One thing I think most people don’t realize about working in medicine is that a large part of it is customer service except every member of the public you interact with is having one of the worst days of their life.
"Across the Gaza Strip, at least 2.15 million people, or 96 percent of the population, are facing high levels of food shortages, with one in five people facing starvation. (...) Fresh produce, including cucumbers and tomatoes, are among the most expensive after Israel destroyed most of Gaza’s farms, wells and greenhouses." (source)
Prices of basic goods fluctuate depending on how much aid has been let through on any given day. Right now though:
Flour (25kg): $150 in the south, $1,000 in the north. Before the war it was $9
12 eggs: $32 in the south, $73 in the north. Before the war it was $3.50
Cucumbers (1kg): $8 in the south, $150 in the north. Before the war it was $1
Tomatoes (1kg): $12 in the south, $180 in the north. Before the war it was $1
Faten & her sister both have dietary restrictions and both need at least fresh produce on occasion in their diet. This is especially true for Faten's little sister, who's diet can be the difference between needing invasive surgery and not. Displacement and relentless bombing has stripped the family of their livelihoods. They have no choice but to rely on donations for basic survival, but donations have basically completely stalled. Please keep donating and sharing, even the smallest donations will make a huge impact. (vetted here, #289)
In just the little over a month since this was posted, things have gotten so, so, so much worse.
A sack of spoiled flour (or flour that has worms/weevils in it) is being sold for ~$260 (USD)
Clean flour can go for $300-$500 (USD) depending on availability
Faten's family are running dangerously low on food supplies (i.e., 2 tins of canned beans left), but the even greater threat to them now is the severe lack of water available to the family. (read more from Faten herself on this)
Please donate whatever you have to spare, this is really, really urgent
Currently: 79,381NOK -> $55 (USD) to raise to reach 80k
*NOK is weaker than USD/EURO. Even the smallest donation will take them a long way
tagging for reach beneath the cut, leave a reply if you'd like off though
content warnings: 18+ MDNI. public sex, oral (m), soft dom!rafe, facial. no descriptors of fmc. not proofread.
a/n: I wrote this in like 30 minutes after I woke up from a nap I took while working on my Scott fic (I promise chapter 2 is coming, it's just that my doc is over 55 pages long and I'm still not done lol). enjoy<33
-
“Y’want me to complete your outfit?” Rafe asked, glancing between his girlfriend and where he was driving the golf cart. It was late afternoon, but it was mid-summer - July 4th to be exact - so the sun was still high enough that they didn’t need the headlights.
She was sitting next to him in a tennis skirt with the side ties of her blue bikini sticking out, matching the bikini top she wore. Her skin was a light, sunburnt red from the last few days she spent with him in the sun, either at the golf course, the beach, or his pool. He glanced down at her crossed legs, her right foot lightly bumping his leg as they drove; she had visible tanlines of her normal strappy sandals that she replaced with her Birkenstocks for today.
She cocked her head in confusion, “What d’you mean?”
He tried to hide the smirk that was growing on his face, but he couldn’t. “You have red and blue . . . I can add the white.”
She gasped and hit his arm, but he didn’t miss the way her thighs tightened at his words and the way she shifted in her seat. “We’re in public!”
He pulled the golf cart to the side, parked in a way that anyone approaching would see the back of his head. He slid closer to her, knocking her leg back to the floor. His warm hand found its place on her thigh, squeezing it as he brought his lips to her ear, “Come on, baby . . . don’t you want me to make you pretty?”
He grinned into her hair as she bit her lip. “What if someone sees?”
“We’re at the last hole. No one around us; they’re all too busy fucking around back at the front or have all left to go watch fireworks or some bullshit.”
Truth was, she was ready to give in the second he mentioned it. Anything Rafe wanted, he got, and vice versa. She turned her head to capture his lips, feeling his triumphant grin against her face at his win. He immediately pushed his tongue into her mouth, effectively placing her under his spell. Her manicured hand found the front of his pants while he continued to handle her thigh. He grunted against her lips when she squeezed his length through his pants. He used his free hand to grab her wrist and move it to his belt, feeling her slender fingers under his pull the leather through the metal.
When she popped his button and lowered his zipper, Rafe broke the kiss. He spared another look around for her sake; he didn’t actually care if someone saw, but if she was truly concerned with it, he’d humor her.
He grabbed her hips and helped get her to her knees without hitting anything. He instantly split his legs open to make room for her, his knees extending from one end of the cart to the other.
She always forgot how godly he looked when she was on her knees, leaving her awestruck whenever she got in that position. He had an elbow drawn back over the seatback while his other hand brushed a few strands of hair that escaped her updo out the way.
She placed her hands on his thighs, absentmindedly applying pressure with her fingertips when he placed his hand under her chin to lift her gaze. His thumb ran over her lip, pulling her bottom one before letting it fall back and pressing his thumb into her mouth and onto her tongue. She immediately wrapped her lips around it, eyes fluttering closed for a moment at the action as she tasted his sweat. He pulled it out with a plop and spread her spit around on her lips as he whispered, “So fuckin’ pretty. All for me, huh?”
She nodded earnestly; everything and everyone outside of her and Rafe were an afterthought pushed far into the recesses of her mind. “Yes, Rafey. All for you. Only for you.”
His smirk showed the tip of one of his canines. “Good,” he simply stated before slapping her cheek. “Now suck.”
She whimpered at the stinging skin, thighs closing together. Her hands slid up his thighs before her fingers found the waistband of his underwear, tugging it down just enough to free his already hard cock. She looked up at him through her lashes when she pumped him, once, twice. She watched his Adam’s apple jump when a rumble escaped him. He adjusted his hips for better access. She felt the intensity of his gaze, the warning he was sending her if she teased any more. So she let the tip of his cock hit her outstretched tongue. She gave a few kitten licks before pulling off to spit onto his shaft.
“That’s it baby, that’s my good girl,” he praised, watching as she pumped her saliva up and down him before lowering her mouth to him. His cock was heavy on her tongue; he was big - huge. She felt her cheeks burn the longer she worked him, trying to accommodate his size. Spit bubbled from the corners of her mouth, rolling down his shaft to meet with the hair at his base that trailed up his abdomen.
She knew Rafe was getting impatient with himself, trying to let her take the reins and go her speed since they were so out of her comfort zone, but she could tell in the way he gave short thrusts that he was itching to take back control. Her hand that wasn’t cupping his balls found one of his, threading their fingers together. His thumb rubbed soft circles on her skin before she brought his hand to the back of her head.
He needed no more encouragement. He wrapped his hand around her updo and started to push her farther onto his dick. The deeper he felt himself pushing, the louder her noises got. She balled her fists, trying to focus her breathing through her nose that was now touching his curls. Her nostrils filled with the scent of his cologne and his sweat, prompting her to whimper around his cock. He thrust his hips up at the stimulation, making her gag in response. He pulled her off himself, her hands taking her place, twisting around him as she gasped for air. Once again, a smirk took over his face, this time at the sight of the string of spit still connecting the two and the tear tracks on her cheeks.
When she finally got enough air, he lowered her back down, starting a steady rhythm as he murmured praises to her between thrusts, “That’s it . . . doin’ so - fuckin’ - good for me. Y’know I love your fucking mouth.”
She hummed in response, relaxing her throat as he fucked into her. Rafe had a tell when he was about to finish; everytime, without fail, he would twitch in her mouth. At that, she pulled back, resisting Rafe’s attempts to bury himself back to the hilt in her throat. He relented his grip at her insistence, but kept his hand territorially on the back of her head as she once again brought her hands to jerk him.
Her words were breathy, as though she was still trying to fill her lungs with air as she spoke, “Y’wanted to make me pretty, Rafey. Do it.”
That snapped him into action. He tightened his grip again on her hair, preventing her from moving from her spot before slapping her hands away to replace with his own free one. She tucked her bottom lip between her teeth in anticipation, eyes closing as she listened to the sounds of him jerking himself off, grunts of her name on his lips. “Gonna cover you in my fuckin’ cum. I should make you walk around with it. Make sure everyone knows you’re mine.”
He finished with a heavy breath, ropes of his cum finding home on her face, with a few drops on her upper chest and breasts that began to drip down her sunburn-hot skin and into her bikini top. He tucked himself back into his pants and redid his belt, ordering her to stay still. He slid his phone out his pocket and snapped a photo of her before he used his thumb to wipe the line of his cum off her eye and gave her the okay to open them again. He thrust his thumb back into her mouth; she made quick work of cleaning it off.
Rafe ran a hand down her hair. “Told you I’d complete your outfit.”
“took twenty eight years of blood i was lost in to feel loved on my own birthday.”
aspen lee has spent the last two years proving to her peers that she was accepted to MIT for a reason. scott miller has spent the last year as a TA for Dr Muher, grading assignments for students that made him want to question the school's acceptance team. one misspoken sentence leads to scott meeting his match: both academically and romantically.
contents: misogyny, alcohol consumption, eventual smut [to be denoted], graphic depiction of injuries, scott is part of the army, check each chapter for individual warnings. as always, FMC has a name but no described features.
“you took a train to the south side of boston, you showed me where your old man stayed.”
w.c: around 7000
warnings: misogyny, extended writing of being trapped in an elevator, mention of pregnancy in medical setting, not well proofread.
-
Aspen rested her head on Scott’s shoulder as the Red Line railcar thundered back up across the Charles River. His arms were folded across his chest for the beginning of the ride, but his sleepy girlfriend had wedged her arms through his, intertwining her fingers into the hand closest to her. He busied his other hand with grabbing the sliding tupperware of leftovers her parents weighed them down with. It was a short train trip; Scott wasn’t sure how she was able to fall asleep and get so comfortable so fast. It must’ve been her plan from the moment he saw her heavy blinks after dessert.
When they finally got to their stop, he flexed his hand she was holding before shaking it, the movement making her grumble and lift her head. He pressed a chaste kiss to her hair before standing, her arms still wrapped around his. “This is our stop.”
She stood and let him guide her back to the street where the cool air started to wake her up. He let go of her hand to reposition himself on the outside; he flexed his hand in the absence of hers, but her warmth found him again quickly, without him having to ask.
They finally made it back to their shared apartment, their soon-to-be alma mater shining in the distance.
-
The two met when she overheard him bitching at an undergrad she was just helping about how he messed up a line of code and didn’t deserve the second chance to correct his homework for something as simple as a parenthesis. When the student asked what he could do to learn from his mistake, Scott looked through stacks of paper and pulled out a piece with lines of letters and numbers printed on it. “Find whoever this is, and hope they have pity on you to teach you.”
Aspen scoffed from behind her computer screen, recognizing the paper. She never understood why they had to print out coding homework, but Dr Muher was weird. Scott’s eyes narrowed in her direction; the other two students using Dr Muher’s TA’s Study Hour quickly gathered their things and bolted out the door.
“I’m sorry, is another student’s struggle funny to you?”
Aspen stopped typing and shut her laptop as though she had all the time in the world. She interlocked her fingers and rested her chin on them. “No, just that you’re using my work as an example and you don’t even know what I look like.”
Scott looked between the paper and the girl and before letting out his own scoff. “Yeah, I will not believe this is your work.”
She raised an eyebrow, “Why not? Please enlighten me.”
“This is too advanced to be a junior’s work.”
“This is a junior level class, is it not?”
“Yes, but-”
“The name on the paper is Aspen Lee, is it not?”
The TA’s hand tightened around the paper in anger at being defied.
She stood, palms resting on the table. “Why don’t you say what you’re thinking? That it can’t be me because I’m a girl. You’re the TA, why is it my job to teach my peers? I know the army doesn’t pay you shit, but that isn’t my fault. You don’t see my name on a fucking building here, and I’m not making it someone else’s problem.”
She zipped her backpack and wrapped her laptop in her arms. Just before she was out of the door she turned back, hand on the doorknob, “And by the way, his work is missing a bracket, not a parenthesis.”
-
A few weeks later, after very fiery glances being thrown between the two, Dr Muher called the two to her office hours. She sat with perfect posture as she looked across to the two biggest headaches of her entire teaching career, both with their arms crossed and scowls set deep in their faces. “I will not have my TA and my highest performing pupil glaring each other down every second of my class! I do not care what animosity you have for each other, but your rivalry is causing a rift to form in my classroom. You will both give apologies in front of the class for the way you two have behaved.”
Scott went to speak, but the stone coldness of Aspen’s voice lowered the temperature in the room, “No.”
Dr Muher pulled her head back in a mix of surprise and disbelief. “I’m sorry Ms Lee, but did you just say ‘no’?”
“I’m not apologizing when this is his fault.” She jutted her thumb in his direction.
He let out a groan, “What are you, five?”
Aspen rolled her eyes and swallowed hard, standing from her chair and throwing her bag over her shoulder. The professor held her hand up to Scott, warning him to stop, before turning her gaze back to Aspen, freezing her in place. “Ms Lee, I will not tolerate the environment you two have created in my classroom, you must understand this.”
Aspen’s voice was throaty, years of anger seeping into her words. “Why is it me who always has to ‘understand’? And speaking of ‘understanding,’ I thought you of all people would! You are the only woman on this goddamn computer science faculty, you know what it’s like having to prove yourself, downplay yourself, humble yourself, just to make the very essence of you palpable for the men in this field. You’re trying to tell me my work was good enough to rub in another student’s face until he saw that it was me who did it? And you expect me to just lay there and take it? I will not apologize to my peers for something that is not my fault, especially when I have yet to hear an apology from him! And if proving the point that the woman always gets the worse end of the deal requires me failing this class, that is something I am willing to do.”
-
Seven days later, Scott had not apologized and neither had Aspen. She was missing from all three following lectures. Just seeing her name as he transcribed attendance from everyone’s clicker made him grip his pencil to near breaking. After that third lecture, Scott was sitting at his desk in Dr Muher’s office, grading freshman coding assignments. He nearly threw his laptop after the 4th student in a row couldn’t make a circle turn 360 degrees. When Aspen walked in, he pressed the 0 key on his keyboard so hard that the student’s grade input as 000000000/10 and tanked their grade to a negative seven.
Her backpack hung off one shoulder, and she had a single piece of pink paper in her hand. She didn’t acknowledge Scott as she handed the paper over to the professor.
Dr Muher pulled her glasses off her head and perched them on her nose, pretending as if she needed to read what the paper said to know that the Pepto Bismol pink paper was a drop slip. She dropped the paper on her desk with a sigh, “Ms Lee, you are aware that dropping my class this close to the end of the year will impact your financial aid and your transcript?”
“This class isn’t even for my major, I took it as a free elective.”
The professor blinked, rubbing her eyes with her thumb and forefinger, “Remind me again why you are taking junior level C++ and are a . . . what major?”
“I’m here for coastal engineering. My programs are in MATLAB and Python. I just needed the A from this class. I’ll get it elsewhere. So, can you sign the slip?”
Dr Muher sighed again and sprawled her signature onto the slip. When the door shut behind Aspen, she turned to Scott, pointing in the direction Aspen disappeared to with the end of her glasses. “Fix this.”
-
The first flurries of winter were falling around Aspen as she made her way across campus and into the student union. The snow was a month early; it was only the beginning of November. It was early morning, the first class section still multiple hours away. She paid for a coffee and redirected herself to the elevators to go to the study rooms on the top floor.
An irritatingly tall man in a military uniform walked up next to her, freshly showered but still flushed from a workout. “May we talk?”
Aspen gave him a side glance, refusing to turn to him and have to look up, continuing to walk down the breezeway. “No.”
That made him falter. Scott pursed his lips and took a deep breath, summoning all of the patience he never knew he possessed. He took two steps to catch up with her, shoving his hand in the door of the elevator she had already made it to. His teeth were grit as he spoke, “Please, may we talk?”
“Why, Dr Muher threatened to give you a bad review to your Lieutenant?” She made eye contact with him through the mirrors that surrounded them as the elevator slowly ascended.
“You have to be such a dick all the time?”
Aspen finally looked at him, eyebrows lifted and eyes widened as if to say “oh, I’m the dick?” but couldn’t finish her sentence, the jolting of the elevator before it stopped prevented her from finishing. The fluorescent light above them flickered; the two turned their heads up towards it. “You have got to be fucking joking.”
She was nearest to the buttons, the two having left enough room for a squadron of kindergarteners to stand between them. Aspen pressed the open door button, hoping the stop was a fluke and the pair just hadn’t realized they were already at the 3rd floor.
The door did not open.
“Shocking.”
Aspen swung her head to glare at him. “And if we pressed the emergency call button and hadn’t pressed that, what would we have done if that was the fix?”
Scott narrowed his eyes back at her, shooing her away from the buttons. She tried to resist but his arm pushing her backwards against her shoulders was too strong and she stumbled to the corner he just vacated. His finger hovered against the emergency call button. “No smart comment about how I might tell whoever answers that there’s only one person who needs help?”
“What would they do when they came? Pry open the doors to get you out then snap them back shut and cut the cable line to let me fall to my death?” Aspen swiped open her phone with her free hand but only an SOS signal shined back at her.
Scott mumbled out a Jesus Christ at the morbid quip before pressing the button. The two sat in tense silence for a few seconds before a voice cracked through an unseen speaker. “University Police Department, what’s your emergency?”
“This is Staff Sergeant Scott Miller, a civilian and I-” Scott saw Aspen mouth civilian to herself and quietly snort out a laugh, “are in an unmoving elevator in the student union breezeway.”
Aspen rested her head against the wall with her eyes closed while he continued the call. The mirrors reflecting off each other creating infinite Scotts was too much for her to handle.
“Please prepare to be there for up to multiple hours, as we need to ensure there is nothing wrong with the wiring due to the weather. It is pertinent that you do not open the doors from the inside; the elevator may resume working on its own and can be deadly if one of you is caught between a floor and the elevator.”
The voice clicked off just before it could hear the two of them say, “Hours?”
Then the light went out.
-
It took only a half hour for Aspen to suck her coffee dry and begin to lose body heat. The breezeway elevator shafts were connected to the outside, meaning whatever temperature was outside translated to the inside. The box was slowly becoming an ice locker. Scott was still warm, fully dressed in his three uniform layers that kept in his body heat from his post-workout shower. Aspen looked through her bag multiple times, hoping to find an extra scarf or gloves but was out of luck each time. She breathed into her hands and rubbed them together before putting her hands in her armpits. She kept her head down to blow warm air onto herself.
A camouflage jacket hit her body before falling to the floor. She looked at Scott, who was sitting on the opposite corner of the elevator, feet planted and knees up. She lifted a brow in question.
“Put it on so you don’t die of hypothermia. If I get saved and you’re dead, the military police are going to have my ass.”
-
Aspen was still shivering under Scott’s military jacket. The metal of the elevator was absorbing more of the cold air from outside and turning the cube into a certified meat locker. She pulled out her textbooks and stacked them on the floor so the two of them could avoid putting their cores near the cold metal. She didn’t want to admit that it was Scott’s idea, but he had little to offer for them to sit on aside from cold, sweaty clothes in his duffle bag.
She curled into his jacket, trying to seal in any warmth left from him. Her knees were pulled to her chest and she dipped her head to meet them so her hot breath warmed up her skin through her pants.
After a few minutes, Scott noticed a decrease in her shuddering breathing movements. He nudged her side. “Are you still alive, Lee?”
She let out a grumble. “Yes, Miller. I think I am alive because if I was in hell, it wouldn’t be this cold.”
He snorted, “Going to hell, eh?”
She peaked out of her cocoon, only one eye visible to him. “If I die and you’re there, then yeah, I’m in hell.”
-
“What were you going to say?” Aspen asked, her voice muffled.
“What?”
“What you were chasing me to say.”
Scott sat in the silence that followed for a while. “I wanted to apologize.”
She pulled her head out the cocoon she made, brows knit in surprise.
It looked like it pained him to say it, but Aspen could tell there was sincerity in his words. There was no need for him to be as truthful as he was being. “I was an asshole to you that day in study hour, but I feel like you put words in my mouth. It made me angry - livid, so I figured if you saw me as the bad guy, I might as well let myself play the part.”
“What words?”
“You said I inherently valued your work less because you’re a woman - it isn’t and never was true. I knew that whoever Aspen Lee was, she was a woman, or at least identifying as one, according to MIT’s gradebook. The part that I couldn’t believe was that you were already there, helping him. I heard the way you spoke to that student, the way you pointed out his mistake but didn’t make him feel bad for it but didn’t baby him either. You knew that you were right and were unapologetic about it, but not mean. I’ve spent my entire time in the STEM field learning to cope with being belittled and scolded for a mistake. I think it’s why I do so well in the army - it’s the same shit.
“The company I work for outside of the military wants me to recruit talent in coding, C++ specifically. When I first saw your work, I thought you had to be a graduate student. I think that belief, that refusal to admit that someone younger than me could be so good at something I do day in and day out, prevented me from finding you. I’ve been trying to figure out who you are for months now. Dr Muher refused to introduce us, said something like we were too alike and would either bite each other’s heads off or . . .” Scott trailed off and cleared his throat, blinking away whatever memory came with what he just said, “All of that being said, I understand why you took what I said the way you did, especially here, at this school, but I would never devalue someone’s work based on their gender. What you heard in my voice wasn't misogyny. It was jealousy.”
A sudden wave of guilt washed over Aspen, causing her to hide her face again. She spent so many hours burning with hatred over him only to be wrong. “I guess I’m so used to being seen as someone who’s here to meet a rich man then do nothing with my degree once I graduate that I struggle to see people’s true intentions. And, there’s nothing wrong with doing that, but I’m just so tired of people seeing me and thinking they know my future while my male peers get asked what their aspirations are. Dr Muher is such an inspiration for me, and I felt so betrayed by her, like she was doing exactly what everyone else had. When I was in elementary and high school, I was in a STEM magnet school, and I felt so out of place, but when I’d go visit my grandmother in Oklahoma over the summers, I felt like I couldn’t belong there either. So, I’m sorry for my reaction. I think a lot of my anger was projection. But I am not sorry for the emotions I felt after."
Scott nodded, taking in her words. He extended a hand, “Truce?”
She wiggled her hand back into the sleeve of his jacket and shook it. “Truce.”
-
The door creaked and the elevator rumbled after a man shouted what Aspen thought was gibberish or possibly a German sneeze. SNECF. Her head shot up while Scott was already fully up and standing. She followed suit. The doors started to pry apart, the butt of a crowbar sticking out; whoever was prying was grunting with the amount of force it took. Scott kicked his steel toe boot into the crack the man made and positioned himself to push one side out, forcing the mechanisms in the elevator to open the other as well. The face of a plump man in a fire suit peered down at them. He was belly down on the ground, only a small sliver of the elevator was open to the 3rd floor. The rest of the door was blocked by the shaft.
He reached his hand out and waved her up, “Come on, Miss. We’ll get you up first.”
She abandoned her belongings but tried to take the jacket off herself to hand back to Scott but he shook his head, nodding in the direction of the fireman. “Least of my worries right now, come on, get up.”
She understood this was not a time for joking, nor was she in the mood for it, watching as Scott held open her only exit with his body. Aspen lifted her hands and the man took hold of her forearms, pulling her up with the help of another fireman. When she made it out, she felt like she entered a sauna. The heater on the third floor was working overtime, and she was thankful for it. She breathed out a sigh of relief, but her brow knit when she noticed the man who helped the fire chief get her out pick up an industrial fire extinguisher and take a few steps back from the elevator.
All she could see was Scott’s head, but through a tiny sliver of mirror she had access to, she saw a million versions of Scott take a shaky breath and reposition himself in the elevator doors, starfishing himself through them, palms out against the doors. Aspen looked between the two firemen, one who was not helping and another who was face to face with Scott and only held a crowbar between the doors. She quickly made her way over to the doors, but before she could grab a door and help keep it open, the man with the fire extinguisher grabbed her by the oversized jacket and flung her into the opposite wall with his full force. Her temple collided with the drywall, the thin material crumbing around her head as she collided with the stud. Scott leveled him with a glaze that Aspen couldn’t tell was anger or thanks. “If you two aren’t going to help, at least let me.”
“It is too dangerous, Miss.” The man who grabbed her said.
“You guys said you wouldn’t get us until it was clear.” She rubbed at her temple, grimacing as she pulled back and saw her hand coated in red.
No one responded.
Scott hoisted his legs up, holding the doors open with nothing but his hands and the crowbar, his knees rising to his chest. He took a second to breathe before lifting his legs to the patch of floor and sliding his body out, belly down on the floor. The second he let go, the doors snapped the crowbar in half with a ferocious thunder. Then the elevator fell down the shaft with a deafening crack, leaving a gaping hole in the wall. Aspen quickly wrapped her hands around Scott’s bicep, helping him off the floor, opting to not mention the bloody handprint she left on his shirt.
“Jesus Christ, you’re freezing cold.” Aspen immediately shrugged off his jacket and tried to hand it back to him. He dug in his pants pockets and pulled out a cloth, pressing it to her temple, hard. The two firemen were calling in the rest of UPD and whoever else the school deemed in need to handle the fallen elevator. The man who flung her earlier took position at one end of the hallway while the chief took position at the other to direct any passersby away.
He grabbed her by the shoulder with his free hand and walked her away from the gaping elevator shaft. He finally took his jacket from her as she took over applying pressure, sliding his arms through and trying not to react as the smell of cherry vanilla perfume filled his senses and as though there wasn’t a patch of her blood on the collar. Scott barely had time to zip his jacket back up before a man rounded the corner, shouting Scott’s name and title. It was clear he knew who was speaking; his feet shot together as he pivoted, his posture correcting itself, his chest puffing out, and his hands coming to his side.
Aspen took a step back as a man in his mid fifties approached. When he was about 6 steps away, he spoke again, “At ease, soldier.”
Scott’s hands came to rest behind his back and Aspen averted her eyes. It felt weird seeing Scott so obedient, so tame. Her wandering eyes found the elevator shaft; if she focused she could feel the cool breeze coming up it. It was pitch black in the gaping hole in the wall, the other elevator sitting pretty and untouched. No doubt there was caution tape already put up in the breezeway. She was certain that there would be crazy rumors about the incident on the school’s YikYak page.
But as she stared at the shaft, all her brain could play was different imagingings of Scott pulling himself out of there a second too late and going down with it. Her mind conjured up scenarios that made no sense: him headless, him bodiless, all different ways of him dead. All because he let her out first. She must’ve been staring for a while because when someone touched her arm, she blinked hard and turned to see Scott looking down at her.
“Sergeant Miller, bring this lady to an urgent care. No school affiliated doctors.” He turned to walk away but hesitated, turning back to Scott. “Get yourself checked too, while you’re there. Report back to me.”
“Yes, sir.”
She tried to protest, but his commanding officer had turned to another soldier who came up, giving orders.
“You okay?” He glanced between her and the elevator shaft.
She gave a half-hearted smile and nodded, “Yeah, yeah, I think so. You really don’t have to bring me to urgent care. I’m fine. It’s just bleeding a lot because it’s on my temple.”
He pursed his lips, eyes flickering from hers to the drywall dust sitting in her hair and the roll of blood down her cheek. He didn’t think she was aware there was a strip of blood on the exposed stud. “I cannot ignore an order from a commanding officer.”
-
The urgent care physician had eyes the size of saucers when he was taking down the reason for this visit. He started with Scott who kept a clenched jaw and flared nostrils nearly the entire time. He received a clean bill of health and a hand written and signed note stating he was allowed to continue duty as needed. Aspen on the other hand was given a doctor’s note excusing her from classes for the rest of the week for a minor concussion, only after a few too-nosy questions.
“I do want you to avoid screens and long periods of staring at boards and notebooks, so I’ll write a note excusing you. But Miss, are you pregnant?”
“I was stuck in an elevator for four hours, not an orgy.” Aspen was annoyed. She had already told the nurse that she was not pregnant and had to deny a urine test.
Scott let out a choked sound in the back, but the doctor pushed. “Exposure to the cold for that long can have an effect on a fetus. Are you positive you’re not pregnant?”
Aspen let out a scoff of disbelief. “Exposure to the cold that long can have an effect on me. How many times do I have to say I’m not pregnant until I’m believed? So unless you’re about to get on your knees and pray over my virgin womb for the second coming of Christ, then just write the fucking note.”
Scott gave her the keys to his truck once the doctor finally discharged them. He swiped his card as she climbed into his passenger seat. He joined her a minute later, their printed visit notes in hand. He handed her hers and she glanced over it and snorted before reading out loud, “Miss Lee presents to the clinic today with complaints of a possible concussion and extended cold exposure. Voiced complaints of mild double vision, ringing in bilateral ears, and nausea. Denies any slurred speech. Upon examination has poor eye tracking ability and has laceration on left temple. Cleaned and bandaged.”
“Sounds normal.”
“Yeah, until: Patient is argumentative and vulgar. Pregnancy status remains unknown.”
Scott took his hand off the gearshift, turning to her. “No way.” He’d glanced over his report earlier and the doctor had referred to him as ‘pleasant,’ something he hadn’t been called since his great-grandmother was alive.
Aspen held out the paper for him.
“You’re sure?”
She let out a belly laugh, shaking the paper for him to grab, “I think we were one more ‘are you pregnant?’ away from you watching me have a pap smear. No, I don’t care if you look.”
Scott looked over the report, “I’m taking you to a different urgent care.”
She waved her hand to dismiss the idea, adjusting in her seat to try and escape the beaming sun that came from behind a cloud. He reached out and pulled down the visor before producing a pair of sunglasses. “I’m fine.”
“If MIT sees this, they’re going to try and weasel out of any blame. You need to see a doctor that isn’t going to write off valid points as you being argumentative.”
She inspected the sunglasses, trying to tell if they were actually going to stop UV rays. “If MIT wants me to piss in a cup to prove my unborn child didn’t stop the elevator, I will. But right now I just want my bed.”
“You need to see a-”
She turned to him, fast. “What I need right now is to be alone because quite frankly everytime I see your face my brain plays the sight of you almost dying this morning all because you let me out first. I am holding onto my composure with the thinnest thread of humor right now. Please just take me home.”
She turned back in her seat and put the sunglasses on, hoping it would hide the welling tears in her eyes. Scott didn’t quite know how to react, so he just let her direct him to an apartment building near campus. When he parallel parked, she took a deep breath and went to take the sunglasses off.
“Keep them.”
She lowered her hand back down. “I just realized all of our stuff was in that elevator.”
“I’ll see if anything was salvaged and see if I can get it to you. You have a way to get in?”
“Yeah, my roommates don’t have class until 10, so at least one should be there. I’m in that one.” She pointed to a window on the 3rd floor with a Christmas tree in the window despite the fact it was nowhere near the season for it. A beat of silence passed. Aspen couldn’t find the courage to look at him. “Thank you. For everything, I-”
He held his hand out. “Don’t.”
More silence followed that Aspen didn’t know if it meant she was to leave.
“See you next Monday?”
She gave a small smile before nodding, “Yeah, I guess see you next Monday.”
-
She was freshly showered and no longer smelling like Scott Miller’s stupidly attractive cologne. She swiped open her phone and lowered the brightness, busying her mouth with biting her thumb nail, and typed in what she hoped was the spelling of what she now knows was a command.
SNECF
Nothing besides a few Polish articles about sunscreen.
SNECF command
Nothing aside from dog training and a targeted ad about Polish sunscreen.
SNECF military
Jackpot. But in a bad way. Aspen locked her phone when she saw it and processed what it meant.
SAFETY NOT ESTABLISHED, CIVILIANS FIRST. This command is given amongst first responder and military personnel when a situation may be dire or serve as a threat to life and/or property, but civilians are present and informing them of said situation may cause panic that would worsen or in some way prohibit the ability of personnel to adequately perform safety evacuations or further assessments.
-
She saw Scott before the next Monday. He knocked on her door three days later. One of her roommates opened the door and waved him in. He wasn’t sure if that meant this girl had no sense of self preservation or if that meant Aspen had explained what he looked like - or possibly even shown the horrible photo of him on the MIT ROTC webpage - to them. The apartment was clean, if a little dilapidated. They had a small Roku TV as the centerpiece of the living room, a tapestry of a shirtless Marvel or DC or some other superhero pinned above the couch with thumbtacks. The area above the cabinets in the kitchen were decorated with empty liquor bottles. It reminded him of the house he shared in undergrad. “She’s in the room with the pink door.”
Sure enough, down the hall, there was a room with a hot pink door decorated with My Little Pony stickers. It didn’t seem to match any of the other door styles in the apartment and didn’t fit in the doorframe currently. The edges of it were sawed and sanded down poorly. He knocked.
Aspen’s voice responded. “Why’d you knock? Just come in.”
Scott assumed she thought he was one of her roommates. It wouldn’t have been fair to walk in. “It’s Scott.”
Shuffling ensued, but after a few moments the door opened to Aspen, still dressed in her pajamas. She gave an uneasy smile, “Hi.”
Scott held up her backpack and smirked, his dimple popping, as he tapped her door with his knuckle, “Hi Pinkie. I was able to convince UPD to give your things back from evidence.”
“My roommate’s boyfriend fell through my door, and I got the Landlord Special. Be careful, Pinkie Pie will give you a splinter.” She took her bag from his hand and opened the door more to let him in. She sat on the edge of her bed, motioning for him to sit wherever. He opted for her desk chair. Aspen pretended to not notice the way his legs spread and his arms crossed. “UPD has an evidence locker?”
“It was mostly confiscated scooters, but yes.”
“God, the only thing UPD does that benefits this campus is infiltrate the scooter gangs. I shouldn’t have to fear for my shins walking to class.”
“They do also save people from elevators.”
She snorted, still sorting through her bag to make sure everything was there and undamaged. “The fire department did that.”
“Then the fire department threw you into a wall so hard you cracked the drywall and got a concussion.”
“My mother would classify that as a symptom of my hard-headedness.”
“She’s got that right.” He muttered. Scott was met with an attempted pillow to the head. Instead, it grazed him and knocked down her pencil cup. He pivoted in the spinny chair to clean it up and to gather his thoughts as he was once again clouded by her scent. He should’ve just given the backpack to her roommate and left, but no - he needed to see her. And good thing he had.
“Just know that hit the other you I see.”
His brows furrowed. For a mild concussion, she should’ve been far on the mend by now. The weeklong excuse was liberal to ensure she was fully healed. “Still have double vision?”
He turned back to her after putting the cup back in order. She shrugged, placing her laptop back in its home at the charging dock on her nightstand. “Nothing worse, just continuous symptoms. double vision is only for stuff not in front of my face, though.”
“So most things on Earth?”
She placed a finger to her lips and shushed him. She went back to looking through her bag, squinting at different items such as chapstick and lip gloss. The room was only illuminated by a floor lamp by her bed, casting the entire room in a warm glow. That response wasn’t good enough for him; he stood from his spot and walked over to her, arms crossed as he hovered over her. When his shadow cast over her, she looked up, head tilting all the way back to take him in. He held a small flashlight in his hand that he produced from one of his many pockets. “Hello?”
“Let me see your eyes.”
She jokingly tucked her hair behind her ear. “At least buy me dinner first.”
“Aspen.”
She gave a little pout but repositioned herself so her feet were touching the floor as he widened his stance to bring himself closer to her. He reached a hand out but stopped short of her jaw. “Are you okay if I touch you?”
She nodded, too nervous to give him her usual snarky comeback. She had curled herself into his jacket in a broken down elevator and was half asleep in his passenger seat after the urgent care, but this was somehow the most intimate moment the two shared. His hand was warm and calloused, rough against the skin Scott was sure she had a 10 step skin care regimen to maintain. He turned the small flashlight with the other hand to the lowest setting he could manage. He slowly ran the light over her eyes, watching her left pupil fail to shrink, staying wide. He tried to ignore the two butterfly bandages on her temple. When he finally let her go, she could barely see his jaw tense amidst the white splotches in her vision from the light. She blinked and looked around the room, trying to escape the splotches but they followed wherever she looked until they dissipated a few moments later.
“You need to go to the doctor again. A real office, not an urgent care. ER preferably.”
She huffed, “Not this again.”
“Really? ‘Not this again?’ Your concussion is bad. You need a CT scan.”
She laughed out loud at that; his expression stayed serious. She held her hands out around her room. “I can’t afford to live in an apartment where I have a normal bedroom door. You think I can afford an ER visit for them to tell me that I need to rest for the next couple of days?”
“I’ll pay for it.”
“What? No. I’m fine. And speaking of-” She reached to dig in her bedside drawer, producing a wad of twenties. She held it out to him. “For the urgent care copay.”
He shook his head, his arms crossed across his chest. “It was $60 dollars. And I’m definitely not taking your money for it when I think that doctor’s a total quack.”
She ran a hand through her hair, “Please take the money, Scott.”
“Not unless you go to the ER.”
She leveled him with a stare. “I’m not saying this to be difficult. I do not think I need to go to the ER. My symptoms haven’t gotten worse, just persisted, which isn’t unheard of from what my Harvard premed roommate tells me. They check on me periodically and make sure I haven’t asphyxiated in my own vomit. Please just take my word.”
He took a deep breath through his nose to ease his emotions. He didn’t understand why he was so concerned about this girl he considered his number one pain in his ass a mere 4 days ago. All he said was “Okay.”
“Thank you.”
He reached into his breast pocket and pulled out a business card that had his name and ROTC office phone and scribbled his personal phone number on the back and placed it on her nightstand, next to a full glass of water and a pack of gum. “Call if anything happens.”
She blinked at him, reclining back on her palms on the bed. “Where do you get these things from? A cloth, then a flashlight, now a business card? And you kept your wallet in your pocket and not in your duffle bag that day. Very convenient. Very Mystery Mousekatool of you.”
“It’s called being in the military. Everyone should have that on them, sans business card.” He took a seat back at the edge of the bed, showing he was only staying for a few more minutes.
Aspen nodded. “Speaking of being in the military, why’d you join?”
“As you so eloquently put it, my name’s not on a fucking building. And Kansas isn’t really known for its rich families who can send their kids to MIT as legacies.”
She sighed, understanding all too well. She readjusted to recline against her pillows. “Too bad you didn’t get stuck in an elevator before the recruitment officer found you. I got a refund check for the semester’s tuition already, along with a promise of all-costs-covered for the next three semesters.”
He sat with his elbows on his knees, hands clasped. “You civilians have it so easy. I got a letter stating it was a ‘hazard of the job’ for me, so they will be providing a refunded copay for the urgent care visit that may take 6 to 8 weeks to process.”
She had to suck in her lips to keep from laughing out of shock. The two talked for another few minutes, Scott skirting the topic of what he reported back to his commanding officer (there was no way he was going to tell her that his captain asked how his “girlfriend” was doing and when informed that they were in no way a couple, was told “she should be - she makes you a lot nicer”). They got a few more subjects in before Scott noticed her responses getting slower and mumbled, her eyes fluttering open and closed, fighting sleep until she couldn’t. He quietly stood and turned her lamp off, making sure not to touch the edge of the door before he shut it behind himself.
The same girl he saw earlier was still in the kitchen, prepping her dinner. Another girl in maroon scrubs sat in the chair at the bar, a piece of pizza in one hand as she scrolled on her phone in the other. Both girls glanced at him when he closed the door before making eye contact with each other, having a silent conversation that Scott knew was about him. He figured if they were already talking about him, it didn’t hurt to interject. “Has she been doing okay?”
The first girl pointed her knife at the girl in scrubs, deferring to her. She put her pizza slice down in the box. She nodded as she finished chewing. “Yeah, for the most part. But if her symptoms stay this prominent for another day or two, I’m taking her to the ER.”
He raised his eyebrows, feigning as though he hadn’t tried to talk her into going a few minutes earlier. “ER?”
“I’m more concerned about the vomiting and nausea. She can’t keep anything down. I’m scared she’s dehydrated.”
“If she needs to go, call me, my number is on her nightstand. I’ll take her. I can tell them what happened.”
She tried to subdue her lifting brows and growing smirk. “Will do.”
Luckily, Aspen was on the mend the next day, her vision combining into one big picture again and her nausea slowly subsiding. She was back in class the next Monday and back in Dr Muher’s class for the first time in a while. Students murmured when she walked in, but settled quickly. She gave Scott a smile and took her usual spot four rows back and eight seats in. As Scott graded papers during the class, he found himself searching the faces of the massive class, continuing to land on Aspen’s, except instead of trying to incinerate the other with their gazes, she gave a small smile before turning back to the lecture. After everyone filed out, Dr Muher walked over to his desk, her heels clicking deafeningly on the tile floors. “I told you so.”
Scott fixed her with one of his famous glares.
She held up her hands in mock surrender. “Just remember what I said, you’ll-”
He shooed her away with his hand. “‘-either bite each other’s heads off or get married.’ Yeah, yeah, I remember.”
I SAW UR TYLER IMAGINE CAN WE PRETTY PLEASREERE GET ONE FOR JAVI??
i js love anthony ramos. he’s so FINEEEEEE
sorry im a little crazy. love u xx
I am not personally a Javi girl, but I can give you some head cannons that have been rolling around my head!
first one and main one I have is that I think Javi is still active duty in the military - US military contracts are 8 years long, so even if he joined right after the EF5 in the beginning of the movie, he still has at minimum three years left. but it sounds like he was kind of wandering aimlessly for a bit, so my guess is more like five-ish years left.
so with that being said: Javi in uniform
(and I have a head cannon that Javi and Scott met in the military, so, by extension: Scott in uniform)
but that also means deployment at any given time, especially since he was working with the Pars
he and Scott are probably the two most knowledgable people about them - and it looks like Scott defers to Javi for most decisions, so Javi is probably #1
he writes letters every day and stuff them in the one envelope he gets a week. He hordes the ones he gets from you, reading them all at once bc he's too scared to start getting attached to your words just for the letter to end.
also: Javi is a firm believer in answering every late night "would you still love me if I was a worm" type of question with something serious
definitely gives a 5 page essay on what he would do if he woke up and you were transformed into some random entity
I think that he cannot stand humidity, which is hilarious, given that he was stationed in Miami
he makes it his mission to go on vacations in the least tropical areas ever. will plan entire trips around the average Dew Point of an area
he definitely falls asleep during movies. no matter what it is.
give up the hopes to hide in his shoulder during a horror movie bc this man is Gone
one of the main reasons I believe the two met in the army is because every person I know in the army only has friends from the army lol
and I know they're not friends
but for Scott to know about the Pars enough to create a business plan with Javi and get his uncle who happens to want to develop a large part of tornado alley to fund said plan......
it just seems to fit too well
and Scott very much has both the personality of "I fucking hate the army" while also having "I joined the army at 18 to pay for college without my family's money"
which is like every person's I know's reason for joining
and MIT is expensive, but that money is pennies in the bucket for the US. and an engineering degree is exactly the type of thing the US military is looking for
anyway
I think them both being in the military is a key part to their interactions with each other. Scott is so headstrong, yet he still defers to Javi.
So I'm 100% convinced Javi is technically Scott's superior.
and clearly that frustrates Scott because he thinks he knows better than Javi
at least in the field
but, remember, for Scott this is a mixture of work and personal because its Riggs funding them
so for Javi to defer to Kate is probably mind boggling to him
the Javi that Kate is seeing in Oklahoma cannot be the same Javi that Scott knows. I just don't see Scott being able to form a business partnership with Javi if that were the case
I'm thinking that Javi is First Lieutenant, Scott falling probably just under him as Sergeant First Class or Staff Sergeant since he'd have come into the Platoon later, after finishing his degree
so to Scott, this is essentially watching the leader of his Platoon listen to a Private. I think that's where that sarcastic smile he gives Kate when he takes the iPad from her comes from - he cannot stand her, yet this is an order from his superior, so he has to follow it.
(I've seen a lot of people say StormPar is unaffiliated with the military, but I can't see the military letting these prototypes out for someone else to make money off of. also, military subordination is drilled into Scott's bones after he had a nearly three month punishment of scrubbing the barrack bathrooms with a toothbrush in bootcamp for talking back)
also, they're both clean shaven the whole time. I rest my case.
I am, do not fret! I've just been busy with work and with working on my other wips (once I get a scene idea, I have to bring it to life immediately so I don't forget it) that I haven't gotten a chance to finish out my boone fic. I'm more than happy to give a sneak peek though!
my writing process is very ridiculous because I don't write in order, but rather patch scenes together, so thats why a lot of my snippet posts are me posting large, plot-important scenes, simply because that might be all that's written. (ie, my Scott post being the scene where he's searching for her. I have the final two scenes written and that one, so that fic is missing the entire beginning and middle third of it lol). that's not the case for this snippet though, this is very much not important to the plot at all, just a moment at the bar.
but this boone fic is giving me a lot of trouble, writing wise. :( part of me just wants to scrap it because it feels so cheesy and wattpad-y. but I did post about nine ball by Zach Bryan last week, so I guess I'll share that scene at the very least, even if everything else gets scrapped. fair warning, this is one of the scenes that I think feels the most wattpad like, so if you cringe easily (like me, I absolutely cannot handle secondhand embarrassment), this might not be the one for you lol.
for reference, "mafia" is Boone (and I guess the rest of the Wrangler's nickname for Rowan, since she always wears sunglasses and a mask). as always, wip posts are unproofread and subject to change <3
"go bet another six pack, bet i make a comeback; i know that this table's got a lean."
“Mafia! Come play a round!”
Kate and Rowan turned, eyes flitting across the bar to find the owner of the voice. Boone was leaning against the back wall, a pool stick twisting gently in his hand. He moved to point at her once she saw him. She still had her mask and sunglasses on, paying little attention to the people who gave her odd looks. She was used to worse.
Kate made a cutting motion near her neck, silently telling them no.
Tyler called out next, “Come on City Girl! We’ll go easy on y’all!”
Rowan snorted under her mask, but the bar was far too loud for anyone to hear it besides Kate. The blonde hid her smirk in her drink. “We don’t play.”
“One round! Losers buy the winning group’s drinks.”
Kate was about to decline again, but Rowan knocked her arm with her elbow and tossed her head in their direction. She lowered her voice, “Are you sure?”
Rowan nodded. A devious glint danced in Kate’s eyes. A few chasers from other groups shouted out as the two crossed the bar; the StormPar group seemed to be putting their heads together about whether they should leave now or hold out hope for free drinks. Rowan took the pool stick in Boone’s outstretched hand while Kate took Tyler’s. Rowan placed her drink down on the edge of the pool table despite Boone offering to hold it, the coaster she snatched from the bar sitting on top as she chalked the tip. “What’s the rules?”
“No house rules, just the basics. Whoever gets the 8 ball in after clearing their designated group wins.” Boone took a sip of his beer.
Javi jogged up to the pool table, immediately recognizing what was happening. “Come on guys, let’s make it fair. Even if someone gets a ball in the pocket, the turn still ends. That way no one can clear the table without a fair chance.”
Tyler and Boone agreed. Rowan reached out to Javi, asking for her wallet. She pulled out a hundred, placing it in the jar next to the pool table that had “BETS” written on it in Sharpie. Tyler, Boone, and Kate did the same. “Whoever wins keeps their money and uses the loser’s to buy drinks. Sounds good?
Kate and Rowan nodded, the latter reaching up to remove her sunglasses. She parked them on the brim of her hat, not moving her eyes from Boone’s. He blinked hard, his mouth dropping open for a second before Dani clamped her hands on his shoulders as she laughed about what drink she’d be getting, snapping him out of the trance he was in from seeing her eyes for the first time. He bounced back to reality as Kate finished chalking her own stick, blowing off the excess dust. Both girls moved in to each other, their brains seeming to work as one, scanning over the table.
Tyler set his jaw and swallowed hard. “Ready, ladies?”
“As we’ll ever be.” Kate forced an uneasy smile and Rowan gave an innocent thumbs-up.
Kate broke, sending the ball to the side of the front 8-ball. A few laughs rang out amongst the crowd that gathered. The game went on like that, each team switching. Rowan and Kate got no more than 3 balls in, scratching each time. Each time Tyler and Boone got a ball in, the two girls put on their best disappointed expression. Even though the two tried to go easy on them, it was only a matter of time before Boone sank the 8-ball.
They gave sarcastic bows to the audience that clapped before turning their attention to the two women on the other side of the table. Rowan still had her mask on, hiding enough of her face in the dimly lit room.
Kate pouted, rubbing her thumb back and forth on the corner of the table. “That was fun. How about another round? Winner takes all?”
The crowd around them cheered, each member of the Tornado Wranglers adding money to the betting pool, expecting to collect it in a few minutes. But Javi must’ve clued in the StormPar group, as they also added bills to the jar.
Tyler tried to give them an out, “You sure, ladies? We can call this off.”
Both girls shook their heads eagerly, Rowan continuing the show, hanging onto her pool stick, “Come on, one more round! What do you have to lose?”
The two men agreed, Boone reracking the balls quickly. “At least let us show you how to shoot.”
“No thanks, it’s more fun this way. Winner should break.”
Since Boone made the winning shot, he made the first shot. When he lifted his head again, a huge grin on his face as the triangle of balls exploded across the table, he saw Javi standing there, arms around each girl’s shoulders, a huge smile plastered across each of their faces. He could tell Rowan had one too by the crinkle at the corners of her eyes. “Ben, I think you should get your camera ready. This is what we in America call ‘a hustle’.”
Shot after shot, turn after turn, Kate and Rowan sank a ball. No matter how many times Boone and Tyler tried, they were unable to catch up. Not a single turn went without them sinking a ball. When nothing remained on their side but the 8-ball, Dexter spoke up, breaking the tense air of the entire bar. “Call the pocket.”
The StormPar group let out protests, claiming that it wasn’t in the rules for the last game, but Rowan just shrugged. “Okay. That one.”
She pointed towards the middle pocket. Dexter narrowed his eyes as he scanned the table. “No matter what angle you hit from, there’s no way you’d make it in there.”
Kate rested her weight on one palm that was angled against the table. “Not normally, but this table’s tilted.”
Boone searched for anything that would’ve told the two that information. There were no rocking legs or rolling balls. Then his eyes landed on the glass she refused to hand him earlier, sitting on the edge, the liquid in it just barely slanted. “We’ve been outsmarted, T.”
“You know, I think you're right, Boone.”
Rowan sank the ball in the pocket she called. StormPar cheered, as well as the few other random bar goers that gathered to watch. Rowan and Kate mock bowed for Ben’s camera before retrieving the money left over after Javi and the StormPar members took back theirs as well as an extra hundred to pay for the drinks they were about to ring in. Kate took the stack, counting the money in front of the Wranglers before stacking it all together and handing it out to them.
Tyler looked at it quizzically. Kate shook the stack of money again, silently telling him to grab it. “We don’t need it. Keep it.”
“Y’all won it.”
Rowan laughed, as she turned back to the group after returning the balls and pool sticks to their rightful places. “We hustled you. Take your money back. Drinks are on me. Javi took my hundred up to the bar. Get what y’all want.”
Reluctantly, Tyler took the money and distributed it all back amongst his group as the girls returned to their room for the night.
