After seeing his loved ones together again after years apart, questions about Conrad's love life end up bringing your photo to the table.
୨ৎ ──── gentle love. 1,9k. fem!reader. season three spoilers. english isn't my first language. main masterlist.
Sometimes, Conrad would look across the table and see his mother smiling at him.
It didn’t matter that she had been gone for years now, her absence a quiet ache that threaded through every season since. It didn’t matter that this was her memorial, that the soft clink of cutlery was muted by the weight of grief, or that candles flickered gently in her name while bouquets of her favorite flowers filled the room with the ghost of summer. It didn’t matter that every chair was occupied by someone who had known her laugh, her warmth, and her boundless way of loving and who carried that loss like a stone in their chest.
It didn’t matter that the person really sitting across from him was his father, rigid in his collared shirt.
Because for him, Susannah was always there.
She was in the light. In the sun pouring through the restaurant window and catching the glint of the ocean just beyond the dunes. In the quiet way Laurel had wrapped her arms around him earlier, holding him like a second mother, so tight and grounding, as if she could hold him together just long enough to get through the day. She was in the sound of Steven’s easy laugh, in the way Belly rolled her eyes fondly at her brother’s joke, and in how Jeremiah nudged his shoulder like they hadn’t lost entire years between them.
Being with them again, after everything and despite everything, felt like slipping into a worn hoodie from his childhood. Frayed at the sleeves, thinned in places, but still warm. Still his.
And then there was you.
Maybe most of all, she was in you.
You, who had crashed into his life quietly and all at once, like the tide.
He’d met you just weeks before his mother died. A moment in time he sometimes thought about like a scene in a movie, too perfectly timed to be real. Like fate, or maybe something softer. Kinder. Maybe she had sent you. Maybe Susannah, with all her light and knowing and mother’s heart, had looked at her boy, being a splintered, grieving, impossibly young and already so tired, and thought: he’s going to need someone like her.
Someone patient. Someone with a voice like a lullaby and laughter that filled the cracks in his chest. Someone who ate ice cream even on rainy days and sang along, very badly, to the radio with him, who learned his silences and never tried to fix them, only sat beside him until he could breathe again.
You had been her parting gift. The last bright ribbon on a life wrapped too tightly around loss.
And sometimes, when you smiled at him from across the room like he was the only thing you saw, or when you pressed your hand flat against his chest like you could feel the places where it still hurt, Conrad would close his eyes, swallow the knot in his throat, and think:
Thank you, Mom.
He was still lost in thought about you when Laurel’s voice rose above the soft clink of glasses and low hum of conversation. Her tone was warm, filled with that quiet maternal pride that always wrapped around him like a knit blanket, one he never asked for but always accepted. She was raising a toast to her children, to their futures, her eyes glinting with unshed emotion beneath the dim restaurant lighting. The flicker of candlelight played across her face as she turned her gaze toward him, and the warmth in her voice softened further.
She spoke of him next.
Of all he’d done, all he’d built, far from home. Her words weren’t just kind, they were reverent and admiring. She spoke of his discipline, his strength, and the way he’d carried the weight of grief and still managed to chase down a future through lecture halls and exam rooms. Each sentence felt like a gentle pat on the shoulder, a reminder that he wasn’t invisible in his efforts. That someone, even from afar, had seen him.
Conrad stared down at the glass in front of him, the golden liquid inside catching the light just enough to blur his reflection. He felt the burn behind his eyes, low and steady, and swallowed it down like the rest of the things he never said.
But before the silence of her words could settle, before he could let the swell of emotion crest and fall, Steven’s voice cut in. Playful. Sharp. Curious. A disruption of that fragile stillness.
“So do you have a girl there?” He asked, his voice slicing through the quiet hum of reverence like a pebble skipped across still water.
Conrad blinked slowly, his gaze lifting from the golden ripple of his drink, catching the soft light that danced along the glass’s edge. For a moment, he hesitated, not because he didn’t know the answer, but because saying it aloud felt fragile and intimate, like unfolding a delicate secret in a room still steeped in memories and silence.
Around the table, Laurel smiled warmly, gently nudging Belly with an elbow as if sharing a quiet joke. Jeremiah tilted his head, curiosity flickering across his features. Even his father looked up from his plate, brows arched with a quiet but unmistakable interest.
The attention turned toward him like a slow tide.
Conrad didn’t rush. He never did. He rubbed a thumb against the condensation on his glass, lips twitching just slightly.
“Yeah,” he said, voice low but sure. “Yeah, I do.”
Steven leaned forward, eyes bright and wide with boyish enthusiasm. “Wait, seriously? You’re seeing someone?”
His dad chuckled softly, a sound rich with both surprise and amusement. “And you didn’t bring her? Why not?”
Conrad looked up then, eyes calm but glittering with something warmer, deeper. “It’s her family’s day, too,” he said quietly. “Didn’t feel right to take her away.”
A thoughtful pause followed, the kind that hangs heavy yet respectful in the air. Laurel’s voice broke it gently, honeyed with fondness. “What’s she like?”
And there it was, the question that mattered most.
Conrad didn’t answer immediately. Instead, he reached for his wallet, slow and deliberate, like he wasn’t just flipping through receipts and cards but handling something precious. He slid a small, worn photo from the back sleeve, the one he kept tucked there like a secret, like a prayer.
It was you, standing on the beach last fall, hair wild from the wind, the hem of your jeans wet with saltwater. You weren’t even looking at the camera. You were laughing at something he’d said, eyes half-shut from smiling, your hand lifted in a blurry motion like you’d just tossed a shell back into the waves.
He laid the photo on the table.
A soft collective breath escaped the group, somewhere between a sigh and a quiet ‘oh.’ Laurel’s hand fluttered to her chest, her eyes shining with unspoken emotion. Belly’s head tilted, brows knitting together in a thoughtful frown.
“Wait…that’s this beach,” she murmured.
“That’s our house behind,” Jeremiah added, glancing at his brother. “You brought her here? When?”
“Almost a year ago,” Conrad said softly.
For a moment, no one spoke. The room seemed to pause, the usual clatter of the restaurant fading beneath the weight of his quiet vulnerability. This raw, unguarded glimpse into his life was rare, almost sacred.
Even his father nodded slowly, a silent approval etched into the lines of his weathered face.
“Well,” Laurel said softly, eyes shimmering, “she must be pretty special.”
Conrad’s lips curved into a small, genuine smile, the corners lifting with a quiet certainty. “She is,” he murmured. “She really is.”
A minute later, Conrad quietly excused himself from the table, slipping away from the low hum of conversation and the soft clinking of glasses. He didn’t really need the bathroom, he just needed a moment to breathe, to catch the sharp edges of his thoughts before they cut too deep.
His throat felt tight and heavy, the strange ache that comes when grief and love collide pressing against his chest like a weight he couldn’t set down.
Leaning against the cool, smooth tile wall, he pulled out his phone. Your name was already glowing softly on the screen, as if waiting for him, an anchor in the swirling storm.
He tapped it gently and held the phone to his ear, heart pounding a quiet rhythm.
You answered on the second ring, your voice soft and warm, wrapping around him like a familiar melody that made the noisy restaurant fade into a distant murmur.
“Hey, love. Everything alright?” you asked, your tone tender, filled with a soothing kind of care that made his tight chest ease a little.
He swallowed hard, the ache tightening as he pressed his forehead against the cold wall, eyes closing for a brief moment. “Yeah, I’m okay. Just needed a little break.”
A pause stretched between them, your steady breathing a quiet comfort over the line.
“You sound a little shaken,” you said gently. “Talk to me.”
He let out a shaky breath, fingers curling around the edge of the sink. “It’s just…today. Being with them, remembering her. And now…hearing your voice.”
You didn’t rush to fill the silence. Instead, you let it hold him like a soft, protective cloak, an unspoken invitation to unravel the tight knot inside his chest.
“I told them I have a girlfriend,” he said, a shy, almost bashful smile touching his lips. “Showed them a picture of you.”
Your laughter was gentle and bright through the phone. “Oh? You really did?”
He nodded, though you couldn’t see the movement. “Yeah. Wanted them to know you’re not just a voice in my ear.”
There was a tenderness in your voice that made his heart skip, a soft anchor in the tumult. “I’m very real.”
He brushed a trembling hand over his face, trying to chase away the rawness threatening to spill through his words. “I miss you so much.”
“I miss you too,” you whispered, your voice barely more than a breath. “But at least we’re just a call away.”
His lips curved into a genuine, quiet smile. The heavy weight pressing on his chest lifted ever so slightly. “I’m lucky.”
“No,” you said softly, voice steady and sure. “I’m the lucky one.”
He closed his eyes, breathing deeply, letting the warmth of your voice fill the hollow spaces inside him, the steady pulse of your love a balm to his weary heart. For a fragile, fleeting moment, everything felt like it might be alright.
He lingered in the silence, the phone pressed gently to his ear, as if holding onto you through the line could stop the world from spinning too fast.
“I wish you were here,” he finally murmured, his voice barely above a whisper, heavy with longing.
There was a quiet pause, full of everything that words couldn’t say.
“I know,” you answered softly. “I wish I was, too.”
He swallowed the lump in his throat, feeling the chill of the tiles seep through his skin, grounding him even as his heart soared.
“Soon,” you promised gently, “I’ll be with you for real. No more phone calls.”
A small, hopeful smile broke through the tension coiled inside him.
As a society I think we should stop saying “Conrad is in love with his brother’s fiancee” and start saying “Jeremiah is engaged to his brother’s ex girlfriend”
