' shaped hole in your heart.
I love you, tingled on the tip of your tongue again. Almost daring you to be reckless.
You kissed him. Softly, lest he got scared away from what your tongue longed to say.
"Thank you, Garrett Graham, for your unending patience."
Garrett chuckled again, the vibration of your lips against his did something to the deep well inside you.
"Never been described as patient before, I'll take it."
˚˖𓍢ִ໋🌷͙֒✧˚.🎀༘⋆
Malone's was so full. Packed to the rafters and loud. The heat smacked you in the face as soon as Garrett opened the door for you. A bead of sweat gathered at the nape of your neck, tracking down your spine. Justin's band were doing some Ariana Grande cover, and though you've been to louder gigs, the bass found its way through your chest.
It wasn't even late yet, but the floor had the tacky sensation of spilt beer. Garrett held your hand with a vice-like grip, and moved you through the throngs of bodies. People tended to part for him, which, once again, did something to that secret part of you that he only really got to see.
A big table was dappled in shadow towards the back. Allie sat in Dean's lap, his hand keeping a firm grip on her hip as she took photos of Justin, and more importantly, Hannah watching Justin. Grace spun her straw around some kind of empty cocktail glass, Logan's arm stretched over her shoulders in a carefree energy you wished you could exude. Sabrina was having an animated conversation, hands flying every which way, while Tuck smiled softly and nodded his head where was appropriate.
"G!" Logan shouted over the music, saluting to his captain.
Every eye flicked from Garrett to you, and back to Garrett.
Oh fuck, this was a crazy mistake.
"G and G's ballerina!" Dean added, smiling bright as Allie elbowed him.
You were fine being G's ballerina. You were just delighted to be his anything.
Garrett, led you to a chair, thinking that it was for you, you panicked slightly when you realised Garrett would have to leave you side for a second to get a chair of his own.
Garrett plopped himself down into the chair, dragging you into his lap. His arm wrapped protectively around your middle to keep you secure. Secure in more ways than one.
"Thanks again, for letting me join." You said to the group, already feeling more brave with Garrett's obvious display of affection.
"Don't be silly!" Hannah said, a smile splitting her face in half. "There's always room for one more!"
˚˖𓍢ִ໋🌷͙֒✧˚.🎀༘⋆
An hour later, Allie had talked you into a margarita or two, and a photoshoot in the bathroom. Grace had demanded a round of wet pussy shots, and a strict girls only trip to the photobooth (despite Dean's protest). Sabrina had left a red lipstick kiss on your cheek and posted a 0.5 pic of it- with flash. And Hannah, serenaded you with Tiny Dancer at the karaoke machine.
Now, all five of you were twirling and dancing around eachother on the makeshift Malone's dance floor.
Garrett was fucking obsessed with how happy you looked. A lipstick mark on your cheek, head flung back in laughter as Allie grinded back on you. Garrett hadn't even realised he had gotten his phone out of pocket to take a photo of you and the smile on your face that left him breathless.
At some point in the night, Beau and Justin found their way to the 'loser boyfriend table' as Logan had taken to calling where they had been sitting.
"I am literally witnessing evolution right now." Beau quipped, pointing at Garrett. Typically when Beau, or any of the guys for that matter, chirped him, Garrett was quick to throw out 'shut the fuck up.' Tonight? Tonight Garrett couldn't find it in him to deny it.
"You got it bad, man." Dean chipped in.
Garrett could feel himself smiling, despite it.
"It's nice, dude." Tucker said, a genuine smile on his face. Tucker was the gentleman out of all of them. "Nice to see you happy, man."
"How serious are you guys, anyway?" Logan quirked his brow. Blunt and to the point, that was always Logan's prerogative.
Garrett looked back over his shoulder, saw you take your hair down and run your hands through it, as the girls squealed.
The smile on your face had heat rushing to everywhere in his body.
Running his hands over his face, Garrett's elbows found the table.
"This stays here." Garrett said, pointing to the table. Captain Graham was here now, no G, no Garrett. His voice was serious and the boys knew it. "I think I'm in love with her."
[A/N:] omggggg this was so fun!! I hope its what you wanted nonnie, besides girls just wanna dance!!
— el xx
Need figureskater!reader sharing a drunk cigarette with garrett pleaseeeeeee
Cigarette Smoke (Blow Off Steam Pt. 3) | GG x FigureSkater!Reader | Off Campus
Words: 1.1k | 18+ MDNI Blog | warnings: don't smoke ciggies guys u will get addicted and die🙂↕️ I was red wine drunk writing this so probably a lot of swears and errors lol let me live.
Another fucking party.
Another excuse to get dressed up, another excuse to get drunk, another excuse to pretend like you weren't completely obsessed with Garrett fucking Graham.
The flirting between the two of you has left you feeling borderline insane. Since you sent that photo, there hasn't been a day where you and Garrett haven't texted. There hasn't been a training session where Garrett didn't show up early to watch. There hasn't been a training session where you haven't done a stupid, out of routine trick, just to impress him. Garrett had gotten into the habit of driving you home from ethics class on a Thursday evening. You had gotten into the habit of expecting him to run alongside you in the mornings.
You had thought the two of you had something going on. That the sexual tension was so thick that it would inevitably consume you both.
That was until you walked into the hockey house with the sole intention of kissing him senseless and putting your ego in the dog house, and his tongue was down the throat of some gorgeous puck bunny.
And you couldn't even fault her for it. Fuck, if Garrett gave you the chance you'd be practically dry humping him on the kitchen counter, too.
You'd pant if he asked it of you.
So now, you sat on the hood of Garrett's stupid fucking Jeep and had your once-a-semester-party-cigarette. You couldn't afford to smoke as much as you probably would, partly because cigarette's are expensive, and partly because you were a collegiate athlete who desperately needed as much lung capacity as humanly possible. So, you allowed yourself a once-a-semester-party-cigarette. Sometimes you waited to smoke it after pretty miserable drunk sex, sometimes you waited to smoke it to celebrate a skating win. Tonight, you were smoking it in anger and embarrassment and self-loathing.
Nothing tasted better than a crisp beer straight from a cold, glass bottle and a self-pity ciggie.
You had done the most with your outfit tonight, really, you hadn't even dressed for you, you had dressed for fucking Garrett Graham and it made you feel like a bad feminist. Low-waisted dark jeans, so that the tattoo and your belly piercing could be seen and the tiniest, tightest black baby tee you could find in Allie's wardrobe, so the new bars through your nipples would strain against the fabric. Heels that you had borrowed from Hannah. Dark red lipstick you had desperately picked up this afternoon with the intention of leaving marks up and down Garrett's neck. You hadn't even worn a jacket. That's how certain you were that you'd be under Graham, hot and heavy, without need for a fucking winter coat.
You were livid, really. At your own arrogance. You couldn't even bring yourself to be mad at Garrett, the dude hadn't even done anything wrong, it was not like you had communicated your expectations to him.
You groaned out into the night air. Laying your back down on the hood, your legs dangling down the grill.
Fuck him and his stupid fucking car.
Fuck you and your stupid fucking crush.
"Is that a fucking cigarette?"
Garrett's voice cut through the atmosphere of the bass, pumping from the hockey house. You could feel the burn of his eyes dragging down your form like a sick, sixth sense.
You hated that the attention made the hot, pit of your stomach tighten.
"Don't judge me, Graham." You mumbled around the cig, refusing to sit up and face him. Lest he see disappointment in your eyes.
Garrett moved to stand in between your legs. His large hands finding your thighs, the heat of him bleeding through the denim. You hated the fact that your reaction was immediate, and that simple touch was all it took for the cotton of your underwear to become damp.
"Not judgin' baby."
His voice had gotten dark, and low and fucking husky. You so desperately wanted to kiss him, madly. Kiss that fucking smirk off his face. You couldn't see him, but you could hear the smirk on him.
His hands continued to travel upwards, gripping your waist. His lips burnt kisses along your stomach, kissing, licking, sucking his way upward.
"I was looking for you," He mumbled against your sensitive skin. "Assumed you didn't come, stepped out to call you and here you are, smoking a cigarette and drinking a beer on the hood of my car."
Something in that lit the anger in you again.
You heeled foot traced up Garrett, making contact with his shoulder, pushing him up, off of you. With your leg still extended, you sat up, cig dripping from your lip, and anger fresh in your eyes.
"Looking for me? Did you find me in that puck bunny's mouth?"
Garrett said nothing, but took the cigarette from your mouth and put it in his own, taking a drag and shucking the ash off. He made no move to remove your ankle from his shoulder. His left hand wrapping around it to keep your leg planted there.
"Found disappointment, enough to send me sulking outside with my tail between my legs."
Your lipstick had transferred from your cigarette to Garrett's lips and you wanted to bruise them. Kiss them until they were really red. Swollen. Run your hands through his curls, pulling on them until he mewled into your mouth.
You had dreamed about it enough times.
"I'm sure she's disappointed, you're out here with someone else instead of on top of her in your room." You said bluntly.
"Sounds like you have had an awful lot of thoughts about me being on top of someone in my bedroom." Garrett said, that smirk finding its way around the cigarette in his mouth as he took another drag.
Garrett released his grip on your ankle.
Now, it could've been the alcohol, it could've been the cigarette, the party, Garrett's closeness. It could've been any number of things.
You didn't hesitate, taking the opportunity to wrap your legs around Garrett's hips, pulling him closer, pulling yourself to the edge of the Jeep's hood, taking the cigarette out of his mouth, you helped yourself to the final drag, getting out and down to the filter, flicking it, somewhere on the driveway. One of your hands found the side of Garrett's neck, his pulse beating erratically under your thumb. Your other hand found the curls at the back of his head.
You leant in, tracing his nose with your own. His lips only a hairsbreadth away from yours.
"You better kiss me now, Garrett Graham, I've waited my turn."
Garrett wasted no time.
[A/N:] this is short and silly and supposed to just be some fun. Could've written more but felt bad that this req had been sitting in my inbox for weeks!!!
pairing – garrett graham x princess!reader
summary – months of staring, jealousy, interrupted hookups, and one very dangerous sleepover finally turn garrett and his best friend into friends with benefits.
warnings – 18+, explicit smut, fingering, nipple piercings, praise kink, dirty talk, friends with benefits, alcohol/weed mentions.
notes from me – AHHHH finally got something out for princess!reader!! i feel like i'm ticking off each trope with each of my !readers hahaha. as requested here, my loves!
word count – 10k
navigation – masterlist |
They’ve just escaped a ninety-minute lecture on behavioural economics that Garrett attended physically and she attended with the kind of detailed, colour-coded devotion that makes her notes resemble something sold in a university gift shop.
The air outside is sharp enough to turn their breath white, the campus paths crowded with students funneling toward the dining hall, everyone bundled in jackets and scarves and expressions of private academic misery.
Garrett walks beside her with his backpack hanging from one shoulder, hands shoved into the front pocket of his Briar hoodie, nodding at the right intervals while she explains the tragic consequences of substituting almond flour without adjusting the moisture content of a cupcake recipe.
“They taste fine,” she says, stepping neatly around a patch of slush while Garrett walks directly through it. “Actually, they taste really good. They’re just very…” She pauses, making a shape with both mittened hands. “Dense.”
“Dense,” Garrett repeats.
“Yes.”
He huffs a laugh and reaches for the back of her jacket when she starts drifting toward the edge of the path, steering her around an oncoming cyclist without interrupting her baking autopsy.
She moves where he puts her automatically, continuing as if this is a completely normal thing for another person to do with her body. Which, for them, it is. “I think the baking powder was old, but I only bought it last month, so maybe it’s the flour. Or the oven. The ovens in my building are fucked.”
“Thoughts and prayers.”
She bumps her shoulder into his arm. “Do you think the guys would eat the failed ones?”
Garrett looks down at her. Her woollen hat is pale pink, naturally, with a little pom-pom on top that keeps brushing his shoulder whenever she moves closer to avoid someone. “Dude, Logan ate a chicken wing he found under the couch.”
Her nose wrinkles. “How long had it been there?”
“We didn’t ask.”
“Why wouldn’t you ask?”
“Sometimes knowledge is a burden, princess.”
She rolls her eyes at the nickname, although she stopped seriously protesting it somewhere around the hundredth time he used it. Now she mostly makes a face because he seems disappointed when she doesn’t. “So that’s a yes?”
“That’s an enthusiastic yes. Bring food into that house and they’ll build a religion around you.”
She nods, satisfied. “Okay. I’ll bring them around tonight. Maybe I’ll do another batch too, so you can compare them.”
Garrett grins, holding the dining hall door open. “After you, Your Highness.”
“You’re so annoying,” she says, sailing past him into the warmth.
It hits them immediately, thick and overheated after the cold outside, carrying the smells of coffee, fried food, tomato sauce and approximately six hundred damp winter coats.
She unwinds her scarf as they join the queue, still talking about whether sour cream might work better than yoghurt, while Garrett collects two trays from the stack and begins assembling her lunch with the efficient resignation of someone who knows exactly how this works.
She doesn’t ask him to. She hasn’t asked him in years. She just follows beside him, pointing out what she wants occasionally, although he already knows she’ll take the soup if it’s tomato, the pasta if it isn’t visibly congealed, the little fruit cup without melon because she claims melon tastes like wet disappointment.
He puts a bowl of tomato soup onto her tray, adds a grilled cheese, grabs the strawberry yoghurt before she notices it’s there and trades the banana from her fruit cup for the grapes in his because she likes those better.
He does all of this while complaining about Coach.
“I’m telling you, he’s on my ass because I missed one pass yesterday,” Garrett says, balancing both trays against his forearms as they move through the crowd. “One. We still scored on the next shift.”
She grabs two forks and slides them onto the trays for him. “Was it a bad pass?”
“That’s not the point.”
She giggles. “That means yes.”
“It wasn’t bad. It was... slightly overly optimistic.”
She gives him a look. “You passed to nobody.”
“There was supposed to be somebody there.”
“Was there?”
Garrett looks at her.
She smiles sweetly. “Just gathering information.”
He mutters something about betrayal and carries their food toward the quieter side of the hall, waiting while she chooses a table near the heaters before setting her tray down in front of her. She immediately steals one of his fries, because their careful food allocation system only applies when she benefits from it.
Garrett sits across from her, stretching one long leg beneath the table until his sneaker knocks lightly into her boot. “Anyway, Coach acts like I personally invented turnovers. He kept me after practice for twenty minutes going through film.”
She makes a sympathetic noise around a bite of grilled cheese, shrugging out of her jacket as the heat begins sinking through her sweater. “He’s riding you because he knows you can take it.”
“Great. Inspiring.”
“No, I mean it.” She drapes the jacket over the back of her chair and smooths her hair down where the hat flattened it, leaving herself in a fitted pale-pink top that clings softly to her body. “He knows what you’re capable of, G. That’s why he notices when you’re even slightly off. It would be worse if he stopped caring.”
Garrett, who has been reaching for his drink, misses the straw entirely. The top is long-sleeved. It covers her from her collarbones to the waistband of her jeans. There’s nothing objectively scandalous about it, except that she’s not wearing a bra and the metal bars through her nipples are pressing clearly against the thin fabric.
He has seen this before. Technically.
The white tank top incident happened months ago, and since then he’s become painfully aware that the piercings exist beneath multiple items of her wardrobe. He's seen them through sweaters, dresses and the tiny pink top that nearly caused him to commit several felonies at his own party.
But awareness hasn’t produced immunity. It's produced a highly specific form of suffering.
She’s still talking, entirely unaware that the captain of Briar’s hockey team has been rendered incapable of operating a straw. “You’re the captain. He expects more from you because everyone else takes their cues from you. That doesn’t mean you played badly. It means one slightly optimistic pass from you matters more than five terrible ones from Dean.”
Garrett nods slowly.
Her eyebrows lift. “Are you listening?”
“Yep.”
“What did I say?”
“That Dean sucks.”
“Garrett.”
His gaze drops again before he can stop it. The little bars make subtle shadows beneath the pink fabric, more suggestion than display, which is somehow worse. He thinks about her dorm room. The white tank. The way she had crossed her arms and accidentally made the situation more obscene. He thinks about what the metal would feel like against his tongue.
Her fork clicks against the bowl. “Eyes are up here, loser.”
Garrett drags his attention back to her face. She’s staring at him with an expression that is mostly unimpressed, although colour has crept faintly along her cheekbones.
“Yeah,” he says, clearing his throat. “Totally. Sorry.”
“You’re such a guy.”
“In my defence–”
“There isn’t one.”
“In my defence,” he continues, “you brought weapons into a family dining establishment.”
Her mouth twitches. “I’m wearing a shirt.”
“We’ve had this argument.”
She tilts her head. “And you lost it.”
“Did I?”
“Yes.”
He leans back in his chair. “Interesting. Doesn’t feel like losing from where I’m sitting.”
She kicks him beneath the table, but her lips have curved around the edge of her spoon. She would never tell him, obviously, because Garrett already possesses enough confidence to power a medium-sized city, but there’s something satisfying about watching his eyes betray him.
She knows what she looks like. She chose the shirt this morning, stood in front of her mirror and watched the pink fabric settle over her chest, the piercings just visible enough that nobody could reasonably accuse her of doing anything deliberate. Nobody except herself.
It’s been months since a man made her come. Not since she has come, technically. Her vibrator is dependable, discreet and considerably less likely than most men to ask whether she’s close after thirty seconds of mediocre effort.
But it’s been months since someone else managed it, and the last hookup had ended with her staring at a boy’s ceiling fan while he treated her left thigh like it contained a secret combination.
She’s had sex. It’s been fine. Fine in the way a cafeteria sandwich is fine: technically sustaining, occasionally pleasant, never something she dreams about later. Garrett, unfortunately, has appeared in those dreams.
Brief, treacherous images that arrive while the vibrator hums between her legs and she’s already warm and pliant enough not to push them away. Garrett’s mouth at her chest. Garrett’s broad hand flattening over her stomach. Garrett saying princess in that lower voice he uses when he stops teasing and means something.
The first time it happened, she had been so appalled that she stopped immediately. The third time, she came hard enough to kick the blankets onto the floor.
Now he’s sitting opposite her, trying not to stare and failing so openly that warmth pools low beneath her stomach. He drops his eyes to his food like he’s imposing discipline on himself, jaw moving as he chews, ears faintly pink.
She takes another spoonful of soup and watches him over the rim. Interesting. Maybe she doesn’t need to stop wearing the shirt after all.
A week later, Garrett has his tongue in another girl’s mouth when she decides she wants to go home. The two things are unrelated. Completely.
She’s been ready to leave for at least ten minutes, which is a reasonable amount of time to spend standing in the corner of an aggressively expensive fraternity house, pretending she cannot see her ex-boyfriend sitting across the room with his new girlfriend folded prettily into his lap.
The fact that Garrett is making out with a blonde against the kitchen counter has nothing to do with it. Nothing at all.
The party has that sticky, overripe feeling they all develop after midnight, when the floors have become tacky with spilled beer and the music is loud enough to flatten every conversation into shouting. Someone has knocked a decorative framed photograph off the hallway wall.
A group of freshmen are playing a drinking game with rules that seem to involve pointing at one another and screaming. The air smells like vodka, perfume and the warm electrical threat of an overloaded speaker.
She’s wedged between Tucker and Logan on a sagging couch, her legs crossed beneath a short black skirt, trying to contribute to a conversation about whether a hot dog qualifies as a sandwich while three girls near the drinks table keep glancing in her direction and whispering.
They’re hockey girls. They attend every party, know every player’s schedule and become visibly displeased whenever she sits too close to Garrett. She’s never done anything to them. Except perhaps exist in his immediate vicinity.
One of the girls looks her up and down, her attention lingering on the leather jacket buttoned over the baby-pink crop top beneath it, then turns away with a small curl of her lip.
“Did she just roll her eyes at me?” she asks.
Tucker, who’s absolutely seen it, becomes very interested in the label on his beer. “Didn’t notice.”
“Liar.”
“I’m practicing peace.”
Logan glances between her and the girl. “Maybe she has something in her eye.”
“Both eyes?”
“Serious condition.”
Across the room, Garrett’s hand slides along the blonde’s waist.
Her stomach gives one hard, unpleasant twist. Which is stupid. Garrett hooks up with people. She knows this because she has interrupted him during hookups frequently enough that Dean once suggested they install a traffic-light system outside his bedroom.
Garrett has never cared. If she needs a ride, his notes, help moving furniture or someone to kill a spider while another girl is in his bed, he complains loudly and then does whatever she wants.
He always puts her first. That’s simply how their friendship works.
The blonde curls her fingers into Garrett’s hair, tugging his head down to deepen the kiss, and something inside her turns hot and mean.
She stands.
Logan looks up. “Where’re you going?”
“Home.”
“Tuck can call you a car.”
She shakes her head. “Garrett drove me.”
Both boys look across the room.
Tucker rubs his mouth. “He appears occupied.”
“He won’t mind.”
Neither of them answers, because they have witnessed this particular ecosystem before and understand that interfering would only put them closer to the blast radius.
She crosses the room, stepping around another couple making out. Garrett doesn’t see her coming. His back is partially turned, one arm braced beside the blonde’s shoulder, his mouth moving slowly against hers while she presses into him with considerable enthusiasm.
She taps him on the shoulder. “Garrett.”
He hums without pulling away.
Her jaw tightens. “Garrett.”
He breaks the kiss just enough to glance over, lips swollen and curls mussed beneath the blonde’s hand. “What?”
“I want to go home.”
His eyebrows knit, focus dragging slowly into place. The blonde uses the pause to kiss along his jaw, her glossy mouth leaving a faint pink mark beneath his ear. “Make Dean drive you.”
“Dean disappeared twenty minutes ago to have sex with someone.”
Garrett squints past her into the crowd. “Twenty minutes?”
“Yes.”
“Great. He’ll be back any second.”
The blonde laughs against his neck. It’s not even particularly mean, but it lands that way.
She folds her arms, leather creaking softly at the shoulders. “Garrett.”
“What?”
“Please. I want to go home.”
The blonde’s hand tightens at the back of his neck. “She can get an Uber.”
Garrett’s eyes move to her face properly then. He knows her too well. That’s the problem with best friends. You can arrange your mouth into something neutral and keep your voice level, but they know where to look for the cracks.
His attention traces the stiffness in her shoulders, the way she has tucked one thumb beneath the cuff of her jacket and begun worrying the leather, the fact that she’s refusing to glance toward the couch where her ex is practically eating his new girlfriend’s face.
“You good?” Garrett asks.
“I’m fine. I just want to go.”
His mouth flattens slightly. “What happened?”
“Nothing.”
“Princess.”
“Nothing happened.” She hates the tiny strain in her own voice, hates the sympathetic crease already forming between his brows. “Forget it. I’ll walk.”
“Great,” the blonde says. “Bye.”
She hooks her fingers around Garrett’s neck and tries to pull him back down.
Garrett resists without seeming to think about it, his body going still beneath her hand. He looks from the blonde to his best friend, who’s already turned away, spine straight as she begins weaving toward the front door alone.
The desire he’d been nursing all evening evaporates so quickly it’s almost impressive.
“Hey,” the blonde protests when he steps back. “Seriously?”
“Yeah, no. Sorry.” Garrett grabs his jacket from the counter and follows. “I’m driving her.”
“She’s being dramatic.”
He stops. It isn’t anger. Garrett’s anger is colder than most people expect, shaped by years of learning precisely how dangerous loud anger can become. His face empties instead, the easy warmth dropping out of his eyes as he looks back at the girl.
“She’s my best friend,” he says. “Don’t make me choose.”
The girl gives a short, disbelieving laugh. “What the fuck?”
He catches up with her outside, where she’s standing at the foot of the porch steps with her arms folded against the cold and her chin tipped stubbornly toward the road.
Snow crunches beneath his shoes as he approaches. “You seriously gonna walk?”
She doesn’t look at him. “Maybe.”
“In that skirt?”
“I have legs.”
He scoffs. “You also have no survival instincts.”
She finally glances over, eyes narrowing. “Go back inside, Garrett.”
“No.”
“You were busy,” she mumbles.
“I’m aware.”
“She seemed nice.”
“She wasn’t.”
She huffs, kicking some snow with her shoe. “She was nice before I interrupted you.”
Garrett exhales through his nose and holds out his jacket. She stares at it. “Put this on.”
“I have a jacket.”
“Yours ends at your ribs.”
She looks down at herself. “It’s cropped.”
“It’s useless.”
She makes an offended little sound but lets him drape the heavier coat around her shoulders anyway, swimming briefly in the dark fabric while he guides her toward the car with a hand at her back.
The contact is firm and familiar, his palm fitting into the curve above her skirt as naturally as if it was designed for him. Neither of them mentions the girl again.
Inside the car, Garrett turns the heat on high and pulls away from the curb while she works his jacket off, the leather one following because the warmth blasts through the vents almost immediately.
She tosses both into the back seat and settles into the passenger side in only a pink top. Garrett looks over. The car jerks toward the centre line.
“Jesus Christ.” She grabs the door handle. “Are you trying to kill us?”
He corrects hard, tires hissing over wet asphalt. “What the fuck are you wearing?”
“A top.”
“That’s not a top.”
The baby-pink material is thin and fitted, cut just beneath her chest with narrow straps and a low neckline. Under the shifting orange light from the streetlamps, the metal through her nipples presses visibly against it, small hard bars beneath soft cotton.
Garrett fixes his eyes on the road with the rigid concentration of a man attempting to land an aircraft during a storm. She watches the muscle tick in his cheek. Interesting.
She adjusts the seat belt so it sits between her breasts, making the fabric pull tighter. “Sorry for interrupting.”
“Don’t worry about it.”
“You were having fun,” she murmurs.
“I was making out with someone.”
“That’s usually considered fun.”
He glances at her for half a second, catches the faintly innocent widening of her eyes, then looks forward again. “You wanted to go home.”
“You didn’t have to take me.”
“Yes, I did.”
She frowns. “Why?”
“Because you asked me to.”
The answer is so simple that it presses strangely beneath her ribs. She tucks one leg beneath herself, turning slightly toward him. The skirt rides higher over her thigh, although this is a natural consequence of sitting and not something calculated to make his grip tighten around the steering wheel.
“You always do what I ask?”
“No.”
She bites back a smile. “You do.”
“I absolutely do not.”
“You’re driving me home after I interrupted you with a girl.”
He frowns. “You were upset.”
“I said I was fine.”
“You say you’re fine when you’re actively on fire.”
“I do not,” she frowns.
“You cried because Starbucks discontinued your syrup.”
“It was seasonal and I was hormonal.”
He laughs, the sound breaking some of the tightness between them. “You’re ridiculous.”
She looks out through the window before he can catch the smile tugging at her mouth. The campus passes in wet, blurred ribbons of light, bare trees black against the snow.
When he pulls up outside her dorm, she gathers both jackets but keeps his around her shoulders as she opens the door.
Garrett leans across the centre console. “Text me when you’re upstairs.”
“I’m ten feet from the entrance.”
“Text me anyway.”
She looks at him, his face softened by the dashboard glow, curls still messed up from another girl’s hands. The sight should bother her more than it does. Or perhaps it already bothers her exactly enough. “Thanks, G.”
“Don’t mention it.”
She climbs out, then bends to look back inside. The neckline of the pink top shifts. Garrett’s gaze falls. She catches him. His eyes lift slowly to hers, entirely unrepentant now.
She smiles, small and sweet. “Eyes up here, loser.”
“Go inside, princess.”
She closes the door before he sees how pleased she is.
A few weeks later, she’s on the hockey-house living-room floor with Dean asking why the puck bunnies hate her.
It’s nearly three in the morning. The party has contracted into its final, strange form, leaving behind twelve people who either live there, are sleeping with somebody who lives there, or have become too comfortable to understand that they should go home.
Music plays quietly from somebody’s abandoned phone. Empty cups crowd the coffee table. A girl is asleep beneath Tucker’s good throw blanket, which he keeps glancing at as if worried she might stain it with unconsciousness.
Logan sits cross-legged on the couch eating chips directly from the bag, while Dean sprawls in an armchair with one ankle resting on the opposite knee, looking far too alert for someone who has consumed enough alcohol to tranquilise livestock.
She sits on the floor between Garrett’s legs, her back against the couch, the hem of her little black dress riding high over her thighs.
Garrett’s been quieter than usual tonight and drunker than normal, although the two things appear to be related. His knees bracket her shoulders. Every few minutes, the inside of his calf brushes her arm when he shifts.
Dean studies her over the rim of his cup. “Why do the puck bunnies hate you so much, dude?”
She frowns. “They hate me?”
Dean immediately winces. “Oh. That’s– hate is probably too strong.”
She frowns. “You just said hate.”
“I’m drunk. I don’t know what I’m saying.”
She turns to look at Logan and Tucker. Both avoid her eyes with the speed of men who have already decided Dean can die alone.
“They hate me?” she repeats, voice small.
Garrett’s arm drops around her shoulders before anyone answers, heavy and warm as he hooks her back against his chest. “Don’t worry about it.”
She holds onto his forearms. “I’m not worried. I’m asking.”
“Same difference.”
She tilts her head back to look at him. His face is upside down from this angle, curls falling over his forehead, cheeks flushed slightly from alcohol. “That isn’t an answer.”
“Don’t need one.”
“Garrett.”
He tightens his arm around her and presses his mouth briefly to the top of her head, an absent gesture that makes Dean’s eyebrows climb before he wisely takes another drink.
Tucker clears his throat. “They don’t hate you.”
“They just don’t love how close you are with the team,” Logan says, aiming for diplomacy and landing somewhere near the border. “Especially Garrett.”
She twists around enough to look at him. “Why?”
Four male faces regard her in exhausted silence.
Dean waves one hand vaguely. “Because you’re always here.”
“You’re always here," she replies.
“I live here.”
“So does Tucker. They like Tucker.”
Tucker blinks. “Thank you?”
“And Logan.”
Logan nods seriously. “I’m very popular with women.”
“They don’t want to sleep with Tucker,” Dean explains.
She rolls her eyes. “They definitely do.”
Tucker’s expression becomes pained. “Please stop including me.”
Garrett’s hand spreads over her upper arm, thumb rubbing slowly through the thin fabric of her dress. “Doesn’t matter whether they like it. You’re not going anywhere.”
The certainty in his voice settles low in her chest.
She looks down at her hands. “I want to be friends with them.”
Dean’s face softens, the drunk sharpness slipping away. “Why?”
“Because I’m friends with all of you, and they’re always around, and it’s awkward when they stare at me.”
“They’re jealous,” Logan says.
“Of what?”
Again, silence.
Garrett reaches down and takes her cup before she can finish what remains in it. “You’ve had enough.”
She makes a small noise of protest. “That was mine.”
“You’re stoned.”
“I’m also thirsty.”
“That’s vodka.”
“Vodka’s a liquid.”
Tucker gets up and returns from the kitchen with a glass of water, holding it out. “Here.”
She accepts it with both hands. “Thank you, Tuck. You’re my favourite.”
“Bullshit,” Garrett says behind her.
She drinks, then settles back into him, pleasantly heavy and loose. Somebody changes the subject. Dean begins recounting an experience with a girl who asked him to keep his socks on because his feet were distracting, which turns into a discussion about weird hookup requests and then, somehow, whether women can tell when a man is faking confidence.
She listens with her cheek resting against Garrett’s knee, mind drifting slowly through the conversation. The weed has softened the room around its edges. Garrett’s fingers move through the ends of her hair without rhythm, gathering strands and letting them slide away.
“Women can always tell,” she says eventually.
Dean points at her. “See? This is valuable research.”
“You’re terrible at hiding when you don’t know what you’re doing.”
“I always know what I’m doing.”
She laughs. “That’s exactly what a man who doesn’t know what he’s doing says.”
“What about Garrett?” Logan asks.
Garrett’s hand stops in her hair.
She looks up. “What about him?”
“Can you tell when he doesn’t know what he’s doing?”
“I’ve never seen him have sex.”
Dean nearly chokes on his drink. “Thank Christ for that.”
She tilts her head. “I’ve walked in after. And right before.”
“That’s still too much information.”
She thinks about it, lips pressing together. “Garrett usually knows what he’s doing.”
She shrugs, her shoulder sliding beneath his palm. “I don’t know. Men are generally disappointing.”
The room stills almost imperceptibly. Dean lowers his cup. “In what context?”
Her brain, softened by weed and exhaustion, allows the truth to slip out without consulting the part responsible for dignity. “It’s been so long since a man made me come.”
Every pair of eyes turns toward her. She blinks at them. Then the sentence reaches her.
“Oh,” she says. “Fuck. Did I say that aloud?”
“Very much,” Tucker answers.
Logan nods, eyes wide. “Clear as day.”
Dean looks somewhere between fascinated and afraid for his life. “Do you often think things like that while we’re talking?”
“I didn’t mean to.” She covers her face with both hands. “Disregard it.”
Garrett has gone completely still behind her.
Heat moves up her neck despite the fog in her head. “Seriously. Everyone forget it.”
“Already gone,” Tucker says kindly.
“Never happened,” Logan agrees.
Dean taps his temple. “Deleted.”
Garrett says nothing.
The conversation restarts with the brittle enthusiasm of people attempting not to acknowledge a live grenade beneath the coffee table. She sinks lower against the couch, mortification gradually fading beneath the warm drag of exhaustion.
By four, the remaining guests have either left or collapsed into various corners. Garrett nudges her shoulder. “Come on.”
She looks up at him through heavy eyelids. “Where?”
“Bed.”
Her mouth curves before she can stop it. “Wow. Buy me dinner.”
“You ate half my fries earlier.”
“So romantic.”
He gets to his feet and pulls her up by both hands. The room sways gently. She bumps into his chest, laughing when he catches her around the waist.
“No way you’re going home like this,” he says.
“I could walk.”
He raises his eyebrow. “You can barely stand.”
“I’m standing right now.”
“Because I’m holding you.”
She peers down at his arms around her. “Oh.”
“Yeah. Oh.”
He guides her upstairs, one hand firm at her waist while she climbs with exaggerated care.
In his room, he shuts the door and pulls a clean hoodie from a drawer, tossing it onto the bed. “You can sleep in that.”
She picks it up and presses it to her nose. “Smells like you.”
Garrett turns his back so quickly it might qualify as evasive action. “Change.”
She stares at the broad line of his shoulders beneath his sweater. “You’ve seen me in underwear.”
“Not tonight.”
“Why not tonight?”
“Because you’re high.”
She laughs to herself and reaches behind her for the zipper of her dress. Garrett stays facing the wall while fabric whispers down her body, collecting around her boots. She steps out of it, unhooks her bra and lets it fall onto the pile, then pulls his hoodie over her head.
It hangs to mid-thigh, thick and warm, the sleeves swallowing her hands.
Garrett throws a pair of boxers over his shoulder without looking. They land against her face. “Rude.”
“Put those on too.”
She tugs them over her underwear, rolling the waistband once so they stay up. “You can look now.”
He turns cautiously.
His gaze moves over her in a single, helpless sweep: bare legs, his boxers sitting low on her hips, his hoodie hanging loose enough that one shoulder has slipped through the collar. Her hair is mussed. Her mouth is pink from drinking and biting at it all night.
Garrett looks away first.
“Your turn,” she says.
He points toward the bed. “Get in.”
“I want to watch.”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because you’ve told an entire room you haven’t come in months and now you’re wearing my clothes.”
She considers that. “That’s true.”
Garrett rubs both hands over his face. “Jesus Christ.”
He steps into the small closet alcove, although the door doesn’t close properly and the angle leaves him partly visible in the mirror beside his dresser. She sits on the edge of his bed and watches him pull his sweater over his head, the muscles in his back shifting beneath smooth skin. His pants follow, pushed down over narrow hips and strong thighs until he stands in black boxers.
Her mouth actually waters. Garrett glances toward the mirror. Their eyes meet in the reflection. She doesn’t look away. His jaw flexes.
For one suspended second, the room seems to narrow around them, warm and quiet and threaded through with everything they have been pretending not to notice. Then Garrett grabs shorts and a t-shirt, pulling them on with unnecessary force.
When he returns, she’s still sitting upright, staring at him.
He points toward the opposite side of the mattress. “You stay on your side. I stay on mine.”
Her stomach drops with stupid disappointment. She had been almost certain he was going to kiss her. Maybe not certain. Hopeful enough to feel embarrassed now.
She climbs under the covers anyway, watching him turn off the lamp before lying beside her with a cautious strip of mattress between them.
The darkness makes her braver. “I could be your fuck bunny.”
Garrett goes rigid. “What?”
She rolls onto her side to face him, struggling to arrange the words through the pleasant fog in her skull. “Your puck funny.”
“What?”
“No. Fuck punny.” She frowns. “That isn’t right either.”
“Go to sleep.”
“Puck bunny,” she says triumphantly. “I could be one.”
His voice is tight. “You’re a stoned bunny.”
“I’m a horny bunny.”
Garrett makes a sound that seems physically painful. “Well, sleep, horny bunny.”
She huffs, rolls away from him and buries her face into his pillow. “You’re no fun.”
“I’m being responsible.”
“Boring.”
“Goodnight, princess.”
She intends to say something cutting. Instead, she falls asleep halfway through the inhale.
The fourth time, she wakes with Garrett hard against her ass and his arm wrapped tightly around her waist.
For several soft, disorienting seconds, she doesn’t remember where she is. There is only warmth – the heavy comforter tangled around her calves, a broad palm spread low across her stomach, slow breath disturbing the hair at the back of her neck.
Her mouth tastes faintly like vodka and sleep, her limbs weighted with the pleasant remains of the weed, and she's wearing far more fabric than usual in bed because Garrett’s hoodie has bunched around her hips sometime during the night, leaving one bare thigh tucked between both of his.
Then he shifts behind her. The hard length pressed into the curve of her ass moves with him, unmistakable even through his shorts and the boxers he made her pull over her underwear, and every blurred piece of the night before snaps sharply into place.
His room. His bed. Garrett standing half-naked inside the shallow cupboard while she watched through the mirror. Her own voice declaring that she was a horny bunny before she passed out facedown against his pillow like the sophisticated, sexually irresistible woman she so clearly is.
She should be mortified. Instead, heat gathers between her legs with embarrassing speed.
Garrett’s body is curled around hers as though neither of them spent several careful minutes negotiating opposite sides of the mattress. His chest is firm against her back, one knee wedged between hers, his face pressed into her hair.
The position is intimate in a way that should feel unfamiliar, except everything about him already belongs inside the architecture of her life. His arm around her. His hand on her waist. His clothes against her skin. Garrett is always touching her, always letting her lean, climb, tug and settle wherever she wants.
The only new thing is how badly she wants more.
His breathing is still deep and even. She lies perfectly still, staring at the thin bars of morning light stretching across his wall while her pulse begins beating in places it has no business being this early. Garrett’s hand flexes against her stomach, fingers spreading as though even asleep he is making certain she’s still there, and the movement draws the hoodie upward another inch.
She could leave it alone. She could untangle herself, find her dress and spend the rest of their friendship pretending she never woke up with his erection pressed against her while yesterday’s confession sat between them like a match beside gasoline.
It's been so long since a man made her come.
Garrett heard her say it. Garrett, who stared at her piercings through the pink top in the dining hall until he forgot how drinking straws worked. Garrett, who abandoned a girl mid-hookup because she asked him to drive her home. Garrett, who had clenched his jaw when she offered to become his puck bunny and then tucked her into his bed instead of taking advantage of how stoned she was.
Garrett, who is hard against her now.
She moves before she can talk herself out of it. Only slightly at first, a slow backward press of her hips that could almost be blamed on sleep. The reaction is immediate. Garrett’s breathing catches against her neck, his entire body tightening behind her, though his hand remains motionless across her stomach.
Her lips curve against the pillow. She does it again.
This time she rolls her hips deliberately, letting the soft curve of her ass drag against him through the thin layers separating them. Pleasure flickers low in her belly from the pressure of his thigh between hers, nowhere near enough but more than enough to leave her suddenly, painfully aware of how wet she's becoming.
Garrett wakes with a rough inhale.
“Shit.” His arm loosens and his hips jerk back as though he's touched something hot. His voice is wrecked by sleep, low enough that it moves through her body before the words fully register. “Sorry. I didn’t–”
She has spent months wondering what his mouth would feel like. She has spent weeks wearing thinner tops and pretending not to notice every stolen look.
She has spent an entire night aching beneath his attention, only for him to place an honourable strip of mattress between them and tell her to sleep.
She's finished waiting. She rolls over, fists one hand into his curls and kisses him.
Garrett goes completely still beneath her mouth. For one terrible heartbeat, he doesn’t kiss her back. His lips are warm and slightly parted, his body rigid beside hers, and humiliation begins crawling up her throat – but then she hooks her leg over his hip, presses herself against the hard shape beneath his shorts and makes a small, impatient sound into his mouth.
Something in him gives. His hand clamps around her waist and he kisses her back so hard that the breath catches in her chest. There's no careful, uncertain exploration, no fumbling attempt to determine whether best friends are allowed to do this.
Garrett kisses her like he's already imagined it too many times to need instructions, his mouth opening over hers, tongue sliding hot and sure against her own as he rolls her beneath him.
The mattress dips. His body settles between her thighs, broad and heavy enough to make her feel trapped without placing his full weight on her, and the sensation empties her head of everything except him.
Her Garrett. Her best friend, who carries two trays through the dining hall because she doesn’t like balancing her soup. Who knows she wants the strawberry yoghurt and hates melon. Who always does what she asks, even while complaining like she has sentenced him to hard labour.
Except he isn’t waiting for her instructions now.
She reaches for his face, wanting to pull him closer, but Garrett catches her wrist and presses it into the mattress beside her head. The abrupt restraint sends a sharp pulse of heat straight through her.
He pulls back just enough to look at her, his chest rising hard beneath his shirt. His curls are ruined beneath her fingers, his mouth flushed from hers, but his eyes are startlingly clear now, fixed on her with an intensity that makes her stomach clench.
“Tell me to stop,” he says.
She shakes her head immediately.
“Words, princess.”
“No.” Her voice emerges breathless and embarrassingly soft. “Don’t stop.”
His gaze drops to her mouth. “You sure?”
“Yes.”
She expects him to tease her. Instead, something almost hungry passes over his face, quick and raw before his mouth comes down on hers again.
She melts beneath him. There's no other word for it. All the sharp little remarks she might ordinarily use to protect herself disappear the moment Garrett’s hand tightens around her wrist.
Her body seems to understand the arrangement before her mind catches up: Garrett above her, Garrett in control, Garrett deciding how fast and how hard while she clings to him and lets him.
He shifts his hips, pressing himself firmly between her thighs. A thin whimper escapes her.
Garrett stills for half a beat, as if the sound surprises him. Then he does it again, slower this time, grinding the thick ridge of his erection directly against the place already pulsing beneath her underwear.
Her free hand flies to his shoulder. “Garrett.”
“What?” he asks, mouth brushing the corner of hers. The word is too calm for what he's doing.
She cannot remember what she intended to say. He moves again and her head falls back, throat exposed to him, every nerve beneath her skin drawn tight.
His lips find the sensitive place beneath her jaw. He kisses it once, then opens his mouth against her neck, teeth grazing softly enough to make her toes curl inside the sheets.
“This is what you wanted?” he murmurs.
She nods.
His fingers tighten around her wrist. “Wanted me to wake up and fuck around with my best friend?”
The filthy edge to the question sends another helpless noise from her throat. Garrett has always had a dirty mouth – on the ice, during video games, whenever Dean says anything remotely provocative – but she's never heard it aimed at her like this, lowered against her skin until the words feel like touch.
“Yes,” she whispers.
“How long?”
She turns her face toward him, cheeks hot. “I don’t know.”
“Bullshit.”
His other hand slides beneath the hem of the hoodie, palm moving slowly up her bare stomach. She feels every roughened patch of his skin, every subtle drag of his fingers. The hoodie lifts with his wrist, cool air following the heat of his hand.
“Months,” she admits.
Garrett’s mouth stops against her throat. The silence lasts only a second, but she feels the answer move through him. His hips press more firmly into hers. His breathing roughens.
“Months,” he repeats.
She nods, suddenly unable to meet his eyes. “Since you– saw me... the tank top. Maybe before.”
His thumb traces beneath her breast. “You’ve been thinking about me since then?”
Her body arches toward his hand without permission. “Garrett, please.”
“Thinking about what?”
She squeezes her eyes closed. She cannot say it while he's looking at her like this. Not when the fantasies felt illicit even alone in her dorm, her vibrator between her legs while she imagined his dark head lowered over her chest.
Garrett releases her wrist only to catch both hands together and press them above her head with one of his. His other hand cups her breast beneath the hoodie, warm and possessive, thumb finding the metal bar through her nipple as though he has known exactly where it would be all along.
He strokes it once. Her entire body jerks beneath him.
“Oh.”
Garrett exhales through his nose, the sound nearly a groan. “That sensitive?”
She nods, breathing too quickly. He rolls the piercing gently beneath his thumb, watching her face while pleasure sparks through her in sharp, bright bursts. Her thighs tighten around his hips. The friction between them makes her ache, but he refuses to give her the rhythm her body is beginning to chase.
“Was this it?” he asks. “You thinking about my hands on these?”
She tries to pull her hands free, because she needs something to hold onto. He keeps them pinned easily.
“And my mouth?” His thumb circles her nipple. “You think about that too?”
“Yes.”
The answer breaks out of her before embarrassment can stop it.
Garrett’s eyelids lower. “Fuck, princess.”
He pushes the hoodie higher, baring her breasts completely. The fabric gathers beneath her raised arms, leaving her trapped inside his clothes and exposed beneath his gaze. Garrett simply looks for a moment, and the undisguised want on his face makes her feel more naked than she is.
She has seen him stare before. Across dining tables. From the driver’s seat. In her dorm room when the white tank turned translucent beneath the light.
This is different. There's no joke waiting behind his eyes, no exaggerated plea for her to cover up before he fights somebody. His attention moves over her slowly, the muscles along his jaw tightening as he takes in the silver bars and the way her nipples have already hardened under his hands.
“I knew they’d look good,” he says, voice rough. “Didn’t know they’d look this fucking good.”
Her stomach turns molten. “G.”
He lowers his head. The first touch of his tongue is directly over the metal.
She gasps, back lifting from the mattress, but his hand keeps her wrists firmly above her head. Garrett traces the bar with the tip of his tongue, slow enough that she can feel the contrast of warmth and cool metal, then closes his mouth around her nipple.
Her eyes fall shut. “Oh my God.”
His groan vibrates through her breast. He sucks with controlled, deliberate pressure, tongue moving around the piercing while his free hand cups the other side, fingers kneading the soft weight before his thumb begins teasing that bar too.
Every fantasy she has had was inadequate. None of them accounted for the size of him over her, the scratch of morning stubble against her skin or the way he keeps grinding lazily between her legs while his mouth works at her chest. None of them sounded like Garrett groaning because he finally has her nipple on his tongue.
Her hands strain uselessly in his grip. “Please.”
He lifts his head, lips wet, eyes dark. “Please what?”
She looks down between them, frustrated tears almost prickling at the corners of her eyes from how badly she wants him. “Touch me.”
“I am touching you.”
“You know what I mean.”
His mouth curves slightly, but there's none of his usual bright humour in it. “Ask properly.”
Ordinarily, she would tell him to go fuck himself. She would roll her eyes, call him an idiot and take whatever she wanted through persistence alone. Now, with her body shaking beneath him and his thumb sliding over her piercing, there is nothing she would not say.
“Please touch me,” she whispers. “Please, Garrett. I need you.”
His expression changes again, satisfaction and something heavier moving beneath it. “There’s my good girl.”
The praise pours through her like heat.
Garrett switches breasts before she can recover, mouth closing around her other nipple while his hand slips back down her stomach. He hooks his fingers into the waistband of the boxers she borrowed and drags them slowly over her hips, leaving her underwear beneath.
She lifts herself immediately to help him.
“Eager,” he murmurs against her skin.
She cannot summon enough dignity to deny it. “Yes.”
He pushes the boxers down her legs and tosses them aside. Her knees fall open around him almost instinctively, the pink fabric between her thighs already damp enough to cling.
Garrett looks down. A sharp breath leaves him. She feels the attention like another touch, direct and scorching. Some small remaining instinct makes her knees begin to draw inward, but Garrett catches one and presses it back into the mattress.
“No.”
The single word makes her still.
His palm slides along the inside of her thigh, spreading her wider as he settles beside her. “You wanted my attention so badly, you can take it.”
Her lips part. He keeps his eyes on her while his fingers reach the damp centre of her underwear, pressing lightly through the fabric.
Pleasure jolts through her. Her hips lift toward his hand, searching for more before she can pretend otherwise.
“Look at you,” Garrett murmurs. “All that bossing me around, and this is all it takes?”
She shakes her head, though she has no idea what she's denying. He moves his fingertips in one slow stroke and her breath trembles out of her.
“Please,” she says again.
His eyes snap back to her face. The sound seems to affect him every time, as though he's never heard her ask instead of demand and has already become addicted to it.
Garrett hooks his fingers beneath the waistband and draws her underwear down. She helps impatiently, kicking the fabric away the moment it reaches her ankles. The exposure should embarrass her, but the only thing she can think about is his hand returning to her.
It does. His fingers slide through the wetness between her thighs, unbearably gentle at first, gathering it slowly as though he has all morning to learn her.
Both of them exhale.
“Jesus,” Garrett says softly.
She grips the sheet beside her, already fighting the urge to lift her hips into his palm. “What?”
“You’re fucking soaked.”
Heat burns across her face, but he sounds pleased rather than mocking, his voice roughening as he strokes through her again, spreading her open with two fingers and watching the slick gather against his hand.
“This all for me?”
Her eyelids flutter. “Maybe.”
Garrett looks up at her. “Maybe?”
His thumb drags over her clit, slow and deliberate, and her whole body jerks.
“Yes,” she gasps.
“Yeah?” He circles again, firmer this time, mouth curving when her thighs twitch around his wrist. “You get this wet thinking about me?”
She swallows, embarrassment dissolving beneath the ache building low in her stomach. “Sometimes.”
“Sometimes,” he repeats, like he doesn’t believe a word of it.
His middle finger presses against her entrance, not entering yet, just teasing there while she tries not to move. She fails almost immediately. Her hips tilt toward him, chasing the pressure, and Garrett lets out a low laugh that makes everything inside her tighten.
“Look at you,” he murmurs. “Can’t even wait for me to put my fingers inside you.”
“Garrett.”
“What, princess?”
“Please.”
He slides one finger into her slowly. Her mouth falls open.
The stretch is slight, nowhere near enough, but the feel of Garrett inside her – Garrett, her best friend, the man she has imagined with his hand between her legs more times than she would ever admit aloud – makes a thin, breathless whimper escape her.
His eyes sharpen instantly. “That’s the noise you make?”
She turns her face into the pillow, mortified, but his free hand catches her jaw and draws her back.
“No. Don’t hide.”
He pushes his finger deeper, curling it inside her, and her lashes flutter as pleasure sparks hard through her.
“G–”
“There?” he asks, already doing it again.
She nods quickly. “Yes. Right there.”
Garrett keeps his eyes on her as he begins moving, drawing his finger almost all the way out before pushing it back inside, slow enough at first that she feels every inch of it, every deliberate curl and drag against the place that makes her stomach tighten. Her legs fall wider.
“Good girl,” he murmurs.
The praise pours straight through her. She moans, soft and helpless, and Garrett’s jaw flexes like the sound hurts him.
“Fuck,” he mutters. “You like that?”
She can barely answer. “Yes.”
“Like me telling you how good you’re being while I finger you?”
Her hips rock into his hand.
Garrett smiles, dark and pleased. “Yeah. Thought so.”
He adds a second finger. The fuller stretch makes her gasp, fingers flying to his forearm as he pushes them into her together, watching her face the entire time. “Oh my God.”
“Too much?”
She shakes her head frantically. “No. No, don’t stop.”
“I’m not stopping.”
His fingers begin fucking into her properly then, the rhythm steady and deep, his palm pressing against her clit every time he pushes back inside. The wet sounds are obscene in the quiet room, each slick thrust loud enough to make heat crawl over her chest.
Garrett hears them too. “Listen to you,” he says, voice dropping lower. “So fucking wet for me.”
She whines, head falling back as his fingers curl harder. “Garrett, please.”
“Please what?”
She has no idea. More. Faster. Everything. “Please make me come.”
The words leave her on a broken breath. Garrett’s expression turns almost feral.
“Yeah?” His fingers drive into her again, faster now, finding the exact angle that makes her thighs shake. “You need your best friend to make you come?”
She nods, unable to stop the sounds spilling from her.
“Say it.”
“I need you.”
“Need me how?”
Her nails dig into his wrist. “Need your fingers. Please, G, please–”
He groans and kisses her hard, swallowing the next whimper as his hand works between her legs. His fingers thrust deep and curl with every stroke, firm and controlled, while his thumb finds her clit and begins circling in time with them.
The pleasure climbs so quickly she can barely breathe. She clings to his shoulder, moaning into his mouth as he fucks her with his fingers, every thrust sending another hot pulse through her.
He knows exactly when to speed up, when to press harder, when to drag his thumb over her clit in tight, relentless circles that make her hips buck helplessly against him.
She had wondered whether this would feel awkward. Whether she would become too aware of every ordinary thing she knows about him – how he takes his coffee, the face he makes when he loses at cards, the exact pitch of his snore after an away game.
Instead, it feels terrifyingly natural. He knows her even here. He feels the way her body clenches around his fingers before she can tell him she needs more. He hears the pitch of her moans changing and immediately fucks into her harder, curling his fingers against the spot that makes her vision blur.
“Garrett,” she whimpers.
“I know.”
His voice is rough now, every ounce of control in his hand rather than his mouth.
“You’re taking me so well,” he murmurs, watching his fingers disappear inside her. “Fuck, princess. Look at you.”
She squeezes around him, and his breathing stutters.
“That feel good?”
“So good.”
“Better than those other guys?”
The question should make her laugh. Instead, the jealousy underneath it sends heat through her. “Yes.”
“How much better?”
Her voice breaks when he drives his fingers into her again. “So much.”
Garrett’s mouth brushes her ear. “That’s because they didn’t know what to do with you.”
His fingers curl. She cries out softly.
“Didn’t know you needed someone to take their time,” he continues, filthy and tender all at once. “Someone to keep going when you start getting all sensitive.”
Her thighs begin trembling. “G, I’m close.”
“Yeah, you are.”
He fucks his fingers into her faster, thumb moving firmly over her clit while she writhes beneath him. She tries to turn her face away, overwhelmed by his attention, but Garrett catches her jaw again.
“Look at me.”
She forces her eyes open. The approval in his expression nearly destroys her.
“That’s it,” he says softly. “Want to watch you come on my fingers.”
Her stomach tightens violently. The pressure becomes almost unbearable, pleasure building so hard and fast that panic flickers through her. “G–”
“I’ve got you.”
She shakes her head, fingers closing around his wrist even as her hips keep meeting every thrust. “I can’t.”
“Yes, you can.”
“It’s too much.”
“No, baby.” He presses a kiss against her cheek, then the corner of her mouth, never slowing his hand. “You’re just not used to somebody doing it right.”
A broken whine escapes her. Garrett smiles against her skin.
“That’s it. Let me hear you.”
Her legs try to close around his hand, but he shifts between them, using his body to keep her spread open while his fingers continue fucking into her.
“Don’t run.”
“I’m not–”
“You are.” His thumb presses harder against her clit, and her back arches. “Stay right here. Take it for me.”
She nods frantically, tears prickling at her lashes from the intensity.
“Good girl.”
The praise hits at the exact moment his fingers curl deep inside her. The orgasm tears through her. Her body clamps hard around his fingers, a cry breaking loose before Garrett covers her mouth with his.
Pleasure pulses outward in fierce, breath-stealing waves, her hips jerking helplessly against his hand while he keeps fucking her through it.
“That’s it,” he murmurs against her lips. “Come for me.”
She whimpers into his mouth, fingers tangled desperately in his shirt as another wave rolls through her.
“Fuck, you’re squeezing me so tight.” His voice is wrecked now, proud and filthy. “Such a pretty fucking girl.”
The words make her clench around him again. Garrett groans and slows his fingers only slightly, dragging the orgasm out while she shakes beneath him, every stroke making her twitch and gasp.
“G– please–”
“I know, baby.”
She tries to curl away when the pleasure turns too sharp, rolling onto her side with a broken sound, but Garrett follows her, arm wrapping around her waist while his fingers remain inside her.
He gives her one last slow curl. Her whole body shudders. Then he finally stops. For several seconds, she cannot speak.
Her heart pounds beneath the hand he settles over her ribs. Her face is pressed into his pillow, chest rising in shallow, uneven breaths, Garrett’s body warm along the length of her back.
He withdraws his fingers carefully, and she whimpers at the sudden emptiness.
Garrett kisses her shoulder. “That okay?”
She lets out a weak, incredulous laugh. “Okay?”
Garrett’s mouth moves against her skin. “Need to know.”
She turns her head enough to look at him. His expression has softened, the sharp control from moments before giving way to the Garrett she knows – the one who checks that she has texted after walking ten feet into her building.
“That was so good,” she whispers.
The admission makes his grin appear slowly. Stunned and pleased, as though he cannot believe he's the one who finally gets to see her like this. “Yeah?”
She nods, too blissed out to pretend otherwise. “Really good.”
“Shit.” He drops his forehead between her shoulder blades with a quiet laugh. “I’m barely awake.”
A giggle escapes her, loose and helpless. “Me too.”
When she shifts, she feels how hard he still is behind her. She turns in his arms and reaches for him immediately, wanting to give back even a fraction of what he has just done to her, but Garrett catches her wrist before she can get beneath his waistband.
“We’ve got time for that.”
She frowns. “But you didn’t–”
“Later.”
“Garrett.”
He kisses her before she can argue, slower now, his hand cradling the side of her face. “You were the emergency.”
A stupid, warm ache opens beneath her ribs. She studies him when the kiss ends. His hair is a mess from her hands. His mouth is swollen. He's still her best friend, entirely and unmistakably, except now he's held her down and made her come so hard she briefly forgot her own surname.
Nothing is broken.
The room is still his room. The radiator still clicks beneath the window. Downstairs, somebody drops something heavy and Logan groans loudly enough to be heard through the floor.
She still knows him. Maybe she knows him better now.
“Can we be friends with benefits?” she blurts.
Garrett blinks at her.
She pushes herself higher on the pillow, ignoring the fact that the hoodie is trapped around her elbows and her underwear is somewhere near his desk. “It makes sense.”
“Does it?”
“Yes.” She gestures vaguely between them. “You can actually make me finish. Apparently very easily, which is irritating, but useful.”
“Useful,” he echoes, mouth twitching.
“And I won’t have to interrupt your hookups anymore.”
“You’ll absolutely still interrupt my hookups.”
“There won’t be hookups to interrupt,” she says, then pauses. “I mean, unless you still want to hook up with other people. We haven’t discussed exclusivity. This proposal lacks detail.”
Garrett laughs softly, staring up at the ceiling for a second before looking back at her. “You’re negotiating naked.”
“I do my best work under pressure.”
His hand slides along her bare waist beneath the tangled hoodie, thumb moving in a slow, absent stroke that makes her want to climb back on top of him.
“Friends with benefits,” he says.
She nods. “Nothing else changes.”
“Secret?”
“Definitely," she nods. “But Logan will walk in on us within a week.”
“Probably.”
She smiles. “But until then, nobody knows.”
Garrett watches her for a long moment, something unreadable sitting quietly behind his eyes. “And if it gets weird?”
“We stop.”
“No drama," he tilts his head.
“No ruining the friendship,” she agrees. “It’s us. We’ll be fine.”
The words feel true while she says them. Garrett holds out his hand.
She looks down at it, then back at him. “Are we seriously shaking on this?”
“It’s an agreement," he shrugs.
“You just made me come while holding me down.”
“And now I’m being professional.”
She laughs and places her hand in his. His fingers close around hers, warm and firm, his palm roughened in familiar places. He gives her one solemn shake without taking his eyes off her.
“Deal,” he says.
“Deal.”
Garrett releases her hand only to slide his arm around her waist and pull her beneath him again. She squeaks, laughter catching in her throat when he settles between her thighs, mouth already lowering toward her chest.
“What are you doing?”
“The deal started.”
“It started ten seconds ago.”
“Long ten seconds.”
His lips close around one of her piercings. Her hands fly into his hair and the argument dissolves into a breathless moan.
Garrett smiles against her skin. “Thought so, princess.”
to be notified when i post new fics, follow @kooksandpearls-library and turn on notifications! i no longer use a taglist for garrett fics.
MDNIwarnings: explicit sexual content, oral sex (m receiving), guided instruction/teaching, praise kink, dirty talk, caring/concerned boyfriend, light possessiveness, established relationship, mutual consent… ~1050
Oh Garrett Hobart Graham, that man was obsessed with pleasing you. Every time you were together, he made it his mission to pull at least, the minimum of two orgasms from you with his mouth alone. Whether in private..sometimes most times in public.
And tonight was not different at all. After just worshipping you, leaving you boneless and shaking on his bed in the hockey house, he quickly crawled up to kiss you, causing you to stop him with a hand on his chest stopping him from slipping into you.
“G,” you whispered, still catching your breath. “I want to do the same for you. I’ve been thinking about it..I want to return the favor, but I don’t really know how. I’ve never done it before.”
His eyebrows shot up, concern flashing across his handsome face immediately. “You don’t have to, sweetheart. Aye, I love going down on you. Making you come is my favorite thing. I don’t want you doing anything you’re not comfortable with.”
You sat up, cupping his jaw, shaking your head. “I want to..teach me?”
Garrett searched your eyes for a long moment, always so careful, then let out a shaky breath and nodded. “Only if you promise to stop if you don’t like it. I mean at any point. Tell me, okay? I need you to feel good too.”
He leaned back against the headboard, pulling you into his lap first for a sweet, reassuring kiss. His hands stroked your back soothingly; his cock was already hard against your thigh, but he ignored it, focusing entirely on you. “Alright,” he murmured, gently as he helped you settle between his spread thighs. “We’ll go slow...you set the pace, baby. I just want you to enjoy this.”
Garrett wrapped one hand around the base of his thick cock, the other gently threading through your hair. Even now, worry lingered in his eyes. “Start with your hand if you want. Or just kiss it. Whatever feels the most natural..no pressure at all baby.”
You leaned in, pressing a soft kiss to the flushed head. Garrett inhaled sharply, his abs flexing, but he stayed perfectly still not wanting to scare you. “Oh fuck that's good, mhm just like that.”
Feeling more confident, you dragged your tongue along the underside, tracing the thick vein there. He groaned quietly, his free hand coming down to cup your cheek. “Eyes up here if you can, baby. I love seeing you like this.” His voice was a bit rough but tender. “Use your tongue more...yeah, just like that. Get little G wet. You’re doing perfect already.”
You took the head into your mouth, sucking lightly. Garrett’s hips twitched once before he caught himself, murmuring apologies. “Sorry shit, you feel incredible. Relax your jaw, sweetheart. That's it, take a little more when you’re ready for it. Breathe through your nose. If it’s too much, pull back. I mean it...”
You did as he said, sliding down further until he bumped the back of your throat. The slight gag made you pull off, eyes watering a bit, but comfortability came back as his normally rough thumb brushed away the spit on your chin, expression full of concern.
“You okay? Too deep?” He looked genuinely worried, even as his cock throbbed in your hand. “We can stop, baby. Or just use your hand and mouth together. Here...let me show you.”
He guided your hand to wrap around the base, demonstrating a slow, twisting stroke while you took the head back into your mouth. The combination drew a deep, broken moan from him.
“Ooh God, baby…you’re an absolute natural..feels sooo fucking good. You truly have no idea how long I’ve thought about this pretty mouth.” His lewd praises were constant but he kept checking in. “Is this okay for you? Your knees..thighs? Want a pillow?”
You hummed around him in response, the vibration making his thighs tense. Garrett cursed softly, fingers tightening gently in your hair without pushing. “Fuck do that again..”
You finally found a rhythm, bobbing slowly while stroking him, saliva making everything more messy. Garrett’s breathing grew heavier, but he never stopped talking you through it. “Look at me, baby. You’re so beautiful like this. Taking my cock so well....if it gets uncomfortable, tap my thigh twice. Promise me.”
You locked eyes with him, hollowing your cheeks on the upstroke like he’d quietly suggested earlier, not answering him trying to squeeze out an orgasm. His head fell back for a second, but he quickly returned his gaze to you, eyes dark with lust.
“Shit, I’m getting close already,” he warned, voice scratchy. “You don’t have to swallow. You can pull off and I’ll finish on your tits or wherever you want.”
But you wanted this. You doubled down, sucking a little harder, hand moving faster. Garrett’s hand in your hair trembled as he fought to stay gentle.
“Baby—ooh fuck, I’m gonna come...You sure?” At your confirming hum, he let go with a low groan, spilling into your mouth. You swallowed what you could, the rest dripping as you pulled back with a dirty smile.
Garrett hauled you up onto him instantly, wrapping you in his strong arms and kissing you deeply, tasting himself on your tongue without hesitation. He wiped your chin with his thumb, then peppered your face with soft kisses while his hands roamed your body soothing you.
“You did so good,” he whispered, with hints of concern. “Was that okay? Did your jaw hurt? Was I too much?” He pulled back to study your face, brows furrowed. Even after coming, his first priority was you.
You smiled, curling into his chest, come still on your chin. “It was good, G. I liked it..I really enjoyed making you feel that way.”
He let out a relieved breath, hugging you tighter. “Thank fuck. I was worried I’d push you too hard.” His hands cleaning your chin and neck off, laughing to himself. “But I'm gonna be honest, your mouth is..heaven. Still, I love eating you out more. Can I do that again? I need to make you come at least once more, just one more time....or a couple more.”
You laughed softly, but he was already moving, sliding down the bed with that focused, worried-sweet expression. “Only if you’re sure you’re okay,” he added, kissing your inner thigh. “Tell me what feels best tonight..because I'll do it all.”
Garrett spent the next while proving exactly how much he whipped he was for your pleasure. Every few minutes he’d check in with a soft “Still good?” until you were spilling onto his tongue over and over again.
Afterward, he tucked you against his chest, stroking your hair and murmuring, “Thank you for trusting me to teach you. Now just remember, we can practice whenever you want…but only when you want.”
a./n: getting back into the hang of writing so it's a little shorter and too fast pace for my liking, but i hope you guys enjoyed it! AND let me know if you guys want the dean vers!
pairing – garrett graham x nursing student!reader
summary – after ten hours under hospital lights, the body makes the decision before the brain can catch up: go home to garrett.
warnings – post-shift exhaustion, tired driving, hospital mentions, mild confusion.
notes from me – requested soooo long ago i'm sorry babe!! but here's some NS!reader and garrett fluff 😌
word count – 1.1k
navigation – masterlist |
The drive back from the hospital exists mostly in fragments. The green glow of the dashboard. Her indicator clicking for several seconds after she has already changed lanes.
The heater blowing directly into her face because cold air feels medically irresponsible at six in the morning, even though the warmth keeps making her eyelids drag lower at every red light. Her scrub top scratches beneath her jacket.
Her ponytail has been pulling at the same patch of scalp since midnight, and the backs of her knees ache with that strange, deep heaviness that comes from standing for ten hours beneath fluorescent lighting while pretending crackers eaten beside a medication trolley count as dinner.
She normally takes the bus. The bus requires no decisions beyond getting on and trying not to fall asleep against a stranger.
But Garrett has started paying for food with the irritating consistency of someone who refuses to call it paying for her food. He orders too much. He already has his card out. He tells her she can get the next one and then develops selective amnesia when the next one arrives.
Somewhere between takeaway containers appearing after placement and Garrett filling her fridge shelf with things that contain actual nutrients, she has stopped watching the fuel gauge quite so closely.
So she drives.
She pulls into a driveway just after six with no real memory of choosing it. The engine goes quiet beneath her, and she sits behind the wheel for several seconds with both hands still resting on it, staring at the dark garage door while her body waits for further instructions.
Eventually, she gets out. Her bag catches on the handbrake. She nearly shuts the car door on the hem of her jacket, corrects it with the slow dignity of someone completing an advanced clinical procedure, then walks toward the porch with her keys already in her hand.
The lock opens. Inside, the hockey house is awake in that unpleasant, predawn way usually reserved for airports and men with scheduled ice time. The kitchen lights are on. Something is sizzling in a pan.
Logan's standing at the island in grey sweats, eating eggs directly from a plate with his fork held like a shovel, while Dean leans against the counter in half his practice gear and drinks coffee from a mug that says WORLD’S BEST MOM.
Both of them look up when she comes in.
Dean lowers the mug. “Hey?”
She shuts the door behind her, then remains there with one hand still on the knob. Her hospital badge swings lightly against her chest. “Hi.”
Logan pauses mid-chew.
Dean’s eyes move over her slowly–the creased scrubs, the puffer jacket hanging open, the dark half-moons beneath her eyes, the fact that one of her shoelaces has come undone without her apparently noticing. “You good?”
She frowns at him. It takes more effort than it should. “Why’re you in my house?”
Logan stops chewing completely.
Dean glances at him. Logan glances back. Whatever silent conversation passes between them isn't reassuring.
“Your house,” Dean repeats.
“Mhm.” She steps around the shoes near the door and begins moving toward the stairs. Her shoulder clips the wall on the first attempt. She corrects her trajectory without acknowledging it. “You’re being really loud.”
“Okay,” Logan says carefully. “Sorry.”
Dean watches her start climbing. “Should we stop her?”
Logan looks toward the stairs, then at the fork still suspended in his hand. “From going to Graham’s room?”
“Good point.”
She reaches Garrett’s door and opens it without knocking. Garrett jerks around so quickly the towel around his waist nearly loses its argument with gravity.
He has another towel in his hands, halfway through rubbing his damp curls dry, his bare chest still shining slightly from the shower.
“Hey–!” His hand catches the knot at his hip. Then he sees her properly and the alarm leaves his face in pieces. “Oh. Hi, baby.”
She stands in the doorway, blinking at him.
Garrett drops the second towel onto his desk chair. “You good?”
Her brows pull together. “Baby, why’re you in my dorm?”
For one second, Garrett only looks at her. Then his mouth presses inward around a smile he's clearly trying not to let become disrespectful.
“Baby,” he says gently, coming closer, “you came to my house.”
She stares at him. Garrett waits.
“Oh,” she says eventually. “Did I?”
“Mhm.” The smile reaches his eyes now, soft and helpless and much too fond for six in the morning. He takes her bag from her shoulder before the strap can slide down her arm and sets it beside the dresser. “You did.”
She looks past him at the unmade bed, his Briar hoodie thrown over the desk, the textbook facedown beside his pillow. Familiar enough that her body had apparently navigated here without consulting anybody.
“I came home,” she murmurs, more to the room than him. “To your house.”
Garrett’s expression changes so quietly she nearly misses it. His hand settles at her elbow, warm and steady.
He guides her toward the bed without making the sentence any bigger than she can hold right now. “Sit down.”
She sits immediately, knees parting around his legs when he crouches in front of her. Garrett unties the lace she's been dragging across the floor, then pulls off one sneaker, then the other, setting them neatly beside his bed.
His thumbs press briefly into the arches of her socked feet before he stands. He bends and kisses the top of her head.
“Go shower, baby,” he murmurs into her hair. “Then go to bed.”
She tips her face up toward him. “I’ll… see you later?”
“You will.” His palm smooths once over her ponytail, then he kisses the same spot again, slower this time. “Quickly, though. Before you fall asleep in your scrubs and convince me hospital germs are part of this relationship now.”
Her eyes close for a second beneath his mouth. “They’re not germs. They’re microorganisms.”
“Sorry. You're so right.”
She nods like he's made an excellent point, then stays seated.
Garrett cups her jaw gently. “Shower.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Now, girlfriend.”
Her mouth twitches. She stands, sways slightly into him, and Garrett catches her around the waist without comment.
Downstairs, Dean shouts, “Did she know where she was?”
Garrett looks toward the door. “No.”
A pause, then Logan calls, “That’s kind of cute, man.”
“Shut the fuck up,” Garrett says, but his hand tightens warmly at her waist as he walks her toward the bathroom.
to be notified when i post new fics, follow @kooksandpearls-library and turn on notifications! i no longer use a taglist for garrett fics.
bottoms up! | 1k cabo celebration, found family au ⋆⭒˚.⋆
⋆⭒˚.⋆ cabo 1k celebration masterlist!
⋆⭒˚.⋆ cabo 1k celebration info!
summary: in which y/n mistakes a little extra attention for good customer service, allie turns it into a tiktok, and garrett discovers that watching it unfold from boston is considerably less funny than everyone else seems to think.
notes: hi! i hope you all enjoy! <3 my laptop is glitching, hence why some of the spacing on their text messages towards the end is slightly off, i apologise!! i hope you're all well 💌 🤍
ꪆৎ
the cocktail class is allie’s idea.
which means, naturally, everybody else finds out about it approximately twenty minutes before you’re supposed to be there.
you’re still sitting cross-legged at the end of grace and sabrina's bed, damp hair twisted up messily with a claw clip, trying to decide whether the linen shorts you packed have survived being shoved into your suitcase for eight days straight.
allie suddenly comes in holding her phone. “okay!” she says.
grace looks up immediately from where she’s digging through her makeup bag. “no.”
allie pauses in the doorway. “you don’t even know what i’m going to say.”
“i know your tone.”
“my tone is fun.”
sabrina, sitting at the little desk near the balcony doors, doesn’t even look away from the mirror, blending sunscreen along her jaw. “what did you book?”
allie’s silence is enough of an answer. you lower your shorts slowly, “allie.”
“in my defence,” she says, lifting one finger, “it was available.”
sabrina turns around properly, grace opens one eye, you try very hard not to laugh. allie sees the shift immediately, pointing at you. “see? y/n is interested.”
“i didn’t say anything.”
“your face did.”
“my face is tired.”
“your face wants a margarita.”
grace sighs, already defeated. “what is it?”
allie lifts her phone with a flourish. “a cocktail making class.”
there’s a small pause, each of you letting her words sink in.
sabrina tilts her head. “what time?”
allie winces in response. you narrow your eyes in warning, “allie.”
“soon.”
“how soon?”
“like...” she glances at the time. “soon enough that we should probably leave in fifteen minutes.”
grace stares at her, eyes wide. “you’re unbelievable.”
“thank you.”
“that wasn’t a praise.”
“well i’m choosing to take it as praise.”
you laugh then, properly, because there’s no point fighting it. this is how most things have gone on this trip. allie sees something, deems it essential to your holiday, and the rest of you are carried along by sheer force of her enthusiasm.
she’s usually right, most of the time.
the three of you move around the room in a rush, while allie reads out reviews from the class. “listen to this one” she says, following you towards the mirror.
“best margarita of my life.’”
you brush loose strands of hair away from your face. “that’s a big claim.”
“exactly, so we need to investigate.” you’re smiling when you grab your bag. suddenly, your phone buzzes on the bed.
baby 🤍
what are you up to right now?
you type back a response while allie searches for her sandals.
you
apparently going to a cocktail making class
his reply is almost immediate.
baby 🤍
apparently?
you
allie booked it and only informed us afterwards
baby 🤍
sounds about right
baby 🤍
well have fun, baby
baby 🤍
text me after
you smile down at the screen.
you
i will
you
maybe i’ll come home with skills
baby 🤍
you already have skills
you stare at the message for a moment, warmth creeping into your cheeks before you can stop it. a quiet laugh escapes you as you shake your head to yourself.
allie’s head snaps up, her eyes immediately meeting yours. “what?”
“nothing.”
“garrett?”
“no.”
“liar.”
you lock your phone quickly yet the action only makes allie grin wider.
“leave her alone,” sabrina says, standing and grabbing her bag. “she’s allowed to be disgustingly in love in private.”
“thank you” you say.
grace passes you, chuckling quietly to herself. “i wouldn't consider garrett and y/n to be private.”
you nudge grace's shoulder as you follow the others out, only earning another laugh from her.
the class is held in a small open-air bar tucked just off the main resort strip. the sun has started lowering behind the buildings, throwing warm light across white walls and terracotta tiles. inside, the bar is set up for the class.
it’s much prettier than you anticipated.
long wooden tables have been arranged in a wide u-shape, each station prepared with a metal shaker, jigger, muddler, citrus, salt, little bowls of sliced fruit, and tiny bottles of things you assume to be syrups. shelves of liquor line the back wall, catching the light in amber, green, and gold.
“oh” grace says, looking around. “okay. this is cute.”
allie beams like she built the place herself. “you’re welcome.”
“i said cute, not life-changing.”
“give it time.”
a few other people are already there, mostly couples and small groups of friends. everyone has that relaxed holiday looseness about them, dressed in linen, sundresses, open shirts, skin sunburnt, hair still carrying the faint evidence of pool water and salt air.
you choose four spots together near the middle.
allie immediately starts filming the setup, claiming it's for memories when sabrina gives her a look, eyes narrowing in suspicion.
you set your bag beneath the table, before running your fingers lightly over the shaker in front of you. it’s cool beneath your touch, already beaded slightly from the ice bucket nearby.
“i’m actually excited,” you admit.
allie points at you triumphantly. “see?”
before you can respond, someone claps once near the front of the room.
“okay, everyone!” a man says, smiling as the chatter begins to quiet.
“welcome.” he’s standing behind the main bar, sleeves rolled to his forearms, dark hair pushed back, clearly having run his hand through it one too many times.
he carries himself with an easy confidence. not rehearsed or overly polished, just comfortable, as though years behind the bar and in front of strangers have made this second nature.
“my name is mateo. i’ll be teaching you how to make two cocktails today...hopefully good ones!”
a few people laugh in response. allie leans closer to you, whispering, “he’s charming.” you glance at mateo briefly, then back to allie. “he’s doing his job.”
“both can be true.”
you roll your eyes playfully.
mateo starts with introductions, asking where everyone is visiting from. people call out places around the room. california, texas, london, toronto.
when it gets to your group, allie answers before anyone else can.
“boston!”
mateo’s eyes move along the four of you, clearly curious. “all of you?”
“college” sabrina explains.
“ah.” he smiles. “that makes sense.”
grace raises a brow. “what does that mean?”
“nothing bad,” he says quickly, laughing. “just the energy.”
allie seems delighted. “we have an energy?”
“definitely.”
you laugh under your breath, mateo’s gaze flickers towards you for just a second before moving back to the group.
it's nothing, barely anything, you don’t even notice, but allie does.
the first cocktail is a classic margarita.
mateo explains it simply, walking everyone through the ingredients. he talks about balance, about citrus, sweetness, about not overfilling the shaker unless you want to “wear the drink instead of drink it.”
concern immediately covers grace's features, “i’m going to end up wearing it accidentally, just watch.”
“probably,” sabrina says.
grace gasps in response, before playfully slapping her arm.
you pick up the jigger, squinting at the measurements. “which side is which?”
allie lifts hers. “go big or go home, right.”
“are you sure?”
mateo appears beside your station before anyone else has the opportunity to answer. “small side is one ounce,” he says gently, tapping it with one finger. “big side is two.”
you glance up, sending him a small, polite smile. “thank you.”
“of course.”
he moves on after that, helping a couple at the end of the table who have already managed to spill lime juice across their station.
you continue measuring the tequila, your entire focus fixed on getting the amount right. beside you, allie watches him cross to the other end of the bar. a moment later, just before he reaches the next group, he glances back, only for a second.
his eyes find you, gaze softening slightly before he turns away again. you don't notice, however allie does.
her gaze flicks between the two of you, her expression shifting into one she usually reserves for moments she intends to weaponise later.
interesting.
the first few steps are messy in the best way. grace somehow salts her own hand, sabrina measures everything twice before pouring it once, while allie has already asked three separate times whether anyone would actually notice if she added a little more tequila.
mateo handles all of it with ease. he watches allie stray away from the recipe, pouring an extra shot of tequila into her shaker.
“creative" he says, fighting a smile.
she points at him. “perfect. that's all i needed, the tick of approval!"
“that certainly wasn't approval."
"it felt like it."
he lets out a quiet laugh, shaking his head in disbelief. "you're on your own."
you laugh, unable to help yourself. mateo glances over at the sound, a smile pulling at the corners of his mouth before he turns his attention back to the rest of the class.
once more, you don’t catch it. once more, allie does.
the room gets louder once everyone starts shaking their drinks. metal tins rattle in uneven rhythm, people laugh when lids stick or ice knocks too hard against the sides.
mateo demonstrates first, one hand over the top, one at the base. “firm grip,” he says. “otherwise it'll go everywhere."
you copy him, slightly awkward at first, then better once you get the motion. allie is dramatic with hers immediately, grace barely moves hers, while sabrina shakes hers with precise, terrifying control.
mateo wanders from station to station, offering quiet pointers where they're needed. he pauses beside you, watching your hands for a moment.
"good" he says, a small smile tugging at the corner of his mouth.
you look up, eyes wide, clearly surprised by his compliment. “really?”
“really.”
“i feel like i’m doing too much.”
“no.” he smiles in reassurance. “you’re doing it right.”
allie’s hand slows around her own shaker, grace looks across the table, while sabrina pretends very hard to be focused on her lime.
you smile, pleased with yourself. “okay, great.”
mateo’s gaze dips to your shaker. “careful with that lid though. it might stick.”
“oh” you test it. “i think it’s fine.”
"for now," he says with an easy smile, before moving on. the second he's out of earshot, grace leans towards sabrina. “did you see that?”
sabrina murmurs, “yes.”
allie whispers, “right?”
you glance at all three of them, curiosity gracing your features. “what?”
“nothing!” they all say at once.
you stare, “you guys are being weird.”
allie lifts her shaker, feigning innocence. “i’m focusing on my cocktail actually, y/n.”
“your cocktail is 99% tequila.”
“then it's perfect.”
the margaritas are poured into short glasses over ice. yours comes out a little cloudy, a little uneven, but the lime wedge sits nicely on the rim and the salt actually stays where it’s supposed to.
you hold it up, proud. “that looks like a real drink.”
grace clinks hers lightly against yours. “low bar, but yes.”
sabrina tries hers first, eyes widening. “oh.”
“good?” you ask.
“dangerously good.”
allie takes one sip of hers and immediately coughs. you laugh so hard you almost spill yours.
mateo appears beside you again with a grin. “how did we do?”
sabrina lifts her drink. “pretty well, actually.”
grace points at allie. “hers could remove paint.”
allie presses a hand to her chest. “someone had to experiment a little.”
mateo laughs, before looking at your glass.
“can i see yours?”
“mine?”
“yes.”
you hand it over without thinking. he studies it for a second like there’s something to study beyond a slightly messy margarita made by a college student.
“good salt line,” he says.
you smile reluctantly. “that feels very close to a pity compliment.”
“it’s not. people underestimate the salt.”
“they do?”
“all the time.” his smile lingers, not long, not enough for you to notice, but enough that allie reaches for her phone on the table and angles it casually, like she’s filming her drink.
mateo takes a small sip of your margarita. all four of you exchange a look of surprise, clearly caught off guard.
was he supposed to do that?
he nods in confirmation. “nice.”
despite the slight confusion your features brighten, clearly pleased by the compliment. “really?”
“yeah. good balance.”
“there’s that word again.” grace chimes in, finding the interaction all too humorous.
he holds the glass out. your fingers brush his for the briefest moment as you take it, the kind of absent, accidental contact that comes with handing something from one person to another.
you don't think anything of it.
“i'm telling garrett i have cocktail skills now.”
at the mention of garrett, allie's eyes flick to mateo. his expression barely changes, if anything, there's just the slightest pause before he nods once, a small, polite smile lingering as though something has quietly clicked into place.
“boyfriend?” he asks lightly.
you nod, smiling without hesitation. “yeah.”
mateo smiles too. “then he’s lucky.”
it’s said smoothly, kindly, not in a way that makes you uncomfortable, yet allie’s eyes widen behind her glass, grace freezes mid-sip and sabrina looks down at the table like she needs a second.
you, somehow, only laugh.
“he’d agree with you.”
mateo laughs as well. “smart man.”
then he moves away, just like that, conversation over. nothing inappropriate, nothing lingering enough to be undeniable, nothing that would make you feel strange or singled out.
but allie is already staring at the video she accidentally-on-purpose captured.
the tiny exchange, your soft smile when you said boyfriend, mateo saying, 'then he’s lucky', you laughing like it was nothing.
allie watches it once, then twice. grace leans in, sabrina does too. you are too busy taking another sip of your drink to notice.
lowering her phone, allie's expression changes into something delighted, dangerous.
grace sees it, immediately whispering, “don’t.”
allie whispers back, “i’m not doing anything.”
sabrina narrows her eyes. “you’re doing something.”
“i’m documenting.”
allie looks across at you, still completely oblivious, still smiling down at your drink like the biggest development of the evening is that you successfully made a margarita.
she looks at mateo, who is across the room helping someone else, perfectly professional, perfectly polite.
allie looks back at the clip, a slow grin spreading across her features.
it wasn't about making anyone jealous, if anything, it was the opposite.
the boys had grown so accustomed to being the ones people noticed, that they'd never really stopped to think about how often people noticed the girls, too.
allie just wanted garrett to see what everyone else already did. not because she wanted him to worry, simply because it was easy, sometimes, for people to reduce you to garrett graham's girlfriend.
when the truth was, you had always been someone people noticed in your own right.
-
by the time the class moves on to the second cocktail, allie starts watching a little more closely.
not because anything has happened, not exactly.
only because there are only so many coincidences a person can ignore before they stop feeling like coincidences.
the class has loosened. conversations drift more easily now, laughter comes quicker, cheeks are lightly flushed from the first round of margaritas and the soft evening heat lingering through the open-air bar.
mateo claps his hands once to get everyone’s attention. “okay” he says, smiling easily.
“for the second drink, we’re making something a little more dangerous.”
grace immediately looks concerned. “i don’t like the sound of that.”
allie leans closer to you. “i love the sound of that.”
sabrina, playfully rolls her eyes, before reaching for the lime in front of her. “that tells me everything i need to know.”
you laugh softly, rolling the shaker between your palms. it’s cold from the ice, condensation sliding over your fingers.
you’re still proud of the first drink, mostly because it had looked like the demonstration, and nobody had winced when they tasted it.
mateo begins explaining the next cocktail, a combination of passionfruit and chilli salt. "logan would hate this," grace whispers. sabrina simply smiles into her glass in response.
you’re listening, properly listening, because you’ve discovered that cocktail making is strangely satisfying when someone else has already prepared all the ingredients.
mateo moves around the table as he talks, checking everyone has the right tools. he passes behind allie, then sabrina, then grace.
then he reaches you. “how’s your shaker?”
you blink down at it. “my shaker?”
“it was sticking before.”
“oh.” you lift it slightly. “i think it’s fine.”
he smiles. “can i check?”
you hand it over without thinking. he twists it once, tests the lid, before frowning in disappointment. “no. this one’s annoying.”
“it is?”
“very.”
he swaps it with the one from the empty station beside him. “there,” he says, setting the new one in front of you. “much better.”
you smile. “thank you.”
“of course.”
it’s nothing, so much so that you turn back to your ingredients immediately. once again however allie sees it, so does grace and so does sabrina.
all three of them look down at their own shakers, then at each other.
grace mouths, again?
allie’s eyes widen in silent confirmation, while sabrina presses her lips together, trying to refrain from laughing.
this cocktail involves muddling passionfruit, which allie takes far too seriously. leaning over her glass, her brows furrow in concentration. "am i doing this right?"
mateo looks over. “yes.”
“are you sure?”
“mostly.”
“mostly?”
he grins. “it’s hard to ruin passionfruit.”
“oh...well that sounds like a challenge.”
“please don’t.”
you laugh, mateo glances over almost instinctively. the sound seems to draw an easy smile from him before he turns his attention back to the class.
allie catches it, naturally. she has an uncanny ability to notice the things everyone else misses.
you add lime juice, tequila, then something sweet from a small bottle mateo referred to as golden syrup.
for a while, it’s just fun.
grace somehow manages to salt the wrong side of her glass, looking so genuinely betrayed by the outcome that you have to turn away to mask your laughter. beside her, sabrina carefully measures the tequila, only to keep talking as she pours and realises, a second too late, that she had gone well past the line.
“tucker would be proud,” allie says.
sabrina looks at her. “tucker would take the bottle away from me.”
“also true.”
your own cocktail is coming together better than expected. the colour is bright, a kind of sunset orange, with little flecks of chilli salt clinging to the rim.
mateo comes around again to check everyone’s progress. he pauses beside grace first. “good.”
grace lifts her brows. “just good?”
“very good.”
“better.”
then sabrina. “nice balance.”
sabrina smiles politely. “thank you.”
mateo reaches allie, whose glass is somehow almost overflowing. he pauses, allie stares at him without a hint of shame.
his eyes drop to the drink, then back to her. after a beat, he gives a small nod. allie laughs, she knows better than to try convincing him that's how the recipe was supposed to look.
eventually mateo reaches you.
“okay,” he says, quieter. “this looks really good.”
you glance down, surprised. “really?”
"really.”
“i think it only looks good because the colour turned out nice.”
“no.” he shakes his head, picking it up carefully. “can i?”
“yeah, sure.”
he takes a small sip, everyone else keeps moving around the bar, except your friends, who are suddenly very still.
mateo lowers the glass, before looking at it again. “that’s actually excellent.”
you smile, pleased despite yourself. “you’re just saying that.”
“i’m not.”
“you definitely are.”
“i’m not,” he says again, laughing softly. “it works.”
“that's not an answer”
“the sweetness comes through, there's enough acidity, and you didn't overdo the chilli.”
you blink. “i did not do that on purpose.”
shrugging his shoulders he sends you a warm smile. “well then, maybe you’re a natural.”
behind him, allie slowly reaches for her phone. sabrina notices, immediately murmuring, “don’t be obvious.”
“i’m never obvious.”
grace gives her a look, allie ignores it.
mateo sets your glass down again, but instead of moving on right away, he leans one forearm lightly against the bar. “where are you visiting from again?”
“boston,” you say automatically, before adding, “well, kind of. we go to college there.”
“all of you?”
“yeah.”
“that explains it.”
you tilt your head. “explains what?”
“you all have the...” he gestures vaguely, smiling. “same warmth."
you laugh. “warmth?"
“it's hard to explain.”
you nod your head slightly, urging him to continue.
"people just seem comfortable around you."
you laugh, feeling slightly surprised by his words. “oh okay. i’ll choose to believe you.”
“you should.”
the conversation isn't strange, isn't uncomfortable, nothing you would think to mention later to garrett beyond, the instructor was nice.
unbeknownst to you, allie films the entire interaction from a low angle, her phone half-hidden behind her glass. she doesn't record the audio, simply the way he stays, the way his attention lingers a little longer on you than it does anyone else.
the class moves into garnishes after that.
mateo demonstrates with a strip of lime peel, twisting it neatly over the top of his drink. everyone tries to copy him with varying levels of success.
grace’s peel snaps in half. “i’m done” she says immediately.
“you can still use it,” sabrina tells her.
“no.”
allie somehow drops hers into the ice bucket. you’re still trying to get yours to curl, mateo notices. “here,” he says, coming around the bar again.
you glance up. “i’m doing it wrong, aren’t i?”
“not wrong.”
"oh. are you sure?"
mateo smiles, standing beside you. “it's just easier like this.”
he picks up another peel, holding it between his fingers, showing you the angle. “hold it here, twist slowly, don’t force it.”
you copy him, concentrating far too hard for a garnish. “like this?”
“yeah,” he says. “exactly.”
the peel curls properly, you gasp softly in realisation. “ohhh.”
mateo grins. “see?”
you look genuinely delighted by something incredibly small. mateo watches you intently, only for a second, however it's long enough to cause allie’s mouth to fall open before she catches herself, closing it.
“oh my god,” grace whispers.
sabrina whispers back, “she has no idea.”
“none.”
you place the garnish on top of your drink, turning to them proudly, your eyes wide, bright with excitement. “look!”
allie immediately brightens. “beautiful.”
grace nods. “stunning.”
sabrina lifts her glass. “very professional.”
you narrow your eyes. “why do you all sound so off?”
“we don’t.”
“you do.”
allie shakes her head too quickly. “nope.”
you look between them, suspicious, but mateo calls the class together for final photos before you can interrogate anyone properly.
everyone gathers around the front bar with their drinks. the place is glowing now, the sun dropping low enough that the whole room looks honeyed.
mateo offers to take photos. “all four of you?” he asks.
allie practically shoves her phone into his hand. “yes, please.”
the four of you squeeze together. grace wraps an arm around your waist, sabrina leans into allie, allie lifts her cocktail, eyes bright and wide in amusement.
mateo takes one photo, then another. “one more,” he says.
“you’re better than most strangers,” allie tells him.
he laughs. “that's not difficult.” handing allie's phone back, he looks to you.
“actually,” he says, nodding towards the edge of the bar where the light is spilling in from the open windows, “do you want one by yourself? the lighting is really good over there.”
you don’t think twice, clearly thinking mateo was just being polite. “oh, sure!”
allie freezes, grace slowly turns her head, sabrina closes her eyes for a second, attempting to stop herself from laughing.
you step into the little patch of light, holding your cocktail carefully so it doesn’t spill. you feel slightly awkward posing alone, so you laugh. “i never know what to do in photos.”
mateo lifts the phone. “you’re fine.”
“that’s what everyone says when someone looks awkward.”
“you don’t look awkward.”
you roll your eyes, still smiling. “okay.”
he takes a few, then lowers the phone, checking them. “this one’s nice.”
you step closer to look, it is nice, annoyingly nice. the light catches the side of your face, your hair a little messy from the pool earlier, your smile soft, unguarded.
“oh!” you say, surprised. “that’s really pretty.”
mateo’s smile gentles. “yeah,” he says. “it is.”
you mean the lighting, allie is not convinced he does.
she makes a noise so small you barely hear it. glancing back you're entirely confused. “what?”
“nothing” she says immediately, feigning innocence. grace looks away, sabrina takes a long sip of her cocktail.
the class winds down slowly after that.
people finish drinks, thank mateo, collect bags from beneath stools. the air smells like lime, tequila, warm wood. somewhere outside, music from the resort drifts faintly through the street.
you’re gathering your things when mateo comes over with a small printed card. “recommendations,” he says, handing it to you. you look down. three taco places, one rooftop bar, one beach club. his handwriting is neat, slanted slightly to the right.
“oh, thank you.”
“the second taco place is the best,” he says. “don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.”
you smile. “noted.”
“and if you go to the rooftop bar, go before sunset.”
“how come?”
“because after sunset it gets too crowded.”
“good to know.”
“you’ll like it.”
there’s a tiny pause after that, not long enough to be awkward, just long enough for allie, standing two feet away, to nearly lose her mind.
then mateo steps back, polite again. “it was really lovely meeting you.”
you smile warmly. “you too. thank you for the class.”
“of course.” his eyes hold yours for a second. “enjoy the rest of your holiday.”
“we will.”
you send him a warm smile, before turning to leave with the girls.
the second you’re outside, grace exhales. “okay.”
you look at her. “what?”
sabrina shakes her head. “nothing.”
“why does everyone keep saying nothing?”
allie is already unlocking her phone. “because,” she says, “some things need to be presented visually.”
you frown. “what does that mean?”
“you’ll see.”
-
allie posts it twenty-three minutes later from the hotel room.
you’re in the shower when it goes live, which is probably for the best.
the caption reads
'the cocktail instructor fell in love with my best friend and she thought he was just being polite.'
the first clip is harmless. you standing at the bar, concentrating on measuring lime juice while mateo explains something beside you.
'exhibit a: immediate favourite student'
then the shaker swap.
'exhibit b: apparently her shaker was “annoying”'
then him tasting your drink. once, then again. the clip slows slightly when he smiles.
'exhibit c: he tasted hers twice btw'
then the garnish moment, his hands showing yours how to twist the lime peel without touching you, you smiling down at the finished curl like you’d won something.
'exhibit d: she was fighting for her life with a garnish'
then the individual photo of you laughing in the golden light while mateo holds allie’s phone.
'exhibit e: “the lighting is really good there” okay mateo'
then the goodbye.
it’s not dramatic. he’s just standing there, smiling softly as he says something to you. the audio is mostly covered by music, but the look is clear enough.
the final text appears over the screen.
'she still hasn't figured it out'
-
at briar, dean sees it first.
he's on the couch in the living room, one leg hooked over the armrest, allie's latest tiktok already playing. the video's been up for less than a minute, apparently that's all the patience he has left.
logan is on the floor, back against the couch, scrolling through his phone. tucker sits at the kitchen table, equally distracted by his own. garrett, meanwhile, is in the armchair, a hockey game playing on the television in front of him, whether he's actually watching it is another question entirely.
dean snorts. “allie posted.”
logan doesn’t look up. “that's a very dangerous sentence.”
“it’s about the cocktail class they ended up doing today.”
garrett stands, abandoning the armchair, moving to stand behind dean. he watches quietly through the first few clips, his expression unreadable.
then, just before dean reaches for the screen to rewind, garrett's voice sounds. "go back."
dean looks over. "what?"
garrett's eyes stay on the phone. "the shaker."
dean rewinds it without another word. the clip plays once more, showing mateo checking your shaker, swapping it, smiling.
logan sits up slightly, clearly intrigued. “why’d he do that?”
garrett says nothing. tucker responds quickly, as though the answer is obvious. “maybe the shaker was broken.”
dean rewinds the video again. “it wasn’t broken.”
“you can tell that from a six-second clip?”
“yes.”
logan leans closer. “keep playing it.”
dean does, unpausing the tiktok. all four boys watch on as mateo takes a sip of your cocktail, saying something that causes you to erupt into laughter.
mateo takes another sip. logan’s brows lift, “twice.”
dean points at the screen. “twice.”
tucker's gaze flicks between dean and logan. “are you counting how many times a cocktail instructor tasted her cocktail?”
“yes,” dean says.
“why?”
“because it matters.”
garrett runs a hand over his jaw, remaining quiet.
dean looks at him. “you seeing this, g?”
garrett’s voice is even, too even. “i’m watching.”
the garnish clip starts, mateo stands beside you. you're clearly concentrating, eager to learn as he demonstrates.
logan makes a low sound under his breath. “oh.”
dean nods slowly. “yeah.”
garrett shifts from where he's standing, not much, just enough. tucker notices, so does dean, so does logan. nobody says anything, yet.
the photo clip plays, mateo gesturing towards the light, you walking over willingly, completely oblivious, holding your drink with both hands.
dean pauses it, the room goes silent, dead silent.
“he asked for a solo photo?” logan questions, exchanging a look with dean.
garrett doesn't answer immediately, staring at the paused frame instead.
"why?"
the question is quiet, not irritated, just genuinely confused.
dean looks at him for a second before shrugging. "because she looked pretty?"
nobody laughs, garrett's jaw shifts once. "play the rest."
dean does. the goodbye clip plays, mateo’s expression is polite, warm, yet a little too warm. you simply smile back, eyes warm in thanks.
the video ends, nobody speaks.
dean slowly turns his head towards garrett. garrett refuses to look at him, already aware of the smirk most likely gracing his features. “don’t.”
dean’s mouth twitches. “i didn’t say anything.”
“you were about to.”
“i was not.”
logan says, “you were.”
tucker nods. “you absolutely were.”
dean ignores them. “i’m just saying.”
garrett finally looks over. “what?”
dean holds up the phone. “y/n got herself her very own vacation bartender.”
“cocktail instructor,” tucker corrects.
“same thing.”
“not really.”
“not the point.”
garrett exhales through his nose, but there’s almost a smile there, almost.
dean watches him for another second. "you're clenching your jaw."
garrett looks over, eyes now meeting dean's. "i'm not."
"you literally are."
"dean."
dean raises both hands. "i'm just saying. for someone who apparently doesn't get jealous..."
"dean." garrett deadpans, clearly now growing annoyed by his teasing. "at least he was being respectful."
logan nods. “yeah.”
“very respectful,” tucker agrees.
dean tilts his head. “respectfully in love with her.”
garrett points at him. “don’t.”
dean laughs, far too amused by all of this. garrett reaches for his own phone, while logan leans forward. “what are you doing?”
“texting my girlfriend.”
dean sits up properly. “oh, this is going to be good.”
“it’s not going to be anything.”
“mhm.”
garrett ignores him, opening your message thread. for a second, he just looks at the last photo you sent him earlier. your drink held up proudly against the bar, rim covered in chilli salt.
you
made this!!
please be impressed
he had replied.
baby 🤍
very impressed
come home and make me one
now, he types slowly.
baby 🤍
did you enjoy your cocktail class?
looks like your instructor made sure you did
back in cabo, your phone is on the bed beside allie while you’re still in the bathroom. allie sees the notification light up. she doesn’t touch it, she does, however, lean over just enough for the notification preview to come into focus.
then she gasps.
grace immediately looks over from where she’s brushing sand out of her tote bag. “what?”
allie points at your phone. “garrett saw it.”
sabrina’s eyes widen. “already?”
“dean definitely found it.”
“oh no.”
grace sits on the edge of the bed. “she still doesn’t know.”
allie smiles slowly. “exactly.”
-
at briar, garrett’s phone buzzes.
you
yes!!
you
it was actually so good
you
our instructor was good fun (despite having to deal with us four 🫣)
a second later.
you
i made a really good passionfruit margarita
you
the instructor said it tasted really good, was balanced well!🫡
dean, who has shamelessly moved closer, reads over garrett’s shoulder.
“balance” he repeats.
garrett angles his phone away. “move.”
“sorry.”
he doesn't move. logan laughs quietly, garrett ignores the both of them, responding to you.
baby🤍
did he?
you
yes
you
why does that message sound suspicious
baby🤍
no reason
you
garrett
baby🤍
y/n
you
what
baby🤍
did you notice your instructor spent most of the class flirting with you?
you don't reply for several seconds, beyond confused by garrett's message, until.
you
...
you
what
dean starts laughing, logan drops his head back against the couch, tucker smiles, shaking his head in disbelief. garrett’s own smile finally breaks, soft, helpless, completely unsurprised.
baby🤍
yeah
baby🤍
that’s what i thought
you
he was not flirting with me 😭
“oh y/n", dean says, while garrett types.
baby🤍
okay
you
he wasn’t!!
baby🤍
he gave you a special shaker
you
because mine was sticking
garrett 🤍
he tasted your drink twice
you
because he's our cocktail instructor
logan loses it, dean presses both hands over his face, while tucker murmurs, completely amused. “g, she’s incredible.” garrett is fully smiling now.
baby🤍
he asked to take a photo of just you, baby
you
because the lighting was nice!
dean wheezes, mimicking your words. garrett shakes his head, still typing.
baby🤍
of course
baby🤍
my mistake
you
wait
you
are you jealous?
garrett looks at the message for a second, his smile softening.
baby🤍
no
then, after a beat.
baby🤍
maybe a little
you
aw
you
i can't believe you're jealous over my cocktail instructor
baby🤍
stop
you
i love you
you
okay maybe he was being a LITTLE friendly
baby🤍
i told you
you
i genuinely did not know
baby🤍
i know, baby
you
don’t baby me when you’re laughing at me
garrett 🤍
i’m not laughing
baby🤍
i’m smiling respectfully
you
you’re so annoying
baby🤍
and yet
you
and yet what
baby🤍
you’re still coming home to me
there’s a slightly longer pause, then.
you
always
the room quiets a little without meaning to. garrett reads your response once, then again. his thumb rests against the edge of his phone, expression easing into something the others pretend not to notice.
dean, for once, doesn’t make a joke straight away, logan looks back at the tv, tucker goes back to mindlessly scrolling through his phone.
garrett’s phone buzzes one more time.
you
also
you
for the record
you
my cocktail was actually really good
garrett smiles.
baby🤍
i believe you
you
good
baby🤍
still making me one when you’re home
you
deal
you
spicy marg on me
baby🤍
and y/n?
you
yes
baby🤍
no more instructors falling in love with you
your reply takes ten seconds.
you
i cannot control passionate customer service
garrett laughs then, properly.
dean looks over, grinning. “what did she say?”
garrett locks his phone, still smiling. “nothing.”
dean narrows his eyes. “that means something.”
garrett leans back in the armchair, finally turning his attention back towards the game. his smile stays, small, private, entirely his. somewhere in cabo, you're still convinced mateo had simply been doing his job, and that might be the most you thing of all.
pairing – garrett graham x kitty!reader
summary – kitty’s seasonal allergies are ruining everything, including her ability to be mean to garrett.
warnings – allergies, runny nose, congestion, watery eyes, cold medicine mention, comfort, fluff.
notes from me – this is set before casual, right? just for context!! but some kitty!reader fluff was requested so here u go babes!! xx
word count – 0.6k
navigation – masterlist |
The apartment has been invaded by pollen, apparently. Thoroughly enough that her eyes have been itching since breakfast and the inside of her nose has spent the last three hours alternating between completely blocked and committed to ruining her life.
She’s curled sideways on the couch with a blanket over her legs, surrounded by the crumpled white evidence of a deeply undignified afternoon. Tissues on the coffee table. Tissues on the floor. One clenched damply in her hand because every time she puts it down, her nose starts running again out of spite.
The antihistamine box sits beside a mug of tea that went cold before she managed three sips, and the skin beneath her nose feels rubbed raw.
Garrett’s stretched along the couch behind her, shirtless because he claims her apartment is too warm and because, more realistically, Garrett Graham has never encountered an indoor temperature that could convince him to keep clothes on.
Grey sweats sit low on his hips, one bare foot hanging off the armrest, the unfinished television stand still lying in pieces across the rug because he abandoned it the second she sneezed six times in a row and nearly headbutted the instruction manual.
His thumbs work slowly into the muscle beside her neck, broad hands kneading over her shoulders with surprising care. Usually she’d accuse him of trying to distract her from the fact that he has installed one cabinet door upside down. Today, she only lets her head fall forward and makes a thick, miserable little sound through her nose.
Garrett’s hands pause. “You good, baby?”
She sniffs, which accomplishes absolutely nothing, then leans back until her spine settles against his chest. His skin is warm through her thin shirt, and he immediately makes room for her, one arm sliding around her middle while the other resumes rubbing the tight place where her shoulder meets her neck.
“Feel like shit,” she mumbles.
“I can tell.”
She turns her head enough to look at him, eyes watery and narrowed. “That was mean.”
“It wasn’t.” His mouth twitches. “You look cute.”
She tries to scoff, but it catches somewhere behind the congestion and becomes a small cough instead. Garrett reaches for the water bottle on the table and puts it into her hand without comment, then catches the tissue slipping from her fingers and drops it into the rubbish bag he’s hooked over the side of the couch.
The efficiency of it is annoyingly tender. She drinks, hands the bottle back and lets herself sag into him again, cheek pressed to the warm centre of his chest. His fingers move into her hair, scratching gently at her scalp, careful around the strands tangled from lying down all afternoon.
“Don’t tell anyone about this,” she murmurs.
“About your allergies?”
“About me being pathetic.”
Garrett looks down at her, amusement soft around the edges. “Baby, you threatened to stab Dean with a fork last week because he ate one of your fries.”
“He knew what he was doing.”
“I’m just saying. Your reputation can survive a runny nose.”
She pinches weakly at his side. He catches her hand, kisses her knuckles and tucks it beneath his palm against her stomach.
“Go to sleep,” he says, mouth brushing the top of her head. “I’ll finish the TV stand.”
Her eyes drift shut. “The door’s upside down.”
“I know.”
A laugh moves through her, small and stuffy and warm against his chest. Garrett’s arm tightens around her, and this time, when his thumb strokes slowly over her ribs, she doesn’t find anything mean to say at all.
to be notified when i post new fics, follow @kooksandpearls-library and turn on notifications! i no longer use a taglist for garrett fics.
