⋆⭒˚.⋆ cards for the dead - spencer reid x bombshell!reader
⟢ 𝐬𝐲𝐧𝐨𝐩𝐬𝐢𝐬 the midnight doorman leaves playing cards on dead women. you leave your pride at spencer reid’s door at two in the morning and your dignity somewhere between kissing him and convincing yourself you never should have.
⟢ 𝐰𝐚𝐫𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬 +18 MDNI, typical criminal minds content, atp they are both so down bad it’s almost disgusting, reader is so impulsive it’s almost pathetic, bantering, sexual tension, making out, dry humping, reader is the biggest self sabotager known to man, fearful avoidant, spencer reid is actually an angel fallen from the sky i can’t :(
⟢ 𝐚𝐮𝐭𝐡𝐨𝐫𝐬 𝐧𝐨𝐭𝐞 okay so im like partially sorry for this but like FINALLY (even though from here it only goes down)
𝐛𝐨𝐦𝐛𝐬𝐡𝐞𝐥𝐥!𝐚𝐮 𝐦𝐚𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐭 | 𝐬𝐩𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐞𝐫 𝐫𝐞𝐢𝐝 𝐦𝐚𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐭
you landed in new york at 12 a.m after the jet touched down in a blur of sleet and city lights, the kind of cold that settled deep into your bones and stayed there.
the unsub had already claimed his fifth victim in six days—a twenty-six-year-old marketing assistant from chicago found strangled in her room at the warwick hotel, laid carefully across the bed with her arms folded like she’d simply drifted off to sleep.
a single red rose rested beside her head. an ace of hearts had been tucked between her fingers.
same signature. same staging. same eerie sense of control.
the nypd had called the bau after the second victim. by the fifth, the press had already christened him the midnight doorman.
he targeted mid-range hotels across midtown and the theater district, slipping in unnoticed by posing as maintenance staff or using stolen master keycards. he struck between midnight and four in the morning. never the same hotel twice. never the same floor. no fingerprints. no dna. just roses and playing cards left behind like grotesque little valentines.
hotch made the call before the wheels of the jet had fully stopped rolling: no flying back to quantico until the case was closed.
the hotel they booked for the team sat on west 44th, old art-deco architecture with dim gold lighting and elevators that groaned every time the doors opened. the hallways smelled faintly of old wood, carpet cleaner, and stale room-service coffee.
normally you might’ve appreciated the aesthetic.
right now, you just wanted a shower and unconsciousness.
your overnight bag dragged behind you as you stepped off the elevator onto the eighth floor, keycard pinched between your fingers
you stared at the brass numbers for a second too long, exhaustion making everything feel weirdly surreal. like the universe itself had looked at the state of your mental stability lately and decided to make it worse for entertainment purposes.
because things with spencer hadn’t exactly been bad since the storage closet incident. they’d just been— different.
not enough for anyone else to notice. you still bickered. still had coffee together every morning at his desk, still nudged his shoulder during briefings when he started rambling too long.
but underneath it, there was some weird tension now.
you felt it every time he stood too close to you. every time his hand brushed yours and you didn’t pull away immediately. every time he looked at you for half a second too long before catching himself.
and the worst part— the truly horrifying part, was that you weren’t stopping it.
instead, you’d been letting it happen slowly, helplessly, like standing in the ocean and pretending not to notice the tide pulling you under.
because now he was everywhere in your head.
the carnations on the mug sitting at your apartment. the stupid annotated book. the scarf. the grocery store. the way he’d tucked your hair behind your ear in that closet like it was the most natural thing in the world—
or maybe they did. maybe your standards for friendship were just fundamentally broken. honestly, at this point, who knew.
but friends definitely weren’t supposed to almost kiss each other while trapped during an active case.
friends weren’t supposed to make your entire nervous system malfunction because they looked at you too gently.
and spencer looked at you gently all the time now.
he noticed things in a way nobody else ever had. tiny things— the way your voice changed when you were tired or stressed. the specific milk to coffee ratio you liked. the way you picked at your sleeves when you were anxious. how you got loud when talking about this that excited you, but never seemed to mind the way other people have.
there was never anything dramatic about the way he cared. no grand declarations. no performative gestures.
just spencer, making room for himself inside your life so naturally you hadn’t realized it was happening until suddenly he was woven into everything.
and now you couldn’t get him out.
you caught yourself thinking about him constantly, against your will. when you made coffee. when you saw carnations outside a bodega three days ago. when you woke up cold and instinctively reached for the scarf he’d given you.
because somewhere along the line, your feelings for spencer had stopped feeling hypothetical.
they’d become real enough to ruin you.
you unlocked your hotel room and stepped inside with a tired sigh, dropping your bag beside the dresser.
the shower you took helped for approximately seven minutes.
afterward, you stood in the tiny hotel bathroom brushing through damp hair while steam curled against the mirror, trying very hard not to think about the fact that spencer was on the other side of the wall.
probably reading case files. probably still awake.
probably wearing glasses low on his nose with that concentrated little frown he got when he was thinking too hard.
you groaned softly at yourself, dragging both hands down your face.
this was getting ridiculous.
you rubbed vanilla lotion onto your arms with more force than necessary, changed into sleep shorts and an oversized sweater, then climbed into bed with your phone like it might distract you from your own brain.
your eyes slid to the connecting door between your rooms. the thin barrier of wood suddenly felt like it could crumble under the weight of your own indecision.
get sleep like a normal person.
you rolled onto your side and pulled the blankets higher, determined to force yourself unconscious if necessary.
five minutes passed. then ten. then twenty.
instead, your brain kept replaying moments you absolutely did not need to be replaying at two in the morning.
spencer’s hand on your hips. his thumb against your cheek— the way his voice had sounded when he’d said please stop moving.
your stomach flipped violently.
“oh my god,” you groaned into your pillow.
the room was dark except for the streetlight bleeding through the curtains, casting pale gold shadows across the carpet. your pulse thudded annoyingly hard beneath your ribs.
and then you were on your feet.
crossing the room barefoot and half-asleep, every step quiet against the hardwood floor.
your fingers hovered near the connecting door and hesitated.
this was a terrible idea. you reminded yourself
it was unprofessional and reckless and weird.
but, of course, you knocked anyways.
and the second your knuckles left the door, regret rushed in full force
what the hell were you doing?
it was almost two in the morning and you had work tomorrow—
you could still run back to your room before he answered. pretend this never happened. fake your own death. transfer divisions.
the doorknob turned before you could decide.
spencer opened the door wearing loose flannel pants, socks, and a soft charcoal t-shirt that looked like he’d slept in it. his curls were messy, like he’d been dragging frustrated hands through them for hours, and his eyes were still heavy with exhaustion.
your throat went dry instantly because of course spencer reid looked devastating at two in the morning standing barefoot in a hotel doorway.
but then his gaze landed on you and visibly stalled.
you didn’t look anything like your usual work version of yourself. you looked soft and unguarded and completely at ease and something about his twisted his gut inside out.
no makeup. no sharp eyeliner or practiced confidence. just damp hair, the distinct smell of vanilla you carried, glasses slipping down your nose, oversized sweater hanging off one shoulder.
he didn’t know you wore glasses.
his gaze dragged over every inch of you like he couldn’t stop himself, pupils blowing wide in the low light, throat working once as if the sight of you like this short-circuited something in that brilliant brain of his.
“uh,” you started intelligently.
“i couldn’t sleep,” you blurted out, survival instincts kicking in all at once. “i have thoughts— about the case and they wouldn’t stop and i needed to run them by someone immediately before i lost my mind.”
his mouth twitched, fighting a smile that made your stomach drop straight through the floor.
“thoughts,” he repeated softly, voice rough with sleep.
you pressed a hand dramatically over your face. “don’t do that.”
“repeat things back to me like that. it makes me sound insane.”
that finally earned you a quiet laugh.
god, that sound was becoming a problem.
“come in,” he said gently, stepping aside.
you brushed past him before you could overthink it, instantly surrounded by the familiar scent of him—coffee, paper, cedarwood, hotel soap.
his room looked exactly like you expected. case files spread neatly across the desk. two books stacked beside the bed. glasses resting near an open notebook.
you hated how fond the sight made you feel.
“so,” he said quietly as the door clicked shut behind you, “what kind of thoughts are we discussing?”
you sat down heavily on the edge of his bed before your legs could betray you entirely.
“the unsub,” you said, forcing yourself back into profiler mode. “the posing. the ace of hearts. i keep thinking there’s something we’re missing.”
your voice softened despite yourself. “every time i close my eyes, i see that hotel room again.”
spencer’s expression shifted immediately. concern replaced amusement so quickly it made your chest ache.
he stayed standing for a second, just looking at you. taking you in the same way he always did lately—carefully, attentively, like he was trying to solve something.
you slid down the side of the bed with a small thump and spencer stayed standing for a moment, still looking at you— glasses, damp hair, bare legs, all of it.
“you could’ve just texted,” he murmured, trying to actually grasp why your at his door at 2am.
“i know,” you breathed, looking down at your hands.
his gaze flicked briefly to your mouth before returning to your eyes so fast you almost thought you imagined it.
except you didn’t imagine it.
nothing between you felt imaginary anymore.
“i just,” you exhaled shakily “i didn’t want to text.”
spencer leaned slightly against the desk, arms folding loosely across his chest, but his eyes never left your face.
and you realized with sudden horrifying clarity that you were alone with him in a dark hotel room at two in the morning because your first instinct when your thoughts got too loud was him.
“you’re being weird,” you said quickly, because deflection was still your strongest survival skill.
spencer blinked once. “i’m being weird?”
“yes.” you pointed at him accusingly. “you’re doing the thing.”
his eyebrows lifted slightly, clearly fighting a smile now.
you huffed, grabbing the files from his bed and spreading them across the carpet because looking at him suddenly felt impossible.
“stop looking at me like that,” you muttered.
suddenly you weren’t tired anymore.
hours later, a lopsided paper bag filled with half-stale vending machine chips, pretzels, and something that might’ve been candy at some point in its life laid in front of you.
spencer had given you a deeply judgmental look when you dumped the contents onto the carpet, but he still followed your lead when you dragged the case files off the desk and spread them across the floor like some deranged sleepover version of investigative work.
“very professional,” he murmured dryly, folding himself down beside you, long legs crossing awkwardly beneath him.
“oh, bite me. this is premium investigative fuel.” you tossed a pretzel at him. “come to think of it, the fbi should actually reimburse me for this.”
he tried to catch the next pretzel you tossed his way and failed spectacularly. the pretzel bounced off his chest and landed directly on top of a crime scene photo.
you glanced sideways at him for half a second before a snort burst out of you.
spencer blinked. “i was distracted.”
“by what? basic motor skills?”
the night settled around you after that— slow and strange and softer than it should’ve been considering you were surrounded by murder files and fluorescent hotel lighting.
and at first, you actually worked.
you traded theories in low voices, shoulders brushing every time one of you reached for the same folder. spencer kept stealing your highlighter without realizing it. you kept stealing the small watermelon gummies from his hand even though there were plenty left from the bag.
spencer leaned forward beside you, tracing something along a timeline with his finger.
“so statistically speaking,” he began, “if the unsub continues selecting hotels based on proximity to subway lines rather than star rating, then the probability of the next strike—”
“spencer,” you interrupted immediately, “if you finish that sentence with one more statistic, i’m actually going to lose my mind.”
“It’s two-thirty in the morning”
“that doesn’t make it less relevant.”
you turned to look at him fully then, incredulous, and the expression on his face— so earnest, so stubbornly sincere— completely broke you.
“well contrary to popular belief, i can’t keep up with your genius mind. some of us are actually human you know,”
he shrugged, looking down and fumbling with one of his couldn’t, face screwed into a pout and something in you just snapped.
maybe it was the hours, maybe it was the fact that the feeling inside you right now was so vivid and electric that you couldn’t seem to control yourself.
so you couldn’t help it. a laugh exploded out of you— loud, unrestrained, full-bellied in a way you never let yourself laugh.
you doubled over backwards, head dropping to the mattress as the sound kept rolling out of you, shoulders shaking, eyes watering, the kind of laugh that comes from somewhere deep and unguarded and completely uncontrollable.
spencer stared at you, completely floored.
his eyes went wide, lips parted like he’d never seen anything more beautiful in his entire life. he watched the way your whole face lit up, the way your shoulders shook.
something in his chest cracked open at the sight.
a small smile tugged at his mouth first. then another. and suddenly he was laughing too— quiet at first, warm and surprised, before it opened into something fuller.
eventually the laughter faded into softer remnants—small breaths, lingering smiles, the occasional shake of your shoulders when one of you looked at the other again.
your chest still ached from it, cheeks sore, eyes glassy with leftover tears. his shoulder stayed warm where it pressed against yours, both your heads tipped back against the mattress.
“you know,” you said quietly, eyes fixed on a spot on the roof. “i fell like things have been kinda weird lately.”
the words slipped out before you could stop them.
and beside you, spencer stilled. just enough that you felt it. and just enough that you immediately regretted opening your mouth.
“how come?” he asked looking at you. but your gaze remained on the ceiling.
“we just haven’t—“ you looked back down at your hands. “you know what? forget I said that.”
“no,” he insisted softly, staring at the files as if they were staring back. “they have.”
you looked over at him slowly.
his eyes stayed on the scattered files in front of him at first, lashes low, fingers absently folding the corner of a page over and over again.
“we never talked about— uh what happened,” he added carefully.
he’s taking about the closet. of course that’s what he meant.
heat crawled instantly up your neck.
you tried for humor because that was safer. “there wasn’t exactly a lot of room for discussion in there.”
a quiet huff of laughter left him, but it faded quickly.
“I didn’t know if you wanted to pretend it never happened.” he shifted. “i still don’t.”
that stung more than it should have, because the truth was— you had tried. you’d tried so hard.
you’d shoved every thought of him into neat little boxes labeled don’t ruin this and absolutely not and he deserves better than your mess.
yet none of it had worked.
“did you?” your voice came out quieter than intended. “want to pretend it didn’t happen i mean,”
finally, spencer looked at you and suddenly the room felt small all over again.
“no,” he admitted, plain and simple.
the honesty in it nearly knocked the air from your lungs.
there was nothing smooth about spencer when it came to feelings. there were no games or manipulation. he said things, truthfully and honestly, like they physically hurt to hold inside.
you stared at him for a long second, pulse beginning to hammer harder and harder beneath your ribs.
“you’re looking at me weird again,” you muttered weakly.
his brows pulled together slightly. “i don’t think i am.”
you opened your mouth and then closed it again because how were you supposed to explain this?
“i don’t know,” you whispered. “like you’re trying to solve me or slowly pick me apart,”
his expression softened instantly. “i’m not trying to solve you.”
“then what are you doing?”
for a second, he didn’t answer. he just searched your eyes again, for what you weren’t sure, but it was causing your heart to climb into your throat.
he muttered. “trying to figure out if this is ruining our friendship.”
the room went painfully still.
you could hear the radiator humming softly near the window. traffic somewhere far below and the uneven rhythm of your own breathing.
“it’s not,” you said too quickly.
spencer held your gaze. “you answered that really fast.”
“but things are different.”
that’s probably the one thing you hated about spencer other than the fact that he knew insanely well how to win at a debate.
you hated that he noticed everything and you hated even more that part of you liked him for it. a lot.
the air between you changed in an instant— thick, heavy, electric. his eyes dropped to your mouth for a fraction of a second before flicking back up, darker now.
you suddenly forgot what you were saying
your heart slammed against your ribs so hard you could barely breathe. neither of you moved. neither of you looked away.
something clicked and shifted. as though all the oxygen in the room had narrowed to this single point between you.
his breathing changed, just slightly deeper now and suddenly you became hyperaware of everything.
the warmth of his shoulder against yours. the way his knee brushed yours where you sat tangled among papers and snack wrappers. the quiet look in his eyes that had stopped feeling purely friendly weeks ago.
spencer’s voice came out low enough to barely exist.
“i don’t really know how to go back to before.”
there was a second where you just looked at him.
“you make this very difficult,” you whispered.
a tiny, nervous smile pulled at his mouth. “i could say the same thing about you.”
that should’ve made you laugh.
your eyes fell to his lips, almost against your will. against every promise you’d made yourself about boundaries and friendship and not getting burned.
and that’s when you knew. you were absolutely, utterly screwed.
slowly, as if he were approaching a frightened animal—his hand lifted toward your face. like he was still giving you room to stop this.
his fingers brushed lightly against your jaw, barely there, warm and tentative enough to make your chest ache.
“tell me if this is a bad idea,” he whispered.
and the fact that even now, even looking at you like that, spencer’s first instinct was still to make sure you felt safe made something in you crack open.
your hand closed gently around his wrist, not to stop him but just to hold onto something.
“no,” you breathed shakily,
his eyes searched yours once more.
and then, impossibly, inevitably, you closed the distance.
the kiss was so soft it almost hurt.
his mouth barely grazed yours, warm and tentative, a whisper of breath and intention. your heart stuttered in your chest, a wild, aching thing that had been waiting for this exact moment for far too long.
the hand at your jaw trembled slightly as he kissed you again, still gentle, still slow, and something about the restraint in it nearly ruined you.
your fingers curled tighter around his wrist.
and when your lips parted against his, the breathy sigh you made was tiny and barely audible, but it went straight through him.
his lips parted against yours, gentle and exploring, tasting like the sour watermelon gummies from the vending machine in the hallway he knew were your favourite.
the kiss deepened inch by inch, mouths lingering longer each time until gentle stopped being enough. spencer’s hand slid into your damp hair, tentative turning desperate so slowly you almost didn’t notice it happening.
your hands found his chest, fingers curling into the fabric of his sweater as if to anchor yourself.
his breathing grew uneven against your mouth. your own pulse turned frantic and the careful little kisses became hungry in seconds, years of tension finally snapping open between you.
all the stolen glances across the bullpen, every almost-touch in the jet, every late-night conversation where you’d both danced around what you really wanted — it all poured out now.
spencer groaned quietly into your mouth, the sound vibrating through you, low and needy in a way that sent heat rushing straight between your legs.
you pushed into him, breathless, climbing into his lap almost unconsciously, driven entirely by instinct and the overwhelming need to be closer.
your knees settled on either side of his hips, and the moment you sank down, you felt as if it were the only place you’d ever want to be.
spencer’s hands slid along your thighs, slow and reverent, like he was memorizing every inch of you.
his palms were warm, slightly calloused from years of turning pages and gripping pens, and the contrast, hot and rough against your soft almost buttery skin made your breath hitch.
they traveled upward, settling at your waist, fingers digging in with a grip that felt both possessive and desperate, as if he couldn’t remember how to let go.
it made your head spin. made heat rush hot and sudden to your ears, your cheeks, the back of your neck.
“god,” he breathed against your lips.
you kissed him harder for it.
your hips accidentally rolled against the hard line of him once without meaning to, but the they did, the sound it tore from his throat was low and strangled, almost broken.
it shot straight through you, pulling an answering flood of heat between your legs so intense it was almost humiliating.
your body betrayed you instantly, aching, wanting in a way that felt too big, too raw, for the careful distance you’d both maintained for so long.
his lips chased yours like he couldn’t get enough air unless it came from you. the kiss turned even deeper and messier in a way that made your head spin.
tongues brushing, breaths catching, every press of his mouth against yours saying things neither of you had managed to survive saying out loud yet.
your own mouth ached with how much you wanted, how much you were finally taking. perfect didn’t even come close.
this wasn’t perfect. it was ruinous. addictive and entirely inevitable.
and you knew, without question, you’d never recover from it.
your lips only broke apart long enough to drag in a shaky breath, but even that felt wrong— like oxygen was getting in the way of you kissing him again.
his response was a low sound you’d never heard from him, somewhere between a groan and a plea, vibrating against your chest as his hands tightened at your waist instinctively, pulling you down more firmly into his lap.
you rolled your hips again, couldn’t help it, chasing the friction, the heat, the devastating drag of him right where you needed him most. and the jolt of pleasure that snapped through you stole the air from the room.
spencer’s head dropped back against the edge of the couch, throat bared, jaw taut, eyes fluttering shut like he was clinging to the very edge of sanity.
and god, he looked beautiful like that.
wrecked and beautiful and yours.
spencer’s hands slipped just barely beneath the hem of your shorts, fingertips brushing the sensitive skin of your inner thighs so cautiously it almost hurt.
like he was asking. like he’d always ask.
and something inside you cracked open in the worst possible way.
you realized that suddenly this wasn’t just physical anymore. it wasn’t just heat and kissing and wanting.
it was spencer. sweet, devastating spencer, looking at you like you mattered. like this mattered to him.
like this was more than just a physical outlet and that the depths of his care for you reached farther than you had anticipated.
your brain stalled violently and everything inside you locked up so fast it felt physical.
one second you were melting into him, the next your entire body went rigid with panic so sharp it stole the air from your lungs.
your breath caught hard in your throat. your hips stuttered. your hands, which had been tangled in his curls a moment ago, slowed against his shoulders.
you didn’t mean to do it. you didn’t want to hurt him. you didn’t want to yank the moment away like it was something dirty, but your mind betrayed you anyway
this was the exact point where things stopped being reversible.
you knew yourself well enough to understand that.
if you kept kissing him like this, if you let him touch you the way you already desperately wanted him to, there would be no pretending afterward that this was casual or survivable or temporary.
he wasn’t temporary to you anymore— he never was.
you’d spent years learning how to survive people wanting pieces of you— wanting just your body or your attention. maybe even the version of you that was easy and bright and uncomplicated.
but spencer looked at you like he wanted the parts no one ever stayed long enough to hold. and that was so much scarier.
people could leave after sex, people could lose interest, people could change their minds. that all you knew.
but if spencer got close enough to actually break your heart, you weren’t sure there’d be enough of you left afterward to recover cleanly.
and that fear hit all at once, fast and ugly and familiar.
your mouth softened instinctively against his, the kiss slowing despite how badly every part of you still wanted him.
you pulled back and rested your forehead against his instead, breaths tangled together, your chest rising too quickly.
if you kept going, you were going to give him everything.
and some part of you wanted to.
you wanted it so badly it hurt. your body begged for it, your heart ached for it.
and he noticed. of course he noticed.
his eyes opened at once, hazy warmth sharpening into concern in less than a second. his hands froze where they rested against your thighs— not pulling away, not pushing farther— just still.
the air between you, which had been thick and electric and perfect, turned sour in an instant.
you hated it. you hated yourself for it.
“hey,” he whispered, voice so gentle it hurt. his thumbs brushed the tiniest circles against your skin, soothing without expectation, like his first instinct even now was comfort instead of frustration. “you okay?”
you opened your mouth, but nothing coherent came out. your chest was too full of that old ugly static that always showed up the second things started to feel real.
you wanted to lean back in, wanted to kiss him again until the fear drowned, but your body wouldn’t let you. it had already decided this was too much, too fast, too close to the line where people usually took and never gave back.
“yeah, i just—” your voice caught badly. “i uhm—”
you knew you couldn’t explain it without sounding cruel.
spencer just waited. he didn’t demand answers. didn’t guilt you. didn’t even try to kiss you again.
you couldn’t explain it without sounding cruel.
couldn’t tell him that the reason you were pulling away had nothing to do with not wanting him and everything to do with wanting him enough to destroy yourself over it.
spencer just waited. hedidn’t demand answers, didn’t guilt you. he didn’t even try to kiss you again.
he just looked at you with that soft, open concern that made your chest ache harder than the making out ever had.
and somehow that made panic claw even sharper up your throat.
you pulled back slowly, like maybe if you moved carefully enough it wouldn’t feel so much like retreat.
his jaw flexed once, hard enough for you to notice, but he never tried to stop you. he never tightened his grip and most definitely never made you feel trapped.
the silence between you burned, louder than any confession, heavier than any word.
and although you were still straddling him, still close enough to feel every uneven breath leaving his chest, you suddenly felt impossibly far away from him.
you could feel him watching you carefully now, searching your face like he was trying to understand where you’d gone.
the worse part was you didn’t even know the answer to that yourself.
all you knew was that one second you’d been kissing him like he was oxygen, and the next your brain had flashed violently forward into every possible future where this ended badly.
because spencer loved deeply. completely. and you knew that already.
but that’s exactly why you weren’t sure you trusted yourself not to break something fragile if he handed it to you.
so you forced yourself to move.
slowly, painfully, like peeling yourself away from a magnetic pull your body still desperately wanted to obey.
your palms pressed lightly to his chest as you created distance that felt immediately wrong.
spencer made the smallest sound at the loss of contact. not enough to stop you but just enough that you heard it.
“i—uh…” the words wouldn’t come together properly. “we should probably…”
but there was nothing to finish the sentence with. no excuse strong enough to justify why you were pulling away when your pulse was still in sync with his.
you slid shakily off his lap instead, fixing your glasses even though they weren’t crooked, tucking strands of hair behind both your ears and smoothing your sweater with trembling hands just to give yourself something to do besides look at him.
and it wasn’t the rejection that hurt spencer most. it was the way you suddenly couldn’t meet his eyes afterward.
spencer sat there, chest heaving, still tasting you on his lips, and felt the ground shift beneath him.
you could practically see him trying to recalibrate in real time.
because he did understand, at least partly. and that was the awful thing about him— he always paid enough attention to understand.
but understanding didn’t stop the hurt from flickering briefly across his face anyway.
“right,” he said softly, voice rasping in a way you couldn’t mistake for indifference. “of course.”
you nodded, tight, still not meeting his eyes, and the space between you stretched wide enough to drown in.
you didn’t want to leave. but your fear had already driven you out the door.
