attention whore
warnings/tags: minors DNI, DUB-CON, dark themes, woc!reader (south asian coded but yk), older!reader (reader is 26 but it's an offhand comment and can be ignored ofc), dark!Jack, manipulative!Jack, dry humping, not enough prep rip </3, obsession, manipulation, power imbalance, controlling behavior, coercion, forced proximity, isolation, religious symbolism & imagery, these tags are not exhaustive
wc: 8.7k
summary: It should be flattering to have Jack Hughes of all people pursuing you, but you aren't wholly convinced of his intentions. Unfortunately, rejection has never been Jack's strong suit.
dividers by @/cafekitsune please let me know your thoughts! and happy reading :P also!! happy valentine's day my loves!!!
For all the fuss, you thought he’d be cuter.
It’s supposed to be a casual gathering amongst friends, but Samir can’t resist the opportunity to show off one of his infinite connections. The idea of the six degrees of separation does not exist for him.
Though, the world must be incredibly small if you are finding yourself running in the same social circles as professional hockey players.
It hadn’t taken long for a crowd to form around Jack Hughes. He looked at ease despite the attention, fielding the constant questions with a charming smile or a shake of his head.
“He’s really cute in person,” Hana whispers behind her drink.
She struggles to drag her attention from him, eyes rounded with admiration. You follow her gaze, watching as the crowd around him laughs to his tune. He’s got them eating right out of his palm, and he knows it.
“You think so?” you ask, surprised.
Jack is cute, boyishly so. But when she touted him as a pretty boy player, a different image had come to mind. Though when considering the league he played for, your standards were perhaps a little too stringent.
“You don’t?”
The scandalized pitch in her voice makes you laugh. You hide it behind a cough when she glares at you.
“I mean, he’s not not cute,” you say, bumping her hip lightly.
She waits for you to go on. When your silence persists, she turns to you, a frown pulling together her perfectly manicured brows.
“But…?”
“He’s kinda young, isn't he?” you shrug, wiping away the concealer that has bunched in between her brows.
“Oh come on. You are like two years older than him at most,” she complains, swatting away your hand.
Now it’s your turn to frown. “Really?”
He catches you this time when you look at him. You’re craning your neck and almost reflexively avert your eyes when his meet yours.
There’s a smattering of facial hair on his chin and upper lip. A hat hides most of his hair save for the longer pieces flipped out from underneath.
There’s a sweetness to his features that contradicts the blatant confidence oozing off of him. He knows how to work the whole boy-next-door thing he’s got going for him, that is for certain. He’d probably grow on you if you cared to keep up with the sport at all.
He’s also babyfaced. You tell her as such, breaking eye contact with him.
“But he’s got a nice smile,” you admit. And sometimes, that’s all you need.
“You know, he lost his front tooth during a game,” Hana says. She taps her corresponding tooth, amused at how your eyes widen. “I’m serious.”
Jack is almost forgotten as you ask her about other players—toothless or not—but not quite given how overly aware Hana is of his presence.
Switching topics helps to loosen her shoulders but marginally. You have half a mind to ask her if he’s the reason why she was so insistent on coming tonight despite her usual complaints that she’d have to act as if she liked any of the other influencers Samir surrounded himself with. On the surface, her job fills you with envy but the mind-numbingly high school aspects of it makes you grateful the worst you deal with is a couple of catty older colleagues.
Her stance becomes unnatural in the midst of discussing the latest episode of the K-drama that just dropped. She’s quick to reorient herself, a faux nonchalance settling over her.
A figure appears in your peripheries, and you move closer to Hana. The brightness in her expression is all you need to know who has come by.
“I don’t think we’ve met before. I’m Jack.”
He holds his hand out to Hana first. She gives him her name, and he nods, eyes flicking to you as soon as she’s done. They’re a pale blue, intensified by the smoky blue shirt he’s wearing.
You introduce yourself as you grab his hand, slowly saying your name so he picks up every syllable. He repeats it back to you, correcting himself when your nose wrinkles at a stumbled letter.
“It’s pretty,” he says.
He’s still holding your hand.
“Thanks.” You give a pointed look to your conjoined hands, and he lets go with a sheepish laugh.
He takes the seat in front of you, mindful of his long legs. “Sorry, I was a little distracted,” he says, wetting his lips.
You make a point to ignore how his tongue tucks behind his teeth.
Over his shoulder, Samir fills in the vacuum Jack has left. His infectious happiness is as easy to come as Jack’s and most find him a suitable substitute. A handful of people, however, keep an iota of their attention directed towards Jack in case he circles back to them.
“And you do…?”
You drag yourself back into the conversation in front of you. Hana’s giggly though you don’t think you heard Jack say anything funny.
“I’m an accountant.” At his raised eyebrows, you dip your chin in the direction of Hana. “Her accountant sometimes, too.”
He lingers on the dip of your neckline, humming under his breath. There’s a flash of teeth. “I wouldn’t have guessed that.”
The three of you make idle conversation. It doesn’t take long before Hana is soon whisked away into another group, an influencer only one if you are to guess by the apologetic wince the woman gives you when she connects the dots that the two of you came together. You give her an easy smile despite the nervous thrum of your heartbeat.
Hana’s gaze connects with you over her shoulder. The hackles that have begun to raise relax when she sees Jack remain as he is, arms thrown over the back of the loveseat he’s found himself in.
A barbed warning hides in the sweet wave she gives you as she follows after her friend though you don’t know what you should be reading into it.
You fully expect for Jack to take advantage of this opportunity to leave you to find whoever it is he came with. Instead, he settles into the seat next to you. His thigh presses up against yours, and he rests his elbow atop of his knee.
Something flickers across his face—too fast for you to read—when you raise your eyebrows at him, bemusement overriding your curiosity.
“If you’re looking for a good time, I’m sorry to say I’m not much of one.”
He kisses his teeth, shooting you the same smile he was sporting earlier. “I don’t believe that,” he says.
The intensity of his undivided attention simmers underneath your skin. There’s a gravitational pull, a creation of a high tide within you when he goads you into conversation. You aren’t exactly helpless to it, only uncomfortably aware of how Jack controls the ebb and flow with a precision that both impresses and nauseates you.
It’s easier to go along with him in the hopes he’ll slip away once he’s had his fill of whatever he needed to prove to himself by being here with you.
There’s an obvious play here, a deference you should be subjecting yourself to. It’s a play you don’t think Jack is conscious he’s making. Maybe it’s one he wouldn’t be conscious of making given the scope of the party: a gathering of influencers, a sprinkle of Samir’s friends, and Jack as the main event.
You don’t doubt he’s a nice person based on the inherent gentleness to his focus as he listens to you, asking you questions to suggest he’s actively listening to your answers. But he can’t help how he searches for a certain reaction from you. A respect you do not know how to give.
Jack was made a god too early, you realize after a while.
His blood was replaced with ichor, melting his bones down to fortify the marrow with something more. Divinity burned away the weight of sacrifice from him. No price would be too much to pay for this.
Godhood made his eyes bright, his tongue quick, and his confidence soar.
But humility stains him. It seeps into the cracks where ichor cannot follow, allowing it to fester until it roots itself in his very essence. An anomaly he has no way to rid himself of despite the hostile environment it finds itself in.
It makes him reachable. It reminds him that mortality is one bad game away.
There is something fractured in his expression when he alludes to the claws that dig deep into the tender flesh of his heart, a remnant of his rookie season. A demon that’s been bound to him rather than a haunting, you suppose. It might the one thing he’s told you he hasn’t bubble wrapped to cushion its delivery.
It’s easy to see how manufactured he is when he’s this close.
This is not a criticism. Gods are not meant to be relatable. They are meant to command a room, to fill the space until you are choking on their divinity.
Jack hasn’t grasped that yet.
He’s in the shape of a god but an incomplete one.
He doesn’t necessarily find your lack of exposure to him—and by default hockey—charming, but he keeps picking at it like a scab. As if by scraping off that thickened layer he’ll find something worth scarring.
He mentions his brothers, an older one and a younger one whose names escape you as soon as you hear them. You can draw your own conclusions from that alone, but you let him thread the needle to craft whatever neatly packaged image he wishes to impart upon you.
Talking about his brothers is the first time he relaxes tonight. There’s a softness to him as he speaks of them that he’s overly aware of. He tries to get ahead of it in a bid for protection, but it’s futile. He can’t hide the love he has for them.
It kind of makes you want to ask him where it hurts. Are they an Achilles’ heel or something worse?
The unbidden thought makes you stumble over your words, and you shake your head as if that will rid it. Yet, the urge to press onto the one crack he’s shown you until it splinters lingers.
Jack calls you out for your mind going elsewhere good-naturedly which makes you flush, and you apologize with an embarrassed wince.
“Shy, huh? That’s cute.”
The slight condescension buries itself in the base of your neck. It’s the type of barely there condescension one tolerates because they’ve been won over. But Jack hasn’t won you over. Not by a long shot.
“I don’t think you think that,” you say, checking your phone. You clear a few notifications, skimming the ones from work with indifference.
“That you’re shy?”
His vocal fry is getting to you. It curls around the edges of his huffed out laugh and scrapes against the thinning threads of your nerves.
“That it’s cute.”
His eyes dart to yours sharply, the blue darkening as he runs a calculation to correct whatever it is he has filed you under. Then his expression clears, understanding sweeping away the haze. Something in him finally hones in to the practiced nature of the slight upturn of your mouth.
“Just telling it how it is,” he says mildly.
A text from Hana steals whatever response you would’ve given him, and you type back something quickly. She won’t be back for at least another half hour so fuck it, you have the time to kill.
“Guess we’re at an impasse then,” you say, locking your phone.
His first real smile of the night appears. He brings his thumb to the corner of his mouth as if to ward it off but fails.
“I guess we are.”
-
samir
why’s jack asking about u lol
you
???
idk you tell me
samir
hmmm
I gave him ur number btw
you
haha so funny
samir
he asked for it lol
you
you’re joking right
hello
samir
samir!!!
don’t give my number out to strangers are u insane!!!
-
Jack isn’t shy about what he wants.
He’s hungry as all gods are. And closed mouths do not get fed.
“You’re injured?”
“Freak accident,” he says casually, holding his hand up.
The call’s quality is grainy, but there is no mistaking the thick casting on his hand. He tries to explain how it’s happened, giving up when you make him repeat himself for the third time.
He’s trying his best to not seem disappointed but a muscle in his cheek keeps flexing every few seconds. A touch of misery shadows his face making the circles underneath his eyes look closer to bruises. The corners of his eyes are pinched and he tries to play off, but you’ve been around one too many stubborn friends to know he’s not taking his pain medications as instructed.
“You should come over,” he says abruptly.
“What an offer,” you say dryly, cleaning off your camera.
“Look. I don’t”—Jack pauses, clearing his throat—“I don’t have anyone here and I just…want to be around someone.”
You shade your eyes from the sun, adjusting the phone balanced against your thighs. It won’t be the first time you’ve come over, but it will be the first time without pretense. “Luke’s not there?”
Impatience flickers across his face for a moment—the kind from someone who’s expecting the sort of yielding that sympathy inspires—but it’s the screen freezes for a heartbeat so you don’t get a second look.
“He’s at practice and he’s not…”
Jack waves his uninjured hand, and you guess that is explanation enough.
“I’m being vulnerable,” he says in a half-whine when you don’t say anything.
You learn with Jack the things he truly wants when he does want them. For all his playfulness, there’s an unwillingness to settle for less than he believes he deserves, much less desires. And right now, he wants you close.
The less you indulge him, the hungrier he gets. And a starved Jack will bring you nothing good, you’re sure.
“Alright,” you say evenly. “I’ll be there soon.”
He makes you stay on the call while you drive over to his apartment. The traffic is light for once, and you’re parking your car and making your way across the lot while Jack fades in and out of your screen as your signal lags.
He’s opening the door before you can knock, ushering you inside. His hand on your lower back makes your brain short-circuit, and it’s hard to corral your thoughts into something sensible.
You shake him off without making it too obvious, kicking your shoes off and placing them by the shoe rack.
He’s finishing one of his meal preps, and you follow him into the kitchen. His dark circles are somehow worse in person, and he’s exhausted to the point of restlessness. He’s chewing too fast and you try to coax him into talking in the hopes he’ll slow down before he ends up choking.
Jack notices how you stall, transfixed by the medicine bottles lined up on the counter. You don’t mean to read the labels, but they catch your eye anyway.
“Who would’ve thought, eh?” he says over a mouthful of rice, coming up next you and flashing his injured hand. “I think it’s overkill but what do I know?”
“When was the last time you took your meds?” you ask, picking up one of the many orange bottles.
There’s a paper describing what each one does and when he should take them. The ones for his pain haven’t been touched, and while he avoids answering you, you mentally calculate the timings so he can take a dose before he goes to bed.
You look up from the paper to his pursed lips. He’s too stubborn for guilt so he sniffs as he takes a sip from his drink.
“You haven’t taken any, huh?”
“Just the important ones,” he mumbles.
Jack leads you to the living room, and you try not to be amused at how he’s clearly tried to clean it up as much as he’s capable of doing. The throw is haphazardly folded, and the pillows on the couch are all crooked. You can hear a load of laundry going and the smell of Jack’s detergent lightly scents the air.
He takes a seat on the couch and pats the space next to him. Despite how you try to maintain a buffer, Jack’s thigh finds a way to press against yours.
He’s flipping through the channels rapidly and one comes up discussing him. He’s not quick enough to change it to the next one before you hear the commentator mention his hand injury, somehow connecting it to a shoulder injury he suffered earlier with a relation you don’t grasp.
You catch the words ‘fragile’ and ‘liability’ before the segment as a whole is whisked away by the furious pressing of Jack’s finger.
“Is it always like that?”
Jack tears his eyes from the screen, tongue poking out of the corner of his mouth. “Hmm?”
You motion towards the TV though the channel is long gone. “Them talking about you like that.”
Jack laughs. It’s a cold sound. “Since the beginning. You’re only a wonder kid for so long and then it’s any excuse to shit on you.”
You look at the cast on his hand, at the way he moves his right shoulder gingerly, and you remember he’s only twenty-four years old. On the verge of being considered a seasoned player if not already past that point. He’s more than proven himself over the last few years from what you can glean, and it’s not enough.
“You were eighteen when you were drafted, right?”
At his nod, you think back to when you were eighteen. And then you pause because it doesn’t matter what you were like at eighteen. Jack had been dealt an entirely different set of cards. A plethora of expectations riding on his shoulders and an insurmountable pressure to chase every point he could claw from each game.
He reads the ignorance in the downturn of your mouth and misinterprets it for pity.
“It all worked out,” he says, a frigid edge to his tone. A warning to not overstep; one you should heed. “Everything that needed to happen happened.”
He’s right, he can’t lick his wounds forever no matter how often they reopen.
That understanding doesn’t stop the ache that settles in your throat.
“I guess I’ll never understand it,” you say finally. “That’s too much pressure, all at once. And too much to expect from a kid.”
It’s strange to think about Jack ever being that vulnerable. That a multimillion dollar contract meant he was now allegedly a part of something bigger, something that meant hopes and dreams could be hinged upon him and if he failed to meet them, the abuse hurled at him was warranted. Needed, even, if you are to believe some commentators and fans alike.
The line between commodity and godhood has never been so thin, you think.
Your phone vibrates on the table, reminding you he needs to take his pain medication. You get up from the couch to grab them and bring back a water bottle as well.
You motion for him to hold out his hand while you uncap the water bottle. It takes a moment for him to snap out of his reverie.
He pops the pills in his mouth and washes them down with a grimace.
He waits until you sit down and then flops onto the couch. The weight of his head on top of your thigh makes you jump, but he doesn’t move even as he’s jostled. You almost shove him off and then remember how much he’s worth and still your hand.
“Comfortable?” you ask dryly.
“Almost.”
Jack props himself up, drawing impossibly close to you. He brushes a finger across your cheekbone.
“An eyelash,” he says as if he needs permission to touch you. He balances the delicate hair on the pad of his finger and holds it in front of your mouth. “Make a wish.”
Your eyes nearly go crosseyed as you focus on his finger.
The past few weeks have been a lesson in drawing lines. He thrives in seeing what he can get away with, and more specifically, with what you let him get away with.
You peek at Jack’s waiting face, and he’s looking right at you, searching your expression as if your wish will be written in your features. You tell yourself not to get swept away.
He’ll get bored at some point. He has to.
So you close your eyes and wish for an uncomplicated life.
You think Jack will ask what it is you wished for, but he merely stares at his finger before closing his hand into a fist and settling back into your lap. He tilts his head up and you take the hint, carding your hand through his hair until he falls asleep.
Later, you’ll learn why you should never feed what you don’t intend to keep.
Some hungers can only be satisfied by total consumption.
-
Hana is short with you.
She’s become strange in the wake of Jack Hughes, and it is more trouble than it’s worth. She won’t tell you explicitly her sudden reticence is because of Jack, choosing to hide her distaste behind snarky remarks and blown off plans.
It’s made more frustrating by how she clams up and claims nothing is amiss when you ask her directly what the issue is. There’s a moment where Jack’s name touches the tip of your tongue, and her eyes become brittle, forcing you to back down and reroute your way to get an answer.
You skip out on some events you suspect Jack will come to but even that doesn’t help. She comes back more infuriated, and you can’t reason with what you don’t know.
A promise from Samir to keep the peace is what gets you to show up to tonight’s dinner.
It’s a standing dinner that started off with some friends from college and has now expanded to whoever’s available that weekend. Some nights are more disingenuous than others, full of friends clinging to remnants of what once was, but overall, it’s usually a good time.
Samir keeps to his promise. Hayden, a friend of Jack’s, finds himself unceremoniously dumped onto the seat next to you when he arrives to the dinner. If he’s nonplussed by the arrangement, he doesn’t show it.
“You won’t believe the day I’ve had.”
Without waiting for any sort of acknowledgment, Hayden launches into a passionate retelling of the wrongs he’s been dealt with in the last fourteen hours. The way he speaks is rhythmic and soon, most of the table has shifted their focus to him.
Hana nods her head sympathetically at the right parts while sneaking a glance over Hayden’s bent head to roll her eyes at you when his recount toes the line of hyperbolic. Her return to normalcy is short lived when she remembers she’s mad at you, and she turns away accordingly.
You hide your irritation behind strategic sips of the mocktail Samir’s managed to slide to you. He taps the table to get your attention and mouths something rude while cocking his head in Hana’s direction.
“You weren’t kidding,” he mutters under his breath, slouching in his chair.
“Tell me about it,” you mutter back, sour.
“And you still have no idea why.”
He doesn’t phrase it like a question.
“Why’d you say it like that?” you ask, leaning forward.
His eyes widen, and he quickly averts them. “Say it like what?”
“You know why she’s mad at me,” you whisper accusingly. “Tell me.”
He holds his hands up. “I plead the fifth.”
“You are so annoying,” you snap. “Did I actually do something?”
He makes a noncommittal noise. “I mean, I don’t think you did.”
“What does that even mean?”
“It means that I think she’s blowing it out of propor—”
“Jack! Hey!”
Hayden stands up, and a chorus of greetings follows.
Jack’s expression goes blank at the sight of you and Samir whispering furiously with Samir’s head dipped down to hear you better. You straighten up while Samir lounges back into his chair.
Jack plasters on an easy going smile in the next second and takes the seat across from Hayden. He eyes the space between you and his friend with polite disinterest.
“Didn’t think you were coming, man,” Samir says, leaning over the table to slap his hand against Jack’s.
Jack glances at you as if the two of you are in on a secret. His tongue finds the back of his teeth and shrugs. “I found the time.”
Out of the corner of your eye, Hana stiffens. The tendons in the back of her hand flex as she clenches her drink.
Samir looks between the two of you, a nasty smirk twisting his mouth. “Huh.”
“Shut up,” you hiss, discomfited.
The idea of stomaching Hana’s renewed passive aggressiveness makes your skin itch, so you excuse yourself from the table, throwing a ‘bathroom’ over your shoulder when Jack calls after you. His stare bores into the back of your head until you disappear around the corner.
Somehow, Jack finds a work around in the mean time.
You’re coming back from the bathroom when you see the change in seating arrangements. Hayden is nowhere to be seen. You turn to Samir and the amused look on his face is all you need to confirm who your new seating partner is. This dinner is casual enough that there is no strict seating arrangement, but your mouth still twitches at the thought of Jack asking to switch seats.
“You scare Hayden off or something?” you ask, reclaiming your seat.
Jack grins, leaning back in his chair and stretching out his arms. He winks. “Course not. I’m not uncouth.”
Jack’s arm rests low on your seat. He plays with a stray thread from your sweater as he talks, curling and uncurling it around his finger. When you reposition yourself, his hand follows.
He bites back a grin when you scowl at him, hiding a laugh behind a cough.
“Missed you,” he murmurs, obnoxiously close to your ear.
You feel something sharp press against your ribs until your breath catches. You hold it immediately in the hopes he doesn’t hear the slight change, but there’s a smugness to him you know has nothing to do with how the table has already begun to orbit him.
He waves off Luca when he offers him an appetizer, citing his diet. The wine glass in his hand stays full, and he swirls the drink intermittently.
You can practically feel how Hana’s annoyance flares the longer you stay. Emilia looks vaguely uncomfortable when Hana scowls at her for drawing you into a conversation but she persists through it.
People begin to slowly trickle out as the evening spills into twilight, and you take advantage of this. The constant tiptoeing is beginning to fray your nerves, and you are one awkward clearing of throat away from losing it.
Jack stands with you when you get up. The wine glass clinks quietly against the table, but the noise breaks the lull in conversation. Multiple heads turn to look at the two of you.
His hand is on the back of your chair. The sweep of their eyes is not subtle and lingers on that liminal space between your waist and Jack’s hand. If he were to stretch out his fingers, they would skim against the sliver of skin peeking from your ridden up top.
A strange expression flickers across Samir’s face. He shakes it off when he notices your questioning look, rearranging himself so he hangs off of the arm of Emilia’s seat. She murmurs to him, trying not to look at Jack while Samir shrugs.
It’s laughable, really, how Tatum’s eyes dart to Hana. Her eyebrows raise almost imperceptibly, save for the mocking press of her lips as some theory must finalize between them.
“I’ll drive you back,” Jack says to your unspoken question.
You frown. “You should stay—”
“We’ll see you guys,” he interrupts, cheeks rounding out with a grin.
He sticks close to you as you leave, close enough you can feel the body heat radiating off of him. It’s welcome even if begrudgingly as the plummeting temperature has you stretching your sleeves out to cover your hands.
Meaningless conversations fills the silence though you can feel how Jack is biding his time. He’s never been the sort to sit back and wait but you can appreciate how he holds his tongue until he’s opened the car door for you.
“You’re hard to see these days,” he says, resting his chin atop his hands on the steering wheel.
His voice is neutral, but there lies a fragment of hurt buried underneath.
The seatbelt digs into you as you shift in your seat. “Am I?”
He hums. Then he straightens up and puts his hand on the gearshift. “Do you mind if we get something to eat?”
“What about your diet?” you ask.
“I lied.” Then he thinks about it, mindful of the disbelieving look you level him with, and amends, “Kind of.”
Your phone buzzes in your hand.
let me know when you get home! :-)
You’re tempted to tell Hana to go fuck herself seeing as this is the first text she’s sent you first in weeks, but you refrain. You have been dealt excellent cards, ones she would prefer in her hands.
“Do you have something in mind?”
-
He parks in front of a restaurant.
You’re typing a response back to Hana—something measured and unable to be dissected in a group chat of people who do not know you—when the door opens and the chilled air from outside seeps into the car.
Jack looks at you expectantly. When you don’t move immediately, he leans over and unbuckles your seatbelt.
The scent of his cologne is all you can concentrate on as his hand drags across your chest when he pulls back and holds out that same hand.
You take his offered hand and get down. He shuts the door behind you.
It doesn’t take long for the two of you to be seated, a perk of the hostess recognizing Jack immediately. It’s a restaurant he’s been to before so you go with one of his recommendations when the waiter comes by.
“You weren’t sitting with Hana,” Jack says in lieu of any other conversation topic. “Trouble in paradise?”
You weigh the pros and cons of telling him the truth. The bridge hasn’t been burnt yet but wit how Hana keeps kindling the rotted wood of it, it might as well be considered a lost cause.
“She’s mad at me,” you say eventually. You ignore how he looks upwards. “She’s been…weird about it all.”
The word sticks to the roof of your mouth uncomfortably. She’s been mean, but it feels childish to say that. Bitchiness you can handle, but her decision to be mean about it all makes you feel small.
“Is she why you’ve been avoiding me?” Jack guesses, reaching over and taking a bite from your pasta.
The silence that suspends between the two of you is a strange one. You try to buy yourself time by chewing your food thoroughly but your mind is still blank long after you’ve swallowed.
Propping his cheek on his palm, his smile is more a stretch of his lips than an expression of joy. He repeats himself.
It’s not often Jack is devoid of emotion around you. You think you’ve taken it for granted.
“A little bit,” you admit, pushing your food around the plate.
Her scorn is a looming presence that rears its head whenever you get a text from Jack, but it’s not what what stays your hand when you take hours to respond. He’s been on the road for the last two weeks and manages to respond to you within a shorter time frame than you thought possible with hockey players.
You don’t know what’s wrong with you. His attention should be flattering. It should elicit butterflies that flutter around in your chest and threaten to crack your ribcage open. Nothing of the sort exists when you are with Jack.
The validation of being wanted is a high all on its own but being wanted by Jack Hughes warranted its own category.
You know this. He knows this. He knows it better than anyone, aware to an almost painful degree of his allure.
But if it is worship he seeks, he knows better than to come to you. You meet him where he is: with the respect of a newly fledged idol but not your idol.
Which begs the question: what does Jack Hughes want with you?
“She sucks,” Jack says, irritated.
You can’t refute it, but you can sidestep his verdict.
“She won’t talk to me about why you are the reason she’s so pissed with me,” you sigh.
He gives you a funny look. “Isn’t it obvious?”
Now it’s your turn to roll your eyes. “I mean, yeah, but until it comes out of her mouth, I sound like an asshole assuming it’s because we’re friends.”
His jaw strains for a moment and he takes a sip from his water before saying, “Considering the things she’s saying about you, I wouldn’t worry about you coming off as an asshole.”
All your thoughts come to a screeching halt.
“What things is she saying about me?”
“Two-faced bitch is one that’s come up a couple of times.” The words leave him before he thinks better, and his lips press together. “Sorry.”
“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.”
Drumming your fingers against your thigh, you try not to laugh. It bubbles out of you anyway.
The water you snag is Jack’s—your waiter hasn’t made an appearance in a while, and you’ve been chugging your water—and he watches with rapt attention as you drink from the glass. The chilled water does nothing to cool down the white-hot infuriation traveling through your veins, but it does give you time to think.
“Is that all she’s said?” you ask flatly.
He eyes you warily. “No.”
Your curiosity will get the better of you at some point, but it does nothing for you to dig the knife deeper right now. Instead, your mind wanders to Samir’s refusal to tell you the truth.
Clearly, you’ve misjudged the depth of his willingness to go along with the status quo.
It triggers a pinched nerve sort of humiliation. Jack shouldn’t be your messenger, and yet it has become his burden to bear.
The anger flames out as quickly as it has come, and you’re left empty.
Jack reaches over to put his hand over yours. The warmth of him is soothing, shamefully so, and you have bite the tip of your tongue to keep your frustrated tears at bay.
“Hey, everything’s going to be okay. I’m here.”
As much as you don’t want it to be, it’s just what you need to hear.
-
She’s icing you out.
The invitations slowly dwindle until they end completely. She removes you from her ‘close friends’ story, but it doesn’t mean much when she posts any and all get togethers on her Instagram story.
Cruelty is a second skin for her, and while you tried not to delude yourself into thinking you are an exception to her rule, it still stings. If she hasn’t already slipped a dose of poison to your friends, she will soon.
Though, she might not even need to dirty her hands as such. Her preferred choice of currency has always been social currency, and she has that in spades.
It’s startling how quickly your circle whittles down to one: Jack Hughes.
The harbinger of your social demise and your unwitting source of solace.
These days it feels as if he is the only one willing to respond to your texts. Your group chats fade in such a way that you know rather than removing you, ones have been created sans you.
Even Samir is slow to respond to you and slower to extend his company, in a group setting or otherwise. The one time you manage to corner him into seeing you, he’s oddly contemplative the entire time.
“I’m not judging,” Samir said in the exact tone that meant he was judging you. “But it does look a certain way. Jack left with you that night.”
“I didn’t plan that.”
It was almost morbidly fascinating to see how his gut instinct conflicted with whatever Hana whispered in his ear.
“Hey, I’m just telling you how it looked. You don’t usually care about who comes around but with Jack…”
There was a sharp pain as you yanked at a hangnail. A thin stream of blood lined the outer edges of your nail as a faint throb followed. It allowed you to stabilize your voice despite the growing discomfort in your throat.
“You know I don’t care about that,” you said quietly as if the softer you were, the more forgiving he’d be.
He blew air through his pursed lips and stared at his wringing hands. “I know. But Jack’s stopped coming now that you don’t show up.”
Your eyes widened. “And you think I’ve asked that of him?”
You didn’t wait for a response and kissed your teeth, rueful. “But if Hana says I do, then it must be true,” you finished tonelessly, disregarding his placation. “A two faced bitch and a social climber.”
Samir reared back, stricken. “You know I don’t agree with her, right?”
You cared little for the guilt that deflated him and gave him some excuse for why you needed to go instead of answering him.
That had been weeks ago.
Whatever free time Jack has in his arsenal is spent with you. His chat is pinned at the top of your messages, and there’s a rock in your stomach when you scroll through them and see how overtly you are relying on him to fulfill the chasm of loneliness left in the wake of your forced dismissal.
“You know,” you start hesitantly.
At once, he looks up at you. He’s chewing the side of his thumb, frustrated that he hasn’t found a way to steal your bishop yet. He had pulled out his and Luke’s old chess set in an effort to weasel you into coming out to party with his teammates and their partners as a reward, granted he beat you in a game.
He’ll win, of course. It’s just a matter of time.
“Hmm?”
“If you ever want to go back to hanging out with Samir and them, I won’t mind,” you say slowly.
You want to take the words back and rephrase them to hide the rope you’ve just handed Jack to hang you with. Self-deprecation is one thing, but you have crossed the boundary into self-pitying.
Jack knocks your bishop down and pockets it. Bafflement bleeds into the blues of his eyes.
“Go back to them?” he repeats, releasing his thumb from his teeth.
There’s a hint of red on his canine. He swipes his tongue over his teeth, collecting that little bit of blood.
You can’t look away.
He laughs, impossibly fond, and hooks his foot around the leg of your chair and drags you forward.
“Nah. I’m right where I want to be.”
-
You wake to Jack reading in bed.
A finger traces random letters on the top of your shoulder with light pressure. You are tucked to his side, head resting on his chest. The languid rise and fall of his breath lulls you further into sleep rather than consciousness. He’s sleep warm despite how alert he seems with his eyes rapidly scanning the Kindle in his hands.
The room has been kept so cold that you bury your face into the muted warmth of him.
It’s hard to believe after a week, maintenance still hasn’t come by fix the heater, but you suppose even celebrities must face the same trials as regular people do. All are equal in the eyes of maintenance men.
He convinced you to watch a movie in his room after you helped him get through the bulk of his packing, and you must’ve fallen asleep. You can’t recall how you ended up in this position, mind too foggy to trace back the error in your ways.
An alarm goes off, and you groan when the sound ricochets around the room.
“Whoops.”
Jack reaches over to flip his phone facedown. His thighs bracket your hips, a scorching heat against you. You’re rubbing the sleep from your eyes when you notice that Jack hasn’t dropped back to his side of the bed.
When your vision clears, you see the outline of him hovering over you. The room is too dark for you to pick up the look on his face. Yet, the predatory stillness of his body sends unease trickling down your back, filling in the gaps the shadowed room leaves.
“You okay?” you ask slowly, easing yourself upwards.
The fleeting thought of his injury somehow having worsened in the last hour vanishes when his thighs inch closer together, holding you in place. His hands go to either side of your head, and the mattress dips under his weight.
He rests his thumb on your throat, keeping you from sitting up. Your pulse does something stupid, fluttering harshly underneath the light pressure. His thumb drags down the delicate skin until the beat of your pulse thrums directly underneath his touch.
“Just thinking,” he says after careful consideration.
You try to focus on your breathing to keep its rhythm from tipping over into hyperventilation. It hitches in your throat despite your best efforts.
“About?”
Your vocal chords are strung tight. You squirm underneath him, careful to not buck your hips.
“You,” he says simply.
But there is nothing simple about how rough his voice sounds, restraint falling away. His breath is heavier than yours.
You thought you had become used to Jack’s undivided attention, but with the way his chest heaves as he takes you in, you learn you have only scratched the surface of what lied underneath.
Any attempt at defusing is stolen from you when Jack drops his head closer to you. His hot breath mingles with yours but he holds himself back, dropping to brace his weight with his forearm.
“Kiss me.”
An eternity passes where his words echo in your ears. Two simple words and yet they thunder in your head.
You can feel him staring at you patiently.
“You’re serious,” you breathe.
You hope he’ll laugh, chiding you for being so easy to tease, but he’s quiet. It’s a quiet you’re hauntingly familiar with from childhood. There is only one right answer and as the clock winds down, you dig your grave deeper.
Bringing your hand up, you drag your thumb where you think his lips are. You catch the edge of his mouth and slide your thumb until it rests on the softness of his bottom lip.
Jack flicks his tongue out. You flinch at the quick wet touch and immediately pull away.
You can feel his smile as you place your palm flat against his cheek. A swelling anxiety makes your fingers tremble, and Jack leans into your touch as if to reassure you.
When you kiss him, he responds immediately. He rocks himself against you as he licks into your mouth. You make a distressed noise when he relaxes, his weight fully pinning you down.
He’s lither than the other hockey players he’s introduced you to, an illusion that has fucked you. He’s all muscle with a strength he doesn’t bother to hide as he slides his hand behind your neck to coax you into something a little more frenzied.
Beneath his shirt, you can feel how he’s bulked up during his forced time-off. The softness of his belly is all but gone and in its place is a wall of muscle.
Panic consumes you when he pushes his pants down. His kiss becomes more desperate as if he wishes to find a way in so he can curl up next to your heart, to swallow it whole and make it entirely his own. His cock is hot and heavy against you, and it’s all too much.
Hands on his chest, you pry yourself away from him. A string of spit connects the two of you, and Jack surges forward but you move your head to the side so he knocks into your cheek instead.
“I’ve been nice.” Jack leans closer so he can smear a wet kiss against your jaw. “I can choose not to be.”
A hand slides underneath the waistband of your sweatpants to shove them down, and you don’t register the stroking of his fingers against you until he grazes the lacy fabric of your underwear. Your dampness is hard to avoid, giving way for his finger to smear it against your thigh.
He grins into your mouth as he dips down to kiss you, taking all of your fear and metabolizing it into a throbbing want that has your belly clenching.
The heat between your legs makes your mind go hazy. Jack steals the moan right from your lips when his cock bumps against your cunt.
His thumb rubs over you and you have to pull away from his mouth to suck in a too short breath, swallowing down the whine building within you. He laughs meanly as you spread your legs wider, obliging you by plying you open inch by inch with his fingers.
Tentatively, you circle your hips. There’s a tantalizing pressure, a split second of relief before the heat burners hotter, and then Jack’s adjusting himself to grind his hips into you with a ragged ‘fuck’.
“I got you, baby,” he soothes, dragging his cock over your aching clit.
He eases the tip of his cock into you, forehead bumping into your temple as he exhales harshly. When he finally bottoms out, he groans.
He licks the sweat off your skin, savoring you, and you clench at how hot his tongue feels against you. Heat curls at the base of your spine, and you slant your hips upwards, urging him to do something.
You try to focus on the ceiling, but Jack won’t let you try and fool yourself that it’s not him making you feel good.
“Eyes on me, pretty girl,” he goads, hips flush against yours.
He draws back and you have a second of reprieve, a second to yourself, before he’s fucking you.
Your brain scrambles as he drives into you. His cock grazes a spot in you that heats your blood in an instant. Stagnated gasps leave you as he runs his hands over your waist, pulling you closer to him.
The knot coiled so tightly in your belly is unraveling quicker than you can thread it back together.
“God, you feel so fucking good,” he mutters, a fever in his voice.
He dips into your wetness, drawing it out like honey. It takes only a little bit of pressure from his slicked fingers and a carefully timed thrust to have you coming with his name catching between your teeth.
He spills into you soon after, and there’s so much you can feel it drip out of you even with his cock softening inside of you. He drops into the spot next to you, chest brushing against you with each heaving breath.
His hand snakes down to push back his come into you once he slips out, and you hiss at the pinpricks of oversensitivity that follow. It’s a good sort of hurt, the kind you’ll crave if you’re not careful to keep yourself from indulging in it.
The mindless rock of your hips back into his sends adrenaline shooting through your bloodstream, and you scramble back. Jack’s hands tighten too slow and you’re up on your feet before he can grab at you again.
The bed creaks and then quiets.
“My flight leaves at midnight,” he calls after you.
Every bone in your body screams at you to run, and yet, you hesitate. You shouldn’t do it, but you look back.
He’s on his stomach, face lit up by his phone screen. There’s something knowing in his eyes, bordering indulgent.
The only route of escape you’ll have is the one he allows you.
It will serve you well to remember that.
-
You have nowhere to run.
Your job sucks, your social life is in tatters, and your home is too far and far too expensive for you to visit. All you have is Jack.
The realization cleaves you open.
He’s been drip-feeding you affection, perfecting your dose so you never felt its effects until withdrawal was on the table.
It’s the only explanation for the gnawing hunger that awakens within you. You want so terribly, so ravenously you can think of nothing else.
Your misery is hard to wallow in, however, for Jack doesn’t let the time difference stop him.
There’s a bouquet of flowers on your dining table. He forewent roses in favor of your favorites, vibrant and lush and out of place given the emptiness that now pervades you.
You feel sick looking at them.
Your phone rings again, and you let yourself answer the call no matter how ill it makes you. It’s a farce, anyway. A way to alleviate your guilt at the relief it brings you to still have Jack despite what’s been fractured.
“You sure are busy,” he says casually as soon as you pick up.
The dig lands right on your sternum, knocking something in you loose. His way of punishing you for ignoring the hand that feeds you, you think.
“It’s tax season,” you remind him. With nothing else going on in your life, this might be the one time you’re glad for your increased hours. “How’s the Olympics so far?”
“Two assists, baby,” he says smugly. “But you knew that.”
Communication halted over his first four days. Texts you didn’t respond to filled your phone, a perplexing mix of the usual things Jack would send you alongside his adventures with Quinn in the village. If not for the twinge in between your thighs, you could’ve convinced yourself that night was a hallucination induced by a brewing nervous breakdown.
Yesterday after their win, you texted Jack a simple ‘congratulations’ with a tremor in your hands. His response had been enthused and immediate, accompanied by a call you were too scared to answer.
“Thanks for the flowers by the way,” you say, flipping your camera. Proof of life or whatever. “They’re nice.”
“Just nice?” he says incredulously. “Tough crowd, jeez.”
He looks over his phone when Quinn says something, voice far, but the chide is clear by how Jack ducks his head sheepishly. He keeps you on the phone until the last possible second.
“I’ll be home soon,” he promises.
Your teeth ache with the sweetness in his voice before he cuts the call.
The futility of it all is wounding thing. You feel the ache sharpen, then recede. The aftertaste tastes something like acceptance.
You mark the calendar for his return.
Luke goes to the airport while you remain in their apartment. The time passes slowly.
He must tell Luke to fuck off somewhere because it’s only Jack who walks in through the door. He’s stretching out his back with a quiet groan as he lets his duffel bag drop to the floor. He kicks it off to the side.
It takes him a moment to notice you.
The grin that stretches across his mouth is blinding, and his arms open up as soon as he’s in front of you. Easy and assured. Like he knows the most difficult stretch is already behind the two of you.
You hate that he might be right.
“I missed you,” Jack says, burying his face in that sweet spot between your shoulder and neck. He breathes you in, kissing the tender area beneath your ear.
When he pulls back, it’s so he can look at you with a tenderness he reserves for you alone. For once, there’s no expectation lingering in the echo of his words.
Why would there be? He’s gotten everything he wanted.
You think you deserve to keep this just for yourself, to protect your heart with the razor sharp edges of this defeat instead of handing it over to Jack.
But salvation requires sacrifice.
“I missed you, too,” you say, and you feel it in the back of your throat.