Dean blurb because he's not real and i'm dying bc of it
"You're gonna do it again!"
"Yup." Dean smiled, gesturing with a flick of his wrist. "Do it again."
"Dean," you pouted.
"Go on."
You huffed, rolling your eyes before turning back to the vanity and grabbing your lip liner again. Dean watched as you meticulously brushed the liner in the corners of your bottom lip, dragging it to the middle before blending it out with your finger. The pen traced the high peaks of your cupid's bow before you put the top back on, setting the liner down.
His eyes followed as you reached for the brown lipstick, popping the top off before swiping it slowly across your lips, your eyes flickering to his in the mirror, which he smiled boyishly at.
You clicked the top back on the lipstick, setting it down with a soft thud, and finally reached for the lip gloss to go over everything. You arched an eyebrow when he didn't interrupt.
"Oh? I'm allowed to do this part now?" You scoffed, he nodded.
You huffed, smiling as you twisted the gloss tube's top off, slowly going around the edges before dabbing it lightly in the middle. You reached down to twist the cap back in right as Dean pounced. You yelped as he picked you up and tossed you onto the back, laughing giddily as he immediately kissed you after, smudging your lipstick for the upteenth time that day.
His face was covered with your lipstick, and now gloss. He finally pulled back, letting you trail sticky kisses down his neck, which he wore with pride once he pulled away entirely.
"Again?"
"No! I'm gonna run out at this rate! You're buying me more."
"I will buy you the company, keep putting it on." He rasped, gently picking you up and setting you right back on your vanity chair. "Again, please."
You sighed lovingly, reaching for the lip liner and uncapping it.
Summary: Waking up to the smell of coffee only to find Dean in the kitchen, wearing nothing but grey sweatpants making pancakes. Because you sent him it on TikTok. But it gets a little heated.
Warnings: Soft kisses, mentions of deans morning wood, mentions of having sex.
You toss and turn in Deans navy blue sheets, it was morning in the off campus house which meant peace, maybe some spared time for a little morning sex, or just some soft kisses. You open your eyes, the sun seeping out of his curtains.
You turn your head to look at your boyfriend, but he wasnât there. Thatâs weird, normally he always is up after you. You look at your phone and donât see any text messages saying goodbye, so heâs clearly still in the off campus house somewhere. You get up from the warm and cozy bed that smells like Dean. You walk over to Deans closet.
You look in his closet and find an oversized shirt. You slip it on your bare skin, it almost shows your underwear but it doesnât matter, itâs cute and itâs simple, you knew the other hockey players were sleeping so you had to be quiet. You open Deans door. And quietly go by the stairs.
You tip toe down the stairs, making sure they donât creek. You finally make it to the end of the stairs. You hear noises coming from the kitchen, mixing noises. Was Tucker up cooking breakfast? But when you looked in the hallway earlier his door was closed so no way.
You go into the kitchen and see Dean, in Grey sweatpants, his morning wood still very clear. You look up at deans chest, his abs were to die for. Dean never wears shirts, one of the best parts of dating him.
âHey baby, did you get a good night sleep?â His voice was groggy from sleep. Dean kisses your lips, his lips were pink and soft, they werenât chapped or anything.
âYeah, I slept wellâ you say as you pull back from the kiss.
Dean plates up the pancakes, âhere baby, let me just look for the syrupâ
âHey, theses are like the ones from the TikTok I sent youâ you smile, no one has actually paid attention to you with stuff like this.
âThey are, I love spoiling my girlfriend, she deserves the world and the universe and everything elseâ he hands you the sryup
You smile and start laughing, you couldnât help it. You drizzle the syrup on the pancakes, you cut it slowly with your knife and fork and feed dean.
You love soft moments like this. Dean leans in after he swallows the bite of the sweet golden brown pancake. He kisses you, you put your hands into his soft golden blonde locks. He lifts you up, he carries you up to his room to have some soft morning sex, your favorite kind. You smile, you love this life. You love Sunday mornings.
âď¸ Warnings: smutty smut, orgasm delay/denial, dean being mean/teasing, flattened dawgy (pronebone), shoulder holder position (iykyk).
âď¸ Pairing: F!Reader x Dean Di Laurentis
âď¸ Rating/Genre: Mature (đ). Smut.
âď¸ Words: 1829
âď¸ Summary: Youâre in Deanâs bed when you start having a wet dream about his best friend. Your boyfriend takes personal offence to that.
đ: need to clear my mind out with soap...đ§đ˝ââď¸ if you enjoyed, please consider leaving a comment, ask, reblog etc, it means a lot xx
Read the original request here. 㣠Find my Off Campus Masterlist here
When Dean walked into his room, muscles aching and hair still wet from his shower, you were fast asleep in his bed. It had become a regular occurrence from since you started dating. Heâd come back home, and youâd be there waiting for him. If he came back late from training, as he did today, youâd be curled up under his sheets, completely dead to world.
The mattress dipped as he slid under the covers, immediately shifting closer to spoon you. He gently wrapped an arm around your waist and pulled you flush against his chest, burying his face in the crook of your neck. He took a deep breath, inhaling the familiar scent of your vanilla shampoo blended with his own body wash.
A soft smile touched his lips as you moved against him. He assumed that, even in your sleep, your body was just instinctively settling into him.
But then, you let out a soft, breathless whimper.
âBaby?â He murmured. He was sure that you were asleep, but the sudden hitch in your breathing made him pause.
You responded with another fractured sigh, your hips giving a tiny twitch back into his lap.
Dean propped himself up slightly on an elbow, hovering just enough to look down at your face in the dim light. He recognised the flush on your cheeks. He definitely knew those sounds you were making; they were the exact ones you made when he had you pinned beneath him.
Amused and instantly turned on, he leant in close to whisper in your ear, fully intending to wake you up and give a live demonstration of whatever was happening in your dream.
Before he could press his lips to your skin, your lips parted.
"Mhmm... Beau..."
Dean froze; his eyebrows flew up.
Now, he didnât expect that.
Possessiveness ran through him, making his jaw go tight. He knew it was just a dream, something you couldnât control. But he also couldnât believe the audacity of you being in his bed, wearing his clothes, smelling like him, whilst moaning over another man. Especially not his best friend.
If you wanted to play games, even in your sleep, Dean was going to play too.
Burying his face in the nook of your neck, he gently bit down. âWakey, wakey,â he sang.
The sting partially pulled you from the depths of your sleep, the worlds of dream and reality were colliding. Your eyes didnât open, still half asleep, but your body was still feeling the physical effects of your dream.
âB-Beau?â
Feeling him behind you, you instinctively pressed your hips back into his warmth.
âThinking about my best friend whilst youâre in my bed.â Dean tutted at you. His tone was teasing but there was a hint of unnecessary jealousy there.
Your vision was blurry as you blinked your eyes open. You were still too sleepy to feel the full weight of embarrassment, mind hazy as you let out a soft whine and moved against him again.
âAm I not fucking you right?â Dean whispered, his grip tightening on your hip. âGuess Iâll have to change that.â
âDean,â you mumbled, trying to clear the fog from your brain as his hand slid down your belly, slipping beneath the waistband of your shorts.
His fingers found you already slick and warm. Dean let out a dry soft of cackle.
âSo now you remember who I am?â His lips brushed against your earlobe, his warm breath hitching your pulse. âPractically soaking for him. In my bed. Are you kidding me right now?â
Your brain was still processing the shift from dream Beau to real Dean, there was really no competition, but it was hard to concentrate on waking up when you could feel Deanâs fingers sliding through your wet folds. You could feel his quickly hardening length rutting against your ass through his boxers.
âDean,â you quiver, ââtis just a dream.â
âI donât care.â
He pressed two fingers with juuuust the right amount of pressure onto your clit. He was mean with it; his fingers moving slow over your clit as he whispered filth into your ear.
It didnât matter though, you were so worked up already, it didnât take much from him to get you close.
âYouâre almost there, arenât you?â
You nodded, breath hitching as you felt the coil tightening in your stomach. Dean abruptly pulled his hand out of your shorts. The sudden loss of friction left you whining. Feeling unfulfilled.
âAwww, well, maybe you should ask Beau to help make you cum,â he whispered into the shell of your ear. His hand made its way up your shirt to grope your tits, his thumb rubbing over the sensitive nipple.
âDean, please,â you sobbed, twisting your neck to look up at him. âI want you.â
âDo you?â Dean asked. His pupils were so dilated that swallowed most of the blue of his eyes. âBecause it wasnât my name you were begging for two minutes ago.â
He didnât give you time to answer. He threw the duvet off of you both before pushing you to lie flat on your back.
Grabbing the hem of your shirt, he pulled it up and over your head in fluid motion before helping you to wiggle out of your shorts. He kicked out of his boxers and straddled your legs.
Not that you hadnât seen him naked many a time before, but the way his dick looked now, thick, hard, and flushed a dark pink, made your mouth run dry.
âLike what you see?â He asked, cocky as hell.
âI love what I see,â you said, not taking your eyes off of his leaking tip.
âStill thinking about Beau?â
Now until he brought it up you werenât, memories of Beau were long gone now. âNo,â you said honestly. âIâm thinking about you fucking me into this mattress.â
He hummed in approval and then flipped you onto your stomach, lifting your hips to slide a pillow under there.
He moved a hand back between your thighs, his fingers working you with a relentless rhythm that had you arching off of the pillow and back into him. You cried out, pleasure building up within you so quickly that it made your head spin. But, just before you could reach the edge, he pulled back again and held your hips up to stop you from seeking friction against the pillow.
âNgh- Dean, I- I- Please!â
When he let go of your hips, you feel down onto the mattress. His weight quickly pressed against you, the tip of his length teasing your soaking hole. âTell me who is taking care of you?â
âDean,â you sobbed into the pillow, your fingers gripping the bedsheets. âYou. Only you.â
âNow and forever, donât you forget that.â
Dean rubbed the tip against your entrance the he slowly eased himself in. Your walls immediately started clamping around him, trying to hold him there.
He chuckled as he pulled out of you. âSo desperate.â
âFor you, only for you.â
He kissed the back of your neck as he drove into you fully this time. The overwhelming fullness made you gasp.
Each stroke hit your sweet spot; your body drowned in ecstasy. You were warm all over, the heat of him on your back and every vein within you on fire.
Your moans were just gasps, brain unable to form a coherent thought.
âLouder,â he whispered into your ear, his sweat dripping onto your back. âI want you to wake up the whole house and let them know whose pussy this is.â
âItâs yours, Dean,â You managed out.
You nearly wept when he suddenly slid out of you, the cool air hitting your skin without the heat of him on you.
âDonât worry, baby.â His voice sounded so wrecked, and you felt more wetness rush out of you. âIâm done teasing.â
He flipped you to your back, impatiently shoving the pillow aside.
Lifting both your legs, he gathered them together and draped them over his right shoulder. As he leant forward, the movement forced your knees up towards your face and your hips to rise slightly off of the mattress. His arms caged you in, leaving you feeling trapped but oh so safe.
He kept his eyes on you the entire time, tracking your breath as he eased into you again. As he pushed inside, your hands flew down to grip the backs of his thighs, nails digging into his skin as the angle pressed him impossibly deeper than before.
Sweat rolled down his neck and his hair clung to his forehead as he slammed his hips into you. He was a man on a mission, each trust deliberately angled to have you seeing stars.
âAre you going to let me cum?â You asked, fully prepared to beg if the answer was no.
âIf youâre loud enough for me.â Â
You desperately moaned his name over and over again, sure that anyone in the vicinity could hear you.
âOk, cum for me.â His hand pressed at your clit again, and it only took one swipe for the first waves of your orgasm to take over your body.
He watched your mouth fell open, eyes rolled back, and body arched as your orgasm hit you in full force. Feeling you clench around him, the last of his resolve broke. His hands came to grip the bedsheets as he buried himself as deep as he could go, giving you a few frantic thrusts. Â Â
Dean followed you over the edge relatively quickly, filling you up completely as his body jerked against yours. He stayed buried in you while he caught his breath, his hair still dripping sweat onto you.
When he finally shifted, sliding out of you with a satisfied groan, your hole clenched at the loss. He sat back on his knees, chest still heaving from the effort of completely erasing his best friend from your mind.
An intensely smug smile broke out across his face as he watched thick white cum roll down you, he liked watching it, like his own personal stamp on you.
âCome here,â you whined, lifting your arms up toward him. âGimmie a kiss.â
He immediately lay next to you, pressing a trail of soft kisses across your jaw, over your lips, nose, cheeks.
Your eyes began to flutter shut, the exhaustion of your climax and the soft comfort he provided dragging you back to sleep.
âOh, no you donât,â he mused, grabbing your wrist and tugging you gently upright. âGet up, baby. Gotta go wash you off.â
When you fought with your eyes to keep them open, he let out a soft chuckle and effortlessly scooped you into his arms. âSo thoroughly fucked that you canât stay awake,â he whispered against your ear as he carried you toward the bathroom. âGod, Iâm that good.â
You faintly remembered a soft laugh and the feel of a damp cloth cleaning you up as you fell back asleep, tucked against his chest. Â
summary: what starts as a wrong number nude becomes something neither of them planned for. a week of texts, a facetime call neither of them hangs up from, and a party where jealousy finally shows its hand you and dean end up somewhere that doesn't have a name yet but feels like the beginning of one.
warnings: explicit sexual content, sexting, nudity, oral sex (f receiving), edging, dom!dean if you squint, jealousy, slow burn compressed into one week, strangers to whatever this is, dean diLaurentis being shameless about it, probably slightly ooc dean
author's note: hii i'm back! i know i've been mia this week and i missed you guys, but i come bearing gifts. this one is long, it's explicit, it's a little self indulgent and i had so much fun writing it. as always your comments and reblogs mean everything to me, let me know what you think
It was a slow Thursday night and you should have been studying.
But the list of TikToks was genuinely unstoppable, and you had been meaning to put your phone down for at least ten minutes, but you just couldn't, and then your phone beeped with a text from an unknown number.
unknown number: it's missing youâŚ
unknown number: thinking about what we did last night at the bathroom of malone's. can we repeat that?
The picture that followed was so far from PG it made you quiver.
It showed a male body cut from the head down, a well defined torso, white boxers sitting low on his hips, left hand gripping himself while the right held his phone up to the mirror. You were a little shocked honestly. It was quite girthy. That couldn't be the right word but it was the one your brain produced and you were going with it. Not that you were going to pay a compliment to this unknown manwhore who was sending you unsolicited nudes at 7pm on a Thursday night. Also last night? This meant he was hooking up with people in a bathroom on a random Wednesday? Malone's dirty, sticky floored, one broken lock bathroom at that. Manwhore was definitely the right word.
yn: wrong number dude
Three dots appeared immediately.
unknown number: aw babygirl don't be telling lies ik you liked what we did last night
You stared at the screen.
yn: babygirl? ew
yn: also last night i was asleep by like 9pm
unknown number: oh geez i didn't know i sent an accidental nude to a nun
yn: fuck off. i just like to go to bed early
unknown number: sure you do sister
You made a face at your phone. The audacity. The complete and total audacity of this person.
yn: at least i'm not some dirty manwhore hooking up in malone's disgusting bathrooms on a wednesday night
unknown number: gosh. slut shaming. that's a low even for you
yn: you don't even know me?????
Three dots appeared. Disappeared. Appeared again. Disappeared again. You stared at the screen. Appeared.
unknown number: fair point
A pause. Then:
unknown number: so who are you then, early bedtime girl
You should not be entertaining this. You should put the phone down, go back to your notes, pretend this never happened. You had a reading you hadn't even opened yet and a paper outline due Friday morning.
And yet.
yn: someone who now knows more about you than she ever wanted to
unknown number: be honest
unknown number: did you like it
You made a sound that was almost a laugh. Almost.
yn: goodbye
unknown number: that's a yes
yn: it's a goodbye
unknown number: same thing
You put the phone face down on your desk. Picked up your highlighter. Read the same sentence four times without absorbing a single word of it. Outside your window someone was playing music too loud and down the hall your roommate was on a call and everything was completely normal and you were sitting here with your highlighter hovering over the same sentence like an idiot.
Your phone buzzed.
unknown number: i'm dean by the way
unknown number: since we're basically intimately acquainted now
You flipped it back over before you could decide not to.
yn: we are not intimately acquainted
unknown number: i mean
unknown number: you've seen my left hand and dick
yn: i hate you
unknown number: you don't even know me?????
You stared at him throwing your own words back at you. Felt something move through your chest that was warm and annoying and completely unwelcome.
Then, against every instinct you had, against every reasonable self-preserving impulse in your body, you typed:
yn: âŚyn
Three dots. Then:
unknown number: yn
unknown number: pretty name for a nun
yn: i will block you
unknown number: no you won't
You put the phone down. Stared at the ceiling.
The worst part was he was right.
You didn't block him.
You also didn't text him first. That was the rule, and you held it with both hands because it was the only rule you had left and without it the whole thing became something you'd have to think about seriously, which you were not prepared to do. You did not text him first, not once, in the three days that followed. He always started it. A meme at 11pm with no context. A "hey nun" at 2pm on a Friday when you were between classes and your phone buzzed and your stomach did something you pretended didn't happen. A "what are you doing" on Sunday afternoon that you answered before you'd fully processed that you were doing it.
It was nothing. It was just texting. People texted. It meant nothing.
dean: okay but genuinely what are you wearing right now
You were in your roommate's oversized sweatshirt, frog socks, and a hair clip that was losing a structural battle. You looked down at yourself.
yn: why
dean: just curious
dean: academically
yn: academically.
dean: i'm a curious person yn. intellectually invested in you as a human being
yn: you're so full of shit
dean: okay but what are you wearing
yn: something you'd find very disappointing
dean: try me
You looked down at yourself again. The frog socks. The sweatshirt that reached your mid thigh. The hair clip dangling precariously off a chunk of hair that had given up.
yn: an oversized sweatshirt
dean: okay
dean: what else
You felt something shift in the air of your room. Subtle. Like pressure changing before rain.
yn: socks
dean: what kind
yn: âŚfrogs
dean: okay that's genuinely adorable
dean: what's under the sweatshirt
You should have put the phone down. You were capable of it. It was a documented skill you possessed.
yn: why don't you tell me what you think is under the sweatshirt
You sent it before you could think about it too hard. Three dots appeared immediately, like he'd been waiting.
dean: oh so we're doing this
yn: i didn't say that
dean: you kind of said that
yn: i said tell me what you think. that's not confirmation of anything
dean: fine
dean: i think you're wearing something small. something comfortable that you'd never admit you wear for any reason other than comfort but that fits you really well
dean: i think about what's under that sweatshirt more than i should probably admit
The sentence landed before you could brace for it.
yn: you think about that
dean: since the minute you said wrong number dude and didn't block me
dean: yeah
Your room felt very small. You were very aware of the specific square footage of it suddenly.
yn: that's insane
dean: probably
dean: take the sweatshirt off
yn: absolutely not
dean: why not
yn: because i don't do this
dean: yn you've been doing this for twenty minutes
Annoyingly, infuriatingly, completely accurate.
yn: if i take a picture you better not be weird about it
dean: i will be so normal
dean: the most normal i have ever been in my entire life
yn: dean
dean: yn i promise on my life
You looked at yourself in your phone camera for a long moment. The grey bralette under the sweatshirt. The lamp light. You looked good. You looked like yourself which was the best you could say about most things.
You took the sweatshirt off. Took the picture before your nerve ran out. You made sure to adjust the bralette so you boobs could look better in the picture. You sent it.
Immediately wanted to be unconscious.
Three dots appeared. Stopped. Appeared. Stopped. Appeared. Stopped.
dean: okay
dean: so
dean: i need a minute
yn: you said you'd be normal
dean: i lied. i'm so sorry i completely lied
A picture came through forty seconds later and you were not prepared for it.
Same mirror but this time he was not wearing any boxers, just some towel wrapped around his hip, hanging very low, so low you could see that he had shaven recently, which was its own problem. But this time he wasn't doing anything. Just standing there, one hand braced on the bathroom counter, head tilted down, face still out of frame. The line of his stomach, the cut of his hips, and the very obvious, very clear, very present fact that he was already hard and making absolutely no attempt to hide it.
Your mouth went dry.
dean: you started it
yn: i didn't start anything
dean: yn
yn: what
dean: take the bralette off
yn: you first
The picture came through in under fifteen seconds. You made a sound. You were glad you were alone.
It showed him, in what you think it was his bed. The towel still there but now it was not covering him anymore, and you could see the total of his nature. He took the picture from the side, so you could see the way his member was hitting on his abs.
dean: your turn
Your hands were not steady. You were aware of that and chose to file it under irrelevant. You reached back, unclasped it, let it fall somewhere on your bed. Took the picture fast. Sent it before the part of your brain responsible for self-preservation could intervene.
dean: god
dean: yn
yn: what
dean: i've been thinking about this since thursday and somehow it's still better than what i had in my head
dean: which was already pretty good
yn: stop
dean: i'm not going to stop
dean: can i tell you what i'd do if i was there right now
yn: âŚyes
What followed was not brief. It was not vague. It was not tasteful. Dean DiLaurentis typed the way he apparently did everything else, with complete shameless commitment and an almost offensive amount of specificity and detail. He told you exactly where he'd start. How long he'd stay there. What he'd say while he did it. What he'd do when you tried to rush him. What he'd do when you tried to be quiet about it. He was detailed in a way that made your face hot and your thoughts go static and your hand move south without you fully authorizing the journey.
yn: you're really good at this
dean: i know
dean: are you touching yourself right now
yn: âŚmaybe
dean: yeah?
yn: shut up
dean: i'm not saying anything
dean: keep going
dean: tell me what you're doing
yn: no
dean: yn
yn: i said no
dean: okay
dean: then i'll keep telling you what i'd do
He did. In more detail than before. More specific. He described it like he had all night and no intention of rushing any part of it and the combination of his words and your own hand and the particular airless quality of your room at 11pm on a Sunday had you pressing your face into your pillow trying to muffle yourself.
yn: dean
dean: yeah
yn: i hate you
dean: no you don't
dean: are you close
yn: âŚyes
dean: good
dean: don't yet
You stared at the screen. Your hand stilled involuntarily.
yn: excuse me
dean: you heard me
yn: you can't tell me what to do
dean: yn
yn: what
dean: wait
yn: dean i swear to god â
dean: wait
dean: send me a voice note
dean: wanna hear you when you come
You waited. Hating him. Breathing. Staring at the ceiling with your hand completely still and your entire body in open revolt.
dean: okay
dean: now
It took approximately thirty seconds and you were embarrassingly loud about it for someone who lived in an apartment with a roommate.
You lay there after staring at the ceiling, heart rate doing its slow return to baseline, phone resting on your chest going up and down with your breathing.
yn: i hate you so much
dean: that's fair
dean: for the record i just had to take a very cold shower
dean: so
yn: good
dean: yn
yn: what
dean: you're really pretty
Not hot. Not sexy. Not any of the words he'd been using for the last forty minutes. Pretty. Quiet and simple and completely unprepared for.
yn: goodnight dean
dean: goodnight yn
You put your phone down. Stared at the ceiling. Thought about the word pretty and how he'd said it like it was just a fact he was reporting. Like he wasn't performing anything.
You were in so much trouble.
It was Tuesday night, almost midnight, and you couldn't sleep.
You'd been lying there for an hour doing the thing you did when your brain wouldn't cooperate, cycling through everything unfinished, everything not tight enough yet, everything that still needed work. Your Political Science thesis proposal. Your reading for Thursday. The general low hum of being someone who wanted things badly and couldn't fully turn that off even at midnight even when there was nothing productive to do with it.
You were not thinking about Dean. You were specifically not thinking about the fact that it had been two days since Sunday and your phone had been quiet and the rule was the rule and you were fine.
Your phone lit up.
Not a text. A FaceTime request.
dean d.
You stared at it. One ring. Two rings.
Third ring.
You answered.
His face filled your screen and you understood immediately why he'd stayed out of frame in the photos. It would have been unfair to include it. Blue eyes, slightly messed up hair, the particular look of someone lying in bed at midnight who had picked up the phone and just called without letting himself think about it too hard. He was in a grey t-shirt and he looked â a lot. He looked like a lot.
He looked at you for one second and the corner of his mouth moved.
"Frog socks," he said.
You glanced down involuntarily then looked back at the screen. "You can't even see my feet."
"I assumed."
"That's â" You shifted against your pillow, propping the phone up against your lamp so you didn't have to hold it. "Hi."
"Hi." His voice was different out loud. You'd built a version of it in your head from the texts and the reality was lower, warmer, slightly rough with lateness. "You weren't asleep."
"No. You couldn't sleep either?"
"No." He shifted, adjusting how he was holding his phone. Behind him you could see the ceiling of what was presumably his room, dark except for the ambient light from outside his window. "I kept almost texting you."
"Why almost?"
"Didn't know what to say." He looked at the camera. "Figured this was harder to overthink."
"Is it?"
"Little bit." The corner of his mouth again. "You look â"
"Don't."
"I was going to say you look like you've been staring at the ceiling."
"Oh." You felt something unknot in your chest slightly. "Yeah. Thesis stuff."
"What's wrong with it?"
"The argument isn't tight enough yet. I know what I want to say but the through line isn't â" You stopped. Looked at him. "Why are you calling me at midnight to talk about my thesis."
"I'm not." He held your gaze. "I'm calling you because I've been thinking about Sunday and I handled what came after badly and I wanted to â" He paused. "I don't know. See you I guess."
The words landed quietly. See you. Not text you. See you.
"You went quiet for two days," you said.
"I know."
"After everything you said Sunday."
"I know." Something moved through his face. "It freaked me out a little."
"What did."
"Sunday." He exhaled. Ran a hand through his hair, briefly out of frame, back. "It stopped feeling like a bit somewhere. And I woke up Wednesday and I didn't know what to do with that so I did nothing. Which was â"
"Cowardly," you said.
He looked at you. "Yeah."
"You said you weren't a coward."
"I said I don't think of myself as one." His jaw moved. "There's apparently a gap."
You looked at him on your screen. His face in the low light of his room, honest and slightly tired and not performing anything. You'd been talking to him for a week and this was the first time you'd seen him and somehow he looked exactly like you'd expected and completely different at the same time.
"I'm bad at this," you said.
"At what."
"At â" You gestured vaguely at the phone. "This. Whatever this is. I don't usually â" You stopped. Started again. "I keep things separate. School and everything else. I don't text strangers at midnight and I definitely don't â" Another stop.
"Send pictures to them?" he said.
"I was going to say trust them." You watched something shift in his expression. "But yeah. Both."
He was quiet for a moment. Looking at you on his screen the way you were looking at him on yours.
"I keep things separate too," he said finally. "I'm pretty good at it usually. Compartmentalizing." He paused. "You're bad at staying in a compartment."
"Is that a complaint?"
"No." He said it immediately. No hesitation. "It's really not."
Outside your window the rain had started, that slow Tuesday night rain that made everything feel very still and very enclosed, and your lamp cast its amber light across your bed and Dean's face was on your phone screen and it was almost midnight and none of this was something you'd planned for.
"Tell me something true," you said. You didn't know why you said it. It came out before you'd decided to, which was becoming a pattern with him.
He looked at you for a long moment. Something working through his face.
"I haven't wanted to be a lawyer since I was about sixteen," he said. "I've been pre-law for three years and I haven't told anyone that."
"Not anyone?"
"Not anyone who'd have an opinion about it." He held your gaze.
"Why are you telling me?"
"Because you asked for something true." A pause. "And because you're bad at staying in compartments so I figure I might as well return the favor."
You smiled. Couldn't help it. Small and involuntary and probably visible on his screen.
"Your turn," he said. His own mouth doing the thing. "Something true."
"I'm terrified of wanting things too much," you said. "Policy work, the thesis, all of it. I've been building toward it since I was seventeen and sometimes the wanting is so loud I can't hear anything else and that scares me. Because if it doesn't work â" You stopped. Steadied. "It's a lot to carry around."
"Yeah," he said quietly. "I get that."
"You?" You looked at him. "You walk around like nothing touches you."
"Yeah." Something moved through his face. "That's a choice."
You held his gaze on the screen. The rain outside. Both of you quiet for a moment.
"What do you actually want," you said. "If you could just â want something."
He was quiet for a long time. Long enough that you thought he wasn't going to answer. The dots of his thinking visible on his face even through a screen.
"Hockey," he said finally. Quiet. Like he was saying it carefully. "I want to coach. Not eventually, not as a retirement plan â I want to work with players. I want to be on the ice, watching someone figure something out, building something. I played all through high school and college and I was good but not good enough to go anywhere with it and I think â" He paused. "I think I'd be good at the coaching side. I see things. What players need. What's missing."
"Dean â"
"It's stupid," he said. "I know it's â"
"It's not stupid."
"It's not exactly the future my parents planned for me."
"Dean." You looked at him on your screen. His face slightly guarded, waiting. "It's brave. Knowing what you actually want when everyone around you has already decided what you should want â that's brave. That's exactly what that is. Don't minimize it."
Something moved through his face. Slow and significant.
"Yeah," he said. Very quietly. Like a decision being made. "Okay."
He looked at you for a moment. Something soft in his expression now, different from before, the careful guardedness of it gone.
"(Y/N)."
"Mm."
"Why don't we know each other."
Something moved through your chest. Quiet and warm and a little painful around the edges.
"What do you mean," you said.
"Like â why is this the first time we've actually talked. How does that happen. You're clearly â" He shook his head slightly. "You're a lot. How have I been on the same campus as you and not knowing."
"I don't know," you said softly.
"I feel like I've been missing something and I didn't know what it was until five days ago when I sent a nude to the wrong number."
You laughed. Out loud, alone in your room at midnight, genuinely laughed. He smiled at the sound of it, something lighting up in his face that made your chest ache slightly.
"That is the most unhinged sentence anyone has ever said to me," you said.
"But you know what I mean."
You did. That was the thing that kept catching you off guard â how much you understood what he meant, how readily, how little you had to translate.
"Yeah," you said. "I know what you mean."
"Okay." He settled back against his pillow, phone propped up now. "Good."
A pause. Softer than the ones before.
"What does your name stand for," he said.
You smiled at your phone in the dark. "That's for me to know."
"And me to find out?"
"Don't push it DiLaurentis."
"You googled me."
"I was being safe. You sent me a nude."
"What did you find."
"That you're annoyingly good looking in photos and you are on the Hockey team" You paused. "Which tracks, apparently."
Something in his expression. Warm and quiet. "Annoyingly good looking."
"I said what I said."
"(Y/N)."
"Goodnight Dean."
"Tell me about the thesis," he said. "The through line thing. What's not connecting."
You looked at him. "You don't want to hear about my thesis."
"(Y/N)." He looked at the camera. Steady. "I called you at midnight. I want to hear whatever you want to say."
So you told him. About the argument, the framework, the part that wasn't landing yet. He listened with his head tilted slightly on the pillow, and he asked questions that were better than they had any right to be, and at some point you stopped noticing you were talking to a screen and started just talking to him.
He talked too. About hockey, about watching players and seeing the gap between what they were doing and what they could do, about the specific satisfaction of being the person who helped close that gap. He talked about it differently than everything else, less careful, more alive, the words coming faster and easier.
"See," you said.
"See what."
"You lit up. Just now."
He looked at the camera. Something soft moving through his face. "Yeah."
"Do that," you said. "Wherever it takes you. Do that."
He looked at you for a long moment.
"Okay," he said quietly. Like a door opening.
The rain outside. Both of you quiet. The comfortable kind of quiet that didn't need filling, that felt like something rather than the absence of something.
"I'm glad you called," you said finally.
"Yeah?"
"Yeah."
"Even though it's â" He checked something offscreen. "12:53."
"Even though."
A pause. Warm. Unhurried.
"You should sleep," he said.
"You should sleep."
"I will if you will."
"Fine."
Neither of you moved to hang up. Your lamp. The rain. His face on your screen, relaxed now in a way it hadn't been at the start of the call, the careful control of it dissolved, just him. Just the person underneath all of it, lying in the dark talking to you.
"Dean."
"Yeah." His voice had gone slow. Tired in the good way.
"Don't go quiet again after this."
"I won't." Immediate. Certain. "I promise."
"Okay."
"Okay." A pause. Barely anything. "(Y/N)."
"Mm."
"You're really pretty."
You closed your eyes. Felt yourself smile against your pillow.
"Goodnight Dean."
"Goodnight."
You didn't hang up. He didn't hang up. Your lamp on, the rain going, his face on your screen quiet and still. At some point the silences between words got longer. At some point you stopped filling them. At some point your eyes got heavy and you stopped fighting it and the rain outside was the last thing you were aware of before you weren't aware of anything.
You fell asleep with his face on your screen.
He was still there when it happened. He watched your breathing slow, watched the moment your face went fully still, the lamp casting its light across you, your hair half out of the clip, the sweatshirt. He stayed there longer than he probably should have, just â watching you sleep. Feeling something settle in his chest that had been restless for longer than a week. Longer than he'd been paying attention to.
He turned his own light off eventually.
Lay in the dark with your face small and quiet on his screen, the rain still going outside your window, and thought about hockey and thesis arguments and the way you'd said do that like you meant it, like you'd decided something about him that he was only just deciding about himself.
His phone died at 3am. The call cut out silently.
Neither of you noticed.
He didn't text on Wednesday.
You noticed at 11am between classes, phone in hand, no notification. You noticed at 3pm coming back from the library. At 7pm making dinner, stirring pasta on autopilot, checking your phone and putting it face down and checking it again ten minutes later like something might have changed. At 10pm in bed, lamp on, the specific silence of a phone that wasn't going to buzz.
You didn't text first. The rule was the rule and you were keeping it.
Thursday was the same. Nothing. You told yourself it was fine. You told yourself it had run its course â a week of wrong number texts and one FaceTime call that had ended with both of you falling asleep and that was a nice thing, a strange thing, a thing that had apparently meant more to you than it had to him, and that was okay. That was information. You were a person who dealt well with information.
You were a very good liar when you needed to be.
Friday night your friend Maya texted the group chat about a party at Phi Delta. You said no. Maya sent a voice note that was forty seconds of your name in escalating tones of disbelief. You said fine.
You wore the black top, which Maya had called fondly the slutty top. Not for any particular reason. Just because it fit.
The party was exactly what parties always were too loud, too warm, cheap beer and someone's vanilla candle losing the fight. Maya disappeared within five minutes and you got a drink, found a wall, and told yourself you were having a perfectly fine time.
You were fine. Everything was fine.
You were doing your idle party scan when you saw him.
Dean.
Across the room, red cup in hand, laughing at something. Dark green shirt pushed up at the sleeves, hair slightly messed up, looking easy and comfortable the way he always looked from what you'd gathered, like every room had been built specifically around him. He looked like the last two days of silence had cost him absolutely nothing.
You looked away.
Took a sip. Looked at your phone. Looked at nothing.
Looked back, because you were apparently incapable of basic self-governance, and that's when you saw her.
Dark hair. Good smile. Hand on Dean's arm with the comfort of someone who had a map of him. She leaned up and said something in his ear and he tilted his head toward her and laughed and your chest did something immediate and ugly.
And then your brain, unhelpfully, connected the dots.
The ease between them. The specific body language of two people who had been somewhere private together. The way she touched his arm like she'd done it before and expected to do it again.
thinking about what we did last night at the bathroom of malone's.
Her.
You looked away. This time you meant it. You pushed off the wall and went to find the kitchen.
Across the room, Dean laughed at something Jessica said and heard approximately none of it.
He'd seen you the second you walked in. Black top, drink in hand, finding your spot against the wall with the self-contained ease of someone who didn't need the room to come to her. He'd seen you and something in his chest had done something immediate and then Jessica had said something and he'd laughed on autopilot and thought I need to go over there and then thought about the two days of silence and wondered if you'd even want him to.
He was going to go over. In a minute. He just needed to figure out what to say first.
Jessica's hand on his arm, sliding slightly. "You okay?"
"Yeah." He scanned the room. "Sorry. Yeah."
He looked back to the wall.
You were gone.
The kitchen was quieter, the music muffled through the walls, someone's abandoned game on the counter. You made yourself a drink and leaned against the far counter and tried to look like someone who was completely fine and at a party by choice.
"You look like you're doing very complex math."
You turned. Tall, broad shoulders, easy to look at. He was looking at you with mild amusement, red cup loosely in hand, clearly also just occupying the kitchen for no particular agenda.
"That obvious?" you said.
"Little bit." The corner of his mouth lifted. "Bad night or just bad party?"
"Neither. Just needed a minute."
"Yeah." He nodded like that was a complete and reasonable explanation. "I get that." He shifted his weight, easy. "I'm Garrett."
"(Y/N)."
"You go here?"
"Yeah. You?"
"Yeah." He leaned against the counter beside you, comfortable distance, just companionable. "What are you studying?"
"Political Science. You?"
"Business." He tilted his head. "So you're either going to run the country or make everyone's lives very difficult in an official capacity."
You laughed despite yourself. "Those aren't mutually exclusive."
"Fair point." His eyes were warm. "You know anyone here or are you flying solo tonight?"
"My friend Maya. She evaporated within five minutes."
"Classic." He grinned. "I came with my housemates. Two of them are definitely playing beer pong." He glanced through the kitchen doorway into the main room, something briefly crossing his face. "One of them is around."
You followed his glance without thinking. Through the doorway. Across the room. And found those blue eyes doing a very focused scan of the party that landed on the kitchen doorway and stopped.
You looked back at Garrett. He wasn't looking at the room anymore. He was looking at you, easy and present, no agenda.
He had absolutely no idea.
"So Political Science," he said. "What do you actually want to do with it?"
"Policy work. Education reform specifically."
"That's â" He looked genuinely interested. "That's actually really cool. I have a cousin in education, she'd probably lose her mind talking to you." He leaned against the counter, unhurried. "Do you like it? Like genuinely, not the resume answer."
You looked at him. It was a good question. A real one.
"Yeah," you said. "It's the first thing that ever made me feel like I was pointed at something."
"I get that." Something moved through his expression. "Hockey did that for me. It does that for meâ" He shrugged, easy.
The conversation kept going, easy and warm, moving through things the way good conversations did when you weren't trying to have one. He was kind of funny in an uncomplicated way, interested without being performative about it, and you'd stopped scanning the room and stopped thinking about tall blonds and started just talking to this person who was genuinely good at talking to people.
At some point he said something that made you laugh and you leaned toward him slightly to hear it better over the music bleeding in from the main room and he leaned toward you and you were close, just close, just the natural physics of a loud party and a good conversation, and â
"(Y/N)."
Low. Tight. From the kitchen doorway.
You looked up.
Dean was standing there. Hands in his pockets. Jaw doing significant structural work. His eyes moved from you to Garrett to the distance between you and back to your face in a sweep that took half a second and communicated quite a lot.
Garrett straightened. Looked at Dean. Looked at you. Looked back at Dean.
You watched the understanding move across his face slowly, like something assembling itself piece by piece. His eyes tracked between the two of you once, barely perceptible.
He didn't move away from you.
"Dean." Warm. Genuinely pleased to see his friend. No agenda yet â just Garrett being Garrett. "Hey, man. Do you know (Y/N)? Political Science. Really interesting."
"We've met," Dean said.
"Have you." A statement. He glanced at you, something in his expression recalibrating.
"Briefly," you said. "Hey," you said pleasantly.
"Hey," he said. Something moved through his face. "You look â"
"Garrett was just telling me about the house," you said, turning back to Garrett.
Garrett, to his credit, looked genuinely angelic. "Was I?"
"You were about to."
"Right." Garrett nodded seriously. "Yeah, so there are four of us. Me, Tucker, and two others." He paused. "Dean actually."
You turned back to look at Dean with an expression you kept very neutral.
Dean looked at Garrett with an expression that said several things, none of them printable.
Garrett looked back at Dean with the innocent open face of someone who had made a choice and was at peace with it.
"Housemates," you said. "Fun."
"It's great," Garrett said warmly. "Really great. We're very close. Like brothers almost."
"That's nice," you said.
"It is," Garrett agreed. "Dean especially. Very important to me. I would hate for anything bad to happen to him."
"Garrett," Dean said.
"Just saying."
You looked at Dean. He looked at you. The kitchen felt very small.
A beat. Jessica appeared in the kitchen doorway behind him.
You felt her before you saw her â the atmospheric shift of someone entering a room with an intention. She stood in the doorway with her drink and her dark hair and her eyes moving between you and Dean with an expression that was very calm and very assessing. Her hand found Dean's arm again, light, proprietary.
Dean didn't look at her. He was looking at you.
Jessica looked at you. One sweep. Taking stock. Her hand pressed slightly on Dean's arm.
He shifted his weight. Almost imperceptibly. Away.
Her expression didn't change but something behind it did.
"Can I talk to you," Dean said to you. Not a question.
"I'm in the middle of a conversation."
"(Y/N) â"
"Garrett was talking."
"I really was," Garrett said. He had his drink raised to his lips. His eyes were very bright.
"(Y/N) â"
"We were in the middle of something."
"We really weren't," Garrett said helpfully. "I mean â we can be. (Y/N) seems great. I'm happy to continue."
Dean looked at his housemate with an expression of profound betrayal.
Garrett smiled at him with profound innocence.
You set your cup down on the counter and looked at Garrett. He was cute. He had a good smile and an easy energy and under literally any other circumstances you'd have been happy to keep talking to him all night. You looked at him now and then you looked at Dean â jaw tight, eyes on you, something desperate moving underneath all that control â and you made a choice.
You turned back to Garrett. Leaned against the counter so your shoulder was almost against his. Looked up at him. "So the house," you said. "How many bedrooms?"
Garrett blinked. Recovered admirably. "Four. Dean's is the â"
"(Y/N)." Dean's hand was on your arm, light, just fingers. Same as before. "Please."
Dean looked at his housemate with an expression that Garrett received with complete serenity.
"Two minutes," Dean said to you.
"I'm fine here."
"(Y/N)."
"You didn't text," you said. Pleasantly. Conversationally. Like you were noting the weather.
Something moved through his face. "I know â"
"Two days."
"Phone works both ways, you know."
Your mouth opened. Closed.
"What are you," you said, "my divorced dad?"
Garrett made a sound behind his cup. Not quite successfully contained.
Dean stared at you. The controlled expression cracking slightly, something underneath it that was almost a laugh that he was visibly, effort fully refusing to let happen.
"I â" He stopped. Reset. "That's â"
Jessica's hand dropped from his arm.
"(Y/N)." Dean's voice lower now. The control fraying properly at the edges. Something real pushing through. "I know. I know I should have texted. I kept picking up my phone and putting it down because I didn't know how to say â" He stopped. Looked at you. "Can we please go somewhere that isn't the kitchen?"
"I like the kitchen."
"Garrett â" He looked at his housemate.
Garrett looked back at him with the expression of a man fully at peace with his choices.
"I'm not going anywhere," Garrett said pleasantly. "Spiritually this is my kitchen."
"You don't live here â"
"Spiritually, Dean."
Dean looked at the ceiling. Looked back at you. His face doing something complicated and unguarded and very much not the easy composed version from across the room twenty minutes ago.
And then his eyes moved past your shoulder and something in them changed. Went very still.
You turned.
Jessica was still in the doorway. She wasn't looking at Dean anymore. She was looking at you with an expression that was perfectly calm and perfectly clear and said everything without saying anything. She knew. She didn't know who you were or what had happened but she knew what Dean's face looked like right now and she knew it wasn't about her.
She looked at Dean one more time. He met her gaze. Something passed between them â not unkind, just final. She turned and walked back into the party without a word.
The kitchen went quiet.
Garrett looked at the doorway. Looked at Dean. Looked at you. Took a long slow sip of his drink.
"Garrett," Dean said. Not looking away from you. "I need you to leave."
A pause.
"Yeah, okay," Garrett said. He pushed off the counter. Looked at you with a smile that was warm and genuine and knew entirely too much. "It was really nice to meet you, (Y/N)."
"You too, Garrett."
He looked at Dean. Something in his face that was fond and exasperated and rooting for him all at once. "You got this," he said quietly.
Then he walked out of the kitchen and you heard him immediately start talking to someone in the main room, easy and unbothered, like nothing had happened, like he hadn't just witnessed the complete dismantling of his housemate's composure in real time.
You looked at Dean.
He looked at you.
Just the two of you and the muffled music and the kitchen counter and everything that had been said and not said for a week.
"Talk," you said.
"Jessica," he said. "She's the one from Malone's. I need you to know I didn't invite her tonight, I didn't answer when she texted, I came here and she was just already â"
"I know who she is," you said.
Something moved through his face. "You figured it out."
"Yeah."
"When?"
"When I saw you with her." You kept your voice even. "Body language. The way she touched your arm." You paused. "The way you let her."
"(Y/N) â"
"I don't have a claim on you," you said. "I know that. We've been texting for a week. You don't owe me anything."
"That's not â"
"I was jealous." You said it clearly. Cleanly. Looking right at him. "I saw you with her and I knew who she was and I was jealous and I hated myself for it and then I went and talked to your housemate like an idiot."
"You didn't know he was my housemate."
"I kept talking after I found out."
Something moved through his expression. Warm and wrecked at the same time. "I know you did."
"I was making a point."
"You made it very effectively." He took a step toward you. Not touching. Just closer. "I was watching from across the room."
"I know."
"The whole time."
"I know, Dean."
"You and Garrett were â" He stopped. His jaw. "You were close."
"We were talking."
"And then you were laughing and leaning toward him and I was standing across the room watching it and I â" He shook his head slightly. "I hated it. I really hated it. Which I have no right to feel given that I didn't text you for two days."
"No," you said. "You don't."
"I know."
"You fell asleep on that call," you said. "And then you didn't text."
"I know." His voice dropped. "I know. I woke up Wednesday and my phone was dead and I plugged it in and I thought about texting you and I didn't know how to say â what that call was. What Sunday was. I didn't know how to say any of it in a text so I said nothing. Which was â"
"Cowardly," you said.
"Yeah." He held your gaze. "There's a gap between who I think I am and how I acted this week and I know that and I'm sorry. I'm really sorry, (Y/N)."
You looked at him. His face close and honest and tired of holding it all together.
"How long did you stay on the call?" you said.
He looked at you for a moment. "Until my phone died."
"What time was that?"
"3 a.m."
You held his gaze. Felt something in your chest do the cracking thing, the hairline fracture spreading just enough.
"You watched me sleep," you said.
"For a while," he said quietly. "Yeah."
The kitchen. The music. His face.
"Don't go quiet again," you said. Not angry anymore. Just â asking. "Whatever this is. Don't do that again."
"I won't." Immediate. "I promise I won't."
You looked at him for a long moment.
"Your place or mine," you said.
His whole face changed at once.
"Yours," he said. "Please."
"Say goodbye to Garrett."
"Garrett can â"
"Dean."
He was already texting with one hand, the other finding the small of your back to steer you out of the kitchen.
From somewhere in the main room a whoop rang out. Unmistakably Garrett. Followed by Tucker's voice saying "What?" and Garrett saying something you couldn't catch and Tucker apparently losing his mind entirely.
Dean closed his eyes for exactly one second.
"Your friends," you said.
"I know," he said. His hand warm at your back. "Come on."
The Uber was six minutes away and you spent all six of them standing outside in the November cold, not talking, which should have been awkward and wasn't. Dean stood close enough that your arm was against his, and the cold air bit at your shoulders and neither of you moved away from it or from each other. The party noise muffled behind the door. The street quiet ahead of you.
"You're doing the math thing," he said.
"Garrett told you about that."
"Garrett tells me everything. Mostly when I don't want him to."
"He seemed like a good person."
"He's the worst." A pause. "He's genuinely the best. Don't ever tell him."
The Uber pulled up. Dean opened the door and you got in. Dean folded in after you and the door shut and the back seat was very warm and very small and his leg was against yours from knee to mid thigh, solid and warm. The driver pulled out without a word. Some low music from the front. The city moving past the windows in intervals of light and dark.
Neither of you moved away from each other.
You stared out the window. Felt him looking at you periodically. Didn't look back. Could feel the quality of his attention like a hand on your shoulder â present, focused, pointed entirely at you.
"(Y/N)."
"Mm."
"I've been thinking about you for two days." His voice low, just for the back seat. "I'd be in class and just â thinking about the call. What you said. The way you said it."
"You could have just texted," you said.
"I know."
"Would have been considerably easier than all of this."
"Yeah." His mouth moved. "But you talked to Garrett."
"I didn't know he was your housemate."
"And when you found out?"
You turned your head to look at him. Close in the back seat, the city lights moving across his face.
"I was making a point," you said.
"You made it." Something heated in his expression. Something that hadn't been there in the kitchen â the composure fully gone now, replaced by something more direct. "It worked."
The Uber slowed. Your building. You got out, Dean behind you, the lobby, the elevator. The numbers going up in the quiet. You watched the display and not him and felt him watching you and not the display.
Your floor. Your door. Your keys, which you managed.
The door opened. You stepped inside. Reached for the lamp.
Dean stepped in behind you and the door clicked shut and before you could find the switch his hand caught yours in the dark â gentle, just his fingers wrapping around yours, stilling them.
"Hey," he said. Right behind you. Close.
You turned around.
He was right there. Closer than the hallway at the party, closer than the Uber, close enough that you had to angle your chin up to find his face in the dark. And you'd been building him in your head for a week from a torso in white boxers and a voice you'd invented for his texts and the FaceTime call that had felt like finally, and the reality of him â close, in the dark of your apartment, looking down at you with an expression that wasn't performing a single thing â was a lot. It was genuinely a lot.
"Hi," you said.
"Hi." His thumb moved across your knuckles. Once. "You okay?"
"If you ask me that one more time â"
"(Y/N)."
"I'm okay," you said. "I've been okay. I'm very okay and I'm going to need you to stop asking and start â"
He kissed you.
Not tentative. Not exploratory. Immediate and certain, his hand coming up to cup your jaw, tilting your head back, kissing you like he'd made a decision and the decision was this, specifically and completely this. You kissed him back and got your hands into the front of his shirt and pulled and he made a sound against your mouth that did significant and lasting damage to your nervous system.
He walked you backward through your apartment with a confidence that suggested he'd clocked the layout the second the lights came on. His mouth didn't leave yours except to drag briefly to your jaw, your throat, the soft place just below your ear that made you pull in a sharp breath.
He came back to it. Of course he came back to it.
"Dean â"
"Yeah."
"Bedroom is â"
"I know." He did. His hand found the hem of your black top. He pulled back just far enough to look at you in the low light from the window, asking without asking.
You lifted your arms.
He pulled it over your head and dropped it somewhere and then just looked at you. The way he'd said pretty over text, that same undone quality, like he was actually stopped by it. Like it required a moment.
"What," you said.
"Nothing." He reached out and traced your collarbone with two fingers, just the path of it, watching his own hand. "Just â" He exhaled. "Yeah."
"Eloquent."
"Shut up." He walked you the rest of the way to the bedroom. The backs of your knees hit the bed. You sat. Looked up at him. Reached for the hem of his shirt and he helped you pull it off and then he was standing there in your lamplight and you finally had the full picture â not a mirror, not a photo, not a screen. Just him. Looking down at you with blue eyes and a mouth that wasn't smiling and something in his face that was only for this room, only for right now.
You pulled him down by his belt loop.
He pressed you back into the mattress and took his time about it in a way that directly contradicted the energy of the last hour. He kissed your throat, your collarbone, the curve of your shoulder, hands moving over you with a patience that was a choice, deliberate, made with full awareness of what it was doing to you.
"You said you weren't going to go slow," you managed.
"I said a lot of things." His mouth against your sternum. Moving lower. "I'm revising."
"Dean â"
"(Y/N)." He looked up at you from where his mouth was making its way down your stomach, chin resting just below your ribs, eyes dark and entirely calm. "I've been thinking about this for a week. I'm not rushing it."
"I will actually â"
"You'll what." One eyebrow. "Finish that sentence."
You couldn't. Your brain had stopped producing complete sentences approximately thirty seconds ago.
"That's what I thought," he said, and moved lower.
He was good at this. You'd had data suggesting he would be: the texts, the specific confident detail of them, but the actual reality of his mouth and his hands and the focused attention he brought to learning you was something else entirely. He figured out what worked faster than felt fair. What made you grip the sheets and what made you forget you were supposed to be quiet and what made you say his name like it was the only word you currently had access to.
His hands on your hips. Pressing down. Holding you in place with a firmness that made your breath go unsteady.
"Dean." Strained. "Dean I'm â"
"I know." He didn't stop. Didn't adjust. Kept going with the same patient devastating focus until you were pulling at his hair and had completely abandoned the project of being quiet about any of this.
"I'm going to â"
He pulled back. Just enough. The loss of it was almost criminal.
"Are you serious," you said to the ceiling.
"Very." He pressed a kiss to your inner thigh, unhurried, like he had all the time in the world and your sanity was not his problem. "You did this to me Sunday."
"You told me to wait â"
"And now I'm returning the favor." He looked up at you again. Blue eyes, completely unbothered, completely in control in a way that was profoundly unfair given the current situation. "Problem?"
"Yes," you said. "Significant problem. I have several â"
"(Y/N)."
"What."
"Ask nicely."
You stared at him. "Absolutely not."
He smiled. It was a terrible smile. It was a fantastic smile. He pressed another slow kiss to your thigh and you made a sound that surrendered significant ground in this negotiation.
"Dean." Through your teeth. Barely holding it together.
"Yeah."
"Please."
"Please what." Infuriatingly calm. His thumb drawing a slow circle on your hip. "Be specific."
"Please," you said, "don't stop."
"Since you asked so nicely."
He moved back and you stopped being capable of organized thought entirely.
When it finally tipped over the edge your hand was fisted in his hair and you were considerably louder than you'd planned and you felt him smile against you which should have been annoying and was not even slightly.
He came back up. Hovered over you, forearm by your head, looking down at your face with an expression that was heated and soft and something underneath both that you didn't have the capacity to name right now.
"Hi," he said.
"Hi." Breathless. "You're the worst."
"You're welcome."
You grabbed the front of his hair and pulled him down and kissed him, which he allowed for approximately two seconds before he took over, and his hand moved to your waist and lower and you shifted against him and felt exactly what you'd seen in that photo a week ago and made a sound against his mouth.
"Dean."
"Yeah."
"Now."
"Yeah." He reached past you. Nightstand drawer, you'd already told him with your eyes and he'd already known. "Yeah."
He paused. Looked down at you. Something moved through his face, not quite a smile, something more than that. Something that felt like recognition.
"Left side," he said.
"Don't read into it."
"I'm not reading into anything."
"Good."
"I'm just â"
"Dean."
He kissed you once. Quick and certain and warm. "Right."
The thing about the texts was that he'd told you exactly who he was in them. Exactly how he operated. And he delivered on all of it, present in a way that felt total, attentive in a way that tracked everything, adjusting without being asked, paying attention in a way that made it feel specific to you rather than general, like he was interested in you specifically and not just in the thing itself.
His hands, which you'd had opinions about since Thursday.
The low way he said your name when he meant it, not as punctuation, just â yours. Like it meant something to say it.
At some point you said his name like a question and he said yours back like an answer.
At some point his forehead dropped to yours and you both stayed there for a moment, just that, just breathing, and neither of you moved to change it.
At some point everything tipped and he said your name against your temple and you pressed your face into his shoulder and felt the whole week, the wrong number and the texts and the call and the two days of silence and the party and the kitchen and Garrett's chaotic loyalty and Jessica's quiet exit and the Uber and his hand in the dark finding yours â all of it moving through you and landing somewhere soft.
The room quiet. Lamp still on. Both of you horizontal, breathing slowing back to something normal, the particular warm stillness of a room after something that mattered.
Dean was on his back. You were beside him, your shoulder almost against his, staring at the ceiling. Outside the November cold. Inside just the lamp and the quiet and the sound of him breathing next to you.
"(Y/N)."
"Mm."
"You okay?"
You turned your head. He was already looking at you, head turned on the pillow, close enough to see every detail of his face you'd been denied for a week â the line of his jaw, his eyes in lamplight, darker and quieter than across a party room, the thing in his expression that wasn't performing anything at all.
"You have to stop asking me that," you said.
"Probably." He didn't look away. "You okay?"
You looked at him for a long moment.
"Yeah," you said. "I'm really good actually."
Something in his face settled. Like something he'd been holding released.
"Good," he said quietly.
A pause. Comfortable. Easy.
"Garrett is going to be unbearable," you said.
"For the rest of my natural life." He paused. "He's going to tell Tucker."
"Is Tucker worse?"
"Tucker is going to make a bracket." Another pause. "Tucker is going to frame a bracket."
You laughed. Actually laughed. He smiled at the ceiling, small and private and genuine.
"Dean."
"Yeah."
"Don't go quiet again."
He turned his head. His expression did something you felt in your sternum.
"I won't," he said.
"I mean it."
"I know." He moved his hand across the space between you. Found yours on the sheets. Wrapped his around it, loose and warm, like it was the most natural thing. "I won't."
You looked back at the ceiling. His hand around yours. The lamp. Outside the city doing whatever the city did at this hour, indifferent and ongoing.
"Dean."
"Yeah."
"The coaching thing." You felt his hand go slightly still. "You should tell your dad."
A long pause.
"(Y/N) â"
"I mean it. Not being a lawyer. Hockey. Coaching. The thing that makes you light up when you talk about it." You turned your head to look at him. "Tell him."
He looked at the ceiling. His jaw moved. Something working through his face that was complicated and real and not resolved yet.
"Yeah," he said finally. Very quietly. "I know."
"You know?"
"I know." He exhaled slowly. Turned his head to look at you. "I've known for a while. I just â" He shook his head slightly. "I needed someone to say it out loud I think."
You held his gaze.
"Consider it said," you said.
Something moved through his face. Soft and significant.
"Yeah," he said. "Okay."
Outside the November cold. Inside the lamp and the quiet and his hand around yours and something that didn't have a name yet but felt like the beginning of one.
"What does your name stand for," he said.
You smiled at the ceiling. "Goodnight Dean."
"Tell me."
"Goodnight."
"I'll ask Garrett. First thing tomorrow."
"Garrett doesn't know."
"I'll make something up. Tell the whole team."
"You don't have a team yet."
"I will." He said it simply. Certain. Like a door that was already open. "I will."
You looked at him. Felt something in your chest that was warm and a little terrifying and completely worth it.
"Goodnight," you said softly.
"Goodnight (Y/N)." A pause. His thumb moving across your knuckles, once, slow. "Whatever it stands for."
âď¸ Warnings: each chapter will have their own but overall - Angst (love hurts!), slow burn (ish), fluff, reader being blind af, i don't have a proofreader, idk my tenses so i flip flop
âď¸ Pairing: f!Reader x John Logan (past), f!Reader x Dean Di Laurentis (main)
âď¸ Rating: PG (1-4, 6); Mature (5)
âď¸ Words: 17.9k
âď¸ AN: This was born from this post. I saw it and my mind immediately started racing. The respose to the first one posted was amazing, so I've turned this into a series. Thank you so soo much for all the wonderful comments and engagement.
â summary: you bring your boyfriend to a place youâve never brought anyone to beforeâyour momâs grave, the place you still go when you miss her the most. hours later, he cheats on you at a bar, and the only thing carrying you forward is the porch light glowing outside garrett grahamâs house.
â warnings: death of a parent, mentions of su*cide and sh, cancer, cheating, betrayal, and grief
â word count: 6.1k
The engine of your beat-up silver Honda Civic idles beneath you as you stare at the cracked stone of the Hawksâ house. The car is nearly twenty years old and somehow survived three different owners before ending up with you. One of the hubcaps disappeared sometime during your freshman year and never resurfaced, the rear bumper is dented from a parking lot incident youâd rather not talk about (a teenage boy in your hometown drove a shopping cart into it at the absolute speed of light, and combined with the weight of his body while he was riding in it, dented it and broke a taillight), and the driverâs side speaker hisses every time you turn the volume above fifteen.Â
Those flaws are usually embarrassing enough that you find yourself apologizing whenever someone climbs into the passenger seat, but tonight, you barely notice any of it.
Youâve been parked in front of the house long enough for the dashboard clock to change twice, but you couldnât pinpoint exactly how much time has passed. Ten minutes? Maybe fifteen? After the night youâve had, it all feels the same. Time stopped meaning anything somewhere between the moment you opened Instagram and the moment you pulled into Garrett Grahamâs driveway.
The porch light is on, illuminating the front steps and the black railing. It makes the house stand out against the darkness of the quiet neighborhood. Somewhere in the distance, a dog barks, but then the world falls silent again.
Your hands are still clutching the steering wheel, your fingers wrapped around the black leather so tightly that your knuckles are cracking at the seams. Every now and then your grip loosens, only to tighten again when another memory surfaces. Your head hurts from crying, and your eyes are so bloodshot that your tears could easily be mistaken for pink eye. Thereâs a crumpled napkin in the cupholder from the gas station you stopped at on the way over, and itâs completely useless now after being used to wipe away tears for most of the drive.
You know you should get out of the carâitâs why you came here in the first place. But every time you reach for the door handle, your stomach lurches and you find yourself staring back at the porch light instead.
Garrett Graham isnât your best friend. The two of you donât talk every day. You donât know his favorite movie or his biggest pet peeve. If someone asked you to list the most important people in your life, his name probably wouldnât be one of the first few that came to mind.
But somehow, when everything fell apart tonight, this was where you ended up.
Maybe itâs because Garrett has always felt easy to be around. Not in the way Brooks did, where every conversation made your stomach flutter and every text had the ability to make your day better, but he is different. Heâs steady and familiar, the kind of person who remembers that you have an exam coming up and asks how it went a week later. The kind of person who notices when youâre having a bad day and doesnât make a big deal out of it. You met him in a foreign policy class spring semester of sophomore year and became friends almost by accident. One study session turned into another, and then coffee after class became normal. Those coffee hangouts were where you bonded over your birthdays being in the second half of the school year, so you guys wouldnât turn 21 until spring semester junior year. It was where he teased you over being four days older than you. Somewhere along the way, he became someone you trusted without ever consciously deciding to.
Your eyes drift back to the porch light, and the sight of it makes your throat tighten all over again.
Because just over twelve hours ago, you were happy. The memory hits so suddenly that your grip tightens on the steering wheel.
You had told Brooks to meet you there. The entire drive over, however, you had gone back and forth on whether bringing him was a mistake. Part of you wanted to turn around and go home before he arrived, but the other part of you knew that if you left now, you would regret it.
The cemetery wasnât a secret, but it wasnât something you shared either. Most people knew your mother had passed away. You were nine, and had found her in the bathtub, submerged in water that was so red that your naive, youth-centered mind had thought it was Koolaid at first. You remember laughing and telling her that her skin would be all sticky from the sugar, but when she didnât answer you after repeated calls of her name, you yelled for your dad so loudly the only way it could be described was maniacal.
Some people knew where she was buried, but nobody other than your dad had ever sat beside you there. That place belonged to the three of you.
It was where you went when you missed her, and where you ended up on birthdays and holidays. Because Briar was only thirty minutes from your hometown, it was where you came after bad exams, job interviews, and every other major moment of your life because some part of you still wanted to tell her about it. Even after eleven years, the cemetery remained one of the few places where grief felt honest. You never had to pretend you were okay there.
When Brooksâ Grand Cherokee finally pulled into the parking lot, your stomach twisted itself into knots.
You remember watching him climb out through the windshield, and then immediately noticing everything in his handsâa cardboard drink carrier, which he could barely handle without dropping due to the bouquet of flowers wrapped in brown paperâand the sight caught you so off guard that you actually laughed when you stepped out of your car.
âWhatâs all that?â
Brooks glanced down at what he was carrying as though heâd forgotten about it entirely, âI stopped at Maloneâs on the way. Thought you could use something to warm you up.â
You remember reaching for one of the drinks first. The paper cup was warm against your cold hands. Massachusettâs in October wasnât forgiving. The wind coming off the Atlantic had teeth that nipped so hard it felt like shark season, and the cold had settled deep into your bones before youâd even made it to the cemetery. The heat from the cup felt incredible against your frozen fingers.
The second you read Dellaâs messy handwriting your heart softened. It was hot chocolate.
Three weeks earlier, youâd mentioned during a late-night study session that coffee made you anxious whenever you were stressed. It had been a completely insignificant conversation, one of hundreds youâd had together since meeting freshmen year. At least, you thought it had been insignificant, but evidently, Brooks hadnât.
âYou got me hot chocolate?â
âYou sound surprised,â he chuckled softly.
âI am surprised.â
Brooks flashed you a soft smile, and the slight coffee stain on his teeth complimented his blond hair more than you would have liked to admit, âIt seemed better than coffee.â
You remember smiling so hard your cheeks hurt. It wasnât because of the hot chocolate itself, but because heâd remembered. It was such a tiny detail, such a stupid little thing, but somehow it mattered to him.
Then your eyes landed on the second cup sitting in the carrier.
âWhat about that one?â
The expression on his face softened, âThis oneâs for your mom.â
Even now, sitting outside Garrettâs house at 1:30 in the morning with tears drying on your cheeks, that memory steals the air from your lungs.
For a second, you hadnât known what to say, and had simply stared at him. Who thinks of that? Who remembers that your momâs favorite coffee came from a tiny local diner youâd mentioned once over breakfast at that diner two months ago?
Apparently Brooks did. He walked into Maloneâs after his last Friday class, remembered your momâs order, bought the coffee, and brought it to the cemetery for someone heâd never met and someone he never would.
Your throat tightens. At the time, the gesture had felt so thoughtful that it was almost overwhelming, but in such a good way. Now it just feels unbearable, like the effects of coffee on you when youâre stressed.
The flowers had somehow been even worse.
You remember Brooks sitting down on her gravesite next to you, his hand tracing the carvings of her name and the epitaph on her gravestone: Goodnight stars, goodnight air, goodnight noises everywhere. Your dad chose the quote because Goodnight Moon had been the first book your mom had ever read to you. As Brooks did so, you finally noticed the bouquet tucked beneath his arm and immediately dissolved into laughter.
He looked completely offended, but you couldnât stop laughing.
âWhat?â
âBrooks.â
âWhat?â
âThose are carnations.â
His eyebrows pulled together.
âMy mom hated carnations.â
The look on his face had quickly become one of your favorite memories. He was struck with pure horror and confusion, and his expression was one of a man realizing heâd accidentally made a catastrophic mistake without having any idea how.
âHow was I supposed to know that?â
âYou werenât.â
âThen why are you laughing at me?â
Because your mom hated carnations. She hated them because theyâd reminded her of funerals. Every time she saw them in a grocery store, she complained about how depressing they looked. She refused to buy them, refused to put them in the house, and refused to let anyone send them to her. There was one time her aunt had passed away and her college roommate had sent her a vase of them, and while she wrote a letter back to thank her, she had immediately thrown them into the trash.
Somehow Brooks had unknowingly shown up to a cemetery carrying the one flower she would have made fun of immediately. The irony was too much, but your laughter eventually settled into something softer. You took the bouquet from him and looked down at the flowers, âTheyâre perfect.â
Brooks blinked, âI thought she hated them.â
âShe did.â
âThen how are they perfect?â
A smile tugged at your lips, because you knew your mom would have laughed. She would have teased him and would have spent the next twenty minutes giving him a hard time about funeral flowers in a cemetery.
But she wouldâve loved him for trying.
âI think sheâd think this is hilarious.â
The relief that crossed Brooksâ face made you laugh all over again.Â
Looking back now, you think that was the moment everything changed. Somewhere between the hot chocolate and the carnations, the coffee and the stories of her, you stopped wondering whether you could trust him. You started believing that you already did.
Eventually, however, the cold won.
Not all at onceâneither of you looked at the time and decided it was time to leave. It happened gradually, the way most good afternoons do. The once steaming hot coffee Brooks had left beside your motherâs gravestone had gone completely cold, and the hot chocolate in your hands was barely warm anymore. Every time the wind picked up, you found yourself pulling his Red Sox sweatshirt tighter around your body. You donât recall who stood up first, only looking up and realizing the sun had started to dip lower in the sky, âI think weâre freezing to death.â
âGood thing weâre in a cemetery, then,â Brooks shot back, a joking smile spread across his rosy cheeks.
You rolled your eyes so hard it made him laugh, which only made his smile widen. You looked back over at the headstone, where the carnations rested at the base beside the coffee cup. Looking at them made something warm settle in your chest again.
The thought makes your chest ache now.
You eventually brushed the grass off your dark wash jeans and climbed to your feet. Brooks stood a second later, immediately offering you a hand when you stumbled slightly because your legs had fallen asleep, half from sitting with them folded under the rest of your body and half because your feet were numb from the spine-tingling chill in the air.
When you finally reached your Civic, you leaned against the driverâs side door while Brooks stopped beside his Grand Cherokee. Although a few cars remained scattered throughout the parking lot, most people had gone home. For a moment, neither of you said anything, not because there was nothing left to say, but because neither of you seemed particularly eager to leave.
Then Brooks checked his phone, and a quiet curse slipped from beneath his breath before he shook his head and laughed.
âWhat?â you questioned, a small smile tugging at the corner of your lips.
His eyes met yours, and let a quiet sigh out, âI told the guys Iâd meet them tonight.â
It takes you a second to remember what heâs talking about, but then it registers, âMaloneâs?â
He nodded. It had been the plan all week. The true reason you even knew about it was because your boyfriend had spent several days complaining about how impossible it was to get a group of college guys to agree on where they wanted to go. Brooks immediately asked if youâd go with him, and for a second, you were tempted, but then the wind cut through the parking lot again.
âIâm going home, taking a hot shower, and then burrowing under my blankets while watching Derry Girls,â you grinned before gesturing to his truck, âGo have fun with the guys.â
He nodded and began to make his way to the driver side door, but turned back towards you before hopping in, âSorry about the carnations.â
You laughed, âTheyâre perfect. Breakfast tomorrow?â
âSounds great. I love you.â
âI love you, too. Have fun tonight.â
With that, you guys waved goodbye to each other and both hopped into your cars. You immediately turned your Civic on and blasted the heat on high, trying your best to warm up your numb extremities as quickly as possible. As you held your fingers up to the vents, you never once questioned whether tomorrow would happen. You never once questioned him.
Maybe thatâs why the memory hurts so much now.
By the time you got back to your dorm, the emotional exhaustion finally started catching up with you.Â
You showered. You changed into an oversized t-shirt youâve had since high school and a pair of Briar pajama pants with a hole near the right pocket. You spent ten minutes standing in front of the open refrigerator because you were hungry enough to want good but too tired to actually make any, so you eventually settled for doordashing some Taco Bell and eating whatever cake was left over from your roommateâs birthday earlier in the week. By the time you climbed into bed, your chest felt lighter than it had in weeks, even months, maybe. For the first time in a long time, you werenât overthinking anything.
The realization would usually embarrass you, but your decision to curl up beneath your blankets and turn on Derry Girls stopped you before you could. Your roommate decided to go to Nashville to visit her sister for the weekend, so other than the occasional rumbling of a car engine outside of your window, the apartment was quiet around you.Â
After a few episodes, you grabbed your phone. You scrolled through Instagram absentmindedly. A girl from one of your classes went to some indie concert in Boston, your cousin in Ohio posted pictures from a high school football game, and one of Garrettâs teammates posted something about an NHL trade that meant absolutely nothing to you, so you skipped past it without a second thought.Â
Then Brooksâ story appeared, and when you spotted the picture of him kissing your cheek in the corner of your screen, you couldn't help but smile.Â
You watched it without thinking. It was normal at firstâflashing lights, the Briar pennant hanging from the wooden ceiling, a crowd of college kids with all kinds of beer and seltzers in their handsâbut then you noticed the girl standing in front of your boyfriend.
At first, you werenât concerned. Why should you have been? He was at Maloneâs on a Friday night, and the place looked crowded enough that 75% of the diner was probably standing shoulder to shoulder. But then he reached for her, and your heart dropped to your stomach as your brain tried to comprehend what you were seeing. The video seemed to slow down as you witnessed what happened next.
Brooks leaned forward. The girl did too.
And then he kissed her.
You swiped out of the story and immediately opened Brookâs profile. It was gone.
The realization settled over you like a wave gripping you around your ankles. He deleted it, but not before you saw it. Your eyes burned, but the first thing you thought about wasnât the girl. It was the cemetery.
Only a few hours before, you had brought him to the one place youâd never brought anyone else. Youâd shared a piece of you that was so fragile and important, and heâd handled it so carefully that you sat at her grave thinking about how much you trusted him. In the same night, he brought coffee and flowers for your mom and kissed a random girl.
Thatâs how youâve ended up in Garrett Grahamâs driveway.
A mixture of the contradictions and amount of tears youâve cried makes your head spin. Youâve spent the better part of the last hour replaying the day over and over again, trying to figure out where everything went wrong. Every time you think youâve reached some kind of conclusion, another memory surfaces and erases all of your progress. So, eventually, you stop trying.
For a second, you just sit in the driverâs seat with your head pressed against the steering wheel. You canât stop thinking about how ridiculous this is.
Garrettâs not your best friend. Heâs just Garrett. The guy who sat next to you in foreign policy and stole your notes because his handwriting resembled that of a doctorâs. The guy who always remembered to wish you luck before your exams. The guy who would always tease you for being four days younger. The guy who you only talk to when you see him while walking to class now.Â
Heâs just Garrett, but heâs exactly who you want right now.
Your eyes drift back to the porch light again. You have been staring at it for almost the entire time you've been sitting in this driveway. Every time your thoughts spiral, your gaze finds that same warm yellow glow spilling across the front steps and black railing. The light itself isn't remarkable. It's just a porch light attached to a house you've seen plenty of times before. But tonight, after everything that's happened, it feels like the only steady thing in your field of vision. Brooks's story disappeared. Your plans for tomorrow disappeared. Your certainty about him disappeared. The porch light hasn't changed.
You let your head fall back against the seat and close your eyes for a second. The silence inside the car presses in around you, broken only by the soft rumble of the engine and the occasional hiss of the broken speaker. You've spent the last fifteen minutes trying to convince yourself to get out, then trying to convince yourself to leave, then trying to convince yourself to stop thinking about any of it. None of those things are working. Your chest still hurts. Your eyes still burn. The memory of Brooks leaning toward that girl still keeps flashing through your head no matter how hard you try to push it away.
When you open your eyes again, the porch light is still on.
That is what finally pushes you into motion.
Not because it suddenly feels easy, and not because you suddenly know what you're going to say. It doesn't feel easy. You have absolutely no idea what you're going to say. But the light means the house is awake. It means Garrett is inside. It means that if you walk up those steps and knock on the door, someone will answer.
The realization settles in your chest slowly. You don't need a perfect explanation right now. You don't need to know what happens tomorrow. You just need to stop sitting in this car pretending that staying here is somehow easier than going inside.
You reach for the keys and turn the engine off. The sudden quiet feels almost shocking after the constant growl beneath you. For a moment, you just sit there listening to your own breathing. Then you grab your phone from the passenger seat, shove it into the pocket of your sweatshirt, and push open the driver's side door.
The cold air hits your face immediately. You pull your sweatshirt tighter around yourself as you step out onto the driveway. The gravel crunches softly under your shoes while you make your way toward the house, and with every step your stomach twists a little tighter. Part of you still wants to turn around. Part of you still wants to get back in the car, drive home, and deal with all of this tomorrow. But another part of you knows that if you do that, you'll spend the entire night alone with the same thoughts that have been tearing through your head for hours.
By the time you reach the bottom of the porch steps, the light that had been keeping your attention all night is directly above you. The warmth of it spills across the porch and catches the edges of the railing, making the front door look almost inviting. You climb the steps one at a time, your heartbeat growing louder with each one. When you finally stop in front of the door, you hesitate for a second, suddenly aware of how absurd this is. It's one-thirty in the morning. You're standing on Garrett Graham's porch with swollen eyes and a broken heart, about to interrupt whatever he was doing because you couldn't bear to be alone.
The second your knuckles hit the door, regret settles heavily in your stomach.
Not because you don't want Garrett to answer. If that were true, you wouldn't be here. You wouldn't have driven across town in the middle of the night, crying so hard that you had to pull into a gas station just to get yourself under control before getting back on the road. But standing on the porch and actually hearing the sound of your knock echo through the house are two very different things.Â
Suddenly, the reality of what you're doing catches up to you. You are standing on Garrett Graham's front porch at one-thirty in the morning because the guy youâve been dating for two years cheated on you.
The thought sounds ridiculous when you put it that way.
For a second, you consider leaving, but then you hear movement inside the house, and your stomach immediately drops.
The footsteps are muffled, but they're getting closer. Every second that passes makes it harder to run. You stare at the door, then at the porch floor, then back at the door again, suddenly feeling stupid for coming.Â
What exactly are you supposed to say? Hi, Garrett. Remember the guy I trusted enough to introduce to my dead mom today? Turns out he cheated on me six hours later. The thought is so absurd that under different circumstances it might actually be funny, but tonight it makes your throat tighten.
The lock clicks and the door opens.Â
Garrett appears in the doorway wearing a white Briar t-shirt and gray sweatpants, looking exactly like someone who wasn't expecting company. His curls are a mess, flattened on one side and sticking up on the other, and his eyes still have that heavy, tired look of somebody who'd either been planning to go to bed or had already been in bed.Â
For a moment, he just stares at you from the doorway, his eyes moving across your face as if heâs trying to figure out what happened. You can practically see him trying to figure out why you're standing on his porch at one-thirty in the morning. Whatever he'd expected when he opened the door, it definitely wasn't this.
One thing you've always liked about Garrett is that he's terrible at pretending not to care. If something is bothering him, you know it. If he's worried about someone, you know that too.Â
Right now, the concern on his face is impossible to miss, "Y/N?"
The way he says your name almost undoes you.
It's such a normal thing. He isn't dramatic about it. He just says your name the way anyone would when they're surprised to see somebody standing on their porch in the middle of the night.
âHi, Garrett.â you whisper, doing your best to shoot him a small smile, but the attempt lasts two seconds beforeÂ
Garrett watches whatever expression you'd been trying to make disappear the second it reaches your face, and the concern in his eyes deepens. He looks exhausted, confused, and increasingly worried all at the same time, "Are you okay?" he asks.
The question is simple, but it completely destroys you. Your eyes immediately fill with tears. You try to answer him but the second you try to speak your throat closes up, and a strangled sound escapes instead. You look away, pressing your lips together as though that might somehow stop the tears from falling.
It doesn't.
Garrett's expression changes the second he realizes you can't answer him. The confusion disappears, replaced by something much closer to panic. He takes a small step forward onto the porch, his eyes moving over your face as though he's trying to find an explanation hidden somewhere there. For a second he just watches you struggle to pull yourself together, and then something seems to occur to him. You can practically see the thought cross his face.
"Y/N, hey. Did somebody touch you?" he asks.
The question catches you so off guard that you actually look up at him.
Garrett swallows hard. "Did somebody hurt you?"
The concern in his voice makes everything worse. You realize exactly where his mind has gone and why. As far as Garrett knows, one of his friends has shown up at his house in the middle of the night crying so hard she can't speak. He has no context or explanation. He has nothing except the sight of you standing on his porch looking completely wrecked.
Fresh tears spill over immediately.
"Y/N," Garrett mutters, dragging a hand through his already messy curls. His eyes never leave your face, "Y/N, talk to me."
You try, but the effort lasts all of two seconds before another sob catches in your throat. Garrett's entire expression tightens. One thing you've always known about him is that he cares loudly. He isn't good at pretending something doesn't bother him. If he's worried, everybody knows. If he's angry, everybody knows. Right now, every bit of concern he feels is written all over his face.
Something about hearing that finally breaks whatever fragile control you'd been holding onto for the last hour.
You suck in a shaky breath, "I took Brooks to meet my mom today."
The words come out so quickly they almost run together. Once they start, they don't stop, "I took him to the cemetery because I trusted him and I've never brought anybody there before and he brought flowers and coffee and sat there for hours listening to me talk about her and then he went out with his friends tonight and posted himself kissing another girl."
Garrett's shoulders drop just enough for you to realize where his mind had gone before this.
For the last several minutes, he'd clearly been imagining every possible scenario that could explain why you were standing on his porch crying so hard you couldn't speak. The relief that flashes across his face isn't relief that you're hurting. If anything, seeing how devastated you are seems to make him even more upset. It's relief that nobody touched you. Nobody assaulted you. Nobody put you in a hospital. The awful possibilities he'd been building in his head disappear, only to be replaced by a different kind of anger, âHe cheated on you?â
You nod, and the movement feels embarrassingly small after everything you've just confessed.
For a moment, Garrett doesn't say anything. He just looks at you. The concern never leaves his face, but now it's tangled up with disbelief. You've spent months talking about Brooksânot constantly, but enough that Garrett knew who he was. You can practically see him trying to reconcile the guy you described with the story you just told.
Then he opens the door wider, âPlease come inside.â
There isn't any hesitation in his voice. Garrett doesn't ask if you want to come in. He just takes one look at you and decides you're not standing on his porch crying in forty-degree weather any longer.
The warmth of the house hits you immediately when you step inside. It should feel ordinary. You've been here before. You've sat on this couch before. You've eaten pizza at that coffee table while listening to Garrett complain about professors and hockey and group projects in his other classes. But everything suddenly feels strangely distant, like you're observing it through glass. The strange thing is that you're grateful for it. You are so tired of thinking.
You sink into the couch cushions while Garrett disappears into the kitchen. You can faintly hear the sound of water running from the faucet and a glass tapping lightly against the counter. The normalcy of it almost makes you cry again.
When he comes back, he hands it to you gently before settling onto the couch next to you, but he doesnât crowd you. Garrett has always had an oddly good instinct for when people need space and when they need company, and right now he seems to understand that you need both.Â
For a few minutes, neither of you says much. You stare down into the water while Garrett watches you with the same worried expression he had on the porch. The TV is still playing some NHL highlights somewhere behind him, but neither of you are paying attention to it. Eventually, the silence becomes too heavy to ignore.
âI've never brought anybody there before,â the words leave your mouth before you can stop them.
Garrett's expression softens immediately.
You stare at the glass in your hands because looking at him suddenly feels impossible, âI've never brought friends. I've never brought a boyfriend. I've never brought anybody. I spent the entire drive there wondering if I was making a mistake, and then he showed up with flowers and coffee and remembered all these stories I'd told him. He sat there for hours listening to me talk about her, and I justâŚI thought I'd been right about him. I shouldn't have brought him, Garrett.â
Garrett's reaction is immediate, âNo.â
You blink at him, confusion written on his face.
âNo,â he repeats, gentler this time. âYou donât get to do that.â
The concern in his voice is almost worse than if he'd gotten angry.
âBut if I hadn'tââ
âIf you hadn't brought him there, he still would've been the guy who cheats on his girlfriend.â
The words settle heavily between you. Garrett says them without harshness or frustration. He just sounds sad that you're even trying to carry this responsibility in the first place.
âYou bringing him to the cemetery didn't make him do anything,â he continues. âYou trusting him didn't make him do anything. The stories about your mom didn't make him do anything. All that happened is that you trusted somebody you cared about, and he turned out to be an idiot.â
Your eyes immediately fill with tears again.
Garrett notices (of course he does), but he doesn't backtrack, âYou keep talking about the cemetery like that's the moment you messed up,â he says quietly. âIt isn't. If you hadn't brought him there, he'd still be exactly who he is. You just would've found out later.â
The room falls silent again, and Garrett lets the silence sit for a few minutes before speaking again, "What was your mom like?"
The question catches you so off guard that you actually look up at him for what feels like the first time that night, âWhat?â
"Your mom,â his voice softens, âYou've spent the last half an hour talking about Brooks and what he did. I want to hear about her.â
For a moment, you just stare at him. All night, every conversation in your head has revolved around Brooks. Every memory from the day had somehow become tangled together with the image of that Instagram story until you couldn't separate them anymore.
Now Garrett is sitting across from you asking about your mom, not because he's trying to distract you, but because he genuinely wants to know.
The answer comes out before you can overthink it, and a small smile pulls at your mouth just thinking of her, âShe was funny. Really funny, actually.â
Garrett leans back slightly in the chair, the concern still written on his face but softer now, âYeah?â
You laugh quietly, âShe was one of those people who could make friends with anybody. It didn't matter where we were, but we'd leave twenty minutes after we were supposed to because she wanted to know somebody's life story. Half the time Iâd be standing there wondering how she got into another conversation with a complete stranger.â
Garrett smiles, âThat sounds exhausting.â
âIt was.â
You spend a few minutes telling him about her obsession with French vanilla coffee and the way she'd sing along to songs despite never actually knowing the lyrics. Half the words were wrong, but she'd commit to them so confidently that nobody ever bothered correcting her. Garrett laughs at that, and before long you're laughing too.
Garrett grins, âThat sounds familiar.â
You narrow your eyes, âAre you comparing yourself to my dead mother?â
âI'm saying confidence is a valuable skill.â
âThat's not what you're saying.â
âIt is absolutely what I'm saying.â
You shake your head, smiling despite yourself. For a few seconds, the conversation settles into a comfortable silence. Then Garrett leans back in the chair, folding his arms across his chest, âMy mom was kind of the opposite.â
âYeah?â
He nods, and the fondness in his voice is immediate, âShe wasn't shy or anything. She just didn't need to be the center of everything. My dad was always the loud one. My mom was usually the person sitting back watching everybody else.â
You'd heard Garrett mention his mom before, but not often. But you canât help but note that a smile tugs at the corner of his mouth when talking about her, âWhen I was little, she'd sit through every practice and game. It didn't matter if it was six in the morning or three hours away. She was always there. Half the time I'd get off the ice and she'd already have hot chocolate waiting.â
Your chest tightens just enough to remind you why Garrett understands more than most people probably realize.Â
And because of Garrett Graham, for the first time since you opened Instagram, youâre remembering your mom without immediately remembering Brooks too.
Next to you, Garrett knows that tomorrow morning you're going to wake up exhausted. Your eyes will be swollen from crying, you'll probably have a headache, and if he's being honest, you'll almost definitely pretend you're fine when you aren't. Garrett knows that because that's what you do.
His eyes drift toward the kitchen for a second.
He has no idea whether there's any French vanilla creamer in the house, but he knows that as soon as you fall asleep, heâs going to check.
Because every time you talk about your mom, the sadness is still there, but it isn't consuming you the way it was when you first showed up. The stories seem to pull you out of your own head for a little while, and with each one, you look a little more like the girl he met in his foreign policy class.
And if a cup of French vanilla coffee gets you talking about her again tomorrow morning, then he'll figure out a way to make sure there's one waiting for you.
a/n: thank you so much to @folkloure for helping me figure out this fic! wouldn't have been able to figure out how to start it without her, and her works are amazing, so go follow her and read her fics!
dean req!!!!!!! lowkey been loooooooving jealous!dean so much đđđ can i request jealous!dean with academic weapon reader? him being jealous of her spending time at the library and staying at the library beside her (for emotional support while being needyđââď¸)
&
Done being patient
Dean Di Laurentis is clingy, needy, and completely starved for your attention. He doesn't want you to focus on anything else but himânot on your notes, not on your books, and above all, not on that stupid Aaron guy or whatever his name is.
word count : 2k â established relationship â jealous/possessive!dean â NEEDY!dean â Enjoy and please tell me what you think !
Thursday at the library was usually a quiet affair, but Dean Di Laurentis was doing his absolute best to ruin the silence.
You sat in a secluded alcove, hidden behind towering rows of journals and dusty texts. It was the only spot on campus where you could actually get work done. You were completely entrenchedâtextbooks open, notes scattered everywhere, and your laptop screen glowing with a half-written essay. You were an academic weapon, fueled by black coffee and sheer willpower.
Until the chair across from you scraped against the wooden floor with a loud, agonizing screech.
You didn't look up immediately. You couldn't. You were in the middle of synthesizing a complex thesis statement, your fingers flying across the keyboard. But the sudden shift in the airâthe immediate intrusion of expensive cologne, cherry-flavoured chewing gum, and the distinct scent of a cold hockey rinkâtold you exactly who had breached your perimeter.
"Hey," a low voice whispered.
You ignored him, aggressively highlighting a paragraph on your screen.
A large hand slid into your peripheral vision, gently tapping the wooden table right next to your mousepad. "Hey. Look at me."
With a long, suffering sigh, you finally lowered your eyes from the screen and leveled Dean with a flat, unimpressed stare.
He looked entirely out of place among the quiet academics. His thick, perfectly styled blonde hair was slightly messy, a few stray strands falling across his forehead. But instead of his usual smug, devastatingly handsome smirk, Dean looked thoroughly miserable. His blue eyes were narrowed, tracking your face with a tight, intense scrutiny.
"You're late," Dean muttered, leaning his forearms on the table, invading your space.
"I'm not late, Dean," you whispered back, keeping your voice low to avoid the wrath of the librarian. "I never said I was meeting you today."
"Doesn't matter," he countered, a cocky, unapologetic smirk tugging at the corner of his lips. "Practice ended at five, which means youâre exactly forty-five minutes late to coming home and paying attention to me," He tapped his watch with a dramatic sigh, tilting his head as his eyes locked onto yours, completely unbothered by how ridiculous he was being. "And Tucker said he saw you walking with some guy from your seminar. The tutor guy. What's his name? The one with the stupid glasses."
A small, incredulous laugh escaped your throat. "You mean Aaron? My study partner? We had a group project meeting."
The mention of the name made something flash dangerously in Deanâs eyes. He didn't just look annoyed; he looked possessive, a simmering jealousy clouding his features. Dean Di Laurentis was known all over campus as a playboy, a guy who took nothing too seriously, who loved sex, parties, playing hockey on the occasion, and enjoying the easy thrill of the chase. But right now, looking at you, there wasn't a single playful thing about him.
"I don't like him," Dean said flatly, his voice dropping an octave, carrying a heavy, unyielding weight. "I don't like him breathing your air. And I definitely don't like him keeping you away from me for three hours."
"Baby, I have to keep my grades up," you sighed, leaning forward so only he could hear you. "I have to study, and right now, you are a distraction."
"Then let me distract you," he murmured, his eyes dropping to your lips for a split second before snapping back up. "Come home. Iâll make it worth your while. You know I will."
The blatant, arrogant proposition made a warm flush creep up your neck, but you firmly clamped down on it. "I'm staying here until this paper is done."
Dean stared at you, his chest rising and falling in a heavy, frustrated breath. He was used to getting exactly what he wanted, when he wanted it. But as he looked at your stubborn jawline and the absolute determination in your eyes, he realized he wasn't winning this argument.
With a low grunt, he slid back into his chair. "Fine."
"Fine?" you repeated, blinking. "So you're leaving?"
"Hell no," Dean muttered. He reached out, grabbed his massive duffel bag from the floor, and hauled it onto the table with a heavy thud. "If you're staying, I'm staying."
Three hours later, the library had grown entirely dark outside, the only illumination coming from the green lamps scattered across the tables.
True to his word, Dean hadn't left. But calling his presence "emotional support" was a massive stretch. He was, without a doubt, the neediest human being on the planet when he wasn't the center of attention.
For the first hour, he had tried to read a sports psychology textbook, flipping the pages so loudly and aggressively that you had to kick him under the table. After that, his attention span completely shattered. He resorted to tapping his fingers on the wood, spinning his car keys, and sighing loudly enough to draw glares from a group of freshmen nearby.
Right now, Dean was slumped low in his chair, his long legs stretched out under the table, his ankles locked securely around yoursâa physical anchor ensuring you couldn't slip away. He had dragged his chair around to your side of the table, sitting so close that his shoulder was pressed firmly against yours.
The heavy, rhythmic click of your fingers against the keyboard was the only barrier keeping his relentless neediness at bay. You were deep in the zone, entirely focused on drafting the final conclusion of your paper, while Dean remained anchored to your side, his chin resting heavily on your shoulder as he let out another long, dramatic sigh.
"Iâm dying," he mumbled against your neck, his voice a low, husky vibration that sent a treacherous little shiver down your spine. "Dean is fading away. Dean is sad. Dean needs attention."
A breathless laugh escaped your lips, though you kept your eyes glued to the screen. "Dean needs to let me finish this paragraph. I'm almost done."
"Youâve been saying that for twenty minutes," he complained, his large hand sliding up from your knee to map the curve of your thigh, his fingers squeezing possessively through the fabric of your jeans. "Dean is losing his mind. Look at Dean. Just for five seconds."
"I have to go to the bathroom," you announced, finally cutting him off as you pushed your chair back.
He groaned, his arm wrapping around your waist for a brief, stubborn second to keep you in place before he finally let go with a tragic roll of his blue eyes. "Fine. But if youâre not back in two minutes, Iâm coming in after you. I don't care which bathroom it is."
"Give me five," you fired back with a sharp, playful smirk, sliding out of the alcove. You left your laptop open, throwing your hoodie over the back of the chair and leaving your phone face-up on the heavy wooden table right next to his hand.
The moment you turned the corner toward the restrooms, the quiet settled back over the alcove. Dean slumped back in his chair, running a hand through his blonde hair, his jaw tightening the second he was left alone with your textbooks.
Then, the wooden table vibrated.
Deanâs eyes snapped down instantly. Your phone screen lit up, a bright banner cutting through the dim light of the green lamp.
Aaron (Seminar): Hey, just checked over the data layout we talked about earlier. You're brilliant, seriously. Let me buy you a coffee tomorrow to say thanks?
Dean froze. The playful, whining boy from two seconds ago vanished, replaced instantly by something fierce and cold. His blue eyes narrowed into dangerous slits as he stared at the screen, his chest rising and falling in a sharp, heavy breath. Brilliant. Coffee tomorrow.
Before he could even process the spike of pure adrenaline shooting through his veins, the phone buzzed a second time.
Aaron (Seminar): Or drinks, if you're free tonight instead? Just the two of us to celebrate finishing early.
A dark, dangerous laugh caught in Dean's throat. He didn't think; his calloused hand snatched your phone off the table, his knuckles turning white around the edges of the case. The possessive, territorial instinct that made him a nightmare on the ice flared up instantly, turning his blood to fire. Just the two of us.
He knew he shouldn't open it. He knew you'd be furious. But Dean Di Laurentis didn't play by anyone's rules when it came to what belonged to him. He unlocked the screen, his thumb hovering over the keyboard as a volatile mixture of anger and raw jealousy tightened his chest.
By the time you came back, adjusting the sleeves of your shirt, the atmosphere in the corner had completely shifted.
Dean was sitting perfectly upright now, his broad shoulders squared, his eyes fixed on the entrance of the alcove. Your phone was gripped tightly in his hand, resting face-down on the table.
"Dean?" you asked softly, stopping in your tracks as you noticed the rigid, unyielding line of his jaw. "What's wrong?"
"Aaron," he said flatly, the name tasting like poison on his tongue. He didn't shoutâhis voice was incredibly low, a quiet, dangerous purr that made your heart skip a beat. "Aaron thinks you're brilliant."
Your eyes dropped to your phone in his hand, and realization hit you. "Did you look at my messages?"
"He wants to buy you drinks tonight," Dean continued, completely ignoring your question as he stood up, his massive frame instantly towering over you and blocking out the rest of the library. He stepped around the table, closing the distance between you until his chest was practically brushing against yours. "Just the two of us, he said."
"He's just a classmate, Deanâ"
"I don't give a damn what he is," he growled, his hand coming up to cup the back of your neck, his long fingers tangling in your hair to gently but firmly tilt your face up to his. His blue eyes were blazing, wild with a raw, pure jealousy. "Youâre going to text him back and say you have plans with someone way more important." He leaned down a fraction of an inch, the tip of his nose brushing lazily against yours in a slow, deliberate distraction while his thumb stroked the soft skin of your cheek. "Someone who is going to take you home, lock the door, and make you completely forget what subject you were even studying."
The sheer, possessive weight of his gaze anchored you to the floor, your heart hammering a frantic rhythm against your ribs. Having him crowd into your space this intensely made it absolutely impossible to form a coherent thought.
"Dean..." you whispered, your defenses completely melting under the intensity of his stare.
"No," he muttered, his thumb tracing your jawline with a fierce, trembling intensity that betrayed just how much the thought of anyone else touching you tore him apart. "Dean is done being patient. Dean is taking you home right now."
You couldn't hide your amusement any longer, a soft smile breaking across your face. "You are completely ridiculous, you know that?"
"Yeah, well, I'm a ridiculous guy who happens to be completely obsessed with you," he smirked, his voice softening just a fraction, though his grip on you didn't loosen an inch. He slanted his lips over yours before you could even reply, capturing your mouth in a slow, deep kiss that completely stole your resolve. His lips were hot and demanding, parting yours with an intoxicating ease that made your hands instinctively grip his jacket for balance. His tongue slid into your mouth with a cocky confidence that made your knees go weak, tangling with yours, mapping the inside of your mouth like he owned it. He drank in your quiet gasp, swallowing your soft whimper and leaving you completely dazed in the middle of the library alcove.
When he finally pulled back, a lazy, satisfied smirk was playing on his lips. "Let's go, Einstein. Before I carry you out of here myself."
pairing â garrett graham x kitty!reader
summary â garrett graham doesnât do girlfriends. unfortunately for him, the entire hockey house has ears, opinions, and very strong evidence to the contrary.
warnings â suggestive content, implied smut, post-sex intimacy, arguing, strong language
notes from me â oh to have make up sex with garrett graham. based on this request! thank u anon xx
word count â 5.1k
navigation â masterlist | taglist
The downstairs of the hockey house had entered that specific late-night stage of male occupancy where every surface had acquired either a controller, an open bag of chips, a damp ring from a beer bottle, or a sock that absolutely did not belong in a shared living space and yet had been accepted by the ecosystem.Â
The TV threw blue-white light over the room in sharp, violent flashes while some first-person shooter none of them were pretending to understand strategically anymore barked gunfire through the speakers. Logan was sunk so low into the couch he was practically part of it, one socked foot hooked under the coffee table, thumbs moving on instinct and jaw working around the last of a slice of cold pizza.Â
Tucker had claimed the armchair like a man with enough common sense to keep his spine functional past twenty-five, one ankle crossed over his knee, controller balanced comfortably in his hands, expression calm in the way that made it ten times more annoying when he killed everyone else. Dean was sprawled half sideways on the rug with his back against the couch, beer loose in one hand, controller in the other, looking like someone had designed a rich boy in a lab and then forgotten to install shame.
Garrett was upstairs. Which, in itself, was not strange. Garrett being upstairs with her was also not strange, not anymore, no matter how many times he said, with the full stubborn confidence of a man lying directly to everyoneâs faces, that it wasnât like that. It was casual. They were hooking up.Â
He was busy. Hockey, classes, captain shit, the usual revolving door of women who used to come and go before sheâd started appearing in the kitchen in his sweatshirts and stealing the last banana off the counter with the lazy comfort of someone who knew exactly which drawer the forks were in.
Garrett denied all of it. Continually. Aggressively, even. Like if he said the words sheâs not my girlfriend often enough, the universe would stop presenting evidence to the contrary.
Unfortunately for him, the universe was a petty bitch, and so were his friends. Dean had been killed by Tucker for the third time in under two minutes and was halfway through an appeal to basic human decency when the first noise came from upstairs.
Not a bed thump. Not laughter. Not the usual muffled, morally concerning sounds that made Tucker reach for the remote and Logan yell, âBro, volume,â without looking away from the screen.
This was a voice, her voice. And it was furious. âARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME, GARRETT?â
Every thumb in the living room stopped moving at once. Onscreen, Deanâs character was immediately shot in the head.
Nobody cared.
There was a half-second where the whole downstairs seemed to hold its breath around the TV static and the low hum of the fridge from the kitchen. Logan lifted his head first, slow and delighted. Tuckerâs brows went up. Dean turned, beer paused halfway to his mouth, eyes brightening with the reverent attention of a man who had just heard the opening note of live theatre.
Upstairs, something moved hard enough to creak through the ceiling. A footstep. Maybe two. Then Garrettâs voice came down, rough and defensive and very much not using his captain voice. âWhat? Jesus Christ, I looked at my phone.â
âYou were snapping a puck bunny right before you fucked me!â
Deanâs mouth fell open. Loganâs eyes went huge. Tucker closed his eyes once, like a man hearing a disaster he could have warned someone about if anyone in this house respected wisdom.
âOh, rookie error,â Logan said solemnly, pointing one finger toward the ceiling without taking his eyes off the stairs. âThatâs a rookie error.â
Dean nodded, gravely, as if Garrett had failed a sacred code. âYeah, no. You canât do that.â
Tucker set his controller down on his knee. âYou absolutely cannot do that.â
From upstairs, Garrett snapped, âI wasnât snapping a puck bunny.â
âOh, fuck you, Garrett!â
âOh, fuck me?â Garrett shot back, voice rising now, indignant in that very particular Garrett Graham way where he sounded personally offended that reality had chosen to disagree with him. âFuck me? Are you shitting me? I go on my phone for, like, two seconds and you freak out?â
âI was straddling you, you asshole!â
Dean made a strangled sound and pressed his fist to his mouth, eyes shining. âGod, sheâs good.â
Logan leaned forward, elbows on his knees, fully abandoning the game now. His abandoned character stood motionless on screen while someone named xXSlayerBoiXx unloaded an entire magazine into his chest. âYeah, no, Iâm with her on that. Thatâs insane. You donât check messages mid-straddle.â
âItâs about respect,â Dean said, sudden and earnest, like the spirit of an Italian grandmother had entered his body. âYou gotta keep that shit separate, man. Girls know when youâre mentally in the room. They can feel it.â
Tucker looked at him.
Dean looked back. âWhat?â
âNo, I agree,â Tucker said after a beat, which somehow made it funnier. âI just didnât expect you to be the one bringing emotional literacy into this house tonight.â
Dean lifted his beer in salute.
Upstairs, her voice came again, closer this time like sheâd moved toward the door or maybe toward Garrett, which somehow made the whole thing worse and better. âYou literally smiled at your phone.â
âI smile at shit!â
âYou smiled like a slut!â
Logan lost it. He folded forward, laughter punching out of him so hard he had to slap one hand over his mouth. Tuckerâs mouth twitched. Dean pointed up at the ceiling with the beer bottle, triumphant.
âThat,â Dean said, âis a woman with language.â
Garrett barked something they couldnât quite catch, then louder, âIt was a team thing.â
âOh my God, donât lie to me with hockey. Thatâs so insulting.â
âIâm not lying with hockey!â
âYouâre always lying with hockey. Itâs your little emotional support sport.â
Dean wheezed. âOh, sheâs killing him.â
âSheâs not wrong,â Tucker said, and picked up his controller again only to realise no one else was playing. He set it down with the soft resignation of a man accepting that the night had changed shape. âHe does use hockey as a legal defence.â
Logan wiped under one eye with his thumb. âYour Honor, I couldnât text back because we had a power play.â
âExactly,â Dean said. âAnd the juryâs like, damn, compelling.â
The argument upstairs hit a sharper pitch then, the words overlapping enough that downstairs only fragments came through: Garrett saying her name in that strained, warning way; her cutting over him with something about half the campus knowing exactly what your stupid little smirk means; Garrett snapping back that she didnât get to act like heâd done something when he hadnât done anything; her laugh, sharp and humourless enough to slice through the floorboards.
The thing was, from downstairs, it was hilarious. It was the kind of fight you listened to with one hand over your mouth and the other hovering near your beer because you didnât want to miss a word.
But even through the ceiling, even with Deanâs face lit up like Christmas, there was something hot and real in it. Garrett could say casual until his voice gave out. The guys had seen him check every time the front door opened on a Friday night in case it was her. They had seen him turn down girls without making a production of it and then act like he didnât know heâd done it. They had seen him stand in the kitchen at nine in the morning holding two mugs of coffee, one black and one with the stupid oat milk she liked, and still somehow insist he was not, under any circumstances, doing relationship shit.
Upstairs, something thudded, like someone had shoved a door or dropped a shoe or Garrett had knocked into his own dresser while gesturing too aggressively for a man who claimed to be calm.
âDonât walk away from me,â Garrett said, clearer now.
âOh, now you care where I am?â
âDonât do that.â
âDo what?â
âThatâ that thing where you make it sound like I donât give a shit.â
There was a pause after that. Barely a pause. Downstairs, all three of them went quieter without meaning to.
Then she said, voice still furious but lower now, scraped around the edges, âYou were smiling at another girl with my thighs around your waist, Garrett.â
Loganâs face changed first. The grin softened out of it by a fraction. Tucker looked down at his beer. Dean, for all his many sins, at least had the sense to stop laughing for a second.
Garrett didnât answer right away. When he did, his voice had lost some of the heat. âIt wasnât like that.â
âThen what was it like?â
âBabyââ
âOh, do not baby me right now.â
Dean inhaled through his teeth. âTough room.â
âDeserved,â Tucker murmured.
Garrett said something too low for them to make out, then louder when she clearly answered over him, âIâm not trying to make you look stupid!â
âYou donât have to try, youâre doing great.â
Logan made a tiny, appreciative noise. âGoddamn.â
Dean leaned back against the couch, eyes narrowed in thought now, as if evaluating odds at a racetrack. âI got ten bucks on Kitty.â
Tucker turned his head slowly. âKitty?â
âYeah.â Dean said it like this was obvious, like the naming of women based on their probable combat style was an established household tradition. âKitty.â
Logan frowned. âWhy Kitty?â
Dean looked offended by the lack of memory. âBecause she scratches the shit out of him. You didnât see his back last week?â
âOh shit,â Logan said immediately, pointing at Dean. âThatâs right. In the locker room. I thought he got attacked by a raccoon.â
âExactly.â Dean spread one hand, pleased with his own case. âKitty.â
Tuckerâs brows drew together. âNah. Sheâs hotter than a housecat.â
Dean tipped his head, considering. âI didnât say housecat.â
âYou said kitty. That implies housecat.â
âSheâs not a housecat,â Dean said seriously.
Logan leaned back, very invested. âCheetah?â
âNo,â Tucker said. âCheetahs are too sleek. Sheâs got more⌠attitude.â
âMountain lion,â Dean said, snapping his fingers.
The room went quiet in collective consideration.
Logan nodded first. âMountain lion works.â
Tucker lifted his beer. âYeah. Respectfully.â
Dean tipped his bottle toward the ceiling. âTen bucks on Mountain Lion.â
Upstairs, Garrettâs voice rose again, but not in the same way now. âYou think Iâm sitting there trying to get with somebody else while youâre literally in my room?â
âI donât know what youâre doing, Garrett, because you keep telling me this is nothing.â
That hit the downstairs like somebody had turned down the TV and let the actual room in. Loganâs mouth went a little flat. Deanâs eyes flicked toward Tucker, then away. Tucker exhaled through his nose and leaned back in the chair.
Garrett said nothing. She laughed again, quieter this time, and it was worse than the yelling. âRight. Yeah. Exactly.â
A door creaked upstairs. A floorboard shifted.
Garrettâs voice came out rough. âThatâs not fair.â
âNo, whatâs not fair is you acting like Iâm insane for being embarrassed when you keep making sure I know Iâm not allowed to be anything else.â
âJesus. Thatâs notââ Garrett stopped, frustrated enough that they could almost see him dragging a hand through his hair. âThatâs not what I meant.â
âWhat did you mean?â
Another silence. Dean, who had somehow turned from smug spectator into anxious civilian in under thirty seconds, whispered, âSay something good, dumbass.â
Tucker shot him a look. âYou whispering isnât helping him.â
âI know, but, like, he can sense my spirit.â
Garrett finally spoke, lower. They couldnât catch the first part. Only the end. ââŚdonât want you thinking Iâm messing around with other girls.â
âBut you are.â
âIâm not.â
âYou were.â
âI wasnât.â
âYou were smiling at your phone likeââ
âI was smiling because Logan sent me a video of Dean eating shit in the driveway.â
Tucker stared at both of Dean and Logan, disgusted. âThis house is an ecosystem of idiots.â
Upstairs, there was a beat of silence. Then her voice, much flatter now. âWhat?â
Garrett said, louder, with the rushed relief of a man finally locating evidence in his own defence, âIt was Dean. It was the video of Dean slipping on the ice by the cars. I was laughing at that.â
Dean pointed to himself, touched. âI saved his situationship.â
Logan leaned over and slapped his shoulder. âYour pain had purpose.â
âI told you Iâm important to this team.â
The floorboards creaked again. Upstairs, she said something too low for them to catch. Garrett answered, also too low, his voice doing that thing it did when he was trying not to sound soft and failing just enough for people who knew him to notice.
Then she snapped, suddenly audible again, âThat still doesnât fix the fact that youâre weird about me.â
Garrettâs answer came immediate and defensive. âIâm not weird about you.â
All three guys downstairs went still. Then, as one, they looked at each other. Deanâs face went blank with disbelief. Loganâs mouth opened. Tuckerâs eyebrows lifted toward his hairline.
âHeâs so weird about her,â Logan whispered.
âIncredibly,â Dean agreed.
âHe once made me Venmo her for mozzarella sticks because I ate the ones she left in the fridge,â Tucker said.
Logan turned to him. âHe made you Venmo her?â
âShe didnât even ask. She was asleep.â
Dean nodded solemnly. âThatâs husband behaviour.â
Upstairs, she said, âYou got mad at Tucker for eating my leftovers.â
Tucker lifted both hands as if personally vindicated by God.
Garrett shouted, âBecause he knew they werenât his!â
âThey were in a communal fridge!â
Dean clutched his chest. âOh my God.â
Logan dropped his head back against the couch. âHeâs cooked.â
âBurnt,â Tucker said.
Upstairs, the argument blurred again into movement, voices crossing, Garrettâs frustration and her hurt colliding in the messy, intimate rhythm of two people who knew each other well enough to know exactly where to press and not enough to stop themselves from pressing there anyway.Â
There was another thud, softer this time. Something fabric-heavy hitting the floor. Maybe the edge of a comforter. Maybe one of Garrettâs hoodies being launched with intent.
Then she said, sharp but trembling around it, âIâm not asking you to marry me, Garrett. Iâm asking you not to make me feel stupid for liking you!â
The living room went dead silent. Even Dean didnât joke.
For a second, there was only the muted TV, the distant rush of heat through the vents, the soft electrical buzz of the lamp beside the couch. Tucker looked away first, because there were some things a man wasnât supposed to witness even through drywall. Logan rubbed a hand over his mouth. Deanâs face did something strange, caught between sympathy and the reflexive horror of sincerity arriving without warning.
Garrettâs voice came low enough that they had to strain for it. âI donât think youâre stupid.â
She answered, quieter too. âYou act like I am.â
âI donât mean to.â
âYeah, well.â Her voice wavered, barely. âYouâre really good at it anyway.â
There was another pause, longer this time. Then Garrett said her name, and it sounded so unlike the way he said it when he was teasing her downstairs, so stripped of performance, that even Logan stopped breathing loudly.
âIâm busy,â Garrett said, and immediately Dean made a face like he wanted to climb through the ceiling and tackle him. But then Garrett kept going, rougher, faster, like if he didnât get it out in one rush heâd lose the nerve. âAnd Iâm notâ I donât do this shit. I donât know what you want me to say.â
âI want you to stop hiding behind that.â
âIâm not hiding.â
âGarrett.â
Silence. Then, quieter, from him: âMaybe a little.â
Deanâs eyes widened.
Logan whispered, âProgress.â
Tucker nodded once. âHuge.â
Whatever she said next didnât reach them. It was softer, swallowed by the ceiling and the old pipes and the house settling around all of them. Garrett answered in the same register. For a minute, the boys could hear only the shape of it: his voice low and trying; hers still hurt but no longer slicing; a murmur, a footstep, another smaller sound that might have been a laugh or might have been her telling him he was an idiot in a tone that had lost most of its blade.
Dean leaned slowly toward the ceiling, listening so hard his beer tilted dangerously in his hand.
âAre they making up?â Logan whispered.
Tucker held up one finger. âWait.â
The upstairs went very, very quiet. A bedframe creaked once. All three of them froze.
Then, clear enough to cut through the entire house, came a high, breathless little squeal that immediately dissolved into a muffled laugh and Garrett saying something low that none of them could make out but absolutely did not sound like an apology anymore.
Dean nodded once, satisfied. âYup.â
Logan picked up his controller. âTheyâre fucking.â
Tucker reached for the remote and turned the TV volume up three notches with the resigned precision of a man who had lived in this house too long. âGood for them.â
Dean lifted his beer toward the ceiling. âMountain Lion won.â
âYou donât win a fight by sleeping with Garrett after,â Tucker said.
Dean considered this. âDepends on the fight.â
Logan unpaused the game and immediately got shot. âI still think Garrett lost.â
âOh, he definitely lost,â Tucker said.
Dean grinned, settling back against the couch as the game roared back to life and the upstairs became, blessedly, a problem the TV volume could mostly handle. âYeah, but heâs not gonna know that until morning.â
From above them came another muffled thump, followed by Garrettâs laugh, low and pleased and stupidly gone.
Logan shook his head, respawning. âHeâs so fucked.â
Tuckerâs mouth curved faintly as he lifted his controller again. âYeah.â
Dean, eyes on the screen now, smile still wide, said, âBut in his defence, did you guys see her in that little skirt earlier?â
Tucker killed him instantly in the game.
Dean stared at the screen. âWow.â
âRespect women,â Tucker said pointing at Dean, calm as anything.
Logan laughed so hard he missed his next shot, and upstairs, Garrett Graham continued very loudly pretending he didnât have a girlfriend.
The room has gone quiet in the aftermath, the sort of quiet that arrives after a small, localised weather event has torn through and left evidence everywhere for later people to pretend not to see.Â
Garrettâs comforter is half on the bed and half dragged toward the floor, one corner caught under her knee. A pillow has somehow ended up near the closet. Her shirt is inside out beside the desk chair. One of Garrettâs socks is on the nightstand, which makes absolutely no sense, but the whole room has taken on that loose, wrecked, airless quality of a place where nothing had been put down so much as flung away in the service of more urgent priorities.Â
The lamp throws soft gold over the wall and across the pile of clothes at the foot of the bed, and under it all the house is still making noise downstairs: gunfire from the TV, somebody laughing too loud, a dull male groan of defeat that is probably Dean dying in the game again.
Sheâs sprawled on her stomach across Garrettâs chest, bare skin warm against bare skin, one leg tangled in the sheet and the other hooked lazily over his thigh like she has no intention of giving his body back to him anytime soon.
Her chin rests over his sternum, and she traces nonsense patterns over his chest with the tip of one finger, slow little loops through the faint sheen still drying there, feeling the hard, steady thud of his heart under her cheek when she tilts down.Â
Itâs stupid, really, how quickly the fight has gone soft at the edges now that theyâve burned through it. Her throat still feels a little raw from yelling. Her body feels heavy and loose and humming in places sheâs absolutely not going to name out loud. Garrettâs hand sits at the base of her spine, thumb moving every now and then like he keeps forgetting heâs doing it.
For a while neither of them says anything. Which is probably for the best, because words have been historically risky in this room tonight. Then the floorboards creak somewhere downstairs and Loganâs voice carries faintly up, followed by Deanâs laugh, bright and stupid and unmistakably delighted by his own existence.
She stills. Garrettâs hand pauses on her back.
Her eyes lift to his face. âDo you think the guys heard us?â
Garrett looks down at her for half a second, mouth already fighting the kind of grin that means heâs decided honesty will be funniest if delivered without mercy. His hairâs a mess from her hands, curls pushed in every wrong direction, face flushed in that warm, post-sex way that makes him look softer and smugger at once, which should be illegal on a man who already has enough advantages.
âThink the whole campus heard us,â he says.
She lets out an offended little laugh and drops her forehead against his chest. âShut up.â
âNo, seriously.â His voice is lazy now, rough around the edges, pleased with himself in a way that makes her want to bite him. Again. âPretty sure the womenâs soccer team knows youâre mad at me. And now... not so mad at me.â
âOh my God.â She presses her face harder into his chest, but sheâs giggling now, because the alternative is imagining Logan, Tucker, and Dean downstairs, all three of them going dead silent and absolutely listening like the worst little creeps in Massachusetts. âI hate you.â
âNo, you donât.â
âI literally do.â
âYouâre naked on top of me.â
She grins into his chest. âThatâs unrelated.â
âFeels related.â
She lifts her head just enough to glare at him, which doesnât work at all because heâs grinning at her like sheâs the funniest, most inconvenient thing that has ever happened to him.
That look gets under her skin in a way she hates. The part where his amusement goes warm and stupid around the eyes because heâs not just entertained. Heâs happy sheâs there. Happy sheâs still touching him. Happy in the middle of a room that looks like a crime scene made of laundry and bad decisions.
His hand slides up her back, slow and broad, then comes around the side of her neck with the kind of easy confidence that makes her body go annoyingly still. His fingers resting lightly beneath her jaw, thumb brushing once along the side of her throat while he tips her face up.
âCâmere,â he murmurs, and kisses her before she can say something defensive.
Itâs quick, technically. Barely more than a press of his mouth to hers, warm and lazy and smug at the corner because he can probably feel the way she melts by half an inch the second his hand settles there.Â
But it does something ridiculous inside her anyway. Something bright and helpless and fluttering low in her stomach. She kisses him back without meaning to make anything of it, but he smiles against her mouth, and thatâs somehow worse.
When he lets her go, she blinks down at him. âYouâre very annoying after sex.â
âBefore too.â
âTrue.â
âDuring, though?â
She pauses, letting her eyes move over his face with theatrical consideration. âTolerable.â
Garrettâs eyebrows lift. âTolerable?â
âMhm.â
âThatâs crazy, considering the volume you were using ten minutes ago.â
She gasps and shoves at his chest, but he catches her wrist before she gets far, laughing low in his throat, the sound moving under her palm. âGarrett.â
âWhat?â
âYouâre so full of yourself.â
âEvidence-based confidence, baby.â
She rolls her eyes, but the baby lands anyway, soft and warm and stupidly effective in the middle of all that cocky shit. Which is exactly the problem. Garrett could say something that made her want to smother him with his own pillow and then two seconds later say baby like it belonged in his mouth, like he hadnât even had to think about it.
He gives her ass a lazy pat and exhales, long and reluctant, glancing toward the clock on the nightstand. âI gotta get up.â
Her brows draw together. âWhy?â
âBecause I told Coach Iâd be at the rink early.â
âItâs nighttime.â
âI'm captain.â He shifts under her, and she makes a small noise of protest before she can stop herself, which makes his mouth twitch again. âDonât start.â
She pouts. âI didnât say anything.â
âYou made a sound.â
âIâm allowed to make sounds.â
âClearly.â
She narrows her eyes at him, but Garrettâs already moving, careful and slightly awkward with the sheet and her limbs and the fact that she has absolutely no interest in helping.Â
He sits up, easing her off his chest and onto the mattress, and she flops onto her back with the kind of boneless indignation only a girl who has just been thoroughly ruined and then abandoned for hockey can really commit to.
The air cools instantly where his body was, and she hates that too. Hates the little absence of heat along her side. Hates, more than anything, the fact that she notices.
Garrett gets out of bed naked, completely unbothered by the fact that he looks like that in lamplight and has the audacity to walk away from her with broad shoulders and hockey-built thighs and his back scratched to hell.Â
She hadnât realised sheâd done quite that much damage. There are red marks dragged down over the muscle beside his spine and along one shoulder blade, bright against his skin, some already fading, some very much not. The sight sends a hot little pulse through her, equal parts pride and embarrassment and something so pleased it probably needs to be medically reviewed. She bites her bottom lip to stop the grin. It doesnât work.
Garrett bends to grab his boxers from the floor and pulls them on, then glances back over his shoulder because he feels her looking. âWhat?â
She shrugs against the pillow, still grinning. âNothing.â
His eyes narrow slightly. âThat face is obviously not nothing.â
âItâs nothing.â
âYou look way too proud of yourself for nothing.â
âIâm just lying here.â
âYeah,â he says, turning enough that she gets the full benefit of his expression now: amused, suspicious, a little too aware of his own effect on her and absolutely not above using it. âThatâs the problem.â
She lets her gaze drag over him again on purpose this time, slow enough to be rude, from the messy curls to the bare chest to the low waistband of his boxers, then back to his face. Garrett watches her do it.Â
His mouth parts like heâs about to say something, then closes again. His jaw shifts. He looks briefly toward the ceiling, as if appealing to God, Coach, or whatever patron saint governs self-control in sexually compromised hockey players.
She giggles. âWhat?â
Garrett exhales through his nose. âNothing.â
âNo, what?â She props herself lazily up on one elbow, sheet slipping down just enough that his eyes drop despite his clear attempt to be a disciplined athlete with somewhere to be. âWhat did I do?â
He gives her a look.
She widens her eyes, all fake innocence and bare shoulders and hair messy around her face in ways she knows are not helping him. âIâm not doing anything!â
âYou look like that,â Garrett says, accusingly.
She glances down at herself like this is new information. âLike what?â
âLike that.â His hand moves vaguely in her direction because apparently language has left him. âAllâŚâ He stops. Swallows. Drags a hand over his mouth. âFuck.â
The grin takes over her whole face now, slow and delighted. âGarrett Graham. Are you objectifying me?â
âIâm trying very hard not to.â
âHow noble.â
âIâm a good guy.â
âYouâre currently staring at my boobs.â
His eyes snap up. âIâm flawed.â
She laughs, and the sound loosens something in his face. For one second he just looks at her, standing there beside the bed in his boxers with scratches down his back and his hair wrecked by her fingers, caught between leaving and crawling right back over her.Â
The room feels warmer for it. Smaller. The mess of it suddenly not messy so much as lived-in for one strange little slice of time â her clothes with his, her phone on his nightstand, his handprint still warm somewhere on her hip, the argument hanging around but no longer sharp enough to cut.
Then he sighs like sheâs personally ruined his life. âIâm gonna be late.â
She frowns immediately, because the words take a second to land in the right order. âNo, youâre not.â She rolls onto her side and reaches for her phone on the bedside table, fingers searching blindly until they close around it. The screen lights her face blue for a second. âYou have plenty ofâ oh.â
The oh comes out because Garrettâs moved while she was checking the time. Fast. Smooth. Infuriatingly athletic, even in boxers, which feels unfair given the circumstances.
One second sheâs looking at the screen. The next his hands are around her thighs, warm and sure, tugging her down the mattress until her hips slide to the edge of the bed and the phone slips from her hand. She drops it with a soft thump into the sheet, breath catching in a little startled laugh as he steps between her knees.
âGarrett.â
âYeah?â
âWhat are you doing?â
He lifts one of her ankles first, then the other, setting them over his shoulders like he has all the time in the world and not a single intention of using it responsibly. His hands settle against her thighs, thumbs pressing in just enough to make her stomach flip.
The lamplight catches on his grin when he looks down at her, all cocky mouth and dark, focused eyes and the kind of heat that makes every smart thing she might have said disappear before it reaches her tongue.
âIâm gonna be late,â he says.
For a second she just stares at him. Then her smile spreads, helpless and bright and already half-breathless. She lets her head fall back against the mattress, laughter spilling out of her as her fingers curl into the rumpled comforter. âYouâre gonna be late.â
Garrettâs mouth curves, pleased, and his hands slide a little higher on her thighs.
âYeah,â he says, like this is simply what the night has decided and who is he to argue with circumstances. âDefinitely.â
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