Consider this my friend. Our dear Ryland Grace jerking the hell off to reader’s voice as they’re repairing or doing some space stuff in an EVA suit. and the comms are TOTALLY not on from his side and that blinking light means nothing….right?
HELLO YES I've been sitting on this one for a while, sorry for the wait!! ty for the request, this is hot af
Spacewalk ~ ryland grace x reader
1.6k words, technically phone sex? ryland jerks it
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The Hail Mary is almost put back together after Rocky helped with the new fuel tanks, you only had a few more spacewalks planned before you were confident that the ship would at least not fall apart for a few months. By then, though, Rocky would be off on his own way home, so you wanted to make sure that any spare parts you might need were made before saying goodbye to your incredibly useful alien friend.
So you were doing a maintenance walk along the outside of the hull to catalog what was left, counting screws and making note of any leftover damage that could be repaired. Rocky was on comms, his perfect memory an incredible asset for list making, you’d write it all down later when he rattled quantities and measurements back to you with an exactness that would make you jealous.
“Port side of the hull could use a few new panels, we’ve got some damage around the edges, they’re all a foot long each,” you smile when Rocky’s robo voice sounds off. “Copy, copy,” he’s not even in the control room, he made Ryland set up a microphone for him down in the lab so he could multitask while you’re out there. You can hear him clicking away with some tools, know he’s the most comfortable when he has something to do with his hands.
“Hey bud,” Ryland’s voice comes through your earpiece, “let me take over for a while, you’ve been awake for days at this point.” You hear Rocky shuffle, hear more clinking as he sets down whatever he was holding, “Grace stay up for days and never listen to Rocky.” You laugh, “get him, Rock.” Ryland sighs, you can picture the look on his face as he contemplates if the fight is worth it.
“I’m just saying, I can take over for a little, you’ve got a different tool in every hand at this point,” Ryland absolutely has his hands on his hips, probably looking at Rocky over his glasses like an old man. Silence falls, you can imagine the stare down happening on the other side of the wall.
“Fine,” Rocky sings, “hungry anyway.” You laugh again as you hear his footsteps clack away from the lab, Ryland’s voice comes through a little muffled. “Let me get to the control room, I’ll be just a sec.”
It’s a little eerie, floating alone on the outside of the ship with no one in your ear. The silence feels deafening until Ryland clicks the mic on again. “Okay,” he starts, “what do you got?” You trace a hand over one of the Beatle hatches, counting screws, and find a dent in the small lid. “Just a little damage around Ringo’s housing, I can probably hammer it out real quick.”
And as helpful as it is to have Rocky on comms, Ryland is much more of a conversationalist in these kinds of moments. He’s always been a talker, so he fills the silence between your next observation with talk of home, stories from his students, how he feels about celebrity drama. You talk too, telling him about your last apartment, your cat that went to live with your parents when you volunteered, the farm you used to visit for little festivals and fruit picking. It was light, easy topics that kept you from feeling too alone with the vastness of space pressing in on every side.
Your relationship with Ryland wasn’t only professional at this point, you’d been alone together for months at this point, it was only expected that you’d land in bed together at some point. And you had, several times. The day you found a giant bag full of condoms tucked away in the supplies was the day you sent a prayer up for Stratt, of course she packed condoms for a co-ed crew, the last thing she needed was a space pregnancy fucking up the mission.
And Ryland was thrilled with the discovery, if a little red in the face. But if the way he kissed you was anything to go by, he would get over his embarrassment happily if it meant getting his rocks off with you. It had really only been sex, both of you clinging to each other to meet your physical needs, not putting any labels on it because you were supposed to die up until a few days ago.
“I used to go to a little ice cream shop off main street at home, they had the most amazing white chocolate raspberry flavor. I’m pretty sure they won awards for it, god knows I would have given it to them,” you laugh quietly, mouth watering at the memory. A soft groan is all you get in response, like Ryland’s in pain listening to you ramble about ice cream. “Sorry,” you mumble, “desserts not doing it for you?”
His voice comes back through quickly, sounding a little strained. “No, no, you’re fine, I had a bakery near my place that I went to for peach cruffins, I miss those so much.” That opens the door for you to talk about your own favorite bakery, then your favorite restaurants. He lets you talk, you think he’s just talked himself out at this point.
Until you hear another soft groan and a quiet sound like skin on skin. You keep talking, brain working overtime to dissect what you’re hearing. “There was an Italian place that had the best ravioli, they made it all in house, always seasoned the meat perfectly,” you moan like you’re tasting it again, then pause, listening intently, your task on the outside of the ship forgotten.
A whine floats through your headset, heavy breaths alerting you to his predicament. “Ryland,” your tone is velvety, a smirk pulling at your lips. “What are you doing, baby?” He gasps, the line goes dead for a second, then his small voice sounds off. “I - uh, nothing, sorry, what were you saying?” He’s panting, trying to hide how dry his throat is. “You sure?” You have to bite back a laugh, excited by the potential here but not wanting to scare him off. “Because it sounded like you were touching yourself, Ry,” you keep your voice soft, trying to avoid any hints of judgement.
He’s quiet again, then a whispered “sorry,” comes down the line. “God, this is so unprofessional, I’m so sorry,” he’s panicking now, you can picture how red he probably is. “No,” you’re quick to correct, “keep going, you sound so pretty.” He moans at that, you hear how he lets his head fall back against the pilot’s chair. “Are - are you sure?” It’s tentative, like he’s not sure if you’re just teasing him.
“Yeah,” you smile, “what got you so worked up?” You don’t even pretend to be working on the ship anymore, hanging on to your tethers and floating freely. This was basically just phone sex, you weren’t going to work through it.
“Just you,” he whispers, “your voice, like hearing you talk.” You hear his hand moving again, close your eyes when he lets out a small groan. “My voice made you hard, baby?” He downright whimpers at that, “mhm,” falling from his lips. “You thinking about my hands on you?” You ask, gaining confidence with every noise he makes. He gasps, his hand speeds up. “Thinking about how good it feels to have my mouth around you?”
“Mhm,” is all he can get out. “Bet you’re throbbing for me, picturing how I look up at you when I suck on your tip,” that one even surprises you, but his reaction spurs you on, lighting a fire in your own core. “Please,” he whispers, breaths coming fast. “Or are you thinking about my pussy, wet and warm, just for you?” That earns you the loudest moan yet, the sound of his hand flying over his cock making you bite your lip.
He whines your name, gasping and groaning around soft pleas. “I’m close,” he grunts, his voice shaking with the effort. “Not yet,” you murmur, smiling at the high sound that rips from his chest. “Hold it for me, you sound so sexy, Ry.” You imagine him in the control room, hard length pulled out of his pants, the restraints of the pilots seat holding him in place. He would be flushed, his face and neck red, the color tracking down under his shirt. You can see the veins in his forearm bulging as he strokes himself, his thumb slipping over his tip every now and then.
“Play with your balls,” you ask sweetly, breathing a laugh when he whines. “Roll ‘em around for me, let me hear how good it feels,” and he does. A broken moan crackles through the line, “please, please can I come?” He sounds absolutely gone, you love when he begs for what he wants. “Yeah, baby, you can come,” you hold your breath.
He groans, you hear his hand speed up for just a second, then it slows down with a cry from him. It’s one of your favorite sounds, honestly. He pants, your name slipping out as he tries to calm down. “Fuck,” he mumbles, “forgot there’s no gravity.” You scrunch your nose, understanding dawning on your face as you laugh. “Don’t get cum on my control panel,” you smile.
“I got it,” he huffs, letting out a long sigh. “God, that was hot,” he’s smiling, you can hear it in his voice. “If I knew that was an option, you’d be on comms for all my spacewalks,” you joke, pulling yourself back to the ship. “You still got a lot to do out there or do you wanna come in and let me return the favor?” His voice drops an octave, smooth tones convincing you easily.
You pretend to think for a moment, listening to how he tries to control his breathing. “Mm, I can call it a day,” you murmur, “think I deserve a treat after that.” He laughs, “you absolutely do.”
I’d like to get to know you, I’d like to take you out..we’d go to The Hail Mary..And afterwards make out…Instead, I’m typing you a message, that I know I’ll never send..rewriting new exuse delete the kisses at the end.
based on my post from last night about rocky and Adrian wanting to watch purely for science and ryland being kinda too into it. "4 scientists standing in a circle consenting to let each other watch" to quote myself lmao
3k words, smut, voyeurism, exhibitionism, all consenting adults
-----------------
It’s not like the topic of sex hadn’t come up in the years you spent traveling with Rocky to Erid - he was curious by nature, fascinated by the human body and all its inner workings - but he respected the fact that it was meant to be a private act. He would pretend he never heard you and Ryland when things got a little steamy, making himself busy on the far end of the ship until the sounds quieted down.
So now, sitting on the beach with Ryland, Rocky and Adrian, you were stunned into silence by the blunt questions being directed to you. “You want to what?” Ryland gapes beside you. “Rocky, Adrian want to observe human mating,” said so easily in his melodic tones. Ryland looks at you for help, not sure how to continue this conversation.
“For science!” Adrian chimes in, “you are first humans we’ve known, we want to study everything.”
“You watch Rocky eat, this seems like fair trade,” Rocky states, tapping a claw against the sand. You choke out a laugh, willing the heat in your cheeks to dissipate. “Sorry,” you start, glancing at Ryland to see the pink dusting his cheeks, “you want to watch us… have sex?”
“Yes, observe sex,” Adrian settles a little further down, tilting their carapace toward Rocky. “I know is private ritual,” he hums, “but could be good data to have.”
Ryland nods slowly, staring at his knees while he thinks. Finally, he sighs and faces you, “we would ask the same thing if we were in their position.” He purses his lips, biting back a grin at the shocked look you shoot him. “You’re thinking about it?” You ask, disbelief coating your words.
He laughs, throwing himself back to lay in the sand. “I’m just saying I don’t think it’s such a crazy thing to ask.” He gestures to the aliens next to him, “like, they’re hundreds of years old, they’re intelligent beings, they’ve got a brand new species of equally intelligent life living in a terrarium on their planet, surely they’d want to know.” He lifts his head just enough to look at you, trying to gauge your reaction to his thoughts.
Before you can form a response, Rocky stands proudly. “Rocky already heard all noises on ship, human mating very loud.”
You groan, kicking Ryland’s leg when he lets out a belly laugh at that. “Can’t you just like, watch porn on your laptop?” You’re grasping at straws at this point. “No,” Rocky says immediately, “Grace said porn isn’t realistic. Rocky want to see real thing.” Ryland laughs again, covering his face with his hands, “I did say that.” He peeks at you over his fingers, snorting when you roll your eyes and flop into the sand beside him.
“Hey,” he turns his head to you, “only if you’re comfortable with it.” You think for a moment, trying to find a reason to deny the advancement of science other than sheer embarrassment. “It does feel a little like we’re zoo animals,” you sigh.
“We are zoo animals,” he whispers, hand finding yours, “but we have a choice.” His thumb strokes over your knuckles, “besides, they could learn so much about our biology, think of the studies they’ll be able to do with a few samples from us.”
“Samples?!” Your eyes go wide, “you’re already thinking about jerking off in a cup for them?” He turns away with a cackle, “they’re already studying our bodies,” a quick point to a bruise on his arm from the most recent blood draw, “why wouldn’t they want to learn about reproduction? They already know how it works, we tag-teamed so many of those conversations on Mary.”
You groan, squeezing your eyes shut like you can make the conversation end if you can’t see any of them. “Come on,” Ryland whispers against your cheek, “let’s be guinea pigs.” The grin he cracks is thrilling, like he’s finally living out a fantasy he didn’t know he had. “You’re a fucking nerd,” you breathe quietly, smiling when he buries his face in your neck. “Is that a yes?”
“Yes, fine, we can do it,” you mumble, laughing when he throws a fist in the air and turns to Rocky and Adrian, still sitting quietly beside him. “Okay, we’re in,” he’s all business suddenly, “how do you want this to work?”
“Just want to watch, we go now?” Rocky stands and starts heading in the direction of your little house. “Wha - now, now?” You stammer out, eyes flying to Ryland when he stands and offers a hand to help you up. “Yes, now,” Adrian answers, launching into a list of positions they researched and ranking which ones they wanted to see the most.
—-------
The house is quiet, late afternoon light filling the space with a nice glow. You stand nervously in the bedroom, watching as Rocky and Adrian make themselves comfortable on a bench Ryland dragged in. You set your boundaries on the walk back: the Eridians wouldn’t talk, if either of you were uncomfortable at any point you’d stop, Ryland wasn’t allowed to teach while actively fucking you. All the normal stuff.
He sidles up to you slowly, hands coming to rest on your waist. “Really? A cuck bench?” You laugh, gesturing to the other side of the room. He laughs too, winking while he draws closer, “a scientific, observational cuck bench.” He stops before he kisses you, “just focus on me,” he breathes against your lips, feeling your body release a little tension at his proximity.
You melt into him when he finally presses his lips to yours, trying to push your nerves to the back of your mind. Ryland takes his time, kisses you slowly, passionately, like he’s trying to draw out every insecurity from your body, like he wants you to enjoy it with him. Gentle fingers slide under your shirt, spreading over the warm expanse of your back. He pulls you against him tighter, groaning quietly when you roll your hips against his.
“That’s it, baby,” he whispers in your ear, teeth nipping the sensitive skin below it. You tilt your head to give him more access, breath hitching at the way he sucks marks on your neck. You can already feel his erection against you, pressing insistently as he sinks his hands under the waistband of your pants, fingers squeezing the plush flesh of your ass. You palm him through his sweatpants, feeling him shiver against you when you get the pressure just right.
He chokes on a whine, pulling away from your neck just long enough to get his shirt off. Your hands trace over the expanse of his stomach, you can’t help but admire the extra weight he’s put on. He grins against your lips, big hands cupping your face before he’s moving to pull your shirt off too.
The cool air against your skin suddenly reminds you that you’re not alone. Ryland feels the tension return to your frame, shifting so your back is to the aliens in the corner. He strokes your arms and kisses you soundly, his tongue claiming yours in an attempt to keep you in the moment with him.
“So fuckin’ pretty,” he murmurs under his breath, feeling the goosebumps that raise under his fingers. “Cold, sweetheart?” His smile makes your heart skip again, he looks at you like you hung the moon. You nod and he twists his mouth like he’s thinking of the best way to warm you up. “Want me to help?” He’s teasing now, clearly getting a thrill out of making you grin despite yourself.
“Lay down for me,” he kisses you again for good measure. You climb on the bed, laying against the pillows while he sheds his pants with a wink. “Love you,” he whispers into your skin as he works his way up your body. You arch enough to let him unhook your bra, accepting the deep kisses he gives you when he throws it to the ground.
A soft moan makes its way out of your throat when he licks down your neck and chest, slowly working his way to your breasts. He looks up at you from under his lashes when he takes a nipple in his mouth, eyelids fluttering when you stroke a hand through his hair. He sucks on your breasts like it’s his job, drawing out sounds from you that are almost embarrassing in current company.
When you tug his hair with a murmur of his name, he groans, tongue vibrating against your sensitive nub and pulling a whimper from you. He pulls off with a pop, a string of saliva connecting his lips to your nipple. The sight sends a shock to your core, your hips rolling against him and head tilting back. He smirks to himself, shifting so he can get your pants and underwear off.
He sits back on his knees and takes you in. Soft hands lift your leg, his lips leaving sweet kisses from your ankle to your knee. He lays flat, dark eyes locked on your pussy, not even trying to hide the growl that claws its way out of him. Seconds tick by with no additional contact, you reach for him, tugging his hair again.
“Please, Ry,” you whisper, moaning when he licks a stripe up your core like that’s all he was waiting for. The first taste has him groaning against you, his eyes rolling back and fingers flexing on your thighs. “S’ good,” he whines into you, pressing your legs further apart.
You throw your head back, grinding your hips when he bumps your clit with his nose. It’s a little exhilarating knowing that you’re being watched in such a vulnerable position. Ryland between your legs, slowly taking you apart with his tongue, encouraging you to take what you need. And it doesn’t help that Ryland seems to be working twice as hard as normal, like he’s trying to show off to aliens who don’t know any different.
You feel a hand leave your leg and soft fingers prod your entrance. He looks up at you without breaking his rhythm, waiting for permission that you give quickly, willingly. You feel more than see the smile that pulls at his lips, then he pushes in and squeezes his eyes shut. “Oh, baby,” he groans into your skin, “so tight, so warm. This all for me?” Your breath hitches, you love his mouth in these moments.
“Just for you, Ryland,” you moan, back arching when he slides a second finger in. He growls again, speeding up his movements and chasing your release like it already belongs to him. A curl of his fingers has you bucking into his hand, spreading your slick against his chin and cheek. You clench down, guiding his head to exactly where you need him to tighten the coil in your stomach.
He flicks his tongue and sucks just right, staring up at you with wide eyes as he feels you building. Little groans of, “mhm, mhm,” fall from his lips, spurring you towards the edge. A gasp pulls from your throat and your whole body tenses, heat rolling through you in waves. You grind against his face, feel him lick up your release as it spills around his fingers still nudging that spot inside you.
You flop down in the bed, breath coming in harsh pants, and take a second to assess your body. Your legs were tingling, vision a little fuzzy, core spasming as Ryland slowly pulls out. He stays where he is, pressing kisses to your thighs and hips, whispering praise until he sees your face relax fully. When you reach for him, he moves quickly.
He wipes his mouth with the back of his hand, smiling when you let out a small sound. “Doing okay?” He asks against your jaw, fingers intertwining with yours and lifting above your head. “Yeah,” you breathe, “I could go for another one.” It’s your turn to wink at him.
“I can get back down there if you want,” he teases, licking into your mouth when you laugh. “Mm, Ry, I wanna come with you,” you hold his face with your free hand, thumb swiping against his cheek gently. That sweet pink shows itself on his skin again, making you giggle as he drops his weight into you.
“I think we can make that happen,” he groans, shoving his boxers off with one hand and kneeing your legs farther apart. You spread easily, so wrapped up in the man above you that you forget there’s been an audience here the whole time.
He wastes no time, slotting his tip against your entrance with a whimper against your shoulder. You roll your hips just right, feeling him slip in. He shudders above you, “sl-slow baby,” he begs, “y’ got me so worked up.” A sharp nip lands on your neck, causing your head to drop back again with a moan.
“Love those noises you make, so sexy,” he’s talking to distract from the fact that he’s not moving. “Can feel you squeezing me already, god, you’re amazing,” he slides in another inch, gasping and groaning when he feels your walls give way for him. “Oh- oh baby, fuck.”
You try to relax, try to make it easier for him, but the sounds falling from him are so hot, you can’t help the occasional clench that rocks you both. It takes him a while to push all the way in, he does everything he can to keep it together when he bottoms out and you gasp right in his ear. He’s not usually so sensitive, you briefly wonder if being watched is doing it for him that much. He did agree to it pretty quickly, after all.
He gives a testing thrust, panting above you with the effort. You roll your hips when he finds a rhythm, feeling how he squeezes your hand still in his above your head. He builds speed, practically fucking you into the mattress with the depth of each thrust. You’re a mess beneath him, moaning and gasping, head tossing and turning, free hand sinking nails into his back and neck.
A steady string of “yes, yes, yes,” punches out of him, like he couldn’t keep the words in if he tried. Without breaking his pace, his big hand grabs the back of your thigh, heaving it up towards your chest. The new angle makes your eyes roll back, his cock reaching deeper and deeper. A growl rips from his throat, low tones vibrating against your chest. You hug him to you tighter, taking everything he gave you with barely concealed elation.
He feels you clench around him particularly hard, feels how close you’re getting. He releases your hand to grab your other leg, pushing it up to match the other one. The position pushes the air out of your lungs, your legs shaking under his hold. “Give it to me, sweet girl,” he rumbles, “come on my cock, baby.”
You slip a hand down to where you’re connected, gathering some slick and rubbing your clit in rough circles. Your fingers brushing against his length almost makes him cum, he whimpers into the air and grits hit teeth to stave it off.
The sensations build, your body going taut as you finally crest the wave. A broken cry rips from your throat, legs shaking against his strong hold. It shatters through your whole body, heat and sparks for what feels like an eternity before you can suck in a breath. You clamp down on him and it tips him right over, a loud groan signalling his end before you feel warmth flood your walls.
He fucks you through it, dropping your legs in favor of leaning forward and kissing you messily. It's all teeth and tongue, he’s practically drooling into your open mouth. Your body relaxes against the sheets again, letting him press you into the mattress with grounding weight. He places sloppy kisses all over your face and neck, eyes half lidded in his own daze.
“Jesus, okay,” he laughs with his face hidden, “I was really into that.” A surprised laugh bubbles out of you, your hands cupping his cheeks to lift him up where you can see him. “I could tell,” you smile at his blush, “it’s been a while since you went for a mating press.” He grins into your palm, “Adrian mentioned it and I couldn’t stop thinking about it,” he sighs, pressing a sweet kiss to the tip of your thumb.
He rubs your side soothingly, turning his head to Rocky and Adrian, “you guys, uh - you got what you needed?” You look over to see them stand, stepping off the bench like normal. “Rocky has questions, statement.”
You and Ryland burst into giggles, “yeah, of course. Just give us a few minutes to clean up?” They amble towards the door, “Rocky, Adrian wait on beach, have much to discuss.”
You don’t have a chance to ask what that means before they’re gone. Ryland turns back to you slowly, “I know they don’t have anything to compare that to, but is it weird I wanted to impress them?” He looks shy, like he can’t believe that just happened. “They’re actually talking right now about how much of a beast Grace is in bed,” you laugh, squeezing his cheeks when he goes bright red.
He groans and rolls off of you, covering his face with a pillow. “You’re never gonna let me live this down,” it comes out muffled but you hear it anyway. You shift to lay against his side, “hey, I was as much of an eager participant as you were.”
“Besides,” you skim your fingers over his chest, “it was kinda hot, seeing you so lost in it.”
“Lost in it?” He snorts, pulling the pillow away. “Mhm,” you hum, “like you were drunk on me.” He grips you tightly with both hands, sliding you up his body until he can kiss you properly.
“We should ask them to make alcohol so we can do that again tipsy,” he whispers against your lips, smiling when you push his head away with a laugh. “Adrian’s got more positions they want to see, anyway.”
-------------
ryland would SO be down for the science and accidentally discover new things about himself, like he's just always down to experiment lmao
based on my post from last night about rocky and Adrian wanting to watch purely for science and ryland being kinda too into it. "4 scientists standing in a circle consenting to let each other watch" to quote myself lmao
3k words, smut, voyeurism, exhibitionism, all consenting adults
-----------------
It’s not like the topic of sex hadn’t come up in the years you spent traveling with Rocky to Erid - he was curious by nature, fascinated by the human body and all its inner workings - but he respected the fact that it was meant to be a private act. He would pretend he never heard you and Ryland when things got a little steamy, making himself busy on the far end of the ship until the sounds quieted down.
So now, sitting on the beach with Ryland, Rocky and Adrian, you were stunned into silence by the blunt questions being directed to you. “You want to what?” Ryland gapes beside you. “Rocky, Adrian want to observe human mating,” said so easily in his melodic tones. Ryland looks at you for help, not sure how to continue this conversation.
“For science!” Adrian chimes in, “you are first humans we’ve known, we want to study everything.”
“You watch Rocky eat, this seems like fair trade,” Rocky states, tapping a claw against the sand. You choke out a laugh, willing the heat in your cheeks to dissipate. “Sorry,” you start, glancing at Ryland to see the pink dusting his cheeks, “you want to watch us… have sex?”
“Yes, observe sex,” Adrian settles a little further down, tilting their carapace toward Rocky. “I know is private ritual,” he hums, “but could be good data to have.”
Ryland nods slowly, staring at his knees while he thinks. Finally, he sighs and faces you, “we would ask the same thing if we were in their position.” He purses his lips, biting back a grin at the shocked look you shoot him. “You’re thinking about it?” You ask, disbelief coating your words.
He laughs, throwing himself back to lay in the sand. “I’m just saying I don’t think it’s such a crazy thing to ask.” He gestures to the aliens next to him, “like, they’re hundreds of years old, they’re intelligent beings, they’ve got a brand new species of equally intelligent life living in a terrarium on their planet, surely they’d want to know.” He lifts his head just enough to look at you, trying to gauge your reaction to his thoughts.
Before you can form a response, Rocky stands proudly. “Rocky already heard all noises on ship, human mating very loud.”
You groan, kicking Ryland’s leg when he lets out a belly laugh at that. “Can’t you just like, watch porn on your laptop?” You’re grasping at straws at this point. “No,” Rocky says immediately, “Grace said porn isn’t realistic. Rocky want to see real thing.” Ryland laughs again, covering his face with his hands, “I did say that.” He peeks at you over his fingers, snorting when you roll your eyes and flop into the sand beside him.
“Hey,” he turns his head to you, “only if you’re comfortable with it.” You think for a moment, trying to find a reason to deny the advancement of science other than sheer embarrassment. “It does feel a little like we’re zoo animals,” you sigh.
“We are zoo animals,” he whispers, hand finding yours, “but we have a choice.” His thumb strokes over your knuckles, “besides, they could learn so much about our biology, think of the studies they’ll be able to do with a few samples from us.”
“Samples?!” Your eyes go wide, “you’re already thinking about jerking off in a cup for them?” He turns away with a cackle, “they’re already studying our bodies,” a quick point to a bruise on his arm from the most recent blood draw, “why wouldn’t they want to learn about reproduction? They already know how it works, we tag-teamed so many of those conversations on Mary.”
You groan, squeezing your eyes shut like you can make the conversation end if you can’t see any of them. “Come on,” Ryland whispers against your cheek, “let’s be guinea pigs.” The grin he cracks is thrilling, like he’s finally living out a fantasy he didn’t know he had. “You’re a fucking nerd,” you breathe quietly, smiling when he buries his face in your neck. “Is that a yes?”
“Yes, fine, we can do it,” you mumble, laughing when he throws a fist in the air and turns to Rocky and Adrian, still sitting quietly beside him. “Okay, we’re in,” he’s all business suddenly, “how do you want this to work?”
“Just want to watch, we go now?” Rocky stands and starts heading in the direction of your little house. “Wha - now, now?” You stammer out, eyes flying to Ryland when he stands and offers a hand to help you up. “Yes, now,” Adrian answers, launching into a list of positions they researched and ranking which ones they wanted to see the most.
—-------
The house is quiet, late afternoon light filling the space with a nice glow. You stand nervously in the bedroom, watching as Rocky and Adrian make themselves comfortable on a bench Ryland dragged in. You set your boundaries on the walk back: the Eridians wouldn’t talk, if either of you were uncomfortable at any point you’d stop, Ryland wasn’t allowed to teach while actively fucking you. All the normal stuff.
He sidles up to you slowly, hands coming to rest on your waist. “Really? A cuck bench?” You laugh, gesturing to the other side of the room. He laughs too, winking while he draws closer, “a scientific, observational cuck bench.” He stops before he kisses you, “just focus on me,” he breathes against your lips, feeling your body release a little tension at his proximity.
You melt into him when he finally presses his lips to yours, trying to push your nerves to the back of your mind. Ryland takes his time, kisses you slowly, passionately, like he’s trying to draw out every insecurity from your body, like he wants you to enjoy it with him. Gentle fingers slide under your shirt, spreading over the warm expanse of your back. He pulls you against him tighter, groaning quietly when you roll your hips against his.
“That’s it, baby,” he whispers in your ear, teeth nipping the sensitive skin below it. You tilt your head to give him more access, breath hitching at the way he sucks marks on your neck. You can already feel his erection against you, pressing insistently as he sinks his hands under the waistband of your pants, fingers squeezing the plush flesh of your ass. You palm him through his sweatpants, feeling him shiver against you when you get the pressure just right.
He chokes on a whine, pulling away from your neck just long enough to get his shirt off. Your hands trace over the expanse of his stomach, you can’t help but admire the extra weight he’s put on. He grins against your lips, big hands cupping your face before he’s moving to pull your shirt off too.
The cool air against your skin suddenly reminds you that you’re not alone. Ryland feels the tension return to your frame, shifting so your back is to the aliens in the corner. He strokes your arms and kisses you soundly, his tongue claiming yours in an attempt to keep you in the moment with him.
“So fuckin’ pretty,” he murmurs under his breath, feeling the goosebumps that raise under his fingers. “Cold, sweetheart?” His smile makes your heart skip again, he looks at you like you hung the moon. You nod and he twists his mouth like he’s thinking of the best way to warm you up. “Want me to help?” He’s teasing now, clearly getting a thrill out of making you grin despite yourself.
“Lay down for me,” he kisses you again for good measure. You climb on the bed, laying against the pillows while he sheds his pants with a wink. “Love you,” he whispers into your skin as he works his way up your body. You arch enough to let him unhook your bra, accepting the deep kisses he gives you when he throws it to the ground.
A soft moan makes its way out of your throat when he licks down your neck and chest, slowly working his way to your breasts. He looks up at you from under his lashes when he takes a nipple in his mouth, eyelids fluttering when you stroke a hand through his hair. He sucks on your breasts like it’s his job, drawing out sounds from you that are almost embarrassing in current company.
When you tug his hair with a murmur of his name, he groans, tongue vibrating against your sensitive nub and pulling a whimper from you. He pulls off with a pop, a string of saliva connecting his lips to your nipple. The sight sends a shock to your core, your hips rolling against him and head tilting back. He smirks to himself, shifting so he can get your pants and underwear off.
He sits back on his knees and takes you in. Soft hands lift your leg, his lips leaving sweet kisses from your ankle to your knee. He lays flat, dark eyes locked on your pussy, not even trying to hide the growl that claws its way out of him. Seconds tick by with no additional contact, you reach for him, tugging his hair again.
“Please, Ry,” you whisper, moaning when he licks a stripe up your core like that’s all he was waiting for. The first taste has him groaning against you, his eyes rolling back and fingers flexing on your thighs. “S’ good,” he whines into you, pressing your legs further apart.
You throw your head back, grinding your hips when he bumps your clit with his nose. It’s a little exhilarating knowing that you’re being watched in such a vulnerable position. Ryland between your legs, slowly taking you apart with his tongue, encouraging you to take what you need. And it doesn’t help that Ryland seems to be working twice as hard as normal, like he’s trying to show off to aliens who don’t know any different.
You feel a hand leave your leg and soft fingers prod your entrance. He looks up at you without breaking his rhythm, waiting for permission that you give quickly, willingly. You feel more than see the smile that pulls at his lips, then he pushes in and squeezes his eyes shut. “Oh, baby,” he groans into your skin, “so tight, so warm. This all for me?” Your breath hitches, you love his mouth in these moments.
“Just for you, Ryland,” you moan, back arching when he slides a second finger in. He growls again, speeding up his movements and chasing your release like it already belongs to him. A curl of his fingers has you bucking into his hand, spreading your slick against his chin and cheek. You clench down, guiding his head to exactly where you need him to tighten the coil in your stomach.
He flicks his tongue and sucks just right, staring up at you with wide eyes as he feels you building. Little groans of, “mhm, mhm,” fall from his lips, spurring you towards the edge. A gasp pulls from your throat and your whole body tenses, heat rolling through you in waves. You grind against his face, feel him lick up your release as it spills around his fingers still nudging that spot inside you.
You flop down in the bed, breath coming in harsh pants, and take a second to assess your body. Your legs were tingling, vision a little fuzzy, core spasming as Ryland slowly pulls out. He stays where he is, pressing kisses to your thighs and hips, whispering praise until he sees your face relax fully. When you reach for him, he moves quickly.
He wipes his mouth with the back of his hand, smiling when you let out a small sound. “Doing okay?” He asks against your jaw, fingers intertwining with yours and lifting above your head. “Yeah,” you breathe, “I could go for another one.” It’s your turn to wink at him.
“I can get back down there if you want,” he teases, licking into your mouth when you laugh. “Mm, Ry, I wanna come with you,” you hold his face with your free hand, thumb swiping against his cheek gently. That sweet pink shows itself on his skin again, making you giggle as he drops his weight into you.
“I think we can make that happen,” he groans, shoving his boxers off with one hand and kneeing your legs farther apart. You spread easily, so wrapped up in the man above you that you forget there’s been an audience here the whole time.
He wastes no time, slotting his tip against your entrance with a whimper against your shoulder. You roll your hips just right, feeling him slip in. He shudders above you, “sl-slow baby,” he begs, “y’ got me so worked up.” A sharp nip lands on your neck, causing your head to drop back again with a moan.
“Love those noises you make, so sexy,” he’s talking to distract from the fact that he’s not moving. “Can feel you squeezing me already, god, you’re amazing,” he slides in another inch, gasping and groaning when he feels your walls give way for him. “Oh- oh baby, fuck.”
You try to relax, try to make it easier for him, but the sounds falling from him are so hot, you can’t help the occasional clench that rocks you both. It takes him a while to push all the way in, he does everything he can to keep it together when he bottoms out and you gasp right in his ear. He’s not usually so sensitive, you briefly wonder if being watched is doing it for him that much. He did agree to it pretty quickly, after all.
He gives a testing thrust, panting above you with the effort. You roll your hips when he finds a rhythm, feeling how he squeezes your hand still in his above your head. He builds speed, practically fucking you into the mattress with the depth of each thrust. You’re a mess beneath him, moaning and gasping, head tossing and turning, free hand sinking nails into his back and neck.
A steady string of “yes, yes, yes,” punches out of him, like he couldn’t keep the words in if he tried. Without breaking his pace, his big hand grabs the back of your thigh, heaving it up towards your chest. The new angle makes your eyes roll back, his cock reaching deeper and deeper. A growl rips from his throat, low tones vibrating against your chest. You hug him to you tighter, taking everything he gave you with barely concealed elation.
He feels you clench around him particularly hard, feels how close you’re getting. He releases your hand to grab your other leg, pushing it up to match the other one. The position pushes the air out of your lungs, your legs shaking under his hold. “Give it to me, sweet girl,” he rumbles, “come on my cock, baby.”
You slip a hand down to where you’re connected, gathering some slick and rubbing your clit in rough circles. Your fingers brushing against his length almost makes him cum, he whimpers into the air and grits hit teeth to stave it off.
The sensations build, your body going taut as you finally crest the wave. A broken cry rips from your throat, legs shaking against his strong hold. It shatters through your whole body, heat and sparks for what feels like an eternity before you can suck in a breath. You clamp down on him and it tips him right over, a loud groan signalling his end before you feel warmth flood your walls.
He fucks you through it, dropping your legs in favor of leaning forward and kissing you messily. It's all teeth and tongue, he’s practically drooling into your open mouth. Your body relaxes against the sheets again, letting him press you into the mattress with grounding weight. He places sloppy kisses all over your face and neck, eyes half lidded in his own daze.
“Jesus, okay,” he laughs with his face hidden, “I was really into that.” A surprised laugh bubbles out of you, your hands cupping his cheeks to lift him up where you can see him. “I could tell,” you smile at his blush, “it’s been a while since you went for a mating press.” He grins into your palm, “Adrian mentioned it and I couldn’t stop thinking about it,” he sighs, pressing a sweet kiss to the tip of your thumb.
He rubs your side soothingly, turning his head to Rocky and Adrian, “you guys, uh - you got what you needed?” You look over to see them stand, stepping off the bench like normal. “Rocky has questions, statement.”
You and Ryland burst into giggles, “yeah, of course. Just give us a few minutes to clean up?” They amble towards the door, “Rocky, Adrian wait on beach, have much to discuss.”
You don’t have a chance to ask what that means before they’re gone. Ryland turns back to you slowly, “I know they don’t have anything to compare that to, but is it weird I wanted to impress them?” He looks shy, like he can’t believe that just happened. “They’re actually talking right now about how much of a beast Grace is in bed,” you laugh, squeezing his cheeks when he goes bright red.
He groans and rolls off of you, covering his face with a pillow. “You’re never gonna let me live this down,” it comes out muffled but you hear it anyway. You shift to lay against his side, “hey, I was as much of an eager participant as you were.”
“Besides,” you skim your fingers over his chest, “it was kinda hot, seeing you so lost in it.”
“Lost in it?” He snorts, pulling the pillow away. “Mhm,” you hum, “like you were drunk on me.” He grips you tightly with both hands, sliding you up his body until he can kiss you properly.
“We should ask them to make alcohol so we can do that again tipsy,” he whispers against your lips, smiling when you push his head away with a laugh. “Adrian’s got more positions they want to see, anyway.”
-------------
ryland would SO be down for the science and accidentally discover new things about himself, like he's just always down to experiment lmao
you are super cool but also a little intimidating☹️
I will give you a thought
Imagine stealing Prof!Ryland's boxers after you sleep together and he doesn't know. For the life of him cannot find this specific pair that's nerdy and stupid. Sad that he has to get a new pair. Until he's undresseimg you and then pulls your pants or whatever down and then sees hHIS fucking boxers
Then finds out you've gone to class with them on before. He doesn't know what to do with any of that information but he sure as hell finds it hot
Anyway no idea if this is coherent so sorry if it's not
NOOO im sorry im intimidating, pretty please know i love getting asks and interactions from people. they always make my day!! thank you for this thought it’s genuinely heaven.
you honestly didn’t really think twice about snatching pair. your underwear was ruined—dr. grace got a little too excited and tore them, he’s only slightly embarrassed—so it’s well within your right to take a pair of his boxers. especially his ones that are so stupid they make you smile.
but after that, he has been searching for that specific pair for DAYS!! when he didn’t see them in his dresser, he thinks maybe they’re in his laundry basket. after he does laundry and realizes that aren’t there while folding them, he makes sure his dryer didn’t eat them. when he notices they didn’t he’s a little annoyed.
how does someone lose a pair of boxers?
he finds them on your later that week. you initially came over so he could look over your paper on microbial denitrification, it’s no surprise it leads to him kissing you sloppy while carefully pushing you towards his bedroom. that’s his fault too. he’d been leaning over your shoulder, his voice in your ear while he points out things to correct, occasional murmurs of quiet praise that go straight through you. him placing his hand on the back of your neck was the cherry on top.
there’s no shame in the way he reached to undress you. in the steamy stumble from his kitchen table to his unlit bedroom you managed to tug his sweater off. he’s wearing an unfairly tight shirt that reminds you that you came here wearing his boxers—they almost match.
after he finally has your pants tugged off, he freezes completely. his hands linger near your hips, thumb absentmindedly brushing the waistline of his boxers. the ones he’s been searching for the past few days that you’ve apparently had this whole time.
he wants to be annoyed with you, but the sight of you in his underwear does something to him. “how long have you had this, huh?”
“since last time I was here,” you start, trailing your fingertips up his arms, amused by the goosebumps that bloom beneath them. “i’ve been wearing them all day.”
today was one of the days you had a lecture with him. the entire class—the entire day—you’d been wearing his boxers. his body works quicker than his mind does, his hand sliding down your hip to brush his fingers over your clothed folds. the cotton fabric is damp from your growing wetness. the sound you let out at his touch, however brief it was, makes him twitch in his jeans.
he should be embarrassed that he’s so turned on simply by you wearing his boxers. he can’t bring himself to be, not even when he’s pushing you into his mattress and flicking on his bedside lamp. the orange lighting quickly gives him a proper look of you and the damp patch he touched just moments before.
he spends a long time working you with his fingers without ever having to take them off. he wants to make sure you come in his boxers before you come on his cock.
nothing more unsettling than trying to relax on my study break (studying bio) and coming across super specific terms in my ryland grace fics like I WAS JUST TRYING TO TAKE MY MIND OFF THAT
Summary: The entire school knew how close you and Ryland Grace had become since you'd joined Grover Cleveland Middle's staff a year prior. That knowledge only fueled the rumor mill, that one that ran between the staff and students alike, on just how close the two of you were. It didn't help that you were definitely head over heels for the slightly awkward and endearing science teacher.
Warnings: pre-Project Hail Mary and should not include spoilers but caution anyways just in case, pre-movie storyline, tooth-rotting fluff, idiots in love, workplace romance, friends to lovers, slightly suggestive-ish comments but no smut, female reader but no characteristics described, definitely some incorrect science information but I am not a scientist so apologies, I am also not a teacher so I am sorry for any inaccuracies there lol, lightly edited so apologies for any mistakes
“Can anyone tell me why it was that Penelope asked her suitors to string Odysseus’s bow?”
The silence that followed was deafening. Your eyes shut for half a second, a tiny sigh escaping through your lips. Reopening your eyes, not a single one of your students had dared to raise their hands. No one except for Olivia, your star student, who waved her hand repeatedly in the air from the back of the classroom. A single glance to the clock told you all you needed to know.
11:55. These kids were already in lunch mode, and there was zero way you were getting them to listen to you.
With a sigh and a wave of your hand, you gave Olivia the okay to answer the question. She happily took your permission and ran with it, always the first to answer any questions you posed in class. If only the rest of these damn middle schoolers were as eager as she was.
“Penelope didn’t want to marry anyone else, so she gave them an impossible task,”
“Why does she always know everything?”
Marcus thought his comment was whispered just low enough that you wouldn’t hear him in the first row, but he was never quite that lucky. He quickly shut his mouth and looked anywhere but in your direction the second he caught sight of the disapproving look you were casting directly at him.
“You are exactly right, Olivia. Thank you for answering my question,” there were a few chuckles in the room at the obvious sarcasm laced through your words, as you hopped up onto your desk to relax and get a better look around the room full of kids. “Penelope knew the only person that could string her husband’s bow, was her husband himself. She needed to buy time, especially when these suitors only really wanted to be the ones to inherit Ithaca-”
There was a loud knocking on the door to your classroom that had been left open for the last 20 minutes of class, interrupting your words. You weren’t surprised in the slightest to meet the eyes of none other than Ryland Grace, the science teacher.
“Uh- sorry! Didn’t mean to interrupt important book talk stuff. Super important, you uh-you never know when Shakespeare will come up at your future desk job,” the cringe that Ryland physically did at his own comment was easy to see, even from across the room. He gave you a sheepish smile, his glasses barely hanging onto his face from their unconventional spot hanging off of one of his ears. The blonde held up the brown bag in his hand, and you could practically smell the food that rested inside. “I’m early, I’m sorry. Didn’t think you’d want to have a cold burger for lunch.”
“I told you!” Marcus still didn’t understand the concept of a whisper, leaning over to his best friend Jason at the desk beside him, slapping him on the arm. “They’re totally dating!”
“As if Mr. Grace could pull her,”
There was a chorus of snickers and laughter through the class, any semblance of order you might’ve had descending into chaos as every single one of your loveable, little shits just kept casting looks between you and Ryland, who still stood awkwardly in your classroom doorway with reddened cheeks.
Your face was surely no better, you were sure you could feel the heat that was emanating off of your skin, as you ran a hand down the burning skin of your face and wondered why you chose to teach these little menaces for the rest of your life. The world decided to be kind to the pair of you though, for once, letting the lunch bell save you from any further embarrassment from a group of 13 year olds.
“Please come to class prepared to actually answer questions tomorrow!” you called out over the hustle and bustle of the class as they grabbed their things, eager to scurry off to their lunch hour and finally eat. “Your unit test is at the end of next week, and I would prefer not to fail all of you.”
They weren’t listening, but by this point in the day you were hungry and didn’t have the energy to try and argue with them.
Any of that tiredness they brought to your bones? It disappeared the second you watched the way they all interacted with Ryland on their way out the door.
Big smiles, every single one of them excited to see the school’s favorite science teacher lingering in the doorway to their English class. You could just barely hear the tail end of one of Ryland’s terrible science puns, something about a hungry planet needing a ‘light snack’ that got a groan out of Marcus. All it did was bring a soft smile to your face, though, one that somehow softened even more at the quick, secret handshake Olivia shared with him before she was out the door.
Then, it was just the two of you, smiling like idiots as you locked eyes across the room again. And god, did you want that fluttering group of butterflies in your stomach to calm down for just a moment.
Having a crush on Dr. Ryland Grace, the former molecular biologist turned San Francisco middle school science teacher, was inevitable from the moment you turned up at the school for your first day over a year ago. Incredibly smart, amazing with kids, and so incredibly handsome you thought your heart stopped beating the first time you saw him–hell, Mrs. Doyle, the math teacher for over 5 years, said there were at least 4 other young teachers that absolutely had crushes on this man. You were far from the first.
He broke that perfect vision of himself you were building in your head within 5 minutes of meeting, tripping over his own two feet and knocking the stack of papers a mile high from the Principal’s hands, but you had only found it even more endearing.
“I didn’t mean to interrupt,” he apologized again, long legs striding across the room and reaching your desk in a matter of seconds. “I had a free period before this, a-and you mentioned this morning you forgot lunch so I grabbed some for both of us-”
“Sal’s?” you questioned, pointing to the bag of foot now sitting on your desk with the familiar logo. “They’re, like, 10 blocks away. Why’d you go that far?”
“Because I know they’re your favorite,”
The flare of heat in your cheeks was instant. Ryland Grace, who rode a damn bike to the school every day, used his free period to ride 10 blocks away and pick you up lunch from your favorite spot, all because you mentioned offhandedly at 7 a.m. about forgetting your lunch for the day.
Well, he certainly didn’t do that for the four fresh out of college teachers that had crushes on him. You’d mentally consider that a hefty win in your book.
“How sweet of you to remember,” Ryland simply waved you off, head turned away as he passed your wrapped burger into your hands, taking up space on your desk chair while you stayed comfortable on top of your desk. “You even remembered tomatoes this time!”
“I forgot them one time and I never hear the end of it,” laughter was shared between you both for a moment as Grace took a bite of his own burger. “I caught the tail end of that discussion. Olivia answering all your questions like a champ?”
“Isn’t she always,” you shot back with another laugh, turning slightly on your desk to better face him. “I swear she’s the only one that I can ever get to answer any of my questions. She might be the only one that does any of my assigned readings.”
“To be fair, can you blame her?” Ryland’s words were muffled slightly by the food in his mouth. You couldn’t even contain the slight smile that grew as he managed to just barely catch the ketchup dripping off his burger before it could smear itself on the stack of papers that needed graded at your desk. “Shakespeare was just…so interesting. Couldn’t get enough of his stuff. Don’t know why your kids don’t want to read it.”
There was silence for a moment, your eyebrow quirked in his direction. The blonde stopped mid bite of his burger, looking back at you quizzically, trying to figure out what he had said wrong.
“You know we’re currently learning The Odyssey, right?”
“Yes?”
“I’ll let you think about that for a second,”
He did, just slowly blinking in your direction. He glanced at the chalkboard behind you, covering in little notes you’d made throughout the class discussion, before they flickered to the copy of the book that sat on your desk. That was finally when you saw the light bulb flicker on above his head, Ryland’s eyes shutting as he let out a loud sigh.
“...that wasn’t written by Shakespeare, was it?”
The laughter that bubbled out of you practically had you throwing your head backward.
“No, but I’m sure Homer won’t be too offended,” feet landing on the ground as you hopped off your desk, you gave Ryland’s shoulder a quick squeeze as you moved past him. “The attempt was cute, though, it was a good try.”
Cute. Why in the world did you let that one slip? You were practically cursing yourself in your head for that one, taking another bite of your burger as you worked to erase the whiteboard to prepare it for your next class. You didn’t dare steal a glance over at Ryland, in fear that your little slip-up was going to ruin everything.
There was only quiet for a moment before the single moment of awkwardness was gone.
“I promise you I know Homer wrote that. I swear!”
The desperation to believe him drew another laugh out of you. Sparing a glance in his direction, Ryland was giving you his best, exaggerated puppy dog eyes, begging you to believe him, as a smile just barely squeaked its way onto his lips.
“Right, of course you did. My mistake. Whatever you say, Ryland-”
“I mean it!” It was his turn to laugh this time, a sound that had those butterflies rattling around once more. “I was just…distracted.”
“Uh-huh, distracted,” as if you were preparing to scold one of your students, you turned to face him fully with a hand on your hip, eyebrow raised expectantly. “By what, exactly?”
If a human being could buffer, Ryland Grace always seemed to be constantly buffering. Your eyebrow remained raised, waiting for him to piece together his response. All he could do was open and close his mouth like a fish, before looking away and taking another bite of his food.
“Nevermind that, just finish your food before it gets cold. I did bike, like, three miles to get that thing,”
With a roll of your eyes that held zero malice what-so-ever, you made sure the blonde could see your next bite of your food, a satisfied smile on his face.
“Back to the previous topic,” you steered the conversation in another direction, wiping off the last bits of chalk on the board and writing down your next period at the top so that you could start the discussion on the reading over again. “I don’t understand why it’s so hard to get some of these kids to just read the content. They all pay attention in your class!”
“I heard Jason make a comment yesterday during class that Marcus has a crush on Olivia. Maybe they’re too distracted to read,”
You shot him a skeptical look.
“Marcus, crushing on Olivia? He was just making fun of her before you came in the room,”
Ryland averted his eyes, suddenly very interested in his ID badge hanging around his neck from his school issues lanyard.
“W-well, maybe he just doesn’t…know how to express his feelings,” he spared a glance up at you, seeing you were still watching, as he tripped over his words again. “It can be hard for boys–and men–of all ages, to…tell someone how they feel.”
“Well, I don’t know where he’s learning from, but making fun of the girl you like isn’t the right way to go about things,” you shot back.
“Then teach them!” Ryland sounded absolutely ecstatic, that light bulb over his head going off again as he looked like he’d come up with the world’s greatest idea. “Classic literature, there’s plenty of great love stories in there. Get his interest by teaching them about that, so he can learn from them.”
“Alright, give me an example then, Mr. Suddenly an Expert in Classic Literature,”
“Romeo and Juliet,” he said like it was the easiest thing in the world, balling up the remnants of his finished food and tossing it in the bag it came in. “Greatest love story ever told, so great Taylor Swift wrote a song about them.”
“Except they don’t run off and get married and live happily ever after, Ryland. Romeo thinks she is dead and kills himself with poison, and when Juliet realizes he’s dead she stabs herself,”
Ryland’s excitement fell slightly, his mouth forming a little ‘o’ shape.
“...oh,”
“Don’t think that’s what I want to teach young, impressionable pre-teens about love-”
“Daisy and Gatsby, then! He loved her so much he stood on that dock staring at the-the bright yellow light of a stoplight for her,”
“It was a green light and it was the dock light, first of all. I’m not even sure how you could be that off. Secondly, Gatsby is murdered at the end of the book and Daisy doesn’t even attend the funeral, she and Tom move away and pretend it never happened,”
Ryland’s eyes are shut at this point, his fingers massaging his temples and those glasses just barely hanging on from their place around his neck.
“...does anyone not die in these old books?”
The sound of your laughter permeates the room and you sweep over, collecting his trash and combining it with yours. You never even spared him a glance, though you could feel his eyes on you, as you swept the trash away with you to the other side of the room, his voice echoing across to you.
“I’m going to get lucky on one of these guesses!”
What Ryland Grace was really lucky about was how adorable you found him, and how head over heels you were for him, because his lack of literary knowledge was astounding.
❤︎
“I’m sorry, you’re trying to tell me that aren’t currently fucking the eye candy that is the science teacher in room 305?”
“Evelyn!”
Evelyn Doyle was in her late thirties, married since she was 18, and already had three kids with her high school sweetheart. Since you had transferred into Grover Cleveland Middle, you’d become fast friends and she had become a great mentor.
She had, sadly, caught onto your pathetic crush on Ryland Grace before you had even fully realized it, and was now ‘vicariously living through you’ as she always said.
“There’s not a single child left in this entire school right now,” she shot back, gesturing around her empty classroom, as she finished cleaning up anything her students had left around at the end of the day. You rolled your eyes at her excuse, perched on the edge of her desk. “Please, I’m tenured, what are they going to do?”
“I’m more so yelling at you for butting into my love life, once again,” was your reply through laughter. “Ryland and I are good friends, that’s it.”
It was her turn to laugh, finishing up her cleanup around the room before she joined you at her desk, packing her things away into her shoulder bag.
“Oh please, you keep denying that little crush of yours-”
“I never said I was denying that,” you cut her off. “Lord, you realized I liked him before I even did. But he and I aren’t anything besides friends. I’m not lying.”
Your pleas fell on deaf ears, like they typically did when you were around Evelyn. She simply waved your statement off, tossing her bag over her shoulder as you followed her out of her room and down through the quiet of the school hallway. The quietest the hallway ever was, in the hours right after students were sent home for the day. You’d rather be anywhere else, preferably at home, but these mandatory once-a-month staff meetings were unavoidable.
“Whether you’re telling me the truth or not, you have to understand why everyone thinks so–teachers AND students. I think even some parents think so!” The only response she got was an eyeroll, her shoulder bumping into your’s playfully. “He brings you lunch at least once a week, meaning he rides that dingy bike to get whatever you’re craving that day.”
“It’s usually just something random-”
“Constantly in your classroom, or vice versa,” she cut you off, and you quickly realized you weren’t getting a single word into this conversation. “I’m pretty sure Principal Marshall has considered, somehow, moving your classroom closer to his just so he’ll stop being late to classes because he’s busy talking to you.”
Okay…yeah, you didn’t have a retort for that one. Your classroom was on the opposite end of the school building from Ryland’s own, and yet every time he had even a split second he was somehow always leaning in your doorway. Even if it only resulted in a conversation that lasted all of a minute.
Many times those ended with your students having to remind him that the bell rang and he definitely had students in his own class unattended, waiting on their teacher. More than once he’d slipped as he tried to sprint back to his classroom from yours. It didn’t matter how short those little conversations were, though, because every second around him was precious to you.
“Awe, look at you blushing about it-”
You slapped Evelyn’s hand away, throwing her a look of disdain that didn’t really hold any true malice to it.
“Look, all I’m saying is the ball is in his court,” was the response you finally settled on as Evelyn propped the door of the small auditorium open for you to enter. “Ryland is nothing but friendly to me, so if he’s interested then he’s got to show me.”
“You’re acting as if you’ve made your own feelings clear, honey,”
“No, but I clearly don’t do a good enough job of hiding them,”
Speak of the devil: there he was. Ryland’s head shot up the moment the pair of you walked into the auditorium. Those damn glasses hanging down from one side of his face, framing his stubbled jawline perfectly. A smile lighting up his face the second those blue eyes found yours, gesturing to the empty seat beside him.
A packed auditorium, as you and Evelyn were the last ones there. Every seat up practically filled, and yet Ryland Grace sat among a crowd of people, eyes trained on you and a single seat saved for you amidst it all.
All you could feel was the heat in your cheeks, and the touch of Evelyn patting your back as she laughed, voice low but loud enough to hear as she shifted past you to find a seat of her own.
“Doesn’t have interest in you my ass,”
Her words swam through your head with every apology you muttered to the other teachers as you snuck past them in the cramped rows, happily taking the empty seat beside Ryland.
“You didn’t have to save me a seat, you know,” your voice held a hint of teasing to it, but it was soft. Filled with an adoration that you knew you were terrible at hiding. Luckily, Ryland was terrible at picking up on it.
“Wanted to sit next to you,” he whispered back as Principal Marshall began to drone on about updates neither of you particularly cared about. He leaned in close, a hint of his breath wafting over the shell of your ear as he spoke. “You make these slightly less boring.”
Close proximity to this man was your worst nightmare, and the cramped auditorium wasn’t helping. That single touch of his breath against your skin was enough to send a simultaneous shiver down your spine and another round of heat to your cheeks. His suit jacket covered arm rested on the shared armrest between your seats, the edge of his bicep ghosting against the bare skin of your arm with every little shift he made, tapping incessantly against the armrest.
The slight action made you smile. He never could sit still in these meetings, always hated them.
“Did anything fun happen in class today?” you kept your voice low, eyes trained on the principal, as your head tilted slightly over to Ryland so he could better hear you.
“Uh, if you count Madison telling me that she thinks the sun orbits the earth, then sure,” you had to stifle your laugh at that, casting Ryland a side glance as he grinned at you, doing a terrible job of whispering back at you as usual.
“How could she possibly think that?”
“You’d be surprised,” Ryland leaned just a tad bit closer, the side of his arm pushed up fully against your own. You could almost hear the smile in his voice without even having to look over at him. “The National Science Foundation estimates that 26% of Americans still think the sun orbits the earth.”
“Jesus, that many?”
“Well, 100% of them are stupid, so,”
Nasty looks from other faculty were shot your way that second you choked on your own breath, slapping a hand over your mouth in an attempt to stop yourself from breaking out into uncontrollable laughter. You gave them the most sympathetic look you possibly could, learning how to breathe normally again before mouthing sorry at them all.
Ryland didn’t care in the slightest for the warning look you shot him, a bright smile on his face as his eyes seemed to trail over every inch of your face.
“If you keep doing this in every faculty meeting, they’re going to separate us, Ry,”
“I met Madison’s parents for the first time last month for parent-teacher conferences,” he continued, ignoring your plea. Instead, he leaned in even closer, eyes locked on yours, and god it was impossible to look away. “They are, 100%, undeniably, part of the Flat Earth Truthers Club.”
You shook your head, a smile creeping back up on your lips. Ryland’s gaze could still be felt on the side of your face as you turned back to face the front, eyes focused back on the principal again in an attempt to pay attention to the meeting.
“Flat earthers are ridiculous. They’re just scared of science,”
“Well, you know what they say…the only thing they have to fear is sphere itself,”
There simply wasn’t enough time to clap your hand over your mouth and conceal your laughter, a split second of it breaking through the quiet of the auditorium. And Ryland? His smile was somehow even brighter than it was before, still locked onto your face, never having strayed once.
“Dr. Grace, is there something you feel needs to be shared with the rest of your fellow faculty?”
Principal Marshall’s voice was enough to knock Ryland out of whatever trance he seemed to have put himself in. Eyes wide as if he’d just seen a ghost, hands barely able to catch his glasses as they almost fell right off of his ear where they dangled, a burst of red spread through his cheeks instantly as his deer-like eyes locked onto the unamused principal.
“I-I uh, no. No, nothing, Principal Marshall,” he scratched at the back of his head, ruffling up his already messy hair, a nervous tick you’d picked up since the moment you’d met him. You simply buried your head in your head, eyes trained on your shoes and Ryland out of the corner of your gaze, terrified to look up at your fellow faculty that you’d already apologized to once. “Just getting super jazzed about faculty updates. Hard to keep it in here. I’m like a mushroom, getting all…hyphae…”
A collective groan sounded through the auditorium at the terrible biology pun that rolled off of him with ease. All you could do was smile into the palm of your hand.
“Please just…pay attention to the meeting, Dr. Grace, before I separate you and your other half,”
Other half. That’s not how she meant it, but it was impossible not to let your mind wander to the idea.
Early mornings. Coffee, the smell of eggs and toast burning in the kitchen. Ryland and his hair that was surely even more unkempt that early in the day. The guarantee that he definitely had about 120 science puns ready to go at any moment.
Late nights. Curled up on a couch. A movie, a shared blanket, warm in the embrace of his arms. The quiet of just being with someone that made you happy in ways you’d never felt before. The promise of another day with them on the horizon.
It was becoming increasingly harder not to think about Ryland Grace like that every day, of what a life with the awkward, endearing science teacher could be.
And as Principal Marshall continued her meeting, and your eyes met the blue ones that were already looking at you: soft, kind, a hint of something you couldn’t understand in them, you could only dream he thought the same thoughts when he looked at you.
❤︎
“Alright, who can tell me the day of the first human space flight?”
Not a single middle schooler, packed into the building’s planetarium, raised their hands at first. Many of them started whispering to each other, confused looks on their faces, but Ryland just waited with a smile on his face. A brave soldier from Mr. Harkin’s class, Damien, finally raised his hand.
“Uh, Mr. Grace? Wouldn’t that…be today?”
“Excatly!” Grace’s clap echoed through the room as he pointed toward the young kid sitting in the front row of seats. “International Day of Human Space Flight, commemorating the first human space flight by Yuri Gagarin. It was a trick question, and you passed my tiny friend.”
Were you excited about losing a chunk of your day to escorting your class to the planetarium, along with other classes in the building, for a special science presentation? Absolutely not, especially not with how terribly your class did on their last The Odyssey assignment.
When you found out that Ryland was giving the presentation during your allotted time? Suddenly, The Odyssey meant nothing to you. Not when you could watch Ryland teach, something he did so effortlessly.
The way he captured every single child’s attention with ease. That glowing smile on his face every time they answered a question right, and simply the way he seemed to love what he taught. You were captivated every time you got the chance to see him teaching the thing he loved so much.
“Yuri Gagarin was a Soviet cosmonaut who became the first person in space in 1961 aboard the Vostok 1,” the planetarium was lit up with the night sky, little stars reflecting down. You could almost see them in the students eyes, in their bright smiles as they looked up into the vastness of space. Your eyes trailed to Ryland, already looking at you with a soft smile of his own, before he cleared his throat and moved throughout the room, focusing back on the kids. “Over the course of 89 minutes, his ship traveled to a maximum altitude of 187 miles, as it orbited the Earth.”
“Wait, so we weren’t the first people in space?” one of your students, Lydia, called out. Ryland laughed, pointing over at her.
“No, we kind of sucked,” you rolled your eyes with a grin at Ryland’s statement, though it drew a laugh from all of the kids. “No, America had actually scheduled its first space flight for May 1961, so this was a huge blow to us. It really heated up the space race.”
“He really is good with them, isn’t he?”
Glancing over, Mr. Harkin had saddled up beside you on the edge of the room, head tilted toward you and voice low so as to not disrupt the lesson the kids were being taught. Your gaze drifted back to Ryland as he continued his lesson, eliciting more laughter from the kids. It only brought another soft smile to rest on your lips.
“He is, in a way that I just don’t understand,”
Those blue eyes you’d become so fond of met yours for a moment across the room, face illuminated by the light projecting onto the planetarium’s dome walls. The little grin he wore seemed to drop just slightly, gaze still locked on you but flickering every moment over to Mr. Harkin as he spoke to the students. Harkin’s elbow dug lightly into your side.
“Careful, you’re giving him major ‘heart eyes’ across the room right now,”
You did your best to conceal your laughter, shooting Harkin a look, Ryland’s gaze still felt on the side of your face even as you looked away.
“Why do I feel like I’m about to find out that every teacher in this school has a secret betting ring going on when it comes to Ryland and I?”
“I mean, it’s not a secret. Principal Marshall runs the damn thing,”
“Mr. Grace?” one of the youngest girls in the grade, Aurora, called out, raising her hand up to get Ryland’s attention. “My mom told me the other day that there’s 8 planets in our solar system. What happened to Pluto?”
Ryland went to answer when Mr. Harkin beside you laughed, capturing the attention of everyone in the room, as he shook his head at his young student.
“No, honey, scientists a couple years ago decided that Pluto wasn’t a planet anymore,”
Your eyes flickered to Ryland, who was already staring at Harkin from across the room as he tossed his little crochet earth back and forth in his hand. His response was a bit of a forced laugh.
“Well, your teacher isn’t wrong. Scientists classified Pluto as a dwarf planet a couple years ago,” he explained to the kids, eyes trained on the little crochet sphere in his hands. “But there’s 8 other very important, even closer planets that we should focus on. I mean, who really cares about a tiny, slow planet that takes 248 years to orbit the sun–honestly, he should just accept that he’s slowly falling into obscurity and stop trying to steal the spotlight.”
The room got quiet. Your eyebrow raised slightly, head tilted, as everyone just seemed to stare at Ryland, who had yet to look up.
“Uh, Mr. Grace?” some student in the back called out. “Why did you call Pluto ‘he’? Are the planets boys and girls like us, too?”
Ryland’s head shot up, as if he suddenly remembered he was in a room full of students. His eyes shot to you, his mouth opening, then closing, before he quickly looked away.
“I–well…planets don’t really…I’m not trying to misgender the planets, you know? That’s not for me to decide, that’s for them to–you know what, does anyone else have any other questions that aren’t related to Pluto?”
You really didn’t want to laugh at Ryland, but only he would be able to accidentally turn a lesson about space and planets into almost a lesson on bodily autonomy. He caught your eye, his widening just slightly and you could almost see his cry for help written across his face, but it only made your laughter worse.
It was little Madison that raised her hand next, speaking before she’d even been called upon.
“Are you sure the Earth isn’t the center of the universe?”
Ryland hung his head in shame, the shaking of his head evident from across the room as a few of the kids around laughed at the young girl’s comment. You were quick to shoot them a warning look, not keen to hand out any detentions today.
By the time your gaze turned back to Ryland, he was already looking at you. His gaze flickered to Harkin, then back to you, and it was like a light bulb had just flickered on the way his eyes lit up.
“Yes, Madison, I’m sure the Earth isn’t the center of the universe. And I can show you,” his long legs crossed the room in seconds, his body sliding between you and Mr. Harkin as his hands landed on your shoulders with a tiny little squeeze that sent your heart leaping through your chest. “But to do that, I’m going to need this volunteer that I’m not quite giving a choice.”
“It’s not volunteering if you didn’t ask, Ry!”
You exasperatedly tried to whisper to Ryland as he steered you across the room to stand before all the kids. He only shook his head as a bunch of your own students started cheering for you around the room, only worsening the red that coated your cheeks the second his hands had landed on your body.
“I need you for this,” he shot back hastily, positioning you in the middle of the room, standing in front of you. His body blocked the students from your vision, blue eyes boring down into yours, hands gently squeezing at your upper arms as you begged the blush in your skin to not be too obvious. “You trust me?”
A ridiculous question, because the only answer was yes. You gave him a nod, and Ryland’s smile only widened as he turned back to the kids in the room.
“Alright, kids. Your gorgeous teacher here is the Sun,”
Little oohs and awes sounded from the kids around the room at Ryland’s little slip in of the word ‘gorgeous.’ There was a sting in your bottom lip as you bit into it with your teeth, trying to contain your own smile. Marcus spoke up from across the room without raising his hand, as usual.
“Then what’s Mr. Harkin?”
“Oh, he’s Pluto,” Ryland shot back immediately, nodding his head. “Suits him.”
Laughter rang through the room, the young boys as rambunctious as ever. Ryland met your astonished look with a tiny wink of his own, one that forced a small laugh to tumble from your lips. Then, he began to slowly spin, walking around you in a circle.
“And I am the Earth,” he called out to the kids, and you could only hope he didn’t trip over his own two shoelaces. “The Sun holds 99.8% of the mass in our solar system, which means it’s packing some massive gravity.”
Ryland stopped spinning himself, still moving around you in a circle. He held his hand out toward you, and you slipped yours into it without hesitation, spinning in that circle slowly with him.
“Because the Sun holds such intense gravity, it’s actually pulling Earth into it. But, Earth has such high forward velocity that it actually keeps us moving sideways. Put these two together, and it keeps Earth moving in an almost perfect circle around the sun. Can anyone tell me another fun fact about our movement around the sun?”
The words went in one of your ears and straight out the other. There was no paying attention, not when Ryland’s hand held your own. Soft skin, just slightly rough around the edges, and those blue eyes were so soft, locked onto you as if there was nowhere else he wanted to look.
“Our speed changes!” Olivia called out from somewhere in the back, but you didn’t even try to look and find her. “When we’re closer to the sun in our orbit we move faster, and the further away we are, the slower we move.”
“Very good, Olivia!” Ryland called out, sparing just a quick glance over to the kids in the room as his hand held yours tighter, still spinning slowly together. “Madison, we also know this works because there’s other sun-like stars out there that are also orbited by planets. Like Tau Ceti, which has four Earth-like planets orbiting it.”
“Is the sun important for other things, besides just being the center?”
Ryland’s eyes flickered to you, and you watched as he paused. The slight hesitation on his face, the bobbing of his Adam’s apple for a moment, before those blue eyes locked onto yours and refused to look away.
“I-It is…for a lot of reasons. The Sun is the Earth’s entire reason for existing. The Sun gives the Earth life. The Sun is the reason the world is beautiful,”
Your breath hitched, eyes still trained on Ryland. There was something in his words, something in that earnest, raw look that he had written across his features as he looked at you that added a weight to his words. A weight that sent a tiny chill across your skin, raising the hair on your arms.
“Without the Sun…the Earth would be nothing,”
There was quiet across the room. Then, a couple snickers, followed by Olivia’s smug little voice.
“The Sun sounds beautiful the way you talk about it,”
“She is,” his voice was lower, softer than it was before. Until, he seemed to realize what he said, the red on both of your faces spreading further than before as his eyes shot wide. “THE SUN I mean! I-I’m talking about the sun, obviously, b-because this is a science presentation!”
Laughter rang through the room, little chants of your names mashed together coming from some of the kids as the bell rang and saved either of you from further embarrassment.
Ryland, being Ryland, chose that moment to finally trip over his own two feet. You pulled on his hand as hard as you could, saving him from plummeting to the ground as he instead just landed on his one knee.
“Make good choices,” Ryland commented lowly as some of the kids walked past the two of you, still snickering and giggling to themselves. You let go of his hands finally, simply resting it on his shoulder with a gentle squeeze. “Don’t uh, I don’t know, blow up the world during lunch or anything. Or pop those chip bags and give kids heart attacks, whatever you kids do these days.”
You laughed, stepping around Ryland as your kids lined up outside of the room, waiting for you. He shot you a sheepish smile from the floor, and your skin still burned with heat at the memory of his words as you looked at him.
“Every time I think you’re doing well with those kids, they manage to knock you down a peg,”
“Yeah, well, what’s new?”
When you met your class outside, you didn’t let them get a word in before you warned them not to say anything. You could still hear little comments talking about ‘shipping’ their English and Science teachers the entire way back to your classroom.
❤︎
Ryland Grace didn’t understand how he had ended up here.
Well, he did. Calling the leading scholar in his field a “staggering waste of carbon” at a UNESCO conference in Denmark was an easy way to get blacklisted from the field he’d studied in for many years in college. It was an easy explanation for how he ended up teaching middle school science at Grover Cleveland Middle in San Francisco.
Not that he had a problem with teaching! He actually loved it. Loved his kids, loved talking about science. He loved teaching the future little scientists of the world about why every facet of science was awesome. The pay wasn’t great, though.
Especially when it was the reason he rode a bike to school daily.
And there was currently the equivalent of a monsoon raining down from the sky onto the pavement, the reason he’d been standing at the front doors for the last 20 minutes hoping that the rain would simply let up. The heavens didn’t take pity on him, though, and it only rained harder and harder. His rain coat and bike were not meant to withstand heavy rain and damaging winds to this extent.
Best cast scenario? It takes him a little longer to get home on his usual 20 minute bike ride than normal. Worst case? He crashes and dies, dead in a ditch covered in mud.
“Ryland, please tell me you aren’t thinking of riding your bike home in this?”
Then there was you. You were probably the single greatest reason why he loved teaching at Grover Cleveland Middle. If he ever had the unfortunate chance to meet that scientist from the conference again, he’d thank him this time for being a staggering waste of carbon, because it led him down a path to you.
“I can’t be that bad,” he tried to joke, waving you off as a crack of thunder seemed to shake the entire building, and his fake confidence faltered for a second. He glanced back at you, coat wrapped around your bag instead of yourself in order to keep its contents dry. “Just, you know…the slight threat of bodily harm.”
He really wished the path that led to you was less bumpy and full of himself looking like an idiot, but at this rate he’d take what he could get from the universe.
“Yeah, absolutely not,” was your immediate reply, head shaking as she fished your car keys out of the bag still covered with your coat. “I’m giving you a ride home, can’t risk the best science teacher’s life over a dumb storm.”
Ryland immediately shook his head, turning to face you beside him. He was not letting you risk your own life in the storm for him. If it really came down to it, he’d sleep at his desk. There was a change of clothes he kept in the bottom drawer, it wasn’t the first time he’d had to do it.
“I can’t let you-”
“This isn’t up for discussion,” Ryland snapped his mouth shut as you cut in once again, dangling your car keys up in front of him with a little shake. “I…care about you, okay? I want to know you are home safe.”
There was no stopping the immediate heat that filled Ryland’s cheeks, and he knew it. There was red blooming across your own, but Ryland shook all wishful thinking from his mind. The AC unit in this school was unreliable, you were definitely just flushed from the heat. No other reason.
Ryland decided he wasn’t going to put up a fight at this point, but he wasn’t going to let you do this without anything in return. He shrugged the yellow raincoat hanging over his own shoulders off as he kicked the glass door in front of him open, the muffle sounds of the torrential downpour now louder as droplets of water splashed into the front door. He held the jacket out, hanging it above your head to protect you from the rain.
“At least let me save you from getting drenched,”
“You’re going to look like a dog that just had a bath by the time we reach my car,” Ryland only smiled at your joke, and the little giggle that fell through your lips. The close proximity didn’t help as he held the jacket up around you.
“Actually, it’s not windy today,” he shot back with a grin, nodding out the propped open door into the rain. “That means if we run, I’ll be drier than if we walked, because the rain that’s hitting us from above is proportional to time. Though, the rain hitting us from the front is proportional to distance, and when running-”
“Ryland Grace, you are adorable when you get all science-nerd, but if we’re going to run…we should run,”
Ryland was thankful that you couldn’t see the renewed heat flooding his cheeks, as you were both too busy sprinting through the torrential downpour to the staff parking lot.
Being a gentleman (who was head over heels in love with you and too terrified to say a damn thing) was thrown out the window with how fast you were booking it to your car, the idea of shielding you from the rain with his jacket abandoned after just a moment booking it across the lot. He could feel the coolness of the water settling against his skin as it soaked through every layer of clothing he had, every few seconds having to furiously wipe at his glasses in hopes of seeing through them.
None of it really mattered in the end, not when he heard your laugh. The little shrieks of laughter as a particularly big drop happened to fall right in your eyes. Or the laughter as Ryland managed–in his signature fashion–to slip on the final step into the parking lot, and you had to double back in laughter to help haul him to his feet.
He’s spring clumsily through the rain a thousand more times if he got to see you smile like that. And that is why his kids always told him that he was definitely ‘whipped’ for you. Whatever that meant.
The second you had both jumped into your respective seats of your vehicle, doors slamming shut, there was only a moment of silence between the both of you. Ryland felt like his chest was going to explode, remembering why he always hated gym class, his heavy breathing mixed with yours as you both caught your breath, before you locked eyes over the center console.
Then the laughter resumed.
He held his hand to his stomach, feeling an ache settling in as he couldn’t stop his own laughter. Your’s grew slightly louder in his ear as you leaned over, trying to help him wipe at his glasses that were still covered.
“I was right, you look like a wet dog,”
Ryland’s only response was to shake his soaking wet hair like one, a simple reaction that earned yet another shriek of laughter from you and a light slap to his shoulder. You muttered something unintelligible under your breath, but Ryland found himself unable to tear his gaze away from your lips as you started the car and began to pull out of the staff lot. How soft they looked, the way the little beads of water running down your cheeks fell over them.
Whipped. He still didn’t get it, but he agreed wholeheartedly with his kids at this point.
There was no driving fast in this rain, especially when the windshield wipers were moving at their highest programmed speed and it still wasn’t enough. It was quiet in the car for just a moment as you pulled out of the parking lot, but Ryland broke it the second your phone had connected to the car’s bluetooth, music filling the space between him and you.
Fly me to the moon, let me play among the stars. Let me see what spring is like on Jupiter and Mars.
“Frank Sinatra,” Ryland couldn’t help the growing smile on his lips as the familiar song flooded through the car speakers. He kept his eyes trained on the side of your face, watching the little smile grow on your own lips, eyes focused on the road conditions in front of you. “Old books and old music. Didn’t know you had such an old soul.”
“You calling me old, Ryland?”
“N-no!” Ryland immediately back track, hands flying up and shaking back and forth as his eyes went wide. “I might say some stupid stuff some–okay, most of the time–but I know better than to comment on a woman’s age.”
“I’m just teasing you,” he could thankfully hear the sincerity mixed in with the teasing lit to your voice. “But yes, I do enjoy some old music. Always been a big fan of Sinatra, especially this one.”
“It’s a nice song…just not scientifically accurate,” he caught the side eye that you threw his way for just a moment, another crack of thunder banging across the sky and almost shaking the car. Ryland couldn’t help but jump slightly. “Jupiter only has a 3.13° tilt to its axis, so it doesn’t experience seasons like we do. Mar’s would, though, because its axis is tilted at 25°, only 1.5° more than our own tilt…”
Ryland trailed off as the car rolled to a stop at a red light, and he caught you fully facing him this time with a bemused expression written across your face. His smile dropped just slightly as he let out a sheepish laugh, adjusting his glasses as they slid back down the wet bridge of his nose.
“...I went full science-nerd again, didn’t I?”
Your laughter drowned out the rain beating against the roof of the car as your attention returned to the road once more.
“You always do, but I happen to enjoy it very much,”
If only teaching paid more, because the commute to Ryland’s apartment was a lot shorter than his bike ride home every day from work.
Parked in an open space across the road from the dimly lit apartment building, Ryland Grace hesitated with his hand on the handle of the door. His eyes swept out over the area around the vehicle, still being hounded with rain. The top of his road looked like the beginning of a river, the way the water was rushing down the small incline to pool at the bottom.
“Thanks…for this,” he gestured toward the weather right outside the card.
You moved to respond to him, when the weather alert on your phone propped up on your dashboard sounded out. Ryland could just barely make out the headline: FLASH FLOOD WARNING.
The roads were far too dangerous, and Ryland already knew from various conversations that you lived on the opposite end of town from him.
He…could ask you to stay for the night. Just for safety reasons, obviously! He was quickly trying to work through the pros and cons list in his head.
Pros: his only friend that just so happened to be the woman he’s been head over heels in love with for the last year would be safe and not driving in this storm.
Cons: his only friend that just so happened to be the woman he’s been head over heels in love with for the last year would be inside his tiny little apartment that looked like it had been hit by a separate hurricane than the one it felt like they were currently suffering through.
“I should probably get home-”
“Stay,” Ryland cut in, quickly continuing his words after his vague statement. “I-It’s just, the roads are bad, and you live on the other side of town. This storm is just going to get worse, and I-I’d hate to know something happened to you.”
You hesitated, he could tell, shaking your head.
“Ryland, I couldn’t ask you to let me stay,”
He hesitated himself for a moment, every feeling he’d kept bottled up for a year now threatening to escape past his lips. Instead, he settled on echoing your own words.
“I…I care about you. I want to know you’re safe,”
Moments later, he had his rain coat draped over your head as he rushed you inside his apartment to shelter from the storm.
Ryland’s hands shook the entire time as he put his key into his front door’s lock. The last time he had guests over…was never. His apartment was built and designed for him and his brain, scattered with notes and books and piles of arts and crafts that he worked on in order to decorate his classroom. It was not meant for visitors, especially not ones as pretty as you.
“Don’t, uh, mind the mess,” he mumbled, holding the door open and motioning after you, allowing you to take a step inside his apartment as he let out the small breath he didn’t realize he was holding.
Chucking off his sneakers, little puddles of water forming below them on the ground, his jacket found its way into a pile with them. Ryland wiped his hands nervously against the thighs of his jeans, the action doing nothing against the soaking went material, as he watched you take in his apartment.
The apartment that looked like it had been ransacked, at least partially. Stacks of books relating to a thousand different topics were stacked on the ground by the tv stand, on top of the coffee table along with the coffee cup he’d abandoned there early in the morning in a haste to get to the school, and and by his desk that had a stack of papers scattered around it after her strewn them about in order to find one specific slip of paper at 11 p.m.
It was a mess, and Ryland regretted everything.
“It’s not messy, it’s homey,” your reply sent a burst of heat through his skin as you turned to him with a bright smile, leaving your own bag and coat by his pile of wet items before gesturing to your own soaking wet clothing. “Do you maybe have something a little less…wet?”
He scurried away into his bedroom, trying to ignore that little section of his brain that took your comment in a MUCH different way.
His bedroom was worse. Ryland wasn’t letting you sleep on the couch, but he surely wasn’t letting you see his room in a state like this.
Clothing was thrown across the room and Ryland quickly ran about, shoving piles of clothing away into corners where he was certain you wouldn’t be able to see any of it. Throwing it into his closet and slamming the door before it could fall out, pushing it down in his laundry basket, kicking it under his bed so it was out of sight and out of mind, whatever he could think of.
“Great idea, Ryland,” he muttered to himself, pulling on a dry pair of sweatpants and a tshirt for himself, trying to shake the remaining water out of his hair as he rummaged for something you could wear. “Almost get the woman you’re in love with killed by letting her drive you home in a monsoon. Invite her to stay the night in your apartment that makes you look like an even bigger loser than you are. Amazing idea. A doctorate in molecular biology and this is the best you can do.”
You were waiting by the couch in his living room, just glancing around at everything with a smile, when he reappeared. Sheepishly, he handed the folded clothing over to you, hand running through his soaking wet hair as he pointed down the hall.
“You can take my bed for the night. Uh, just leave your clothes in the bathroom, I can throw them in the dryer in a bit. I can scrounge up something to eat in the meantime,”
“Thanks, Ry,” your hand reached out, squeezing his upper arm lightly, and he felt the heat in his skin instantly bloom under your touch. “For all of this.”
If it wasn’t for the giant crack of thunder that flickered the lights of the building for a moment and made Ryland jump out of his skin, he would’ve forgotten how to breathe again.
He rummaged through every part of his kitchen, desperately trying to find something that he could make the two of you to eat that also wouldn’t make him seem pathetic. All he could come up with…was a loaf of bread, a jar of peanut butter, and a jar of jelly.
Yesterday. He’d stayed late after the end of the day to help in tutoring. He forgot to go grocery shopping. Ryland let out a sigh at his realization, back to his fridge door and head banging back against the stainless steel, hand running down his face and dragging against his skin as his glasses were knocked off, hanging off of one ear.
“Great,” he muttered into his palm. “Just absolutely freaking great, Ryland.”
Ryland Grace desperately wished he had the guts, the bravery, to just simply tell you how he felt.
From the moment he met you, when you had arrived for your first day at Grover Cleveland Middle, he was a goner. It had been a long time since he’d had a partner, his last one certain that he was too busy with his head in the clouds to pay attention to her, and she wasn’t wrong. But from the moment he looked at you, waving and smiling as you introduced yourself to all of the teachers that had gathered to welcome you, you were suddenly the only thing his brain wanted to focus on.
He had been so focused on you, too busy admiring every inch of you in silence, that in his typical clumsy fashion he tripped over his own two feet and knocked Principal Marshall’s papers out of her hand, spreading them five feet across the floor. But you’d joined him on the ground, laughing lightly to yourself, as you helped him clean up the papers, and Ryland knew he was a goner for you.
It only continued every single day, getting worse, and you somehow became his friend. His only friend, if he was being quite frank. So he tried to hide the way he really felt, too scared to mess anything up. He’d rather have you in his life in any way he could, then mess this up and lose you forever.
Keeping those feelings in was getting increasingly harder in the last few months. Which explained why he’d traveled cross town just to get lunch from your favorite place, or compare you to the sun and basically called you his entire reasoning for living in front of a bunch of children-
Either Ryland was going to blurt it out at some point, or he was taking these feelings to the grave with him.
“Peanut butter and jelly? Sounds like we’re eating like royalty tonight,”
He shouldn’t have looked over at you. He really, really shouldn’t have. Leaning against the opposite wall of the kitchen, hair still damp and dripping onto the cheesy “I had potential” shirt he’d been gifted by one of his students the following year. Sweatpants that were bunched up around your ankles so that you didn’t trip over the length, waist tied in as tightly as possible so they didn’t just slide right off your hips.
Ryland Grace had never thought it possible that you could look more gorgeous than you did every day, but he stood corrected. He felt more in love than he ever had just looking at you right in this moment.
“Sorry, I don’t exactly…live a life of luxury,” Ryland awkwardly laughed as he spoke, pulling out two sad paper plates from the cabinet next to him and flashing them in your direction, shaking them lightly in the air. “Hope this doesn’t ruin my perfectly curated image.”
His eyes followed you as you brushed past him, humming to yourself with a little grin. You fumbled through every drawer in the kitchen, looking for something, when Ryland quickly popped open the one right next to him, showcasing his small selection of utensils. You flashed another heart-stopping grin at him before digging out two knives from the drawer.
“That image cracked a long time ago, Ry. Like that time you let Marcus perform some chemical reaction and got the fire department called to the school,”
The tall blonde groaned to himself, rubbing at his temple as you pushed past him to throw some of the bread down onto the plates and crack open the jars of peanut butter and jelly set out.
“That was one time!” he tried to defend himself, saddling up beside you as you passed him one of the knives. He almost completely missed the opening of the peanut butter jar, eyes too transfixed on the sight of you in his clothing. It was still up in the air if his heart was actually working correctly yet. “I learned my lesson very quickly not to let him handle any more chemicals.”
“Don’t worry. I made the mistake of doing popcorn reading when we were working on The Outsiders. Marcus seemed to end up with every single instance of profanity in the book, which he would yell at the top of his lungs,”
Ryland snapped his fingers, glancing down at you at his side with a teasing smile.
“You know what? That explains that really loud ‘HELL’ I heard across the school a couple months ago. I was so sure that it was going to shatter the windows of my classroom,”
“Oh, shut up! It wasn’t that bad!”
Your laughter permeated the air, elbow digging into his side as you spoke. And when your eyes locked with his, and Ryland got the perfect look at every square inch of your face, he could see it so clearly in his head.
Mornings just like this, where you’d both struggle to get out of the warmth of the blankets. The way he would surely annoy you with his very disorganized morning routine, but he’d make up for it with coffee already set out for you, just as you liked it. The lingering moments by the door, too wrapped up in each other because you didn’t want to leave the peace of this space, even though you were going to the same place.
Late nights, curled together on the couch with some movie playing on TV that neither of you were particularly paying attention to. Whispered words, laughter shared. Kisses that lingered, hands that trailed-
Thunder broke Ryland from his spell, thoughts gone in a flash. He was back in his dingy kitchen, with you just inches away, staring up at him as the picture of true beauty.
“T-This is nice,” he cleared his throat, turning back to his sandwich as he spread his toppings along the bread, heat blooming across his cheeks again. It always did around you. “Making dinner with someone…no matter how sad the dinner is. I haven’t done this in awhile.”
“Right,” your voice responded after a momentary pause. “Sarah, wasn’t it? You were dating her when we first met. What, uh…what ever happened to her?”
“Oh, we broke up a long time ago,” Ryland waved the comment off, shaking his head. “She just, uh, thought my head was too far in the clouds. Didn’t think I wanted to be down here on Earth. She wasn’t wrong. It was for the best, though. She hated…all of this. The rundown apartment, the lack of a car, my love of science. She just never understood it. I was just…too much for her. But she’s with Mark now, so I’m sure she’s happy.”
Ryland chose not to mention that his last relationship had been dead long before it officially ended, the pair not having seen each other in well over a month by that point. If his math was right, which it usually was, Sarah had started dating Mark before she’d even broken it off with him.
He also failed to mention the relief he felt inside when she had called it off, knowing his heart had belonged to you the moment your eyes had locked with his.
Fingertips just barely ghosted over Ryland’s cheek, and he froze in place. Eyes trained on the plate in front of him, he could feel the way your hand curled around his cheek. The way your thumb glossed over his skin, back and forth, and the way your other fingers barely grazed over the shell of his ear. He couldn’t help the way he instantly leaned into the touch, a touch he hadn’t felt in so long.
Ryland turned his head, still resting in the palm of your own, to look you in the eyes. You gave him the softest smile, hand trailing across his cheek and ghosting over his jawline. His eyes watched it move, the way your fingers gently curled around the frame of his glasses dangling precariously from his face, and placed them gingerly back where they belonged, resting on the bridge of his nose.
His breath caught, your body so close to his, as your hand trailed back down and rested on his chest for just a moment, your own gaze flickering to its resting spot while his gaze stayed on your face.
“You are never, and will never be, too much, Ryland. Not for the right person. They’ll love every part of you. The clumsy parts, the nerdy parts, every part that makes you…you,”
The Sun. That’s what you were to Ryland Grace. He meant every word he had said in that planetarium that day, driven by the rare jealousy of seeing Harkin that close to you.
The Sun was the reason Earth had life. Without the Sun…the Earth would be nothing.
Without you…well, Ryland Grace had accepted long ago that he didn’t understand what it was like to truly live until he’d met you.
Your eyes flickered for just a second, and Ryland took in an audible breath, swearing they settled on his lips for just a second. The apartment was quiet, except for the hum of the fridge and the pattering of the rain against the living room windows.
The moment shattered with yet another terribly timed clap of thunder, your body jolting away from his, focus turned back to the counter in front of you, face hidden from his wide eyes.
“Y-you know…I can’t tell you the last time I had a peanut butter and jelly sandwich,”
Ryland shook his head, smiling slightly to himself at the little stutter in your own words, turning back to finishing his own food as well. But the moment still lingered in his head, the heat that bloomed from where your skin touched him still lingering.
“Since peanut butter is banned in school for allergies, probably awhile,”
“I almost forgot that rule a couple weeks ago and almost packed peanut butter crackers,” you joked back, before Ryland heard you snap your fingers. “Oh! Speaking of work, did you put yourself down to volunteer for the school dance next week?”
Sandwiches finished off, Ryland packed the ingredients away and stashed them back in their appropriate spots, laughing awkwardly to himself.
“Hah, uh, no I didn’t. I chaperoned last year and kind of left covered in punch, became the kids’ favorite ‘meme’ for a week afterward since one of them got a picture of it,”
He turned back to you. Leaning against the island counter, holding your sad little sandwich in your hands, face still lit up red as you smiled toward him.
“I think so far it's me, Doyle, and Harki, plus Principal Marshal and I think Katie and Dawson from the front office. We could really use another teacher,” he swore the fluttering of your lashes was on purpose just to kill him and his resolve. “Sign-up? For me?”
Well, there was no universe in existence where Ryland said no to a request like that.
Rejoining you at the counter, he held his own sandwich in his hand, reaching out and tapping it against yours as if you were sharing a toast.
“For you? Totally,”
Even as you both took a bite of your sandwiches, eyes still locked together, Ryland felt as if something had shifted in the air. Your eyes were still as kind, your smile still bright, but it felt like there was a new weight to your gaze as you looked at him.
And he swore–and hoped–for just a split second, that your eyes had just flickered down to his lips again.
❤︎
The student council had outdone themselves with this end of the year dance.
As you stepped through the main doors of Grover Cleveland Middle’s building, the smile on your face grew immediately at the sight before you. The walls were lined with little fairy lights, little styrofoam planets hanging down from the ceiling at various lengths, glow in the dark stars right around them and glowing. Silver streamers hung around the fairy lights, with the check in desk decorated with tons and foam and lights behind them to look like twinkling lights in the clouds.
“A space theme?” you called out as the two kids in front of you ducked away from the registration desk. Evelyn Doyle finally looked up from the sign-in sheet, grin growing as she took in the sight of you and rounded the desk. “I hadn’t heard anything from the student council on the theme, but they did well.”
“Nevermind the theme, you’re finally here!” you laughed as you threw her arms around you, reciprocating the hug, before her hands landed on your shoulders in order to get a good look at you, eyes trailing you up and down. “And look at this dress, oh my god!”
The deep yellow dress fell right around your knees, the fabric light and airy as it swooshed through the air with every move you made. Buttons lined the front down to the tie around your waist, leaving just enough room for the little gold necklace resting against your collarbone. You thanked yourself for choosing a short sleeve option, already feeling the heat in the building from how many kids were all packed in and dancing together.
“Thank you,” was the sheepish reply you gave your friend as she let you go. “I’m sorry I’m late, I caught one of my student’s parents in the parking lot and they turned it into a mini parent-teacher conference, sadly.”
“Not a problem,” she waved the comment off, gesturing toward the doors of the gym just off to the left of you both. “Just get on in there, have some fun, and keep those slow dancers at least 12 inches apart at all times.”
If the hallways were gorgeous, the inside of the gym shone even brighter. Bathed in blue and purple, even more little lights twinkled around the room, hung off the walls, the ceilings, and on every surface they could possibly find. Moon and star decals, made by the art students, hung off the walls and from the ceiling, almost glowing under the lights.
Your eyes trailed over all of your children, scattered throughout the room, already having been dancing for at least thirty minutes. The smile on your face grew as you watched each one of them, gathered with their friends as they danced together in groups, or even stood off to the sides and just observed from beyond the dimly lit dance floor.
Mr. Harkin had been stationed at the punch table, and you could hear him from across the room warning these middle schoolers not to try and spike the punch. You could only giggle to yourself, shaking your head at his antics, before your eyes swept over the crowd once more-
The music seemed to stop in your ears, breath hitching, the second you laid eyes on him across the room. Ryland Grace.
He wasn’t in anything fancy. A nice pair of jeans, the worn pair of black dress shoes you’d seen by his apartment door that night. A dark green shirt was tucked into his jeans, adorned with a worn, navy blue suit jacket overtop, and those same glasses almost falling off the bridge of his nose as he spoke animatedly to Olivia.
Ryland looked good. Too good, in your eyes.
For just a second, he looked up, and his eyes happened to meet yours across the room. You thought for sure you’d forgotten how to breathe.
Whatever had happened that night, in the silence of his apartment with only the beating of the rain against the windows and the roof as a witness, had shifted something. From the moment your fingertips had ghosted along his skin, your hand had rested against his chest, and you’d been close enough to see the specs that danced in those ocean blue eyes of his up close, nothing had been the same.
Like the little bubble you had been existing in with your harbored crushed had finally popped. Like a toe had dipped just slightly over a line, and there was no going back from then on.
You always blushed around your friend, every time he’d manage to fumble his way through a comment that borderlined on a kind-of-not-just-friendly compliment. But since that day just a week or so ago, every time he has been within a few feet of you, your face lit up like a hot summer’s day.
Moments where he’d find a second to linger in your classroom door, held a new weight to them. Sharing lunch together, fingers just barely brushing for a second as you both reached for your food, to moments when you’d simply be walking together down hallways, back of hands brushing along each other’s but no one making any moves to stop it from happening.
Something was different, and you weren’t sure you wanted to go back to how things were before. Not after touching his skin, or existing in his orbit like that. Not when you’d seen the side of him beyond these school walls.
You were in love with Ryland Grace. You had been for a long time. And, finally, you were done trying to pretend that there wasn’t at least a small chance that he felt the same.
“I need your help,”
The heated staring contest between you two was broken by the sound to your right. You turned, just to see Marcus standing directly beside you and reaching up to pull on the sleeve of your dress. His hands wrung together, foot tapping incessantly on the ground, and you immediately knelt down in front of him to get a better look at his face that he was trying to hide from you.
“Marcus? Honey, what’s wrong?” you asked gently, hands coming to rest on his arms as you tried to get him to look at you.
“I…I like Olivia,”
Oh. It was one of those problems. The anxiety you felt in that moment finally washed away, an easy smile falling to your lips as you took a quick glance over in Ryland and Olivia’s direction, the former’s eyes still locked onto you from across the room.
“I did hear a rumor about that. Olivia is a great girl,”
“She is,” he said quickly, finally looking at you. His nerves were basically written across his face. “I-I’ve been really mean to her. I didn’t mean to be.”
“I know, honey. Sometimes feelings can be confusing,” you stood up, hands on your hips as you looked down at him with a smile. “Do you want to dance with her?”
“I do,”
You held your hand out toward him with a smile.
“Then why don’t we start by going and apologizing to her?”
With Marcus’s hand in yours, you confidently led him across the room, eyes locked back onto Ryland’s as you approached. He stood with Olivia at his side, who was talking his ear off, a dopey looking grin on his face as he nodded to whatever she said as he continued to watch as you approached him.
“Dr. Grace, I’m sorry to interrupt you and Olivia,” you announced yourself to the pair with a grin of your own, hands on Marcus’s shoulders and you lightly pushed him forward. “But Olivia, there’s something that Marcus here wants to say to you.”
The young boy shuffled awkwardly forward, hands wringing together again as he stood in front of his crush.
“I, uh, I wanted to say I was sorry. For being really mean to you. I didn’t mean it,”
Olivia’s eyes went wide, as she too shuffled uncomfortably for a second. Ryland saddled up to your side, the pair of you sharing a glance as you watched the interaction happen right before your eyes. His hand graced over yours lightly, and it took everything in you not to reach out and lock your fingers with his.
“Oh! It’s, um, it’s okay. Thank you,”
“Say, Marcus?” Ryland called out to them both, catching the boy’s eye and gesturing toward Olivia with a wink. “What do you think of Olivia’s dress?”
“I…I think she looks really beautiful,”
That comment finally seemed to catch Olivia off guard, her eyes wide in shock as she giggled nervously.
“Oh! I…thank you, Marcus. You look really nice too,”
“Thank you,” his posture seemed to straighten out at Olivia’s reaction, like seeing her accept his compliment gave him the confidence he needed. “Do you want to dance with me?”
Olivia shot you and Ryland a look, and you both immediately gave her a thumbs up. Then, your happy eyes could only watch the two pre-teens awkwardly shuffle away together to the dance floor, not daring to meet the eyes of the other.
“Look at us, playing matchmaker for middle schoolers,”
“I think they did that for themselves, we just helped,” you laughed, turning your head. The laughter died on your lips the second your eyes met with Ryland’s, voice low and breathy as you whispered to him through your smile. “Hi.”
“Hi,” he whispered back just as breathily. His hand came up to the back of his head, running through his hair for a moment, and you could see the red and pink hues that lit up his cheeks. “I got worried when I didn’t see you. I was ready to call you.”
“You could’ve,”
“I’ll remember for next time,” he shot back, hands finding their way to rest in the front pockets of his jeans. His eyes moved back over the crowd, finding your two young students once more. “I’m proud of him for that. That…must have taken a lot of guts to do.”
You followed his gaze, landing on the pair as they danced together, laughing and talking like old friends.
“Like you said before, it can be hard for boys to express their feelings. All he needed was to pull up his big boy pants and ask her,”
Ryland laughed beside you.
“Yeah…I should probably follow in his footsteps,”
You glanced back to him, seeing him already watching you. A single eyebrow raised toward him quizzically, even though your heart felt like it was ready to beat directly out of your chest.
Ryland’s mouth opened, then closed, then opened again, as if he were trying to force out words that he couldn’t quite seem to get right. You didn’t even realize you were holding your breath, hoping inside that whatever he wanted to say would address the weight that seemed to be hanging between your gazes.
“Stay here,”
There wasn’t even time for you to respond before the tall blonde rushed away, almost tripping as he dashed over to the DJ booth across the way from the makeshift dance floor. He whispered something to the DJ, and you could see the thumbs up he got in return, before he rushed back over to you, panting slightly.
“Ryland?” you questioned softly, the man who held your entire heart without knowing it standing just a foot in front of you with a nervous grin on his face. “What did you just do?”
As if on cue, the song changed, and familiar lyrics floated through the room, bouncing off the walls.
Fly me to the moon, let me play among the stars. Let me see what spring is like on Jupiter and Mars
“I’m pulling up my big boy pants,” he responded with a nervous laugh, his hand outstretched toward you. “And asking you to dance with me.”
Nothing else existed the second that you slid your hand into Ryland Grace’s without hesitation, letting him pull you in. You weren’t in the school, not in a room decorated for a middle school dance, and certainly not surrounded by middle schoolers and a bunch of faculty that had placed bets on you both.
It was just you and Ryland Grace. That’s all you wanted it to be.
Your arms found a place to rest around his shoulders, fingertips just barely brushing past the strands of hair that tickled the back of his neck. There was a fluttering in your chest the second that his hands made their way to your waist, curling around the divet just above your hip bone, pulling you into him just by another inch.
In other words, hold my hand. In other words, darling, kiss me. Fill my life with song, and let me sing for ever more.
"I didn't tell you yet…,” his voice was soft, words whispered just between the two of you in a crowded room. “But you look beautiful,"
"You don't have to flatter me, Ryland,"
"No, really, you look-"
"Like a banana in this yellow dress?"
He paused. His tongue poked out, running along his bottom lip, and you could see the nervous bob of his Adam’s apple before he spoke again.
"...like the sun,"
You are all I long for, all I worship and adore.
Oh. That fluttering in your chest was back, and suddenly, you weren’t at a middle school dance anymore. You were back in that planetarium, spinning in circles. And this time, there were no doubts in your mind. You were the Sun, and he was the Earth. And what was the Earth, without its Sun?
"Ryland-"
"I wasn't lying,"
You cocked your head.
"...about what?"
"That I knew Homer wrote The Odyssey,"
That drew a short laugh from you, but you could still see the nerves that were laced through Ryland’s smile.
"Right, you were just distracted,"
"I was. By you. I'm always distracted by you,"
In other words, please be true. In other words, I love you.
You took a deep breath. He’d crossed the line for you, thrown himself onto the other side, and was waiting for you with open arms. It was just a leap of faith.
“I’m always distracted by you, too. Since the day we met,”
The song faded away, melting into the next. There could’ve been eyes on you both, either from students or from faculty, but nothing would break either of your gazes away from the other.
Ryland took a quick look around the room, before his hands took hold of your own, bringing them down between you both. He gave you a grin, one filled with more happiness than you had ever seen–and you knew your own matched his perfectly–before he tugged you toward the doors of the gym.
“Come with me,”
“Ry, we’re supposed to be chaperoning!”
“I don’t see Principal Marshall anywhere. What’s the worst she could do, fire us?”
“Quite literally, yes!” you shot back with a laugh.
Ryland only shrugged his shoulders, tugging you again, and you didn’t even try to fight back. Your feet simply moved with him.
“Worth it,”
Hands clasped together, fingers intertwined, your laughter echoed off the walls of the empty hallways as Ryland Grace ran you down them, a destination clear in his mind. Every few seconds he’d look back, just smiling at you as his eyes trailed over every single inch of you, before you’d yell at him to look at his own feet before you’d both be sprawled across the linoleum floors.
The door to his classroom was open as you flew inside, hand slipping from his as you caught yourself on the projector cart sitting in the middle of the room. Spinning on your heel, you caught his eye just as he shut the classroom door behind him, and the silence enveloped you both once more. Finally alone, no prying eyes to watch.
The momentarily confidence that seemed to seize hold of Ryland dissipated in that moment. He wiped his hands against the front of his jeans, chuckling awkwardly as he took a few steps toward you.
“What was your plan here, Dr. Grace?” you teased, taking a couple steps toward him as well, too high on the feeling of everything you’d just finally realized. High on the feeling of finally not denying what your heart knew long ago: you and Ryland Grace were never just friends.
“I’m not going to lie,” he shot back, coming to a stop just in front of you, barely an inch or two separating you. “I hadn’t thought this far ahead.”
“Then stop thinking,”
No one had leaned in first. It had been both of you, as if drawn together like two magnets, as your lips finally found one another's.
Goosebumps rose across your skin as Ryland Grace’s mouth moved against yours with an ease that shouldn’t exist between two people that have never kissed before. It was like a perfect dance between two partners that knew each other better than anything.
Your lips never left his, moving against his as if you couldn’t believe you had deprived yourself of this for so long, as your hands wound around his shoulders. Fingers curled into his hair, finally carding themselves through the blonde strands that felt so soft between your fingers.
The slightest little moan, enough to send heat coursing through your body the second you heard it, slipping from Ryland’s mouth into your own. His hands grasped at your hips, winding around your back to press into your lower back and tug you as close as humanly possible, as if he was a starved man that craved to touch you in any way that he could.
His lips were soft, a feeling that you knew you were going to crave for the rest of your life now that you’d had a single taste of them. You pressed further into him, a small mewl tumbling from your own lips and swallowed by his mouth as you pressed every inch of yourself into him, desperate to hang onto the moment in case the world would be cruel and wake you from this dream moments later.
The need to breathe was what finally separated you, but not far. Ryland’s forehead pressed to yours, his breath fanning out across your skin. His hands still gripped at your hips, holding him to you, as yours stayed carded through his hair, nails gently scraping at his scalp as you chest heaved as it tried to level your breathing back to normal.
“If I haven’t made it clear already, you’re my best friend,” his words were breathy, accented by the way he was still trying to catch his breath. But his smile was bright, his eyes almost shining, as he looked down at you. “And I’m completely in love with you. Literally, since the moment we met.”
You laughed, trapped in this little bubble with him, as your hands slid from his hair to instead cup his cheeks. The tip of your nose just barely brushed against his, and he bumped his right back against yours without hesitation.
“I’m completely in love with you too, Ryland Grace. Since the moment you tripped over your own two feet,”
The sound of your laughter filled the empty, dark science classroom again as Ryland’s hands came to scoop you up around your thighs, spinning you in relentless circles. All you could do was hang onto his broad shoulders and smile, his lips peppering a thousand kisses to every inch of skin he could possibly reach.
The Earth needed the Sun, like how Ryland said he needed you. The person that makes it all worth it, that makes the days brighter, that makes this short little life worth it.
