He sneers down at you, his body caging you in over his desk, as he leans in. His eyes are cold, unlike the Captain you knew before.
Before the rumours. Before the whispers in the mess hall.
"So, you fuck around, do you, bunny?" He asks, but you know he doesn't want a reply.
He is so close to you, the air charged with something thick and heavy.
He leans further in, his breath lingering on your skin, eyes boring into yours.
You squirmed in your chair, eyes flickering down to his lips and back. When the rumours got out, you were crushed. In fact, it was the opposite. You had eyes for one man (this man) , not multiple.
You start to shake your head, a defiant flicker in your gaze.
His voice trails over you, and your cheeks flush. Being this close to the man you crushed hard on, even on bad terms, was enough to make you melt.
"What, no one to satisfy you at home? Poor. Little. Bunny." He scoffs, his voice dangerous and low.
You whimper, his scent, his gaze, his voice. Was all becoming overwhelming.
You tilt your head up, so close you could kiss him. He leans in, brushing one hand on your cheek, baiting you closer.
Just as you think he is about to kiss you, he pulls away, still close enough to cage you in.
"Why on earth would I kiss you, Bunny. Who knows where you've been, or with who?"
As you and John navigate the exhausting, beautiful chaos of new parenthood, you discover that home is found not in perfect moments, but in shared sleepless nights, unwavering love, and the tiny family you’ve built together.
54. Home
The first night home with your son was quieter than you expected. Not silent. Never silent.
There were the soft creaks of the house settling around you, the low crackle of the nursery fire, the faint murmur of Anna’s voice somewhere down the hall as she instructed a maid to bring more hot water. There was your husband moving from room to room with the careful concentration of a man trying to prove that every floorboard, every curtain, every candlewick had been properly prepared for the arrival of one very small person.
And there was the baby. Your baby.
He slept in the cradle beside the bed with one tiny fist tucked under his chin, his dark hair soft against the white linen, his little mouth opening and closing in dreams you could not imagine.
You had not slept more than a few minutes at a time since he was born. Neither had John. But John had the advantage of being incapable of sitting still when he was worried.
He had checked the cradle twice before lying down. Then once more after lying down. Then another time after you had closed your eyes, because apparently no amount of reassurance could convince him that the baby had not changed position in the twelve seconds since he had last looked.
“John,” you whispered, watching him rise from the bed again.
He paused with one hand on the cradle rail. “What?”
“You have checked him four times.”
“Five.”
You stared. He looked at the baby. Then back at you.
“He is very small.”
“Yes.”
“He is breathing very quietly.”
“Yes.”
“What if he stops?”
Your heart softened so quickly it hurt. You pushed yourself a little higher against the pillows and held out your hand.
“Come here.”
John crossed the room at once.
He sat carefully beside you, his weight making the mattress dip. His face looked tired in the candlelight. Not badly so. Just changed. Softer around the eyes. A little more vulnerable. He had not shaved that morning, and the shadow along his jaw made him look more like the man you had first met than the polished husband who had stood beside you at dinners and balls.
Only now there was a smudge of milk on his sleeve.
You reached up and touched it. He looked down.
“Is that from him?”
“I think so.”
“You think?”
“I held him after you fed him. He made a noise and then it happened.”
You laughed softly.
John looked faintly offended. “He is very fast.”
“He is a week old.”
“He has excellent timing.”
Your laughter faded into something gentler.
“You are doing well,” you told him.
John’s expression changed immediately. It always did when you praised him. He could accept a compliment from a general, a nod from a superior, even your father’s gruff approval. But when you told him he was good, truly good, something in him seemed to go quiet.
“I do not know what I am doing,” he admitted.
“Neither do I.”
“You seem calmer.”
“I am not calmer.”
“You look calmer.”
“I am very talented at pretending.”
His mouth twitched. Then the baby made a small, unhappy sound from the cradle.
Both of you froze. Another sound followed. A thin little cry that gathered strength by the second.
John was on his feet before you could move.
“I have him.”
“You do not have to do everything.”
“I know.”
But he was already lifting the baby with both hands, careful and steady, drawing him against his chest.
Your son’s cry turned louder.
John stared down at him.
“Well,” he said quietly. “That is a very strong opinion.”
The baby answered with another furious cry.
John looked at you.
“Is he hungry?”
“Possibly.”
“Is he cold?”
“Possibly.”
“Is he uncomfortable?”
“Possibly.”
John blinked.
“That is not helpful.”
You smiled tiredly. “Welcome to parenthood.”
He looked down at the little bundle in his arms. Your son’s face had gone red with outrage, his tiny fists flexing in the blanket.
John began to pace. Not quickly. Not nervously. Slowly, steadily, as though he had spent a lifetime learning exactly how to move through darkness without waking anyone who needed rest.
“It is all right,” he murmured to the baby. “I know. I know, little man.”
You watched him from the bed.
The sight of him with your son still took your breath away. John had always looked large in rooms. Solid. Certain. His shoulders broad enough to block a doorway, his voice low enough to settle a crowd. But with the baby against his chest, he seemed almost gentler than he had ever been.
His massive hand covered nearly all of your son’s back. His thumb moved in slow circles through the blanket.
“It is all right,” he said again. “Your mother is resting. You and I are on watch.”
The baby’s crying did not stop immediately. But it changed. Softened. Became a fretful little complaint instead of a demand.
John kept walking. You watched his silhouette pass the window, then the fire, then the nursery door, the soft rhythm of his steps becoming part of the room. Eventually, your eyelids began to lower.
The next thing you knew, the pale grey light of morning was coming through the curtains. Your side of the bed was empty.
For one terrifying second, your heart lurched. Then you looked toward the window. John sat in the armchair with the baby on his chest. He was asleep.
His head had fallen back against the cushion. One arm curved protectively around the baby, holding him close. The other rested over the blanket, fingers still spread gently across your son’s back. His shirt was wrinkled. His hair was a mess. His bare feet rested crookedly on the rug.
The baby slept too. Warm, peaceful, tucked beneath John’s chin.
You lay still for a long moment. You did not want to wake either of them. The sight was too precious.
Your husband, who had spent years sleeping lightly in unfamiliar rooms, who could wake at the smallest sound, who had trained himself to be ready for danger before danger arrived, had fallen asleep in a chair because his son had needed to be held.
You smiled, though your eyes burned. Very quietly, you reached for the sketchbook on the bedside table.
The pencil scratched softly across the paper. You drew the shape of John’s bowed head. The fall of his hand over the baby’s blanket. The little curve of your son’s cheek against his father’s chest.
It was not perfect. Your hand was still unsteady from exhaustion. But it was enough. It was them. It was home.
The difficult days began after that.
No one had warned you properly about how strange the hours would become. Morning and night lost their edges. The days blurred into a cycle of feeding, sleeping, crying, changing, washing, and trying to remember whether you had eaten something besides half a biscuit at noon.
You had never known a body could be so tired and still so alert. You had never known that you could love someone so much while desperately wishing they would sleep for more than forty minutes at a time.
There were nights when the baby cried until your chest hurt from hearing it.
There were mornings when you stared at your reflection and barely recognized yourself. Your hair unpinned. Your gown rumpled. Dark crescents beneath your eyes. A faint smear of milk on your sleeve and no idea how it had gotten there.
There were moments when you cried for no reason at all. Once, you cried because Anna had brought you toast with butter instead of honey. Another time, you cried because John had tied your robe belt too tightly. The worst was the day you cried because the baby had fallen asleep on you and you did not want to move, but your arm had gone numb.
John found you sitting rigidly in the nursery chair, tears running silently down your face.
“What happened?” he asked, instantly alarmed.
You looked at him helplessly. “My arm is asleep.”
He stared. You sniffed.
“I cannot move because he is sleeping.”
John looked down at the baby, who was indeed asleep against your chest, peaceful and entirely unaware that he had rendered his mother immobile. Then John looked back at you. His mouth twitched.
“Do not laugh,” you warned.
“I am not laughing.”
“You are.”
“I am trying very hard not to.”
You glared at him.
Then he crossed the room, lifted the baby with the gentlest hands, and settled him into the cradle. The baby stirred. John held his breath. The baby sighed and went still. Only then did John turn back to you.
“Better?”
You flexed your arm and winced. “Yes.”
He lowered himself in front of you, hands braced on your knees.
“You should tell me when you need help.”
“I do.”
“You do not.”
“I do sometimes.”
“Not enough.”
You looked down.
The truth was, you had not wanted him to think you could not manage. You had wanted to be good at this immediately. You had wanted to be the woman who knew exactly what to do, who could soothe the baby without fumbling, who never got frightened by the sharpness of his cries or the softness of his breathing.
John seemed to read the thought in your face. He always did.
“You do not have to prove anything to me,” he said softly.
Your throat tightened.
“I know.”
“No, love. I do not think you do.”
He took your hands.
“You have done something extraordinary. You brought our son into this world. You feed him. You comfort him. You know the difference between his hungry cry and his tired cry before I have even figured out he is crying at all.” His thumb brushed your knuckles. “You do not have to do every part of it alone.”
You blinked hard.
“I do not want you to think I am failing.”
John’s face changed. He looked almost hurt. “You could never fail me.”
The words were so simple. So sure. You started crying again.
John sighed softly, not because he was tired of your tears, but because he knew there was no sensible way through them except to stay. He rose and pulled you gently into his chest.
The baby slept in the cradle. The fire crackled. John held you with one hand in your hair and the other pressed between your shoulder blades.
“You are a good mother,” he whispered. “You are the best mother for him because you are his.”
You buried your face in his shirt. “I am tired.”
“I know.”
“So tired.”
“I know.”
“I think I could sleep for a week.”
“Then sleep.”
“And what will you do?”
“Everything else.”
You pulled back enough to look at him. “John.”
“I mean it.”
“You cannot do everything.”
“I can try.”
“You will make yourself sick.”
“I am already married to a woman who believes she must carry the whole world. It seems fair that I take a turn.”
Despite yourself, you smiled.
He kissed your forehead. “Go lie down. I will bring him when he needs you.”
“You promise?”
“I promise.”
And he did. John learned quickly. Not perfectly. Not without mistakes. But he learned.
He learned how to warm bottles and how to test the temperature against his wrist. He learned which blanket your son liked best. He learned how to hold him with one hand while making tea with the other. He learned that rocking too quickly made the baby angry, that singing helped sometimes, and that the baby had no respect for the idea that his father might need sleep.
At night, when the crying grew too sharp and your body was too tired to rise immediately, John would sit up first.
“I have him,” he would whisper.
Sometimes you would protest. “You need rest too.”
“So do you.”
“But I need to feed him.”
“And you will.” He would tuck a curl behind your ear. “But I can walk him first.”
Then he would lift the baby and take him into the hall. You heard him sometimes through the door. The soft creak of the floorboards. The low murmur of his voice. Not words you could always make out. Sometimes just sounds. A quiet hum. A slow, rough sort of melody that barely counted as singing.
One night, you woke and found the bed empty. The baby had been crying for nearly an hour before that. You remembered feeding him. Remembered John taking him afterward, insisting you close your eyes for a few minutes.
You slipped out of bed and followed the faint glow of a lamp down the hallway. John stood by the nursery window with your son against his shoulder. The curtains were open. Moonlight stretched across the garden. Your husband’s back was to you. He swayed slowly, side to side, one hand cradling the baby’s head.
“You’re all right,” he whispered. “You’re safe.”
The baby fussed softly. John kissed his hair.
“I know it’s a lot, little man. It’s a lot for me too.”
You paused in the doorway. He did not know you were there.
“Yeah,” he murmured. “The worlds loud. The house creaks. You miss your mum when she is not holding you.” He gave the smallest smile. “I miss her too, sometimes. But she’s right there. She’s always right there.”
Your son gave a sleepy little sound.
John’s voice softened even more. “You have got us,” he told him. “That is the thing to remember. You have got us.”
Your heart ached. You leaned against the doorframe and watched them. Then the floorboard beneath your foot creaked.
John turned. For a moment, he looked apologetic. “I did not mean to wake you.”
“You didn’t.”
“You should be sleeping.”
“You should too.”
He looked down at the baby.
“He was fussing.”
“So you came here?”
“He likes the window.”
“You have decided that?”
“He stops crying when I bring him here.”
You smiled. John looked tired. Not the tiredness of a long day. The deep kind. The kind that settled in the bones. But he looked happy too. Not easily happy. Not carefree. Something quieter. Something rooted.
You crossed the room and slid your arms around both of them. John leaned into you. The baby slept between you, warm and heavy with milk and dreams. For a while, you stood like that beneath the moonlight. No words. Just the three of you.
The first visitors arrived when your son was nearly two weeks old.
Your father came first.
He arrived at the house with the solemnity of a man prepared to inspect a battlefield, carrying a bundle under one arm and wearing an expression that made Anna whisper to you, “He is more nervous than he was at your wedding.”
Your father had barely crossed the threshold before he demanded to know where the baby was.
“He is sleeping,” you told him.
Your father lowered his voice immediately.
“Sleeping?”
“Yes.”
He nodded gravely, as though you had just revealed the location of a fragile treaty.
“Then I shall be quiet.”
He lasted perhaps six minutes.
The baby woke. Your father was in the nursery before anyone could stop him. You found him standing beside the cradle, hands clasped behind his back, staring down at his grandson.
The baby blinked sleepily up at him. Your father’s face changed. All the pride and bluster seemed to fall away.
He leaned down, very slowly, and offered one finger. Your son’s tiny hand curled around it. Your father went completely still.
“Oh,” he whispered.
You looked at John. John was standing near the door with his arms crossed, trying very hard not to smile too broadly.
Your father cleared his throat.
“Strong grip,” he said.
“Like his father,” John said.
Your father nodded. “Like his mother too.”
Then, before anyone could say more, he turned to you.
“Does he have enough blankets?”
“Yes.”
“Is the cradle safe?”
“Yes.”
“Are the windows properly latched?”
“Yes.”
“Does he sleep through the night?”
“No.”
Your father looked appalled.
“No?”
“No.”
John coughed into his hand.
Your father frowned at the baby as though this was a personal failing.
“Well,” he said firmly. “We shall work on that.”
Your son yawned. Your father softened again.
“Not today,” he whispered. “Today, you may rest.”
Mr. Price arrived the following afternoon and somehow managed to be even worse.
He came carrying a fishing basket, a bundle of soft cloth, and a wooden toy so large that Anna had to ask whether he intended the baby to ride it.
“It is a boat,” Mr. Price said proudly.
“It is half the size of the nursery,” John replied.
“It is aspirational.”
The baby was awake when he arrived. Mr. Price took one look at him and immediately burst into tears. Not quietly. Not subtly.
He stood in the middle of the nursery, one hand over his mouth, the other gripping the edge of the cradle, and wept.
John stared.
“Father.”
“I know,” Mr. Price said thickly. “I know. I am being ridiculous.”
“You are.”
“He is so small.”
“Yes.”
“He looks like you.”
John glanced down at the baby. Then at you.
“He looks like both of us.”
Mr. Price wiped his eyes with a handkerchief and peered closer.
“Definitely his mother’s nose.”
“You said he looked like me,” John replied.
“He has your scowl.”
“He is two weeks old.”
“Exactly. Started early.”
Your father, who had been visiting again because apparently grandfatherhood had made him allergic to remaining in his own home, appeared in the doorway.
“He does not scowl,” he said.
Mr. Price looked offended. “He absolutely scowls.”
“He is sleeping.”
“He is sleeping with intensity.”
You and John exchanged a look.
Your son yawned. Both grandfathers leaned closer.
“Oh,” your father whispered.
“Oh,” Mr. Price echoed.
The baby made a tiny, squeaking noise. Your father looked delighted. Mr. Price looked ready to commission a full orchestra.
The 141 arrived at the end of the third week.
You had been warned in advance.
John had received a note from Gaz, written in his usual neat hand, informing him that Soap had been threatened with bodily harm if he brought anything loud, sharp, explosive, sticky, or inappropriate for an infant.
Soap had written beneath it:
No promises.
Ghost had added one line at the bottom.
We will keep him contained.
No one believed that.
They arrived in a clatter of boots, coats, laughter, and nervous energy. Gaz was the first through the door, carrying a wrapped parcel and looking almost suspiciously polite.
“Congratulations,” he said, his smile warm. “He is beautiful.”
You smiled. “Thank you.”
Soap pushed past him immediately.
“Where is the wee menace?”
“Soap,” John warned.
“What? I am being affectionate.”
“You are being loud.”
“I am whispering.”
“You are not.”
Soap lowered his voice by perhaps one degree.
“Where is he?”
Ghost entered last.
He did not say anything at first. He only removed his gloves, set them carefully on the hall table, and looked toward the nursery door.
John watched him.
“You can hold him,” John said.
Ghost looked at him.
“I know.”
“You do not have to.”
“I know.”
“You look like you are approaching a bomb.”
Ghost stared at him.
“It is smaller than a bomb.”
Soap snorted. Gaz covered his mouth to hide a smile. Ghost glanced at all of them with the exhausted air of a man who had somehow survived war only to be assigned to this.
When they entered the nursery, the baby was awake.
Your son lay in John’s arms, wrapped in a soft cream blanket. His eyes were open, dark and curious, his little mouth making thoughtful shapes.
Soap stopped dead.
“Oh,” he said.
His voice had gone quiet. Really quiet.
You looked at John. John looked just as surprised.
Soap came closer slowly, hands tucked awkwardly behind his back.
“He is tiny.”
“Yes,” you said.
“I knew he would be tiny. Babies are tiny. But he is actually tiny.”
“That is generally how babies work,” Gaz said.
Soap ignored him.
“Can I hold him?”
John looked at you. You nodded.
Soap sat in the rocking chair with such exaggerated care that everyone in the room had to bite back laughter. John lowered the baby into his arms.
Soap froze. His entire body went still. Your son blinked up at him. Soap’s eyes immediately filled.
“Oh, no,” Gaz said under his breath.
Soap sniffed.
“He has got his mother’s face.”
John gave him a look.
“And his father’s grumpy brow,” Soap added quickly.
The baby made a small sound.
Soap looked terrified.
“What does that mean?”
“It means he has found your voice unpleasant,” Ghost said.
Soap turned to glare at him. The baby startled slightly. Soap immediately looked horrified.
“Sorry, wee man. Sorry.”
Your son settled again.
Soap’s face softened.
“I would kill anyone who hurt him,” he whispered.
John looked at him. Soap met his eyes. The joke had gone. For once, he sounded entirely serious.
John’s expression changed.
“Aye,” he said quietly. “I know.”
Gaz held the baby next.
He was calmer about it, though you noticed the way he adjusted the blanket twice, then once more, before settling your son securely against his arm.
“He has a good grip,” Gaz observed when the baby wrapped his fingers around one of Gaz’s.
“Everyone keeps saying that,” you said.
“It is a useful skill.”
John looked amused. “For what?”
Gaz looked down at the baby.
“Life.”
Ghost held him last.
He did not ask. He simply took the baby when John offered him. For a moment, the room seemed to hold its breath.
Ghost looked down at your son. Your son looked back. Then, very slowly, his little hand reached up and caught on the edge of Ghost’s sleeve.
Ghost went completely motionless.
Soap noticed first.
“Oh, he likes you.”
Ghost did not look up.
“He has poor judgment.”
Your baby made a contented noise.
Ghost’s thumb moved once over the blanket.
“He is safe,” Ghost said quietly.
It was not a question. It was a statement.
John nodded.
“He is.”
The visit became loud after that.
Soap presented his gift, a tiny stuffed lion wearing a little blue ribbon around its neck.
“It is not loud,” he said defensively. “It does not explode. It is suitable.”
“It has a knife sewn into its mane?” Gaz asked.
Soap looked offended. “It is decorative.”
John took the lion.
“It is going in a drawer until he is older.”
Soap sighed. “Fine.”
Gaz gave you a book of maps, the pages filled with soft illustrations of rivers, mountains, and towns.
“For when he is old enough to ask where things are,” he said.
You touched the cover.
“It is beautiful.”
Ghost had brought a small wool blanket. Dark, warm, plain, and obviously chosen with more thought than he would ever admit.
“It will last,” he said.
You looked at him.
“Thank you.”
He nodded once.
The baby yawned. Ghost looked down at him. Then, so quietly you almost missed it, he said, “Sleep well, little one.”
By the time they left, the nursery was full of gifts, laughter, and the kind of warmth that stayed long after the door closed.
That night, the house was quiet again. Not silent. Never silent.
Your son had finally fallen asleep after a long evening of fussing. John had carried him upstairs, refusing to let you make the climb again after you had spent most of the afternoon entertaining visitors.
Now you sat in the nursery chair with a blanket over your knees, your head tipped back against the soft cushion. John stood beside the cradle. He had just checked the baby. Again.
You watched him.
“Five times tonight,” you said.
He looked at you.
“Six.”
“You are impossible.”
“I know.”
He came to sit beside you on the floor, his back against the side of the chair. For a few moments, neither of you spoke.
The fire burned low. The baby breathed softly in the cradle. John rested his head against your knee. You slid your fingers into his hair.
“I did not know it would be like this,” you whispered.
John looked up at you.
“Hard?”
“Yes.”
He nodded.
“It is hard.”
“Everything takes longer.”
“Yes.”
“I cannot remember the last time I drank tea while it was still hot.”
“Neither can I.”
“I miss sleeping.”
“So do I.”
“I miss being able to leave a room without wondering if he is breathing.”
John was quiet for a moment.
“Me too.”
You looked down at him. He smiled faintly. Then he reached for your hand and pressed it to his mouth.
“But,” he said softly, “I have never been happier.”
Your throat tightened. John looked toward the cradle.
“I did not know a person could feel so tired and so full at the same time,” he continued. “I did not know I could be frightened every hour of the day and still think this is the best thing that has ever happened to me.”
You swallowed.
“I feel that too.”
He shifted closer, resting his cheek against your knee.
“We are learning.”
“Slowly.”
“Painfully.”
“Very painfully.”
He smiled. Then his expression softened.
“But together.”
You looked at the cradle. At the tiny shape beneath the blanket. At the room that had once been a study, then a dream, then a carefully prepared future.
Now it held your son.
Your son, who had cried through the night and refused to sleep unless held and already seemed capable of commanding every heart in the house.
You reached down and touched John’s face.
“This is hard,” you whispered.
“Yes.”
“But this is home.”
John looked at you. His eyes shone in the firelight. Then he rose, leaned down, and kissed you softly.
Not the desperate kiss of newlyweds. Not the breathless kiss of stolen moments. This was slower. Tired. Tender. A kiss between two people who had survived another long day and knew there would be another one waiting in the morning.
When he pulled back, he pressed his forehead to yours.
“Home,” he agreed.
From the cradle came the smallest little sigh. Both of you turned. Your son slept on.
John smiled. You smiled too.
And in the quiet glow of the nursery, with the fire low and the house settled around you, you understood something you had not known before.
Love did not always arrive in grand moments. Sometimes it came at three in the morning with a crying baby and cold tea. Sometimes it came in a husband pacing the hall with your child against his chest. Sometimes it came in exhaustion, in milk-stained sleeves, in unfinished meals, in hands reaching for each other without looking.
Sometimes it was difficult. Sometimes it was loud. Sometimes it made you ache. But it was yours. And it was home.
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Summary: In the aftermath of last mission you are left alone with anxiety and doubt sipping into your mind. He wakes up and you have to face the consequences of your actions. How does he see you know after all this?
Tw: Hospitals, discussion of injuries, angst, yearning, probably medical inaccuracies, ghoap mentioned, gn!reader, topics of guilt and insecurity, fluff at the end, happy ending.
Word count: 3450
You would have never guessed that the storm of emotions that was tearing your insides apart could simultaneously feel so hollow. It didn’t make much sense, especially not now as you were all safe at the base. Ghost and Soap have successfully captured the target and brought him in for questioning. Price was hospitalized and in a stable condition, which should make the weight fall off your shoulders. So why were you still such a mess?
Your body was still so on edge. Tension digging into your muscles with sharp claws, keeping you in a constant state of unease. The type that creeps around you and pretends it’s not there, like that little shadow in the corner of your eye that looks like a person and then suddenly disappears, making you feel like you’re crazy. The constant feeling of stones glued to your stomach and tightness in your throat did nothing to help you forget the stress of the last mission. Your bruised neck has gotten better, despite still looking as if someone had broken your neck twice. The bruise’s color ranges from different shades of purple to even some greens and yellows. Although your crushed throat wasn’t at fault for the cumbersome tightness of your airway.
After getting back on base, getting patched up, and giving a report on the incident, you were left alone to your own devices, which meant your mind was a spinning wheel of bottled-up emotions and unspoken words. You dwelled on them for hours, maybe days. The scene at the vacant premises stuck in your head. Every single weakness you displayed came back to haunt you, nipping at your skin and making you almost jerk up every time you remembered one of them. The guilt, embarrassment, and shame washing over you each time, all over again, bringing you back to that moment. His bloodied up clothes, his wound, his pained eyes that stayed on you no matter what, yet refused to show weakness. His soft lips against yours, they were so cold and pale. The feeling of his beard against your face. It all made your chest cave in. The affection you carried towards him, which you accepted while his blood was on your hands, along with that…
You should have done better.
Sitting at his side while his chest rose and fell with a steady rhythm was agony. You kind of wished you were the one who got shot just so you wouldn’t have to deal with your inner turmoil. The sight of John alive was a relief, but seeing him like this… It left a bitter taste in your mouth, essentially since you couldn’t convince yourself that it wasn’t your fault. If you had scouted the area more thoroughly or just fucking noticed the goddamn sniper sooner. If it were you in that bed, everything would have gone more smoothly. Not only did your body fail you, too weak to get to safety or protect him, but your own mind as well. Fear took over. You lost your cool. At least that’s what you seemed to believe.
You prayed to whichever god there was that John didn’t remember you kissed him. The memory replayed before your eyes constantly, with a light tingle on your lips. There was no coming back from it, was there? For you, there was no way back.
Occasionally your pity party would be interrupted by one of your friends. There could be only two people in Price’s room at a time, and everyone seemed to understand that you were not moving from the small chair to his left. So one after another, they silently joined you to listen to the beeping of the heart monitor accompanied by your captain’s soft breathing. Sitting like this with your teammates gave you some solace. You didn’t feel so lonely, so… humiliated? That’s a good word for your current situation.
They all knew you didn’t fail. On the contrary, you saved their fucking captain, but you seemed to still wallow in what you considered a failure. Gaz and Ghost thought the reason for your mood was the barely won fight that half conscious Price had saved you from, but Soap seemed to see through you completely. Essentially, since he knew about your feelings.
You didn’t plan on telling anyone… ever, but the two of you went out for drinks, and the conversation went off the rails.
„Okay, but who would you say is the hottest in the task force? I mean, I take the first spot, obviously, and you take the last. How do we range the rest in that middle ground?” Soap’s voice slurred as he spoke nonsense, his Scottish accent even harder to decipher, while he was drunk.
„Who the fuck put you in first place?” You turned to him from your spot on the floor next to his bunk bed with a huff. You didn’t question why he was ranking your teammates on their attractiveness nor why you were the last one. You only reacted because he put himself in first place. There was no way you’d agree.
„Me, obviously,” he pinned to himself with a shrug.
„No fucking way,” you said, shaking your head. You couldn’t help the grin that hurt your cheeks.
„Yes fucking way, who would you put in first?” The question was spoken with a smile and a strong Scottish accent,
„Price!” You exclaimed, tone playful but earnest.
„Are you serious? I beat the last sparring session had you whipped,” Soap laughed, remembering the situation, knowing that you had a thing for John made it much more entertaining now.
The way he had corrected your posture. Hands firm, but gentle, on your biceps, your hips. Your face must have been stupidly red. And then a brutal crush to the ground as he showed a new move. You could tell he was holding out on you. It still took your breath away. Metaphorically and literally.
„Oh, it did something to me you don’t even know. I’ve had feelings for him for months-„ News of your little crush slipped from your mouth. Your eyes met, realization settling through your drunken state. The moment it did, your face slowly fell. You looked away. The silence that followed was daunting. No explanation was needed. It was as if the conversation had already happened.
„You know… I never told anyone, but I have a thing for Ghost,” he said in a quieter voice. You almost wanted to scoff, since it was quite evident that he had feelings for your Lt.
„What I mean is… I think I know how you feel,” a confession of his own, spoken not out of pity but out of solidarity, so you wouldn’t feel lonely.
You were glad he never told anyone, probably because he knew the burden of loving someone he shouldn’t. Loving…
Your little crush wasn’t so little anymore. They grow up so fast, right?
The one thought from the mission kept on coming back to you.
‚When he makes it out alive, I’m crossing every line.’
Every time he shifted slightly, you stiffened, preparing for reality to hit you like a thousand bricks. Preparing to face the consequences of your own actions and emotions. Will he remember what happened? If he does, will he be mad at you? Will that change everything or nothing? Did you want anything to change? What did you want?
You were scared to face him. You wanted to hide, but you couldn’t bring yourself to. You barely left his side, and if you did, you looked like a beaten puppy, your eyes glued to John constantly. Ghost was even expecting you to let out a sad little whine when they forced you out of Price’s room to get you food at the cafeteria. You didn’t eat much, nor did you sleep. You tried to get some rest in your bunk, but after struggling to close your eyes and then waking up from nightmares plaguing your mind, you let it go. The only time you got to catch some sleep was next to Price’s hospital bed in a tinny, plasticky chair.
Price could feel his head throbbing, the pulsing sensation pushing at his brain and eyes. Keeping them closed hurt, as if there was sand underneath his eyelids. Opening them with a soft groan, the light momentarily blinding him. Everything was so fucking bright. It didn’t matter if his eyes were closed or not. The sensation was insufferable either way.
He wanted to rub his eyes to get rid of the unpleasant fullness in his eyes, but the moment he moved his arm, the pain hit him. The feeling was so sudden it caught his breath. All that happened gradually started to come back to him. His memory was a combination of mismatched images and sounds and he had no idea what to make of them. One thing he was quite sure of. He had gotten the single most unlucky blast injury of his life. Or rather the luckiest one, because how in the bloody hell did he survive this? The answer to that question sat to his left, curled up in the world’s most uncomfortable chair.
His tired eyes moved over your sleeping form groggily. You were out cold, the shadows under your eyes a telltale sign of your lack of rest. He was sure that with the way you were sitting, it would make your neck cramp later, although with the bruising decorating your throat, a muscle knot wasn’t the worst of it. Price could feel tightness in his stomach at the sight of you… he hated seeing you this hurt. You were a soldier, so it wasn’t uncommon for you to be bruised, but there was a line in John’s mind, and it was crossed here.
His memories were combining into a coherent story. He remembered getting shot, that’s for fucking sure, and then you were patching him up. After that things seemed more… unreal. He remembers the feeling of your body under his as you carried him away, your worried but steady tone. Never have he heard you so bothered. He also recalled… something else, which he wasn’t sure if he dreamed of while unconscious or if it really happened.
„You might…” ‚Die’ he almost said, but he couldn’t finish that sentence. The mere thought of you dying was inconceivable. You were one of his best soldiers. You were young and full of zest for life, which he thought was gone from his life before. He knew you wouldn’t leave his side, but he hoped you would. You were loyal to the core, your biggest strength, but in that moment, his greatest weakness.
„I don’t care.” Your voice was so soft and quiet, your hands delicately stroking his face. It smashed through his ribcage harder than that bullet.
Your lips on his must have been heaven itself, maybe he has already died and this was the other side.
He still wasn’t fully certain if you had truly kissed him or if it was all in his head. Did he want it to be true?
God, yes.
His gaze was fixated on you, mind swirling with traces of that mission. Your chipped lips, the marred skin of your neck, he knew you fought fiercely. He saw it. Price wasn’t one to sit back and watch, so he had to help you somehow and shooting that fucker was the only way to aid you effectively. Your eyes fluttered lightly as they opened, your tired gaze meeting his lazily. It took you a moment to realize you were looking into his icy blues. When you became aware of the eye contact, you froze.
„Price.” It was just his name, spoken very plainly, but it felt loaded. You immediately started to untangle your body from that clearly uncomfortable position and stood up. You came closer to his bed, your hand immediately moving to touch him, feel him, but it stopped awkwardly in the air.
„I’ll go get the nurse,” you said quietly, mainly due to your hurt vocal cords, but you didn’t want to agitate your Captain too. You turned your back to him, wanting to leave the room and find someone who could check on him, now that he’s awake. You stopped in your tracks when he grabbed your hand. Facing him now, you were ready to scold him, but you noticed it was his good hand he reached for you with.
„Stay.” His voice was extremely hoarse. Maybe there was a hint of desperation, or it was just your tired mind playing with you. It didn’t matter, because you stayed.
‚I'm crossing every line.’ The thought echoed in your mind.
You moved to the bedside opposite of his injury. Your hand took hold of his. The touch was feather light, hesitant. You wanted to make your intention known. You wanted to reveal it, you just needed to tear off the thin layer of fear that lay on top. He tilted his head, telling you wordlessly to sit on the bed next to him. By the way his brows creased, you could see that this simple gesture required a lot from him. You took a seat at the side of the bed, your hand still in his. His hold was weak, almost ghostly, a stark contrast to his usual steadiness. For some reason, it made your chest hurt, blame washing over you again. You could feel his gaze burning a hole in you, but you couldn’t look him in the eyes. The shame settled on your shoulders again. You were sure it was your fault he was in this state, because who else’s? You tried to not let it show, but either you couldn’t hold it in anymore or he was extremely attentive even with a gaping hole in his chest. He reached his hand to your face, moving some hair out of it, his movements slow, yet very intentional. John had a feeling what happened didn’t come to him in a dream, since you didn’t recoil from his touch.
„I’m sorry, Captain…” you muttered out, biting your tongue to stop the tremor of your voice. The tears of worry and embarrassment gathered in your eyes.
„No, don’t... You don’t apologize… for a thing.” Price’s voice was firm despite the shortness of breath that made his words come out as ragged. His eyes were soft as he inspected your features. Tenderness was a rare look on him, and it made you melt. There was so much you wanted to say, to let him know how much you truly admire him, that you couldn’t leave him there to die. The air was filled with words unsaid, waiting for a crack to spill out and crush down on you both.
„You saved my life…” he rasped quietly. There was a shadow of a smile on his features. His gravely tone made your stomach flutter. You couldn’t meet his eyes. They were too loving. You didn’t deserve it.
„I had to pay you back someday, right?” Your weak voice spoke a half-joke. He’s saved your arse more than once, and you were truly grateful for each and every time. You never wished for a day when you’d have to rescue John, but you were glad everything turned out okay.
„You don’t have to… pay back anything… we’re a team, love.” His hand rubbed your forearm lightly. You could tell he was glad you were here. Your face might have gotten a bit red, which also he might have noticed, judging by the corner of his lips moving upwards. You realized he remembered the admission of your feelings, if you could call it that. Without needing any words of confirmation from him, you were sure you weren’t alone with those emotions.
You finally locked eyes with him, and you were glad you were sitting. The cold blue of his eyes made a shiver run down your spine, leaving goosebumps all over your skin. John had no idea what he did to you. None of it was new, the only difference was that for the first time ever, you did not conceal it.
You took his hand in yours. It was still a little cold, but it was definitely not as bad as at the abandoned building. You looked it over, caressing it softly with your thumbs, your gaze focused on the lines of his rough hands, the veins on the back of it, tiny scars here and there. You noticed that the smaller cuts seemed to scar with a visibly lighter shade than his skin. Moving his hand up to your lips, placing a timid kiss on his knuckles, and then a second one and then a third. You made eye contact through your lashes to see how he reacted to your action. He seemed perfectly relaxed. If he wasn’t plugged into the heart monitor and an IV, you’d think he just woke up from a very good nap, the kind that makes you forget what day it is and gets you an imprint of your sheets on your skin.
„You sure you want me, John? On…your team.” You corrected yourself, not sure if the first words of that statement were too bold. He was still your commanding officer after all. Although your worries were silly at this point. You still backpedaled, just in case you read his intentions wrong.
His hand was still close to your face. He moved it closer. His fingers tracing your cheek. The question had an obvious answer. For a second, John thought you were joking, but the shy glint in your eyes told him you needed a genuine answer. His fingers traced your face down to your chin, his index finger moving under it and his thumb gently grazing your lower lip.
„Come here and find out,” John’s voice rumbled, the low sound hypnotizing. It was his turn to test the waters, although he was less timid than you. His approach was as bold as the way he advanced in the heat of battle. That’s just how he was, confident and purposeful. Anything he did had meaning. So if there was no hesitation in his gaze, why should you be worried? Time to listen to your own desires for once.
Without having him wait, you leaned in, the movement unhurried, a bit careful due to the injuries you both sustained, but none of it was uncertain. You joined your mouths in a soft, gentle kiss.
There was no fear or adrenaline in your veins this time. You could now truly melt into it and let yourself enjoy the thrill of this simple act.
This time he reciprocated fully. The hand on his good side cupped your cheek and deepened the kiss. Your mouths moved in tandem. It was slow and tender. Your heartbeat sped up just from the feeling of his lips against yours, his calloused fingers on your skin, melting more into him was the only thing your body allowed for now. You broke the kiss to allow him to breathe. It seemed that you needed the oxygen more than he, though, because one deep inhale later his lips were on you once again, and you let him take whatever he wanted. You could hear the beeping of his heart monitor increasing in time, the passionate kissing affecting you both. You moved away, unable to stop the grin that was pulling the corners of your mouth to your ears, your eyes wrinkling happily for the first time in days.
„Shut up.” He smirked and scoffed softly, eyes closing, both from slight embarrassment and from exhaustion. He was spent after the surgery and from a very fresh and very big wound.
„Get some more sleep, Captain,” you said as you held his hand, not moving an inch from him after the kiss.
„Don’t you dare, call me Captain when we’re like this…” His raspy response was laced with a low chuckle, but you could tell there was a warning underneath the amusement. There was no chance he'd let you pull back now, not when he had a taste of you.
„Alright… John," for the first time ever, you’ve said his name so lightly. There was no tension, no hidden feelings that you could ignore. It was all out in the open. Your eyes didn’t shy away either, they were filled with admiration.
„Just give me some time to adjust, will you?” You asked with a shy smile.
„You’re lucky I have a soft spot for you,” John gave your cheek one last caress before closing his eyes. An exhale left his chest, and with it, all his cares.
After one last tender morning as a family, you return from the park with the girls to find John gone without a note, leaving the house hollow with the brutal realization that he walked away while you were still waving goodbye.
82. Still Waving
You lay there awhile in the dark, talking the way people do when sex has softened all the sharp corners off the night. About the girls. About Peach's newest school story. About Margot's obsession with pockets. About the hotel soap smelling weirdly like cedar and oranges.
Then the quiet deepened again.
You tipped your head back to look at him.
He was staring at the ceiling now, one hand still on you, thumb moving in those same absent little circles.
"What?" you whispered.
He blinked, looked down at you, and smiled. Small. Tired. Beautiful.
"Nothin'."
"No. There's something."
He exhaled.
And for one breath, one single fragile breath, you thought he might tell you. His hand came up and brushed your hair back from your face.
"I just..." he said, then stopped.
You waited.
He looked at you like a man standing on the edge of saying something he could not unsay.
Then he kissed your forehead instead.
"I'm glad I married you," he murmured.
Your heart softened all over again.
You smiled and touched his jaw. "That better not have been your big confession."
He gave you a faint laugh. "No."
But he did not continue.
You could have pushed.
Maybe you should have.
Instead, you settled closer, your cheek over his heart, and let yourself believe what made the most sense. That he was emotional because of the wedding, the kids, the op, life. That men like John did not always know how to sort gratitude from fear once they'd had too much of both.
You kissed his chest through the thin line of hair there and murmured, "I'm glad too."
His arm tightened around you.
That was enough.
Or it had to be.
At some point you drifted under, still warm from him, the sheets cool at your back, the city moving softly outside the glass.
Your last clear sensation was his hand at the nape of your neck and the steady rise and fall of his breathing beneath your cheek.
You fell asleep on his chest feeling safe.
Morning came slow and soft.
You woke before him for once, not because of a monitor or a child or a list already running in your head, but because sunlight had found the gap in the curtains and laid itself warm across the bed. The hotel room looked different in daylight. Less golden, more real. The city outside still moving, but quieter from up here.
John was asleep on his stomach, one arm angled toward your side of the bed as though he had fallen asleep reaching for you and never let the instinct go. His hair was a mess. His mouth relaxed. The lines around his eyes gentler than they ever looked awake.
You propped yourself on one elbow and just looked at him.
At your husband.
At the man who had taken you into the city and loved you like the world was ending and somehow never made it feel frightening.
When he woke, it was all rough voice and warm hands and a lazy smile when he found you already watching him.
"What?" he asked, half asleep.
"You snore."
He shut one eye. "Lies."
"Tiny lies."
"Still slander."
You kissed him before he could properly defend himself. Then he rolled you onto your back and kissed you until both of you were laughing and breathless and far too lazy to move for another twenty minutes.
By the time you checked your phone, there were two pictures from your mom. One of Peach holding a spoon over a pancake like she was preparing surgery. One of Margot sitting in a laundry basket wearing a sunhat and one sock.
You showed them to John.
He smiled, but something flickered in his face too fast to name. Gone before you could decide if you'd really seen it.
"You miss them," you said.
"I do."
"Me too."
He reached for the phone, looked at the pictures again, then handed it back and sat up. "We should get going."
The drive home was easy.
The kind of easy built out of old music, coffee in paper cups, and one hand of his on the wheel while the other stayed over yours on the center console more often than not.
When you pulled into the drive, the house looked exactly like home should. Familiar. Slightly messy. Alive with things left behind and life waiting to be resumed. Curtains half open. Slinky visible in the window like a disapproving gargoyle.
The girls came at you both full force when you opened the door.
Peach first, because of course. Already talking. Already demanding to know whether hotels had tiny soaps and if you had breakfast in bed and if this counted as "romantic." Margot behind her, less articulate but no less insistent, throwing herself at John's legs and chanting "Da! Da! Da!" until he bent to pick her up.
He held her like he always did, one hand broad over her back, and looked around the house as if taking its measure all over again.
You took the bags upstairs and came back down to find him in the kitchen helping Peach pour cereal while Margot sat on the counter trying to steal dry Cheerios from the box.
You thanked your mother and waved her off. It could have been any other day. It felt like any other day. That was the thing that made what came next so cruelly ordinary.
By late morning, after showers and unpacking and the first round of washing already spinning because married life had dishes and hotel stays just made more of them, John said he needed to handle some work things.
Nothing in you snagged on it.
Not then.
Not really.
He was standing by the hall table, buttoning a shirt while Peach lay on the rug drawing and Margot tried to shove a crayon up Slinky's nose.
"What kind of work things?" you asked, mostly because you were half deciding whether the girls needed shoes or sandals for the park.
"Base paperwork. Calls. Boring stuff."
He said it easily.
Maybe too easily.
But he had always been good at making the dangerous parts sound administrative when the girls were in earshot. You barely looked up from tying Peach's hair into two neat braids.
"I thought we'd go to the park after lunch," you said.
He nodded once. "Good."
Peach immediately looked up. "You coming?"
And there it was. The smallest pause. Tiny enough that if you hadn't spent years reading him, you might have missed it.
Then he smiled at her. "Not this time, Princess. Need to get some things sorted."
She pouted. "But you push me the highest!”
"I know."
Margot, hearing none of the actual conversation but all of the emotional weight, toddled over and attached herself to his leg.
He bent and scooped her up. Kissed her hair. Held her a second longer than the moment required.
You watched that and told yourself nothing.
You packed the park bag. Juice pouches. Wipes. Snacks. The tiny football because Peach always wanted it and Margot liked carrying things bigger than her head. John found Peach's shoes before you asked, knelt to put them on while she kept one foot still with the exaggerated patience of a saint.
"Other one," he murmured.
"I know."
"You're wearing them on the wrong feet."
She gasped. "No I'm not."
He looked up at you over the top of her head, and for a second there was that private softness between you both. Familiar. Easy. Married.
"Your daughter," he said.
You smiled. "Unfortunately."
Peach finally got both shoes on the correct feet and launched herself up, immediately running to get her sunglasses even though the sky was half cloud.
Margot was next. John kissed the top of her head while you wrestled her into sandals she did not want and he held her still with one hand under her ribs.
"Mama park," she declared.
"Yes, baby. Park."
John looked at you then. Really looked.
Not enough to alarm you.
Enough, maybe, that later you would remember the exact expression and hate yourself for not understanding it.
You leaned in and kissed him quickly. "Don't work too hard."
He touched your hip, thumb pressing once through the fabric of your dress. "Take your time."
"That sounds suspiciously like an order."
"Maybe."
Peach was already halfway to the car, waving the football over her head. Margot twisted toward the front door in your arms, eager as anything. The whole house smelled like sunscreen and laundry and the last of the hotel shampoo in your hair.
You looked back once from the porch.
John stood in the doorway, one hand braced on the frame, watching all three of you.
"Come outside," Peach shouted. "You can wave better from here."
He did.
He came down the front path, stopped by the passenger door, and leaned in to kiss Peach's forehead through the open window.
"Be good."
"I'm always good."
"That's not true."
She grinned.
He touched Margot's foot where it stuck out from her car seat and said, "Look after your mum."
"Da," Margot said solemnly.
Then he came around to your side.
You rolled the window down further and tilted your face up. He kissed you gently, one hand at the side of your neck.
"See you later," you said.
His mouth rested against yours one second longer than necessary.
"Later," he said.
You smiled and pulled away because the girls were watching and Peach found prolonged kissing morally offensive before noon.
You started the car.
Peach waved like she was leaving for war.
Margot copied with an open-palmed flap that looked more like she was swatting flies.
John stood in the driveway and watched until you were at the road. You lifted one hand from the wheel and waved again through the windscreen.
He did not move.
You were still waving from the car when he turned and went back inside.
The second the door closed, the house changed shape around him.
Silence. Real silence. Not the brief kind between children's questions. The deep kind. Hollow. Immediate.
John stood in the hall for one beat, two, looking at the rug where Peach's sunglasses had been before she remembered them. At the little jacket Margot had dropped by the stairs. At the framed photo on the wall from the wedding, all of you sunlit and laughing and unguarded.
Then he moved.
Not quickly.
Efficiently.
The duffel was already packed. Hidden in the coat cupboard behind the vacuum and the winter scarves. He took it out and set it by the front door. Phone. Wallet. Keys. Hat. Cigar case. All the ritual pieces. All the things that turned husband into Captain one choice at a time.
He put on his boots last.
That was when he nearly broke.
Not because of the boots themselves. Because from where he sat lacing them, he could see the living room. The toys still half out. One little stuffed rabbit on the couch. A crayon under the coffee table. Proof of life in every direction.
He stood too fast and had to put one hand on the wall.
The duffel waited by the door.
His phone buzzed once in his pocket. He did not answer it yet.
Instead he opened the front door, stepped onto the porch with the bag in one hand, and stopped in the driveway.
One pause. One terrible pause.
The afternoon was bright and ordinary. Somewhere down the road a dog barked. Someone started a lawnmower two houses over. Wind moved through the hedges in soft little shivers.
He could still go back inside.
Could still put the bag down. Call Laswell and say forget it. Let this be carried out. Go to the park with his girls and too much sun on their shoulders. Eat sandwiches on a blanket and push Peach too high and come home to baths and bedtime and the ordinary holiness of a house that expected him in it.
He stood there and let himself want it.
Then he shut the front door and walked to the truck.
You came home that evening with both girls pink-cheeked and tired.
Peach had fallen asleep in the car for ten minutes and woken up furious about it. Margot had one sock missing and a smear of melted fruit snack on her shirt. The football was somehow covered in dirt and duck feathers and no one could explain why.
You carried the park bag in one hand, Margot on your hip, Peach's sleepy little hand in your other, and got as far as the hallway before something in you went still.
The house was too quiet.
Not empty exactly. Just wrong.
No music from the kitchen. No floorboard creak upstairs. No muttered curse from the laundry room because the machine had jammed again. No John.
You set the park bag down slowly.
"Daddy?" Peach called.
Nothing.
Your chest tightened.
"John?"
You walked through the house fast then, trying to keep your face steady because Peach was watching. Kitchen first. Back garden. Upstairs. Bedroom. Spare room. Bathroom. Office.
Nothing.
No note on the table. No message on the counter. No stupid little scrap of paper with one of his half-assed attempts at reassurance.
Just absence.
When you came back downstairs, Peach was standing exactly where you'd left her in the hallway, the football at her feet, Margot now sitting on the rug and babbling at nothing.
"Where’s daddy?" Peach asked.
You looked at the front door.
At the empty hook where his keys had been. At the space by the wall where his duffel usually sat when he was home. At the silence pressing against the walls like the whole house knew before you did.
And because there was no note, no warning, no softening of it at all, the truth landed all at once.
He was gone.
You stood in the middle of the hallway with your daughters looking at you and the whole house around you suddenly hollowed out.
No note.
Nothing but the echo of the front door closing and the knowledge that he had walked out of this life in the middle of an ordinary day while you were still waving from the car.
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With the girls safely away for the night, John surprises you with dinner, a hotel room, and a deeply intimate evening where romance, desire, and the fragile gratitude of your life together all come rushing to the surface.
NSFW
81. All Night
John told you to get dressed and refused to explain himself.
That should have been warning enough.
Instead, you stood in the middle of your bedroom with a dress in one hand and a heel in the other, staring at the closed bathroom door while steam curled out from beneath it and wondering what exactly your husband had planned.
"John," you called. "Am I dressing for nice dinner or terrifyingly nice dinner?"
From behind the door came, "That depends."
"On what?"
"How pretty you feel like being."
You laughed despite yourself. "That is not helpful."
"It is if you know me."
That was true, annoyingly.
You ended up in black. Something simple and soft that skimmed your body instead of fighting it, with earrings you had not worn in months and shoes that made you feel taller and just a little dangerous. By the time you finished your makeup and twisted your hair up, he was standing in the doorway in dark trousers and a crisp shirt, jacket over one arm, tie loosened just enough to look unfair.
You stopped with your lipstick still in your hand. He looked at you and forgot whatever he had been about to say. That was not ego. It was obvious on his face.
"Alright," you said slowly. "Now you're making me nervous."
He came closer, eyes never leaving yours. "Don't be."
"Where are we going?"
He took the lipstick from your hand, set it on the dresser, and kissed you with the sort of patience that made your knees feel soft. "Out."
You laughed into his mouth. "I gathered that."
He smiled against your lips. "Trust me?"
That was never the right question for him to ask. Not because it was unfair. Because your answer had been yes for too long now to pretend otherwise.
So you kissed him once more and said, "Fine. But if I'm underdressed, I'm blaming you."
"You won't be."
Your mom had both girls for the night. Peach had been thrilled by the idea of a sleepover and had asked at least six times if this counted as a date. Margot had waved you off with all the dismissive confidence of a toddler who believed grandparents were built solely for her amusement. By the time you and John got in the car, the house was quiet in that strange way it only was when both girls were gone.
It felt wrong for exactly one minute. Then John reached over and took your hand as he drove, thumb brushing the side of your ring, and everything in you settled into the warmth of his palm.
The city looked beautiful at night. You did not get to it often like this, dressed up and unhurried, with nowhere to be except beside him. Streets wet from an earlier rain caught the light and threw it back in long blurred ribbons. Shop windows glowed gold. Music drifted from open doors. People moved in clusters on the pavement, coats open, laughter hanging in the cool air.
John parked outside a restaurant with soft lighting and too much glass and held the door for you like he had all the time in the world.
Inside, everything smelled expensive and clean and faintly of candle wax. White tablecloths. Low voices. A piano somewhere you could not quite see.
You looked at him as the hostess led you to your table, "John Price."
He pulled out your chair. "What?"
"You've gone full romance."
He sat down opposite you and smiled in that quiet way that always made your chest ache. "Thought my wife deserved a nice night."
You should have teased him more. You did not. Because there was something in him already. A softness sharpened by gratitude. A kind of careful attention that turned every ordinary gesture reverent.
He ordered wine you liked without asking because he knew it by heart now. He let you steal pieces from his plate. He listened to every rambling thing you said about the girls and Peach's latest teacher-crush and the way Margot had started saying Slinky like "Tinky" and how your mom had absolutely overpacked pajamas for a one-night stay.
And he looked at you. God, he looked at you. Not in a hungry way. Not only that, anyway. Like he was full of something too big to carry neatly.
At first you thought it was just the wedding still settling into him. The simple fact of husband and wife. The strangeness of surviving enough to get here. The girls. The house. The impossible luck of it all. Then you thought maybe it was the last op too, whatever sharp edge of it still clung to him. Maybe he was trying to put himself back together by soaking in beauty for one evening.
That explanation made sense. It just was not enough to explain the exact expression on his face when the waiter walked away and the city lights outside the windows softened into blur and he said, very quietly, "I'm a lucky bastard."
You smiled around your wineglass. "That so?"
He nodded once. You waited.
He looked down at his hands for a second, then back at you. "Got a wife I don't deserve. Two girls who somehow think I hung the moon. A house that feels like home every time I walk in it." He huffed the faintest laugh. "Didn't think I'd get this. Not really."
Something warm and painful moved through you. "You deserve us."
His eyes held yours. "Maybe."
"That's not modesty. That's annoying."
That got a real smile.
You reached across the table and touched his hand. "You do."
He turned his palm up immediately and laced your fingers together.
Outside, the city kept moving. Inside, the table between you felt like a little island of candlelight and wine and the low glow of being seen.
After dinner, he took you to a hotel two blocks away.
Again, he had not told you this part in advance. You found out when he handed his card across the desk and the woman behind it smiled at you with a sort of knowing politeness.
You looked at him as you stepped into the lift. "You booked a room?”
He loosened his tie another inch. "Aye."
"And didn't tell me?”
He leaned against the mirrored wall and looked far too pleased with himself. "Wanted to surprise you."
"So that's what this is."
"That and the fact that I did not fancy drivin' home if we had too much."
You laughed. "Responsible and secretive. Dangerous combination."
The room was all dark wood and city lights and too many windows. A bed bigger than necessary. A bathroom with a tub that probably cost more than your first car. The whole city spread below in sheets of gold and glass and movement.
You stood by the window and stared out, hands resting on the cool pane.
Behind you, John set his wallet and keys on the dresser with deliberate little sounds, like he was buying himself a second to simply watch you.
You turned and found him doing exactly that. "What?" you asked softly.
He crossed the room. Put both hands at your waist. Looked down at you like he had known you in a hundred other rooms and still found this one astonishing.
"Nothin'."
"You keep saying that."
"I keep meanin' somethin' else."
His mouth found yours before you could ask what.
The kiss started slow. It did not stay there.
At first, it was just his mouth finding yours with that deep, familiar patience of his. The kind that made the rest of the room slip out of focus. The city lights blurred behind your closed eyes. His hands stayed at your waist, thumbs pressing through the soft fabric of your dress like he was grounding himself there.
Then you made a sound. Small. Unthinking. Barely more than a breath against his mouth. John changed. Not drastically. Not in a way anyone else would have noticed. But you knew him.
You felt the shift in the way his fingers tightened at your waist. The way his chest pressed closer. The way the kiss deepened all at once, his tongue sliding against yours with a hunger that had been waiting politely through dinner, through wine, through candlelight and soft conversation.
Your hands moved to his shirt. He breathed out through his nose, rough and controlled, as your fingers curled into the crisp cotton.
"John."
His mouth moved from yours to your jaw.
"Hm?"
The sound was low. Too calm. A lie.
You felt the need under it. "You planned all this."
His mouth touched the side of your neck. "Aye."
"The dinner."
Another kiss.
"The hotel."
His teeth grazed your pulse, "Mm."
"The dress code."
His hand slid up your back, slow and firm. "Wanted to see you like this."
You closed your eyes. "Like what?"
His mouth stilled against your skin. Then he lifted his head. The look on his face stole whatever teasing thing you had been about to say.
He looked at you like the room, the city, the whole world had narrowed to the space between his hands and your body. Like there was something sacred about you standing there in black with your lipstick kissed slightly soft and your eyes already dark for him.
"Like mine," he said quietly.
Your breath caught. John saw it. Of course he did. His thumb moved at your waist.
"Not in the way a man owns something," he said, voice low. "Never that."
You touched his face. "I know."
His eyes held yours. "In the way a man comes home and knows the door will open."
Your chest tightened. The city moved behind you in a thousand little lights. Inside the room, everything went still.
You kissed him this time. Harder.
John's hand came to the back of your head, careful of your hair but not careful with the kiss now. He kissed you like the whole night had been leading to this exact second. Like dinner had been restraint. Like the lift had been restraint. Like standing by the window with you in front of him had nearly finished him.
Your fingers found his tie and pulled. He made a low sound against your mouth. "Careful."
"You're the one who brought me here."
"Aye," he murmured, letting you loosen the knot. "And I'm tryin' to behave."
You laughed softly, “Are you?"
"No."
The honesty sent heat straight through you. You pulled the tie free and let it fall to the floor. His eyes dropped to it. Then back to you. "That was a nice tie."
"I'll apologize later."
"You won't."
"No."
His mouth curved. Then his hands moved to your hips, and he walked you backward until your spine met the cool glass of the window.
The contrast made you gasp. City cold behind you. John warm in front of you.
His body pressed close, solid and familiar, one thigh nudging between yours. You gripped his shoulders, breath catching as his mouth returned to your throat.
"John," you whispered.
"I know."
"You always say that."
His mouth moved lower, to the place where your neck met your shoulder. "Because I usually do."
You wanted to argue. You could not, because his hand had slipped to the side of your thigh, drawing your dress up inch by inch. Not rushed. Not careless. He took his time, fingers dragging over your skin with the kind of intent that made your knees weaken.
"You wore this for me," he said.
It was not a question. "Yes."
His hand paused beneath the hem. "Had a hard time not staring all through dinner."
"You did stare."
His beard scraped lightly over your jaw. "Had a hard time not doin' worse."
Your fingers tightened in his shirt. "What would worse be?"
He pulled back enough to look at you. The corner of his mouth shifted, but the hunger in his eyes stayed too serious for a smile.
"Wanted to bring you back here before the wine even came."
Your stomach fluttered. "Why didn't you?"
His hand slid higher beneath your dress. "Because I like watchin' my wife enjoy herself."
Your breath caught as his fingers brushed the edge of your underwear.
"And because," he continued, voice rougher now, "I knew I'd get you to myself after."
The words settled low and hot. His fingers traced the delicate fabric at your hip. You tipped your head back against the glass. John watched your face.
Always.
That was the thing about him. He could make you feel like you were being consumed and studied at once. Like every tremble mattered. Every breath. Every little shift of your body under his hands.
His mouth found yours again as his fingers slipped beneath the fabric. You gasped into the kiss. He swallowed it. Slowly, he touched you.
Not enough at first. Just enough to make your body wake fully under him. A careful stroke through heat and wetness that made his breath change against your lips.
"Christ," he murmured.
Your cheeks burned. John's forehead rested against yours.
"You're already wet for me."
You tried to laugh, but it came out thin. “You kissed me against a window."
"Aye. And?"
"And you look like that."
His fingers moved again, slower. "Like what?"
"Like you're going to ruin me."
His eyes darkened. His fingers pressed more firmly, finding your clit with a patient circle that made your hips jerk against his hand.
"Not ruin," he said.
You whimpered softly. "No?"
"No." He kissed your cheek. "Never ruin." Another slow circle. Your nails dug into his shoulders.
"Just remind you."
"Of what?"
His mouth brushed your ear. "How good it is when you let me take my time."
Your knees nearly gave. John caught you with his free arm around your waist, holding you upright against the glass while his hand worked between your thighs. Slow. Precise. Devastating. The sounds of the city felt far away, sealed behind the window at your back.
A car passed below. Someone laughed on the street. Inside, you were falling apart against your husband's hand.
"John," you breathed.
"Quiet, love."
The words should not have affected you that much. They did.
His mouth touched your ear again. "Can hear every little sound in this room."
Your body tightened. His fingers paused. Then repeated the motion that had done it. You gasped.
"There," he said softly. "That one."
You turned your face into his neck, trying to muffle yourself. He let you. His hand did not stop.
Pleasure built slowly, steadily, with the cruel patience of a man who knew exactly how long he could keep you on the edge. His fingers worked you through every tremble, every soft plea, every little shift of your hips chasing more.
When you were close, your hand caught his wrist. Not to stop him. To hold on. He understood. He always did.
"That's it," he whispered. "I've got you."
It rolled through you hard enough that your forehead dropped against his shoulder. He held you through it, his fingers gentling but not leaving you, his mouth pressed to your temple as your body shook against his.
You barely had time to breathe before he kissed you again. Slower this time. Deep and warm, tasting the sound you had made.
Your hand slipped down his chest to his belt. John caught your wrist. You blinked up at him. His eyes were heavy, but his expression was careful.
"Not yet."
The words sent a pulse through you. You swallowed. "No?"
He shook his head once. "I've been thinkin' about taking this dress off you since you walked out of our room."
You felt your body go soft and hot all over again. His hands moved to your waist.
"Turn around."
Your breath hitched. He saw it. His face softened slightly. "You alright, love?"
You nodded.
His thumb brushed your hip. "Say it."
"Yes, John."
His eyes held yours another second. Then he guided you gently away from the window and turned you until you were facing the city.
Your reflection stared back from the glass. Hair pinned up. Dress bunched around your thighs. Lipstick softened.
John behind you, broad and dark, his shirt still buttoned except where you had pulled it loose, his gaze fixed on you in the reflection like you were the only thing in all that glittering city worth seeing.
His hands came to the zipper at your back. He lowered it slowly. The sound was quiet. Somehow indecent. Your eyes fluttered. John kissed the back of your shoulder as the dress loosened.
"Beautiful," he murmured.
The word went through you. You watched him in the glass as he slid the dress down your arms. Not rushed. Not hungry in a careless way.
Hungry like reverence.
The fabric fell inch by inch, exposing your shoulders, then your chest, then your waist. His hands followed, warm and steady, palms moving over the skin he uncovered.
The dress pooled at your feet. John looked at you in the reflection. Your breath caught. There was no hiding from him like this. Not really.
Not with the window reflecting both of you back. Not with his hands on your bare stomach, your ribs, the curve of your hips. Not with your body still sensitive from his fingers and his mouth so close to your neck.
"Look at you," he whispered.
You tried to glance away. One hand came gently to your jaw.
"Don't."
The word was soft. Still, your eyes returned to the glass. John watched you watching yourself.
"There she is."
Your throat tightened, “John."
"Aye."
His mouth touched your shoulder. "My wife."
Your body pulsed at the words. He felt it. His hands tightened.
"My beautiful wife."
The second time was rougher. Lower. You leaned back against him. He inhaled against your skin like restraint was beginning to hurt.
"Need you," you whispered.
His eyes closed for half a breath. When they opened, something in him had gone almost raw.
"I know, love."
"No." You turned in his arms, your hands catching his shirt. "I need you."
His face changed. The hunger was still there. But beneath it came that ache from dinner. The one too big to carry neatly. The one that had made him look at you across the table like gratitude could become grief if he held it too long.
You started undoing his shirt. One button. Then another. Your hands were not as steady as you wanted them to be.
John looked down at them. Then covered them with his own. You thought he would help. Instead, he brought your fingers to his mouth and kissed them.
One by one. Your chest tightened. "John."
His eyes lifted. "I'm here."
The words were quiet. Simple. But you heard what he meant. I made it back. I'm trying to stay in this room. I'm yours.
You finished opening his shirt.
He let you push it from his shoulders. Then the undershirt beneath. His chest came bare under your hands, warm skin and old scars, the strong steady beat of him beneath your palm.
You kissed his chest. His breath caught. You kissed him again, lower, over an old scar near his ribs. His hand slid into your hair.
Not guiding. Just holding.
"Love."
You looked up at him. His jaw had tightened. Not with impatience. With feeling. You rose and kissed his mouth.
It started soft and turned deep quickly, both of you losing patience now, hands moving with more urgency. His belt came undone beneath your fingers. He stepped out of his shoes. You pushed his trousers down with clumsy need, and he gave a low breath of amusement against your mouth.
"Eager."
"You rented a hotel room and touched me against a window."
"Fair."
You laughed into his kiss. The sound seemed to undo something in him. He picked you up.
Not suddenly enough to scare you. Just with that easy strength that always made your stomach flip. Your legs went around his waist, your arms around his neck, and he carried you to the bed.
He did not drop you. He laid you down. That was worse. Slower. Careful. Like he had all night and would spend every second of it proving so.
The mattress dipped under your back. John stood at the edge of the bed for a second, looking down at you.
The city lights cut soft lines across his bare chest. His trousers were low on his hips, his hair slightly mussed from your hands, his mouth kiss-swollen and serious.
You reached for him. He came immediately. His body covered yours, warm and heavy but not crushing, one forearm braced beside your head. His mouth found your throat, then your collarbone, then the center of your chest.
You arched when his lips closed around your nipple. He groaned softly, as if your reaction hit him somewhere deep.
His hand cupped your other breast, thumb brushing over the tight peak while his mouth worked slowly. Not teasing now. Not exactly. Loving. Learning. Making each sound you gave him into something he needed more of.
Your fingers slid into his hair. He moved to your other breast, giving it the same attention until your thighs tightened around his hips and you could feel how hard he was against you.
"Please," you whispered.
He lifted his head. His eyes were dark. "What do you need?"
"You."
"You have me."
"John."
His mouth softened at the sound. He kissed down your stomach.
You realized where he was going and caught his shoulder. "I need you inside me."
He stopped. Looked up. The stillness between you changed. His voice was low.
"Yeah?"
"Yes."
He came back over you slowly. His mouth brushed yours. "Tell me again."
You opened your legs wider for him. "I need you inside me."
His control fractured in the smallest visible way. A breath. A flex of his jaw.
His hand gripping the sheet beside your shoulder.
Then he kissed you hard. You reached between your bodies and wrapped your hand around him.
John cursed softly into your mouth.
He was hot and heavy in your palm, already wet at the tip. You stroked him once, and his hips jerked forward before he caught himself.
"Careful," he rasped.
"Why?"
His forehead rested against yours. "Because I want this slow."
You tightened your hand just enough to make his breath hitch. "And if I don't?"
His eyes opened. There was heat there. Need. Something possessive, held in check only because he loved you too much to let it run wild without permission.
"Then I'll give you what you need."
Your breath caught. The words were simple. They ruined you anyway.
"Slow," you whispered.
His expression softened. Thankful. His hand moved over your cheek. "Aye."
You guided him to you. He paused there, the head of him pressing against your entrance, and for one second neither of you breathed.
There was something about this, about him bare in every way that mattered, about the hotel and the empty house and the girls away for the night. About the way he looked at you like he would give you anything, including another child, including the whole shape of his future, if your body and life and timing asked it of him.
Your hand slid to his face. "John."
His eyes opened. The look in them was almost too much.
"Think about puttin' another baby in you every time you look at me like this."
Your body went hot. A soft sound slipped from your mouth before you could stop it.
John heard. His pupils darkened.
"Christ," he murmured. "You like hearin' that?”
Your cheeks burned.
"Maybe."
His jaw flexed.
Then he pushed into you slowly. Your mouth fell open.
John's eyes stayed on yours as he entered you inch by inch, his breath rough, his body trembling with the effort of going slow. The stretch was deep and intimate and overwhelming, your nails digging into his shoulders as he filled you.
When he was fully inside, he stilled. His forehead dropped to yours. You wrapped your legs around his waist. For a moment, nothing moved but your breathing.
"God," he whispered.
You stroked the back of his neck. "Stay there."
"I am."
"No." You tightened around him on purpose.
His breath broke.
"Stay there."
His eyes lifted to yours. Understanding moved through them. Then something darker. "Want me deep?"
Your answer was barely a breath. "Yes."
His mouth brushed yours. "Want me to take my time with you?"
"Yes."
"Want to feel me tomorrow?"
Your whole body clenched. John groaned.
"There it is."
He moved. Slowly. One deep drag out. One slow thrust back in. Your head tipped into the pillow.
The sound that left you was soft but wrecked. John kissed it from your mouth. He kept the pace exactly like that. Deep. Slow.
Intense enough to make the whole world narrow to each measured movement of his body into yours. He did not rush even when you clawed at his back. Did not lose rhythm when your hips lifted to meet him. He took his time because he had said he would, because John Price's promises in bed felt as binding as vows.
His mouth stayed close to yours. His beard scraped your cheek. His breath warmed your lips.
"You feel perfect," he murmured.
You whimpered. He thrust deeper.
"So good for me."
"John."
"Aye." His hand slid beneath your thigh, lifting your leg higher. "I've got you."
The new angle made him hit something that stole the breath from your lungs. You gripped his shoulders.
"There?"
You could only nod. He did it again. Slow. Exact. Your eyes squeezed shut.
His hand came to your jaw. "Look at me."
You opened your eyes. His face was close, too close to hide from. Everything in him was there. Hunger. Gratitude. Fear. Love. The lingering shadow of whatever had made him bring you here and behave like the night itself was something borrowed.
He moved again. Your lips parted. He watched.
"Beautiful," he whispered.
You touched his face. "You feel far away tonight."
His rhythm faltered. Only once. Then he slowed even more. Your chest tightened.
"John."
His eyes shut. You wrapped your arms around his neck and pulled him down until his weight settled more fully over you.
He breathed against your mouth. "I'm here."
"I know." You kissed his cheek. "Come back all the way."
His body shuddered. That was the thing that broke him. Not the sex. Not the want. The invitation.
He buried his face in your neck and thrust into you again, still slow, but heavier now. Needier. His control shifted from careful distance to desperate closeness.
His hand slid under your back, holding you to him. Your legs tightened around his hips.
"Fuck. There," you whispered. "There you are."
His mouth moved against your neck. "Love you."
"I love you."
His hips rolled deeper. "Love you so bloody much."
"I know."
"Don't think you fuckin’ do."
You gasped as he moved again. "Tell me."
His breath came rough. He lifted his head, eyes locked on yours.
"I'd give you everything."
Your throat tightened. "John."
"I mean it." Another slow thrust. "This life. This house. The girls. Every bit of peace I never thought I'd get."
He kissed you. A deep, aching kiss. Then whispered against your mouth, "You gave me somewhere to come back to."
Your eyes burned. You could barely breathe around how full you felt. Full of him. Full of the room.
Full of the awful, beautiful knowledge that he was loving you like a man who knew too well that nothing was guaranteed.
You threaded your fingers through his hair.
"I'm here."
He thrust deeper.
"I know."
"I'm yours."
His whole body tightened.
"Say that again."
"I'm yours."
His mouth found yours hard, the control breaking for a moment as his hips drove into you with more force. You cried out softly, and he immediately gentled, forehead pressing to yours.
He gave it to you. A slow, hard thrust that made your body jolt under his. Then another. Still measured. Still deep.
But the restraint had roughened at the edges, turning the pleasure sharper, hotter, more consuming. The bed shifted beneath you. The city glowed beyond the windows. His body moved over yours like he was trying to make time stop through sheer will.
His hand moved between you.
The moment his fingers found your clit, your breath broke.
"John."
"I know."
He touched you slowly, in time with his thrusts. Your body was already so sensitive, so open, that the pleasure built fast. You tried to hold it back because you did not want this to end. Not yet. Not when he was finally here with you fully, not when his eyes had stopped looking past the room and started staying on your face.
John saw you fighting it.
"Don't."
Your breath caught.
"I don't want it over."
His expression softened painfully.
"It's not."
His thumb pressed a little firmer.
Your hips jerked. "We've got all night."
The promise moved through you. All night. Not a stolen hour before alarms. Not a rushed reunion before goodbye. Not a quick, quiet moment fitted around exhaustion and children and duty. All night.
Your body gave in.
It rose slowly, then broke over you with a force that made your back arch and your mouth open around his name. John covered your mouth with his, swallowing the sound, his fingers still moving as you clenched around him.
He groaned deep in his chest. You felt how close he was. His thrusts turned uneven. But his breathing had gone rough and broken against your mouth.
You wrapped your legs tighter around him. His eyes squeezed shut. A broken sound left him. His control snapped softly. Not wild. Not careless. Just undone.
He buried himself deep and came with a low groan against your mouth, hips pressing into yours as his body shuddered. His arm locked around you, holding you there while he spilled inside you, breath hot and ragged against your cheek.
You held him through it. One hand in his hair. One hand against his back. His heart hammered against your chest.
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The pool party drifted into the evening as people continued to drink and more guests arrived. The house felt packed, and outside a decent crowd was still swimming, eating, and drinking. Most surprisingly, everyone seemed to genuinely commit to the ‘Mexico’ theme, or at least bring what they thought counted as Mexican.
John and Indy had been polite but were pointedly ignoring each other. After Indy stormed off, John sat in their room and cooled off. He’d fully intended to find her and smooth things over. Instead, he came back outside to find her sitting with Liam and a few blokes he didn’t know particularly well. His own stubbornness reared its ugly head, and he gave her the cold shoulder for the rest of the afternoon.
When Indy first came back outside, she’d sat with Stuart, Sam, and Ant. They immediately started teasing her for looking irritated, asking if John was too drunk to get it up. It was a painful reminder that her romantic little surprise had gone spectacularly wrong, so she’d quietly moved to an empty table across the pool to be by herself.
She hated that Liam chose to sit beside her. It felt like cosmic punishment for calling John names and storming off like a little kid. When Liam’s friends joined them, she faded into the background, hoping no one would notice how little she spoke.
Originally Liam had sat right beside her, leaning against her armrest whenever he got the chance. She wanted to evaporate. He clearly thought she was a lot dimmer than she actually was, and she didn’t have the emotional energy to mention she had a doctorate and did have an in depth understanding of the law. Instead she quietly listened to him ramble about his job as a bailiff while staring across the pool, silently hoping John would look over and rescue her from the conversation.
When Liam’s mates arrived, she politely gave one of them her chair and scooted two seats farther away. At least now she didn’t have to endure his cigarette breath or endless work stories. John noticed from across the pool and felt a twinge of guilt. His normally confident girlfriend looked smaller somehow, walled off from everyone around her. It was obvious she wasn’t enjoying herself.
At the very least, Indy told herself she could sit there, sulk in peace, and wait for the evening to be over. She wanted nothing more than to crawl into bed and cry then go to sleep.
John walked past her table twice without so much as a glance. The first time, Liam asked whether Price was licking his wounds after whatever argument they’d had. Indy shut that down immediately, insisting they hadn’t fought. The second time, she actually called John’s name, but he kept walking as though he hadn’t heard her. Liam only pushed harder, joking that Price needed to lighten up before he lost such a “pretty thing.” Indy rolled her eyes and told him to mind his own business.
She passed John once herself on the way to the bathroom. When she came back outside, every chair was taken except the one back at Liam’s table. She seriously considered going inside and lying down instead, but one of Liam’s friends called out that they’d saved her seat. Seeing people perched on the retaining wall and even sitting on the ground, she felt too guilty to refuse it.
John felt a tap on his shoulder around the time the sun had almost set and glanced over to find Melissa. She leaned down and whispered in his ear, and he instinctively turned toward her. Whatever she had to say was clearly meant to stay between them.
“I think you should check on Indy. I swear I heard her crying in the bathroom.” Melissa whispered before pulling away.
John didn’t need to respond. He could see from the look on Melissa’s face she was only trying to help, not get in the middle of whatever had happened between them.
He simply nodded, not wanting to draw any attention to what she’d just told him.
He knew Indy could be quick to tears sometimes.
He just never imagined ignoring her all afternoon would end with her crying alone in the bathroom wearing the bikini she’d been so excited to show him. His head dropped as he pictured her sitting on the edge of the tub with her face in her hands, trying to pull herself together.
His stubbornness crumbled to dust in the blink of an eye.
Their arguments had a habit of stopping mattering the moment she started crying. Now all he wanted to do was find her and give her the hug she always asked for whenever she got like this.
It had John standing from his seat before he even realized his feet were taking him to her. Ignoring how his mates called after him to bring them more beer.
“Tiny, you mind fetching me a drink?” Liam asked with what Indy took to be a genuine smile.
“Sure. Anyone else want anything?” She barely looked at any of the men, grateful for an excuse to get up.
She couldn’t say she had to use the bathroom again or they’d think there was something wrong with her from how many times she’d already used that excuse. Even though she had no desire to get anyone but John a drink this was a fine enough excuse to escape.
“See, that’s what’s missing these days. Birds who actually look after their man.” Liam slapped his mate on the chest and got a chorus of laughter.
“You’re not my man. And don’t let John catch you saying that.” Indy spoke before her brain had fully dissected what Liam was saying.
“Any man would be lucky, tiny. I’m only taking the piss.” Shooting Indy a wink she quirked an eyebrow, crossed her arms over her chest, and popped her hip out to the side.
“Okay, so you’re not getting a drink. And what’s with the name tiny?” Indy asked a little annoyed, though she was genuinely asking.
Liam shrugged and his friends snickered. Little did she know they’d coined the nickname the week before because of her ‘tiny red bikini.’ Indy wasn’t about to stick around while they laughed at a joke she clearly wasn’t in on.
So she turned to go grab the drinks. What she didn’t notice was John had walked over to collect her, and when she turned she walked face first into his rock hard chest.
Instinctively John’s hands darted to her hips. His mind knew she was about to fall before the thought had even fully formed.
And she almost did.
Her right foot slipped out from under her while both hands flew to the back of John’s neck to catch herself. She would’ve fallen backwards and cracked her head on the metal table if he hadn’t caught her. Instead he lifted her by the hips as though she weighed nothing and set her back on her feet.
“Careful now.” John purred, eyes now soft and hooded like he wanted to take her right then and there.
Her face lit up in a furious blush followed by flustered stammering. Her hands flew off his neck and behind her back as though touching him had suddenly become taboo.
She’d assumed he was still angry.
Now here he was using the voice he normally reserved for the bedroom and looking down at her with those adoring blue eyes she loved.
“Your eyes are so blue. I, uh… I mean, you want something to drink?” she blurted, realizing a half second too late she was about to touch his bicep.
Instead she took a small step back toward the door and pretended to adjust the halter strap of her bikini, giving her hands something else to do.
“Whiskey.” John winked, which only deepened the blush spreading across her cheeks.
She was off again before another word could leave his mouth, immediately running into Sam. In her haste to apologize, she swatted his drink clean onto the floor.
She cursed herself for being such a klutz, apologized profusely, and was asking what drink he wanted so she could bring him a new one. Sam couldn’t reply because he was in absolute stitches and waved her to run along.
Liam noticed how flustered simply being touched by her boyfriend made her. Part of him wondered if she just wasn’t used to John’s touch, but his gut told him something else.
She wasn’t used to John flirting with her so openly. That boring sod barely smiled let alone flirted in all the years Liam knew him.
Liam’s flirting with Indy earned eye rolls and scoffs.
John’s reduced her to a stuttering mess.
“Clumsy thing.” Liam chuckled to John.
“Don’t talk like you know her.” John said pointedly. Turning from where his eyes had been trained on Indy mopping up the mess with some napkins, he was now staring at Liam.
“And you do? Watching you blank her all afternoon, I’d have thought she was just another bird at the party. Funny way of treating your missus.” Liam only shrugged, that smug little smile never leaving his face.
John’s eyes narrowed. His nostrils flared once.
“Watch your fucking mouth.” John spoke so evenly it barely matched the threat, which only made Liam’s eyes light up.
He’d finally found something that stung. Something that looked an awful lot like a weak point for John, or maybe even their relationship.
Naturally, he wanted to see if he could find another.
“While you’ve been off doing fuck all she’s been fetching me drinks.” Liam gestured vaguely toward where Indy had disappeared, then idly shook his empty beer glass. The last few drops rattled against the sides.
John was ready to walk away. This wasn’t worth his time or effort. Not when he had far more important things to attend to. Liam hardly knew him, but he didn’t know the first thing about Indy.
But Liam kept talking.
“You’re one of those jealous blokes, aren’t you? Can’t stand your bird talking to another man. So you blank her all afternoon, thinking it’ll prove a point, when really you’re just pushing her into someone else’s company. Looks like she’s enjoying it too.” Liam let out a small chuckle.
It wasn’t followed by the snickers he’d expected from his mates. Instead it felt like an eerie silence settled over them.
“Stand up and say that again.” John spoke with such evenness it didn’t match the sentiment at all.
There were a few awkward laughs from Liam’s table, but they died almost as quickly as they started. No one had said a word until now. The easy chatter around them seemed to falter, replaced by that uncomfortable silence that settled in whenever people realized a joke had stopped being a joke.
John hadn’t moved an inch. He stood tall and perfectly still, shoulders square, hairy chest rising and falling in a relaxed rhythm, hands hanging loose at his sides. He didn’t look angry. He looked certain.
Certain of what? Well that was what left a pit in Liam’s stomach.
Liam’s half smirk lingered, but only just. He stayed seated, his broad tattooed chest no longer puffed out quite so proudly. Instead, he leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees as he searched John’s face, trying to work out whether he was actually prepared to swing over a few words.
His eyes flicked toward one of his mates. The man gave the smallest shake of his head while another muttered something about needing another beer and left. Even if Liam stood up, he was standing alone.
“I’m her friend.” Charles’ voice cut through the tension.
He’d been standing nearby, had clearly overheard the exchange, and now gave John’s shoulder a light push to steer him away. He knew Indy well enough to know she’d go ballistic if there was a fistfight over her, so he wanted to nip that in the bud.
“You’re hardly a man.” Liam quipped, earning a decent amount of laughter from the blokes at his table. It was that awkward kind of laughter that begged the tension to disappear.
“That sounds like projection.” Charles smiled, then gave John a small nod, the silent sort that meant leave it.
“You’re riding a fine line. I’d be careful if I was you.” There wasn’t a hint of irritation in John’s voice. He stated it as though it were simple fact.
To him, it was.
“Got me quaking in my boots.” Liam said sarcastically, though his eyebrow twitched when he realized John was already walking away, clearly not waiting around for a reply.
As John stalked off, he heard a metal chair scrape across the patio.
Just from the sound of whoever had stood, he knew they were built about the same size as him.
Liam.
John didn’t look over his shoulder. He wasn’t about to give Liam the satisfaction of thinking he needed to check behind him. Charles started to glance back as they headed toward the back door.
“Don’t fucking look back. That cunt’ll think you’re a pussy.” John barely spoke above a whisper. His eyes stayed forward, peering through the glass sliding door to see Indy eating a cracker.
He had one thing on his mind.
Getting to Indy first.
“You shouldn’t be threatening to fight people.” Charles replied quietly, keeping his own eyes forward.
“It wasn’t a threat. It was an invitation.” A charming smile flickered across John’s face for barely a second. The crease between his brows gave away just how fake it was.
So John continued on, walked through the sliding glass door after Charles and then finally glanced over his shoulder when it was reasonable. Liam was a few steps behind him so John shut the door, thought about it for a second, then locked it when Liam reached for the handle.
The dickhead could wait outside.
Just shutting the door in Liam’s face settled John a fraction. Locking it made him smirk. Hearing the handle rattle against the lock was even better.
It was a small enough dig, but obvious enough that Liam now knew John absolutely didn’t want him hanging around.
John was onto him. He had been since the last pool party when he overheard Liam comment on not understanding how ‘Price pulled such a sexy bird.’
John also had known Liam for years. They’d go drinking as a friend group and John ignored him all together. The type of banter Liam had was beneath John and frankly John was an extremely private man. Discussing his sex life wasn’t something he ever wanted to do and he absolutely didn’t want to hear other people’s.
John had seen how Liam maneuvered women. Acted like it was all in good fun. Until he raised the steaks enough the flirting seemed like the natural next step.
And Liam’s little playbook for seducing women wasn’t going to fly.
Charles chuckled but didn’t comment. He wandered over to Indy at the counter, where she immediately shoved a shot into his hand and insisted they take it together.
In the space of about ten seconds she rapid fired through how she’d been arguing with John all afternoon, how he was suddenly acting weird, and how she had no clue why. Every time Charles tried to answer, she was taking another shot, muttering something about liquid courage, and telling him to shush.
A moment later John wandered over.
He caught Indy’s eye, gave her a cheeky wink, and was crowding her space before she’d quite processed he’d come looking for her.
“Hi.” Indy squeaked, suddenly finding her once fuming boyfriend beside her again, his arm wrapped around her waist, his broad hand splayed over part of her bottom with one finger curled protectively around her hip. His thumb moved gently over her supple skin, finding its way to the strap of her bottoms and mindlessly playing with it.
“Hello, darling.” John was using every ounce of charm he had, hoping to win her over without needing to disappear somewhere private for a proper conversation.
Indy looked up at him, still carrying that uncertain look in her eyes. So he did exactly what she would’ve done if the roles had been reversed.
He kissed her.
And she melted like butter on a hot skillet.
It wasn’t a kiss that would’ve turned heads. It was more than a peck, but perfectly ordinary for any other couple. It just happened that John almost never kissed Indy in front of other people, so she was completely caught off guard in the best way.
He loved how her hands instinctively settled against his chest, mindlessly playing with the wiry tuft of hair.
What he didn’t know was Liam was quietly fuming.
His jaw tightened watching John pull away, only for Indy to rise onto her toes and steal one more kiss, her eyes hooded as though Price was the most captivating man she’d ever laid eyes on.
As much as the kiss reassured her, it settled something inside John too. A huge chunk of his anger and frustration seemed to fall away in an instant. Even when they were angry, it didn’t mean all her affection was gone.
He just had to keep reaching for it.
There was also a smaller part of him, the part he knew Indy didn’t like, starting to creep to the surface.
This wasn’t protectiveness anymore.
It was possessiveness.
He masked it well enough that no one noticed.
Not even Indy.
Charles absentmindedly munched on plain tortilla chips, his attention lingering on John’s hand resting against Indy’s hip. He’d never seen John stand quite this close to her before.
He ignored the kiss. That simply seemed like two people settling down after an argument.
John had decided to take the treacherous road of doing what he knew best when words failed him.
Reaching for Indy.
So he stayed tucked against her side, his arm around her waist, trying to act as naturally as possible while forcing himself to be a little more social. He held her like this at home all the time but he couldn’t help how he was slightly stiffer in a room full of people while he stood there shirtless and she was in her little bikini.
He hoped she’d drift back into his orbit.
That she’d lean into him, laugh with him, and slowly forget they were even mad with each other in the first place.
Physical affection had always been their language.
It came far easier to both of them than apologies ever did.
If they’d shared that intimate little moment Indy had planned, John knew she’d already be tucked beneath his arm without a second thought.
So instead he quietly tried to rebuild that closeness one small touch, one teasing remark, and one smile at a time.
“You drunk?” Charles asked.
John answered with a warning look that clearly told him to bugger off.
“Where’d you and Melissa run off to?” John asked instead, smirking when Charles almost visibly squirmed.
“They had sex.” Indy smiled up at John.
Charles immediately began sputtering, shaking his head so hard it was almost impressive.
“We did not.” He shot Indy a thoroughly betrayed look.
“Bit of snogging?” John decided, for once, to join in on the teasing.
“I’m not answering that. It’s rude to even ask.” Charles said firmly.
“We shagged.” Melissa breezed past, gave a now bright red Charles a wink, took his hand, and led him toward the kitchen table.
“Why’d you—” Charles was cut off when Melissa pressed a finger to his lips.
“A gentleman never tells. So I thought I’d share for you.” The flirtation only made Charles’ ears turn an even deeper shade of red.
“Go Charles!” Indy threw both hands into the air as she cheered him on. She nearly smacked John in the process, making him snort with laughter. He took her hand, kissed the back of it and set it on the counter.
“Darling.” John whispered, making Indy look up into his much softer blue eyes.
“Yeah?” Her voice was breathy.
“Were you crying in the loo?” The concern on John’s face caught her off guard. She couldn’t quite place whether it was worry or hurt she saw in his eyes.
Indy’s eyes widened, telling him she’d been caught without saying a word.
“I, uh… no. Of course not.” She lied, embarrassment creeping up her spine.
John lightly frowned which she knew meant someone had absolutely overheard her and told him.
“No matter how mad I am, just send me a text or call. I’ll come love you. It’s part of my job.” John pulled her into his arms, resting his chin lightly on the top of her head. He felt the tension slowly leave her body with nothing more than an embrace.
“Thanks. I needed that. But it’s not your job.” She smiled softly.
“I love you, and as your future husband it is. I can’t wait to be married to you so I can officially say it is.” John’s whispered confession had a smile spreading across her face, her nod starting slow before becoming more certain.
“I love you too. I love you so much I wish we could just tell everyone already so I can wear my engagement ring.” After she spoke, John’s eyes drifted to her left hand. Ever since he’d slipped that ring onto her finger, she hadn’t gone a day without wearing it, she even showered and slept with it on.
Until today.
“It does look gorgeous on you. Would tie your whole outfit together.” John circled a finger, motioning to her bikini.
“Yeah? Mrs. Price. Your cute wife who bought this outfit just for you.” She teased, nose scrunching as she gave John that cheeky smile he adored.
“Cute. Sexy. Clever. Funny.” He smiled that effortless, charming smile she adored. “Did I mention sexy?” John sealed his standby with a wink and squeeze to her bottom.
“You know just what to say.” She giggled.
John leaned closer until his lips were beside her ear, speaking in that same gravelly tone he usually reserved for the quiet conversations they shared in the dark.
The hairs on the back of Indy’s neck stood on end. A breath slowly leaving her chest as she waited for whatever lovely thing he was about to confess to her.
“I know I said we should wait to tell everyone. But maybe you could go—”
“So you weren’t joking about not getting me that drink.” Liam had made it to the kitchen island after coming in through the back door that had been shut in his face.
He’d had to knock on the glass while multiple people walked by and ignored him. It took a good minute or two for someone to unlock it, which John pretended not to see, although it had him feeling quite pleased with himself.
John’s face fell, settling into a flat expression. Even after making it clear John didn’t want Liam hanging around Indy, he came back.
Of course he came back.
Indy blinked a few times at Liam, having to process what he said for a second. She was a little tipsy and feeling emotional whiplash from her fiancé, and here was another twist.
Looking at the counter, she saw some random drink she hadn’t made. Liam took it and sipped it before she could correct him, so Indy rolled with it.
“Uh, no I wasn’t.” She teased, then winced as John’s grip unconsciously tightened on her hip.
“Ow—” she muttered, peeling his hand away.
She then slid him the whiskey she’d poured when she first came in, peering into her own cup to see little left.
Liam’s eyes flickered down to Indy’s chest in that memorizing push up top as she tilted her head back and drank the last little bit of her wine. John’s hand instinctively came up and rested on her shoulder, but this time with a feather light touch, as he had no intention of accidentally pinching her again.
The men made eye contact right after Liam’s obvious stare. Liam smirked right in John’s face, almost asking him what he was going to do about it.
If Indy wasn’t in his arms, John would’ve decked Liam. But there was a strict ‘no fighting’ policy when Indy was around. She had lectured him enough at this point. How fighting was barbaric and he was smart enough to not act like a Neanderthal. And John wasn’t about to ruin things when they were so close to reconciling.
“Cheers. Knew you didn’t hate me.” Liam leaned his cup forward in a gesture to toast. John ignored it, but Indy took her plastic cup, now filled with more wine and cracked it into his.
Liam was taken aback for a moment, not expecting her to smack her cup into his. He’d been expecting a raised cup like a normal person, so he let out a loud laugh at how unexpected it was.
“You tryin’ to break my fingers?” Liam asked since the cup hit his hand more than the actual plastic.
“I can, if you need.” John spoke with a stony expression, ignoring Indy’s barefoot trying to squish his much larger one.
“You said cheers.” Indy giggled, knowing this wasn’t how British people toasted but loving to do it for the pure shock value.
“That an American thing?”
“Yes, sir.” Indy said with a bit of a Southern drawl. John knew that phrase by now. It was just a cute way of her saying yes, nothing more.
“Sir, I like that.” There was the infuriating smirk on Liam’s face again.
“Oi, enough.” John finally snapped at Liam, whose eyebrows rose and a smirk tugged wider.
“John.” Indy spoke quietly, but it was clear she wasn’t okay with the sudden outburst.
John’s hand slid from her shoulder and found its way to the small of her back as he looked at her, then shook his head and rolled his eyes.
He loved her dearly, but it only wound him up more how she insisted on being polite today. John was use to the spitfire of a woman who called someone out for cutting the queue. The woman he had to physically usher out of Tesco because Margaret the clerk asked if she had an off switch. But today, because she was new to the group she absolutely didn’t want a scene in any form or way.
“Think I’ve wound him up. I’m only taking the piss, mate.” Liam put his hands up in mock defensiveness.
“Yeah, maybe quit it with the cheeky comments.” Indy shrugged with a crooked grin.
She didn’t like John’s behavior, but she wasn’t going to stand there and not take his side when he was clearly trying to set his own boundary. Plus, Liam kind of was an asshole. Any other day she’d tell him exactly where to shove those comments.
“Alright, whatever you say, love.” Liam nodded kindly.
It was sudden and subtle, and John didn’t even realize he was doing it when Liam’s eyes flickered down to Indy’s breasts again. John’s left hand curled around her rib cage, high enough that he wasn’t groping her, but his index finger just happened to slide under the edge of her top ever so slightly. Then his other hand settled on her hip, leading her away toward the spare room just off the kitchen.
That’s when it clicked in Indy’s head what John was doing. He wasn’t the type to grab at her in front of anyone. This was the closest it got, and she knew he only did it when he was wound so tight and felt completely powerless in a situation involving a man’s unwanted advances.
Indy didn’t push back on being led into the room they’d be sharing for the night. Whipping around once the door was closed, she expected a fight.
Anger.
Flying insults.
But instead she felt a feather light touch on both of her shoulders as John’s features softened and a frown formed on his face. He lightly took hold of her, blue eyes scanning her face, searching for a scrap of empathy. And she faltered, allowing him to close the distance and hug her.
He just wanted a hug.
So Indy gave him that. It was quiet as they stood there in each other’s arms. His hand was stroking her back lovingly, his face buried in the crook of her neck, his breathing finally settling into its normal, calm rhythm.
“I’m sorry,” John whispered, and Indy nodded, squeezing him a little tighter.
“He’s gotten under my skin.” John spoke as he pulled away to look her in the eyes.
“I can tell.” Indy ran her hand over his facial hair, her eyes scanning his face to find defeat instead of anger.
“Just please stay by me? I won’t be cross if you say no. But… it’ll make me feel better knowing he’s not getting the wrong idea. And… well, I’ve missed you.” John’s eyes fell to the floor as he said the last part, shame riddling his voice.
Indy hated this. Seeing John regretful, even though she was hurt, it never felt good. Sitting in the aftermath of it all hurt them both.
“Okay. Okay.” Indy whispered and placed a kiss on the corner of his mouth. John’s eyes found hers, the frown drifting away when she kissed his lips this time. Then came the tiniest smile when she kissed him again, and he finally kissed back.
“Thank you.” It was small, but sincere in such an intimate way. They were both putting down their shields, the fight finally coming to an end.
“But can I at least be annoying about it?” There she was. Even in these vulnerable moments she found a way to make him break into a chuckle as she slipped back into her normal antics.
John opened his mouth, closed it, then opened it again.
“I don’t think I want to know. But sure.” He conceded.
“Good.” Indy smiled and gave him a kiss that lasted a second longer than John was expecting.
“I’m sorry I shouted at you and called you a jerk.” Indy spoke gently.
“I was being a prick. Wound you up on purpose because I was frustrated.” John tried to shrug it off, but Indy was already shaking her head. It felt oddly satisfying that she wasn’t accepting his apology, but John couldn’t place why.
“It wasn’t for no reason. You were looking out for me. I don’t have to agree with you, but I can at least see you were coming from a place of care.”
There it was. That was why the rejected apology felt so odd and now settled into satisfaction. She finally saw his intentions underneath the behavior he wasn’t proud of.
“I love you. Can we spend the rest of the night together? Not waste any more time?” John asked, wanting nothing more than Indy by his side.
A devilish grin spread across Indy’s face as she slowly nodded. The way she bit her lip had John’s heart skipping a beat. Whatever was about to come out of her mouth was either going to be charmingly annoying or the sweetest thing he’d ever heard.
“We could—?” Indy became bashful rather quickly, her eyes flickering toward the bed, which told him everything he needed to know.
“Right now?” John’s eyebrows shot up as she bit her lip and nodded.
“Uh huh.” She whispered, placing a kiss to his neck and tugging at the waistband of his swim trunks.
“Why now?” John was already leading her back toward the bed, unable to hide the excitement in his voice.
“I want to feel close to you.” She whispered, her hand dipping into his trunks.
“Come here. Let me love you.” John lifted her off her pretty painted toes as she wrapped herself around him.
And he did just that. It was quick but intensely intimate as they both desperately found what they needed in each other’s arms. It was the connection they’d been lacking, reigniting them and reminding John just how deeply committed Indy was to him, while reminding her how much he cherished her.
By the time they were catching their breath and sharing little giggles and dumb jokes, fifteen minutes had passed. They both knew they needed to get back to the party before anyone suspected anything and they’d be making those eyes that no one but them knew. A silent, naughty secret they could keep from everyone else.
“You’re blushing.” Indy cooed at her handsome man, who was still lying flat on the bed, eyes fixed on the ceiling fan, a dumb look plastered across his blissed out face.
“Sorry, that was quicker than I meant to be.” John said, almost shyly, as though he were embarrassed.
“I’m flattered.” She giggled, never wanting John to feel self conscious for losing himself in an intimate moment as quickly as he sometimes did.
“You staying in that—” John pointed to her bathing suit that he’d insisted she keep on.
His mind wandered to how she’d blushed and sucked in a harsh breath when he’d told her he’d simply pull her bottoms to the side. After everything that had happened, and after not complimenting her the way he ought to have, John wanted to make her feel beautiful in the bikini she’d picked out for him.
“Oh, is it the bathing suit? Or the fact I kept telling you I love you?” The cheeky smile she wore had John’s eyes flickering away.
He was caught. He knew it, Indy knew it, and John had to admit to himself that the fact she found it so endearing, that he’d lasted far less than he intended simply because she showered him with love, wasn’t exactly something to be embarrassed about.
“Shut it.” He mumbled, trying to hide his smile as he swatted her ass while she stripped out of her bathing suit and slipped into a pair of regular baby blue panties and a black sports bra.
“You can make it up to me later.” Her pretty laugh floated through the air, which only worsened the blush on John’s cheeks but had him smirking like a fool.
Tossing a pair of clean boxers at John, she started rummaging through the backpack they were sharing.
“Round two before bed. And none of that whispering you love me in my ear this time.” He playfully wagged a finger at her and watched a devilish grin take over her pretty face.
“Make me.” She giggled.
John just rolled his eyes. No response he could come up with would deter her now, so ignoring it was the only suitable next step, although that smirk on his face sparked even more ideas in her head.
Indy kissed his cheek, pinched his bum playfully, and then moved to her dressed. She watched John’s shoulders physically relax as she slipped into loose cotton shorts and a fitted crop top. She handed him his T-shirt, which hugged his chest, and his shorts from the floor, and they both headed back out to the party hand in hand.
Over the course of one impossibly tender week, John pours himself into every ordinary moment with his family.
80. Extra Daddy
By the end of the next week, Peach really took notice the consistency.
Not in the way adults noticed things. Not in the way you did, with the quiet ache of knowing something in John had shifted after the last mission and not yet shifted back. Not in the way you kept catching him staring at the girls like he was counting breaths instead of just watching them play.
No.
Peach noticed because he was being, in her exact words, "extra Daddy."
It happened on a Tuesday morning while she was eating toast in her school uniform and Margot was standing in her high chair chanting at a banana.
John had made pancakes. Not the quick weekday kind. The full production. Batter from scratch, blueberries in one batch because Peach liked them, plain in another because Margot would pick every single berry out and throw them at Slinky if he didn't. He'd packed Peach's lunch before you got downstairs. Labelled the little fruit container with a tiny smiley face in marker because apparently today called for artistry.
Peach sat there with syrup on her cheek, watching him pour coffee into your mug.
"You're doing a lot," she told him.
John looked over his shoulder. "Am I?"
She nodded, very serious. "You're being extra Daddy."
He blinked once.
Then he laughed, low and warm, and came over to wipe the syrup from her face with his thumb. "That a complaint?"
Peach thought about it. "No. I like it."
Margot banged her spoon and yelled, "Daddy!"
You stood at the counter with your own coffee warming your hands and watched him smile at both girls like they were the only things in the room worth seeing.
It should not have made your chest tighten.
It did.
Because this was not a one-off. Not a good mood. Not him simply having more time, more patience, more ease. It was all of that and something else you could not quite touch. An urgency disguised as tenderness. A quiet insistence in the way he moved through the house, like he was trying to leave fingerprints on every ordinary moment.
He did school drop-off that day.
Not because he had to. Because he wanted to.
Peach held his hand all the way to the classroom door, backpack bouncing against her shoulders. You carried Margot on your hip and followed half a step behind while she babbled at passing cars and tried to steal your necklace.
At the door, Peach turned and wrapped both arms around John's waist.
"You're picking me up?"
He crouched to her level, one hand smoothing over her hair. "I am."
"Promise?"
You watched his face change.
Only for a second. Only enough that you saw it because you knew him.
Then he nodded once. "Promise."
Peach accepted that with total faith. Kissed his cheek and ran inside.
John stayed crouched for one extra heartbeat after she disappeared into the room. Then he stood and looked through the little window in the classroom door until the teacher waved him away with a smile.
When he turned back to you, Margot lunged for him immediately, shouting, "Dad! Daddy!"
He took her from your arms and kissed her temple. "You're a bit obsessed, bug."
Margot grinned and wrapped both hands in the collar of his shirt.
You all walked back to the truck in a line that would have looked unremarkable to anyone else.
To you, it felt like something held too tightly.
The days that followed were full of that same strange abundance.
John fixed things that had not really needed fixing before. Tightened the loose hinge on the pantry door. Rehung the picture frame in the hall that had been slightly crooked for months. Replaced a dead bulb in the laundry room while Margot sat in the basket of clean towels and Peach narrated the repair like it was a home improvement show.
"And now Daddy is doing the screws," she informed the room. "He's very talented."
"Thank you," John said dryly, one arm still lifted over his head.
Margot copied Peach's tone from the floor. "Tah-too."
He choked on a laugh and had to lean his forehead briefly against the wall before finishing the job.
He played on the floor more too.
Not just sat nearby while the girls played around him. He got down there with them. Let Peach assign him impossible roles in stuffed-animal school. Let Margot climb all over his back while he pretended to be a bear and then let her win every single time she declared him defeated. He built block towers only to let both girls knock them down. Read books in silly voices. Did puzzle pieces with the sort of concentration he usually reserved for planning routes in ugly places.
He became the center of every room he entered, not by volume, but by gravity.
Margot shadowed him like a second heartbeat. If he stood, she stood. If he crossed the kitchen, she toddled after him as fast as her little legs allowed. If he sat, she climbed him without negotiation, planted herself on his lap, and launched into long babbling speeches that sounded suspiciously argumentative.
He answered her every time.
Like she was making perfect sense.
By Thursday, Slinky had accepted that the entire household was orbiting John and began doing the same. The cat took to sleeping beside his boots by the door, which John claimed was tactical loyalty and you claimed was because he smelled like food and outside and cat logic was built on nonsense.
The girls loved it when you argued like that.
Peach, especially, had started looking between the two of you with that little smile she got whenever she sensed she was in the presence of deeply satisfying grown-up nonsense.
"Mommy," she said that afternoon while coloring at the table, "Daddy kissed you in the kitchen and Margot said ew."
Margot looked up from her pile of blocks and, because she could not bear being left out of any conversation, declared loudly, "EW!"
John, who was replacing the batteries in one of Peach's toys because it had started making a dying robot noise, looked over at both daughters with exaggerated offense. "Betrayed in my own house."
Peach giggled. Margot clapped because everyone else was making noise.
You shook your head and smiled into the dish towel.
There were stolen moments too.
That was the other thing.
Every night, yes. But not only night.
He found you in the laundry room while the girls watched cartoons and backed you against the dryer with both hands on your waist, kissing you until the world went soft around the edges. You laughed into his mouth and asked what had gotten into him, and he just said, "You," like that was answer enough.
He came up behind you while you were making lunches and slid one hand under your shirt, palm warm and reverent on your stomach, mouth at your neck.
He followed you into the pantry for no reason at all except to steal three full minutes with his forehead against yours and his fingers spread over your hips.
And in bed he loved you like he was trying to learn you all over again.
No. More than that.
Like he was trying to remember.
He touched you slowly. Thoroughly. As if your skin might become a map if he paid attention hard enough. The curve of your waist. The softness of your belly. The inside of your wrists. The scar on your knee from before him. The marks motherhood had left and he had long since stopped seeing as anything but part of you.
He touched you like it all mattered.
It made your body hum. Made your throat ache. Made you cling to him in the dark when he pressed his mouth to the inside of your thigh or kissed the hollow below your collarbone or breathed your name against your shoulder like he was holding a prayer there.
One night, after, when your skin was cooling and the room was quiet except for the monitor's faint crackle on the dresser, he rolled over and just looked at you.
Not speaking.
Just looking.
You smiled lazily and pushed damp hair off your face. "What?"
He reached out and traced one finger down your arm. "Nothin'."
"What is it?"
His mouth twitched, but the expression never quite made it to lightness. "Just lookin'."
You rolled toward him and caught his wrist, kissing the inside of it. "You've been doing a lot of that."
"Aye."
"You want to tell me why?"
There it was. The chance. Simple. Offered.
His eyes moved over your face like he was choosing which version of the truth could fit here without breaking the room.
Then he kissed your forehead and said, "Because I like what I'm lookin' at."
Enough to soothe.
Not enough to tell the truth.
You let it go.
Not because you were fooled.
Because you were not. Not entirely.
There was something under all this tenderness. Under the extra breakfasts and longer hugs and the way he kept touching Peach's shoulder when he passed behind her chair. Under the way he always volunteered for bedtime now. Under the way his eyes lingered on Margot when she was busy doing nothing more than yelling at a stacking ring.
You could feel it.
But you could not read it.
You assumed what anyone would assume. Op aftermath. Trauma. Fatigue. The kind of mission residue that left men craving ordinary things because ordinary things proved the world had not tipped fully into hell while they were gone.
That explanation was true.
It just was not the whole of it.
Friday night, he did all three bedtime stories.
Peach noticed before he even sat down on the edge of her bed with Margot tucked into one arm and the book in his other hand.
"You usually only do one," she said.
John opened the book. "Thought I'd spoil you."
Peach looked deeply pleased by that. "Good."
Margot, already half asleep in his lap, opened one eye just long enough to pat the page and say something that sounded suspiciously like "mine."
He read slowly. Every page. Every silly voice. Every pause where Peach corrected him because he had skipped a line she knew by heart.
When it was over, he kissed Margot's hair first, then Peach's forehead, and reached to switch off the lamp.
Peach caught his wrist.
"Daddy?"
"Mm?"
"You're being extra again."
John looked at her in the dim room. "That bad?"
She smiled sleepily. "No. Just... a lot."
His face did that thing again. Softness pulled too tight over something aching.
"Alright," he whispered. "Goodnight, peach."
"Night."
He stood and carried Margot into the nursery next door. You followed from the hall and took the baby from him at the crib. She was already gone, dead weight and warm cheeks and damp curls against your hand.
John stood beside you while you settled her.
For a second, your shoulders brushed.
He looked down at his youngest daughter like she was holy.
You felt him grieve something in advance and had no idea what name to give it.
Saturday morning, he took Peach outside to kick a football around while you put a load of washing on. Through the kitchen window, you watched him deliberately miss every goal so she could crow with victory. She shouted "I'm beating you!" and he put both hands on his hips and acted scandalized.
Margot stood at the back door pounding the glass and yelling, "Get it! Daddy! Ball! DADDY!"
You opened it and she bolted into the grass barefoot before you could stop her.
John scooped her up mid-run and tucked her under one arm without breaking the game.
The image of it caught somewhere under your breastbone.
Your husband in old joggers and a faded shirt, one daughter kicking a football badly at his shins, the other squealing on his hip, the late morning sun on all of them.
You reached for your phone and took a picture before either child moved.
Later, much later, you would look at that photo and understand exactly why your hands had shaken afterward.
That afternoon he fixed Peach's bike chain while she hovered over him in moral support and Margot fed grass to Slinky in what the cat looked too offended to classify as an attack.
That evening he made dinner with Peach standing on a chair beside him "helping" stir the sauce and Margot wrapped around his leg like a barnacle.
That night he came to bed smelling like soap and tomato and clean cotton and loved you until you were boneless with it, until your head tipped back and he pressed his mouth to your throat like he was starving there too.
You touched his face in the dark and whispered, "Stay."
He went still for one terrible second.
Then he kissed you and said, "Always trying."
Your chest hurt.
Still you did not know.
Not really.
Because the full truth was too ugly to fit inside domestic light.
John did.
Every soft thing he did had another shape underneath it.
The extra story.
The school drop-off.
The hand smoothing Peach's hair while she ate toast.
The way he carried Margot one extra minute after she'd already fallen asleep on his shoulder.
He was saying goodbye without saying goodbye.
Not in the large obvious way. No speeches. No dramatic lingering in doorways. No impossible confessions by the kitchen sink.
In the small places.
The useful places.
The places no one could stop him from memorizing.
The girls' voices layered over each other in the car.
The exact weight of Peach's hand in his on the walk into school.
The sound you made when he kissed the spot under your ear and caught you by surprise.
The way Margot's curls smelled after her bath.
The look of the house at six-thirty with dishes in the sink and crayons under the table and your cardigan hanging off the back of the chair.
He grieved in advance because he knew enough now to understand the scale of what was coming.
Not details. He would never put those in your hands if he could help it.
But enough.
Enough to know Shepherd's betrayal ran wider and dirtier than anything you'd yet seen from the outside. Enough to know that the hunt was no longer something he could compartmentalize neatly. Enough to know the safest thing he could give you and the girls was ignorance and routine and a week full of too much love.
He hated himself for that.
Hated the deception.
Hated every moment you looked at him with trust while he held back the shape of the thing that might take him away again and not bring the same man back.
But in his mind Shepherd's betrayal was bigger than his marriage.
Not because you mattered less.
Because if he let what he knew follow him properly into the house, into your bed, into the girls' rooms, then he would have failed before he even left.
So he gave you this instead.
Breakfasts.
Stories.
Hands on your skin that would not rush.
Promises so small they might survive.
Sunday evening, all four of you ended up in the living room because nobody had enough energy to pretend otherwise.
Peach was sprawled across the rug in her pajamas, drawing stars on a sheet of printer paper for reasons known only to her. Margot sat between your knees with a board book upside down in her lap, aggressively babbling at the illustrations like they owed her money. Slinky had claimed the back of the couch. John sat beside you with one arm draped along the cushions behind your shoulders and one socked foot planted on the coffee table like he lived there.
You looked around the room and felt the fullness of it so sharply it almost scared you.
The girls.
The mess.
The warm lamp glow.
John, turned slightly toward all of you like gravity itself was stronger in this room than anywhere else.
Peach looked up from her drawing. "Daddy, are you coming to school this week if I get a sticker?"
He didn't even hesitate.
"Try and keep me away."
She grinned and bent back over the paper.
Margot held up the upside-down book and shouted, "Daddy!"
John leaned forward, took it from her, and turned it right side up. "That does help."
She slapped his knee in approval.
You laughed.
He looked at you then, and for one soft second the whole room narrowed to just his face. The tiredness there. The love. The apology he could not speak. The need.
You reached for his hand and laced your fingers through his.
He squeezed once. Hard.
Much later, after the girls were finally asleep and the dishwasher had been started and the house had gone still around you, he stood in the girls' doorway for too long.
You came up behind him and rested your cheek against his back.
"They're okay," you whispered.
He covered your hand where it lay against his stomach. "I know."
But he stayed looking anyway.
At Peach with one leg flung over the blanket and one hand curled around her rabbit.
At Margot in the cot, turned sideways somehow, mouth open, dreamless and complete.
You felt something move through him then. Something heavy. Something final. Something you still could not name.
When you got to bed, he pulled you into him so tightly it almost hurt. You let him. His hand moved under your shirt, palm warm over your stomach, then up to your ribs, your waist, your back. As if he could anchor himself by touch alone.
You drifted first.
Sleep crept up in slow layers. Your last conscious thought was that he was still awake, breathing too evenly for rest.
Long after you were asleep, John lay beside you in the dark and listened to the house.
The girls through the monitor. Pipes shifting in the walls. Wind at the window. Your breathing, soft and steady against his chest.
Every sound was a goodbye he refused to say aloud.
And when morning came, he would wake and do it all again.
🥃🧸🍪🥃🧸🍪🥃🧸🍪🥃🧸🍪🥃🧸🍪
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