Summary: Jake’s too focused on making the night perfect that he’s forgotten the most important part.
Warnings/Genres/Troupes: angst, fluff.
W/C: 1,713.
Pairing: Jake x reader.
Notes: sequel to The Right Choice
Word of the day (July 14, 2026) - Steak
Betas: @deanwinchesterswitch
Graphics: title card design @deanwinchesterswitch
Master Lists: Word Of The Day - July 2026 // Main // Beyond Repair-verse
Jake is really trying. Trying to act normal. Trying to hide that he misses you already, even though you’re sitting across the table from him. Trying to pretend that his heart isn’t in his throat, which is probably a good thing because otherwise he might beg you to reconsider, and not leave.
He knows it's not about him. You aren’t leaving him. Still, it hurts. You made your decision. You’re going to Colorado. You contacted the company last Monday, and they were eager to get the ball rolling. They gave you two weeks to get things sorted, and so you’ll be gone on Friday. It’s Wednesday.
“How’s your steak?” you ask, focusing on cutting your own.
It’s probably delicious. It’s expensive enough that it should be served with a gold bar on top and have someone cut it for you, but all Jake can taste is the bitter bile of loss.
How is this supposed to work? How is he supposed to prove he deserves the second chance you gave him when you’re two states away?
Somehow, this feels worse than when he walked in on you packing up your life, because at least then he hadn’t seen it coming. This time, helpless to stop it, he watched it happen one cardboard box at a time. Hell, he helped you pack this time. He isn’t pretending to be the supportive boyfriend; he’s super excited for you, but not excited about you being gone.
“Jake,” you say, softly, looking up at him.
He’s taken too long to answer, and from the sympathetic look you give him, you know he’s stuck in his own head.
“Sorry.” He tries to smile, but it feels like a betrayal of himself. He isn’t happy, and there’s nothing to smile about. Not right now. “What was the question?”
Gently, you set your knife and fork on the plate, steak half-eaten, fries barely touched. “Can we get out of here?” You ask.
Confused, he frowns down at your plate. “Is something wrong with the food?”
“No,” you say quickly, “It’s fine. I’m grateful you took the time to make a reservation and spend some time with me. But…I’ve only got two days left to be with you, and I don’t want to be sitting in a fancy restaurant where I can barely reach you.” As a way of demonstration, you stretch your arm across the table, and Jake immediately gives you his hand.
“I’m sorry,” he mumbles. He’s getting it wrong. He’d wanted tonight to be special. Instead, he’s somehow turned it into a wake.
“I wanna be at the Hard Deck with our friends.” You start to babble, your words tumbling over each other. “I wanna drink a beer with Nat. I wanna listen to Bradshaw and you shoot barbs at each other. I wanna mock Reuben for burning his uniform with the iron, again. I wanna listen to Mickey and Bob debate if Star Wars or Star Trek is better. I wanna watch Javy pine over Nat and give him shit for being too scared to say anything. And I want us to sneak off to the beach to have a make-out session that goes way too far before we realize we’re in public. I wanna do it all before, before I...” You cut yourself off and avert your gaze.
“Before you can’t anymore.”
“It’s not forever,” you say.
He’s not sure if you’re trying to convince him or yourself.
“I know.”
“I negotiated extra paid leave and working remotely, so if you get deployed, I can be closer when possible.”
“I know.”
“This isn’t the end.”
He doesn’t have a response because he’s not certain of that. Instead, he motions to a waiter and asks for the bill.
The restaurant buzzes around you, wine glasses clink. Someone at the next table laughs. A birthday is being celebrated in the corner, a sparkler fizzing above a slice of chocolate cake. The whole room keeps moving, but Jake is frozen.
“I’ve been treating this like,” he searches for the words. Sighing, “like we’re saying goodbye.”
“We’re not.”
“But it feels like I am.”
It’s your turn now, “I know. But you’re trying so hard not to waste the time we’ve got left that you’ve forgotten to enjoy it.”
Holding hands, you walk silently to Jake’s truck, neither of you quite sure what to say. He kisses you softly as he opens the passenger door. “Your chariot awaits.”
“Thank you, kind sir,” you smile, sliding into the seat. Jake rounds the front of the truck, and you watch him heave out a deep breath before he opens the door to climb in.
“So,” he says, pulling out his phone as he gets behind the wheel. “Music?”
“Do I get to pick?”
“Absolutely not.”
“Dictators always think they’re right.”
“History supports me.”
“You’ve got questionable taste, Seresin.”
He clutches his chest dramatically. “I’ve never been so insulted.”
“Please, you’ve been insulted far worse.”
“True,” he chuckles, scrolling through his phone as he turns the key to start the engine.
“I see you skipped my playlist.”
“I saved us both.”
You shake your head as Fleetwood Mac begins to play, and Jake puts the truck into drive. “I’ll allow it because Fleetwood Mac are objectively excellent.”
He shoots you a sideways glance, putting his foot on the brake a little too hard as the truck rolls. “Objectively?”
“Yes. Fleetwood Mac is objectively excellent.”
“You're using ‘objectively’ wrong.”
“Objectively, I'm not. Queen is better.”
“Okay,” Jake nods, “You’ve got until we get to the Hard Deck to convince me.”
By the time the Hard Deck comes into view, you’re both loudly singing the last chorus of Bohemian Rhapsody together, completely off-key. Jake kills the engine, and the music fades, leaving the muffled sounds spilling out of the bar as background noise.
Jake stares at the familiar weathered building through the windshield. He gives himself to the count of ten before he gets out, holding back a grimace. Selfishly, he doesn’t want to share you with his friends. Not tonight.
You turn when he opens the door, but don't step down. Instead, you grasp the front of his shirt and pull him to you, parting your legs so he can stand between them. Instinctively, he slides his hands up your thighs to rest on your hips.
“You know I don’t care about fancy dinners, right?” Wrapping your arms around his neck, you add, “I don’t care where we eat. I don’t care if it’s steak or gas station sandwiches.” Your thumbs brush the ends of his hair. “I just want Wednesday.”
He laughs once. It’s barely more than an exhale. “I know. I’ve been trying so hard to make everything perfect,” he sighs, annoyed at himself for trying too hard.
“And you have,” you nod. “But you’ve forgotten you’re my favorite part.”
His breath catches. “Fuck. You always know how to undo me.”
Your smile is smug, biting your bottom lip to stifle it doesn’t work. “I know.”
“You’re getting cocky,” he shoots back.
“I’ve been spending time with you.”
“You should ask for a refund.”
“Jake, shut up and kiss me.”
So he does. Before he can think of another joke, another deflection, another attempt to be brave, he kisses you.
Slowly at first, tentative. Then you kiss him back. Everything he’s been trying so desperately to hold together comes apart in the space of a heartbeat.
The kiss is anything but careful. It’s hungry desperation. Days of pretending everything is fine. It’s a goodbye and an ‘I miss you’ and months of wondering if he’d ever get the chance to kiss you like this again. He’ll never not take the opportunity.
His hands slide from your hips to your waist, pulling you closer until there’s little space left between you.
It’s relief and longing. It’s hurt and desire. It’s painful and soothing. It’s every conversation you haven’t had because saying goodbye out loud somehow makes Friday arrive faster.
When you pull apart, he’s breathing just as hard as you are.
Your smug grin is back. “That,” you whisper, “is all I wanted tonight.”
Jake smiles, resting his forehead on yours and closing his eyes. “I can work with that.”
A knock on the driver's window makes you both jump. You spin around to see Javy with the biggest grin, pointing at his watch.
“You two planning on coming inside? Or should I tell everyone the make-out session started early?”
Jake groans. “Say the word,” he whispers, just for you, “and I’ll take you home to finish this properly.”
You laugh, pecking his lips. “Try to behave for one hour.”
“No promises.”
“I heard that,” Javy says, now on the other side of the open door.
Jake doesn’t take his eyes off you, holding your hand as you jump down out of the truck. “Mind your business, Machado.”
Javy snorts, throwing his arm over your shoulder. “The last time you told me to mind my business, Seresin, the three of us almost got banned from the Hard Deck because you two got ‘locked’ in the store cupboard.”
“The door was stuck,” You quickly defend. Neither of the men brings up the fact that you had no business being in there in the first place.
Jake catches up and takes your hand as you walk, arguing, “If you’d been a better lookout, Coyote. We wouldn’t have come close to getting caught.” Jake winks when you meet his eye.
Javy stops and turns to face you both, looking down at your joined hands. “I like this,” he smiles, “you two look like you again.”
That stops Jake short, and he has no snarky remark because Javy is right. The last few months have been filled with forced smiles, careful conversations, and pretending everything was okay.
Tonight, you’d fought about music, shared a steak you barely ate, and made out in his truck like two teenagers. Somewhere between the restaurant and the Hard Deck, Wednesday had stopped feeling like a countdown.
It had simply become another Wednesday. Jake squeezes your hand.
Friday is still on its way. The distance isn’t any smaller, but now he isn’t thinking about the miles that will be between you. He’s thinking about the hour ahead. For tonight, that’s enough.
A/N 2: I’m sure I’ll be exploring more of these 2 in the future so be sure to get on my tag list so you don’t miss it.
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Summary: What flavor of Ice Cream to have is not the only choice that needs to be made.
Warnings/Genres/Troupes: angst, fluff.
W/C: 2,160
Pairing: Jake x reader
Notes: sequel to Dagger Mission
Word of the day (June 27, 2026) - Scoop
Betas: @deanwinchesterswitch
Graphics: title card design @deanwinchesterswitch
Master Lists: Word Of The Day- June 2026 // Main
Sleep refuses to come.
The blue glow of the alarm cuts through the darkness—2:18 a.m.
Rolling onto your back for what has to be the fifteenth time in ten minutes, the sheets twist around your legs, and the pillow is warm no matter how often you flip it over. The slight breeze from the open window does little to cool the room, and the strange quiet that only exists in the middle of the night presses against the walls.
If you concentrate, you can hear the ocean, but as soon as you start to drift off, your mind wanders to the second first date with Jake and then the intervention. The way Jake had actually looked nervous and answered with an earnest “Copy that” to Phoenix’s threat.
Laughing quietly, you twist to look at your phone on the nightstand and resist the urge to text him. That was just two nights ago. You’re supposed to be taking it slow.
He’s probably asleep anyway.
Another attempt to shut off your brain and drift into darkness fails miserably. “Screw it.” Kicking at the covers to untangle your legs, you reach for your phone.
You: You awake?
The screen begins to dim, and just as you're about to toss it onto the mattress, it lights up, illuminating your face.
Jake: I am.
Jake: Can’t sleep?
You: Can’t turn my brain off.
You: You?
Jake: I think I forgot how to sleep.
Speech bubbles appear. Disappear. Appear. Gone again. You hum, feeling the same uncertainty about what to say. Then finally...
Jake: Ice cream?
A smile tugs at the corner of your mouth.
You: Are you trying to solve insomnia with dairy?
Jake: It’s worth investigating.
Your laugh echoes around the room, making it feel empty. Neither of you should be awake at this time of the morning. You each have responsibilities tomorrow. Which is why ice cream sounds perfect.
You: See you in 20.
Jake’s alarm will be ringing in a little over four hours, his apartment still smells faintly of the pizza he’d forgotten to throw away after getting home from work, and every sensible part of his brain is telling him a late-night ice cream run isn’t going to fix the fact that he’s spent the last three nights sleeping in restless twenty-minute bursts.
He ignores those sensible thoughts.
Instead, he finds himself parked outside your apartment building, ten minutes early, which means he definitely broke at least three speed limits getting here. Leaning against the door, he crosses his ankles, trying for casual, though the way he stares at the building's door is anything but.
It’s ridiculous. He’s flown combat missions with his pulse steadier than this.
This is the part he wasn’t prepared for—the waiting. Getting you back isn’t about grand gestures like fancy dinners, long, albeit heartfelt speeches, or dramatic airport chases like in the movies. It’s waiting to see if you text first. It's giving you space so you’ll choose him tomorrow after choosing him today. Being offered a second chance is one thing, but living like he deserves it carries much higher stakes.
He misses you, misses the things he took for granted, the cute notes on the refrigerator when you left before him in the morning, the funny texts that flashed on his screen at the worst possible times, the late-night talks about nothing while eating cold pizza slices, the way you curled into him while watching horror movies, the flash of your smile over the edge of your book when he walked into the room.
The door opens, and he straightens, thoughts now solely in the present. His smile widens as he sees what you're wearing. Nothing fancy, sweats, sneakers, and a hoodie. His hoodie, which makes his pulse hitch a little.
Your expression softens into a smile when you spot him. Not the polite one you’ve perfected over the last few months or the brave one you’d worn while moving boxes out of the apartment. This one reaches your eyes.
It hits him then. He’d spent months wondering if he’d ever be the reason for that smile again. Now it’s walking toward him.
He pushes off the truck, forcing every ounce of nervous energy into something that resembles effortless confidence.
“I’ve been looking for that,” he nods toward the hoodie.
You smile, tucking your hands into the kangaroo pocket. “We established a long time ago that it now belongs to me.”
“Fair.” He huffs a laugh, opening the door for you.
“Is anywhere going to be open at this time?” you ask, moving to slide into the truck.
“I know a place,” he shrugs.
“Of course you do.”
The little ice cream shop sits tucked between a laundromat and a surf shop, its neon OPEN sign humming against the otherwise dark row of beachfront stores.
“You weren’t kidding,” you mutter.
“I rarely kid about dessert.”
“Only everything else.”
The bell above the door jingles as Jake holds it open for you. “Obviously.”
It’s clearly been a slow night because the young man behind the counter looks like he’s smoked one too many joints and has a line of chocolate sauce above his top lip.
“Evening,” he says as you approach.
Jake checks his watch. “Morning.”
“Whatever.”
You don’t even check the menu, and Jake is already shaking his head. “Don’t start, Seresin.”
“It tastes like toothpaste.”
“It’s fresh.”
“It’s dental hygiene.”
“I choose what I like,” you shrug. “You choose chaos, like a teenager who’s been left alone with a credit card.”
“Not today,” he winks, pulling a crisp one-hundred-dollar bill from his pocket. “It’s on Rooster.”
You roll your eyes, “Was it a dangerous or immature bet he lost?”
Jake shrugs. “Bit of both.”
“I’ll take a scoop of mint chocolate chip, please.” Tilting your head toward Jake, you sigh, “And I’m sure he’ll take whatever monstrosity you can pile into one tub.”
Jake stares you down while he orders. “I’ll have strawberry...”
You look surprised.
“With brownie pieces...”
“There it is.”
“...Hot fudge sauce...”
“It’ll be a melting mess.”
“...and Caramel....”
“Can’t forget the caramel.”
“And whipped cream.”
Five minutes later, he walks out carrying a heart-attack-inducing tower while you gently lick at your single scoop cone.
Walking side by side, you wander toward the beach without really deciding to. The waves roll lazily onto the sand, silver beneath the moonlight, and gulls begin to wake for dawn.
He’s forgotten how much he loves doing absolutely nothing with you. No plans, no destination, nowhere to be, just walking.
You finish your cone before he’s managed half of his, and sit on the driftwood someone took the time to carve into a bench. Jake watches intently as you drag your finger through the concoction he's holding, grimacing as you lick the digit clean.
“Oh geez, Jake, that’s disgustingly sweet.”
He smirks, “But delicious.”
Shaking your head, you rest your elbows on your knees, watching as the approaching blue hour blurs the horizon where the sky meets the sea.
For a while, neither of you says anything. The silence settles around you like an old favorite blanket, comfortable enough that neither of you feels obligated to fill it.
“Wanna know something embarrassing?” Jake eventually asks, expertly throwing his empty tub into a steel drum acting as a trash can.
“Always.”
“I almost texted four times before you texted me.”
You chuckle. “Why didn’t you?”
“Didn’t wanna seem clingy.”
“You sent me like fifty emojis today. “
“Fifty-nine. I counted.”
That earns him another laugh. God, he’s missed that laugh and being the reason for it. Quicker than he likes, the sound drifts off with the wind. The waves approach and recede, the breeze ruffles your hair, but you remain still.
“I miss talking to you,” Jake says.
You turn your head, resting your chin on your shoulder, and give him a small smile. “Me too.”
“No,” he smiles faintly. “I mean, really talking. The pointless conversations. All the ones I took for granted because I thought we’d have years to do it. I miss the arguments about music, the debates over whether cereal counts as dinner. Which, it absolutely does.”
You laugh, leaning back to put your palms flat and stretch your legs out. You look relaxed, which was his aim. “It absolutely doesn’t.”
He smiles. “Speaking of talking, you never did tell me why you were drinking whiskey on a Tuesday night.”
You avert your gaze to look at the ocean. “It’s a long story.”
“Well, my alarm, that is conveniently at home, isn’t due to go off for,” checking his watch, coaxes the return of your smile, “two and a half hours. So I have time.”
You sigh, shuffling closer to him, and instinctively, he lifts his arm to put around your shoulders. “Can we just enjoy this, be in the moment?”
He kisses the top of your head; it’s so natural it almost hurts. “We can.”
He knows what you're doing, though. The tiny crease between your eyebrows, the anxious way your thumb rubs at the sleeve of his hoodie, lets him know that instead of enjoying the quiet, you're hiding inside it.
He says your name softly, a question.
You take a deep breath. “I got offered another promotion, a division of my own.”
“Congratulations?” He frames it as a question because if it were something you were excited about, you’d have told him sooner.
You huff a humorless laugh. “Thanks.”
He doesn’t ask whether it pays more, has a fancy new title, or what other perks it might offer, because only one question really matters.
“Where?”
“Colorado.”
The word hangs. Far enough away to make spontaneous ice cream at two-thirty in the morning impossible. Far enough that weekend visits would be difficult, and military leave and unpredictable schedules suddenly matter. Far enough that it changes everything.
“I’m assuming the whiskey on a Tuesday and a midnight ice cream run mean you’re conflicted.”
“I promised myself I wouldn’t put my life on hold again.”
The surf almost drowns out your words. Jake closes his eyes for the briefest second against the pain, but still, he understands.
“I’d be lying if I said I want you to take it, but you have to do what’s right for you.”
“What if I don’t know what that is? What if I choose wrong? What if I mess it up?”
“I don’t know.” He keeps his voice carefully neutral because this isn’t his decision, no matter how desperately he wants the answer to be that you stay.
He stands up, paces two steps away, and then turns. You look up at him, tears pooling in your eyes, and he hates how conflicted you look.
“Let’s make it simple. Do you want the job?”
You hesitate for only a moment, and he knows it's because you don’t want to hurt him.
“Yes. It’s everything I’ve been working for.”
“And you’ve worked your ass off,” he agrees. “You not only deserve it; you’ve earned it.”
“That doesn’t make the decision any easier.”
He swallows hard, the ice cream churning in his stomach. He can feel you slipping away. “Wh-” his voice catches in his suddenly dry throat. “When do you have to give your answer?”
“Monday.”
He nods like it's okay, but it’s not. Four days isn’t enough time to say goodbye. He moves to kneel in the sand, taking your hands in his, because it seems like a waste not to touch you when he might not be able to soon.
“I love you,” he says quietly, as if he knows he shouldn’t say it. “Selfishly, I want you to stay.” A sad smile tugs at one corner of his mouth. “But I understand that it’s something you need to do for you.” Bringing your hands to his lips, he kisses your knuckles. “This only works if you choose me because I’m the right choice, not because I’m the closest one. I don’t want you to wake up ten years from now wondering what would’ve happened if you’d taken it, and I sure as hell don’t want to be the guy you blame.”
“I hate it when you’re the emotionally mature one.”
“I know.”
“It’s deeply inconvenient.”
A tiny smile finally breaks through. “For the record, if you move to Colorado, I expect unlimited visitation rights.”
You laugh through tears.
“But also,” he strings out the last syllable, "and no pressure,” he smirks, “but Phoenix did threaten to kill me if I mess this up.”
This time, your laugh is deep, the emotion melting away some of the apprehension. “I’ll be sure to let her know she doesn’t need to move you up on her hit list.”
“Appreciated.”
Sitting curled into each other, you silently watch the mesmerizing tapestry of blues and golds as the first rays of sunlight hit the waves. Neither of you has found the answer, but somehow neither of you feels quite so alone looking for it.
Part 8 - Another Wednesday - Jake’s too focused on making the night perfect that he’s forgotten the most important part.
A/N 2: I’m sure I’ll be exploring more of these 2 in the future so be sure to get on my tag list so you don’t miss it.
My tag lists are open. If you want to join please complete this form. You don’t need a google account to fill it in. Using the form makes it easier to track.
Alternatively follow my library blog @princessmisery666-library - I only post my fics.
It was the Fourth of July weekend and you and Jake had the dagger squad over to spend the day lounging in your pool. After a long day of swimming and drinking, you, phoenix, and halo were inside your kitchen cleaning up the mess from dinner.
"so whiskey, how did you and hangman even meet? I don't think I have ever heard this story now come to think of it." halo asked over the sound of water running from you washing the dishes and phoenix drying them.
"oh! well it was back when I was on my first deployment back in Texas, where I'm from. turns out he went to my rival high school growing up." you replied to her.
"no no no no whiskey! we want like the day you met and what happened. and why the heck you fell for bagman..." her voice trailed off, eyes watching the sandy blonde haired pilot walked up to his wife. "speak of the devil." she whispered to herself.
"hey sweetheart. I hope I'm not interrupting any prime time girl talk." Jake said with a laugh, approaching you and kissing your cheek.
"Oh no honey, I was just telling them about how we met. you know since I never mentioned it I guess." your eyes find Natasha's, giving her a sweet smile.
"Oh so you told them about how we were in that local beer joint and you just couldn't resist all my charm?" Jake's cocky, signature smirk arose onto his face.
you rose an eyebrow. "no I haven't gotten that far because a certain cocky naval aviator interrupted our girl talk." you shoot back, with an even bigger smirk on your face.
"okay okay fine. please resume." he said as he walked back with his hands up in surrender, rounding the back side of the island.
"I was all but twenty two, I think at the time. I'd been out on the road, lonely at night. And it'd been a while, so it was on my mind. Well, I saw Jake walk in with his cowboy hat and I thought to myself I could use some of that. His boots like glass on the sawdust floor. He had moves like nothing I'd ever seen before. So I walked right up, and I pulled him to the side. I handed Jake a beer and looked him in his eyes and I said 'baby, I think you're gonna wanna hear this' then I told him 'excuse me. you look like you love me. you look like you want me to want you to come on home and baby I don't blame you for looking me up and down across this room. I'm drunk and I'm ready to leave, and you look like you love me.'" you explained.
"woah how many drinks did you have that night that gave you the courage to do that?" Callie asked.
"I do believe that was the night I earned my callsign. oops." you reply with a shrug and a laugh.
"ok so Jake what was your perspective on the whole situation?" Natasha asked.
"Well, I was down at the local beer joint with a few of the guys, when this cute little country girl caught my eye, and boy, let me tell you, she was the prettiest thing I'd ever seen in a pair of boots. Well, she walked right up to me, handed me a beer. she gave me a look like, 'let's get out of here.' and that's when I realized that she was every cowboy's dream com true. She told me this right here, 'excuse me. you look like you love me. you look like you want me to want you to come on home and baby I don't blame you for looking me up and down across this room. Im drunk and I'm ready to leave, and you look like you love me.'" Jake said.
"so basically the moral of this story is that whiskey was super drunk off of hard liquor and had the balls to straight up flirt with you?" Callie asked?
"Pretty much." Jake shrugged.
"Hey no. the moral of this story is if you ever see a man in a cowboy hat and you think to yourself 'I could use some of that', don't waste your time. just give him this here line. it goes a little like this, 'excuse me. you look like you love me. you look like you want me to want you to come on home and baby I don't blame you for looking me up and down across this room. I'm drunk and I'm ready to leave, and you look like you love me.'" you giggle as Jake rounded the counter and hugged you from behind, planting a kiss on your head.
SUMMARY In which, Jake discovers that he loves having his hair played with and you discover that he has an 'off' button.
CONTENT fem reader (no use of Y/N), slightly suggestive, mostly just fluff, barely edited
WC 1.5k
A/N you know the drill: another reupload from my old account. this is inspired by a Fred Weasley fic I read awhile ago and thought was very cute. please enjoy!
Jake Seresin did not know how to take care of his hair. That was just a fact, a quintessential reality that rang true no matter the circumstances. Whether it was the 12 pounds of gel he put in his hair every morning—practically slicking the strands back with a cement mixture strong enough to withstand a tornado—or the fact that he didn’t really believe in conditioner, Jake Seresin’s hair had not felt love a day in its life.
“I bought you shampoo and conditioner,” you gesture to one of the bags sitting on the kitchen island as you begin unloading food into the fridge.
Jake grabs one of the bottles, flipping open the cap and giving it an unsure sniff before looking at you questioningly. “I have shampoo and conditioner.”
“Your two-in-one abomination to society doesn't count.”
He pouts, setting the bottle down and moving to help you. “I don’t see anything wrong with it.”
“Well, everyone else does,” you pull out a bottle of orange juice from the grocery bag. “And I cannot keep defending you when they say you don’t know how to shower.”
“Who’s saying that?” Jake scoffs. “I think you’re the only person who cares this much about my hair, angel.”
“I’m the one sticking up for you,” you protest. “Even Rooster thinks he has better hair than you.”
Jake wrinkles his nose at the thought. “That’s just not true. Pretty sure I saw him scream when Phoenix accidentally put her hairbrush in his locker.”
“See,” you elongate the vowel. “You gotta have better hair than Rooster, baby.”
He plucks the bag off the counter and hands it back to you. “I already do.”
“Please, Jake?” You pout at him softly. “I just want to be able to play with your hair.”
“I already let you play with my hair,” he argues.
“Yeah, but—,” you shudder, “—it’s all crusty and gross. It’s like running your hands through dried pasta.”
Jake lets out an offended squawk. “That’s so rude. This is why I don’t agree to do these things.”
“Baby,” you ignore him, trying a different approach as you wrap your arms around his neck. “To wash your hair, you need to shower.”
He furrows his brows. “Well, yeah angel, that’s kinda how it works.”
“And I wouldn’t want to shower with my clothes on.”
“Oh—Oh!” His eyes light up in realization. “You know, I’ve thought about it and I think you’re right. My hair could use a wash. So could your hair actually. And your boobs, now that I’m really thinking about it. And—,”
“Jake!” You let out a laugh, securing your grip on the grocery bag and making your way to the bathroom.
You don’t even have to look behind you to know that Jake is following you.
“There’s something different about Hangman.”
You turn to look at Penny, who’s sitting in a lawn chair close to your towel, watching the group of aviators who have begun a game of dogfight football.
“What do you mean?” You lift your sunglasses up to get a better look at your boyfriend.
“I don’t know…” Penny trails off. “He just looks—,”
“Oh!” You turn to her excitedly. “It’s his hair.”
“Yes, that’s what it is! It’s his hair.”
“Yeah,” you set your sunglasses back on the bridge of your nose, now feeling a smidge more proud of yourself. “I switched up his hair care routine.”
Penny laughs. “That bad, huh?”
Before you can tell her just how bad it was, Jake lets out a loud holler to grab your attention.
“Babe! Will you grab my shirt?”
The brief eclipse of clouds had passed, meaning the sun is beating down relentlessly and you yourself are grateful for the umbrella Jake had set up for you before he joined the rest of the group. You move to grab his shirt, shooting Maverick a smile as he jogs over to seemingly sneak off with Penny, getting up and making your way over to Jake.
“Seriously?” He gives you a look, holding up the light gray shirt—though now it’s more dark gray, you forgot you used it to dry off your hair after your dip in the ocean.
“Oh, did I accidentally use your shirt to dry my hair?” You look at him innocently. “My bad. I guess you’ll just have to walk around without a shirt. What a shame…”
Jake freezes, processing your words with a blink. “What are you doing?” He questions you slowly. “I’m the one who’s supposed to do things to try and get you naked, not you. Take it back.”
He lunges at you when you shake your head, only just missing you as you exclaim, “Jake Seresin, I wanna see your rippling pectorals every day of my life!”
“No, stop it!” Jake tries—and fails—to hold back his laugh. “And don’t say pectorals. What is wrong with you?”
You can’t hold back your giggles as you take off down the beach, Jake’s thundering steps sounding off behind you. You make it back to your towel before he catches up to you, wrapping his arm around your waist and setting you on your towel before falling on top of you. You let out a soft grunt, but relax as he makes himself more comfortable on your chest. Wrapping his arms around your waist, Jake lifts his head to look at you.
“How dare you objectify me like that,” he teases you.
“What do you mean?” You laugh quietly, happily threading your fingers through his now much softer hair. “Am I not allowed to love up on you?”
“I can think of other ways we can love up—Mmm.”
Your hands fumble in his hair and you look down at Jake in startled surprise. He hardly notices, his eyes closed in satisfaction. If Jake is anything, he’s a menace. For him to stop mid-innuendo? It’s unheard of. Testingly, you wrap a finger around a strand of his hair and pull it softly. He makes the noise again.
“Oh my god,” you breathe. “You do have an off button.”
If Jake’s aware of your teasing, he doesn’t react—yet another thing that Jake does not do—instead letting out a soft sigh as you scratch his scalp. You bite back a smile at the way his grip tightens on your waist, eyes closed and features looking so content as the only sounds that fall from his lips are soft noises of enjoyment. You hardly notice Rooster coming over to the two of you, Phoenix and Bob not far behind him.
“Did losing to our team really tire you out, Hangman?” Rooster teases and you feel slightly embarrassed at the intimate position they’ve all found you in, but no one else seems to mind—least of all Jake.
“Don’t know why you’re bragging about being faster on the ground than in—,”
Your fingers scratch lightly on his scalp as he moves to get up and Jake practically melts right into you again.
Rooster raises his eyebrows in surprise and you understand his alarm. Starting shit with Bradley is Jake’s favorite pastime. “What?”
“I said you’re fucking slow—,” To further test your hypothesis, you move your fingers to muscles of his neck, massaging them softly. Almost immediately, Jake’s face lights up in a blissful smile, whatever insult he was attempting to hurl at Rooster forgotten.
“What’s wrong with him? Phoenix whispers loudly to Bob and the WSO shrugs lightly in his own version of shock.
Rooster looks at you accusingly. “Did you tranquilize him?”
You raise your eyebrows at him.
“Leave my girl alone, Bradshaw,” Jake grumbles from on top of you. “It’s not her fault you have the voice of a ban—Mmm.”
His last word—banshee you assumed—gets lost in a soft hum as the pads of your fingers move to his temples.
Phoenix almost looks in awe of you. “Can we take you everywhere we have to be with him?”
You let out a soft laugh at the way Bob hastily nods next to her, Jake’s grip tightening around your waist.
“I agree. You should be with me all the time and never be away from me ever.”
“Okay, I’m gonna be sick,” Rooster lets out a melodramatic gag, turning to head back to the beach and away from whatever has happened to his sort-of-rival-sort-of-friend. “But thank you for your service, you’re stronger than the Marines.”
You laugh, rolling your eyes playfully at his antics, but when Jake looks up suddenly, eyes full of enamored love for you, suddenly everything else fades into irrelevance.
“See how nice it is when you take care of your hair?” You tease him softly.
Jake only smiles in agreement. “‘S nice.”
Then he’s relaxing back on your chest, closing his eyes as the shade of the umbrella, the sounds of the ocean, and your hands in his hair lull him. It’s quiet for a moment—long enough for you to think he might have fallen asleep.
“I have better hair than Rooster, right?”
Wrapping one of your fingers around another blond strand, you smile. “You have the best hair, baby.”
please don't copy, repost, or feed my work into ai, thanks!
❀ my darlin’ when the daggers are unexpectedly relocated to Texas for a mission and have no where else to stay, Jake allows them to stay at his place and discover a secret Jake had been keeping from the for a very long time
❀ little rascal the local elementary school is invited to take a tour of the base and one of the little rascals give away Jake’s biggest secret within seconds
❀ candy cane and ribbon Jake comes home to a decked out house for the holidays, with the exception of the tree (christmas special)
❀ favourite secret jake’s favourite secret(s) is revealed to the daggers when a certain someone visiting the base sneaks off explore on their own
blurbs —
❀ turbulence jake would never get over how ironic it was. You, the wife of a naval pilot, scared of a little turbulence
SUMMARY Jake broke your heart when he left you behind. All that remained of him were the memories of when you were in love—and the phone number he never picks up. Now he's back, ready to claim his title. And you think that that's all he wants, that he's completely forgotten about everything you were together, until he tries to fight for you too. But, this time, will you finally be worth more to him than the glory?
CONTENT boxer au, fem reader (no use of Y/N), dark themes, blood, violence, injury, murder/death, sexual content (mdni), I don't know much about the sport of boxing, use of pet names (angel), drugs and drug use, reader gets assaulted (not by Jake and not detailed), barely edited
WC 4.3k
A/N this is a reupload of a series that got deleted when I deactivated my old account. it's currently unfinished and I may or may not go back to finish it at some point, I'm not sure, so keep that in mind if you don't really like reading wips. also I wrote this like 3-4 years ago, some of it is cringe and lowkey makes me want to break out into hives, but that is okay #tobecringeistobefree✊😔 anyway, please enjoy !
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There’s a moment—the briefest of seconds—that you wake up and forget the events of the day before. A moment where Harley’s soft fur under your fingers hasn’t entirely set in and the smell on Jake’s sheets—or the fact they’re Jake’s at all—still feels like it’s just part of your dreams. For a moment, you wake up feeling more rested than you have in weeks. And then you remember.
“Hey, hey,” Jake pushes through the door, quickly setting down the tray of breakfast he’s holding and rushing over to you, a slight look of panic overtaking his face. “It’s okay, you’re okay.”
His hands cup your face and, though you find solace in them, you have to push them away quickly. “Don’t—Please—I need you to not touch me right now.” You scoot away from him, narrowly missing the look of hurt that flashes through his eyes as Harley comes to comfort you with a small whine.
“Yeah, of course. Sorry,” Jake swallows, sitting at the end of the bed to give you some space.
It’s silent for a moment as you stroke Harley’s head, quieting the dog with gentle pets as you stare at the wall in thought. Your head hurts—your injuries still tender—but that’s not what you can focus on right now. You’re trying to stay calm and collected, Dr. Elsher is always reminding you to not jump to conclusions.
“How many?” You ask suddenly.
“What?”
You turn to look at Jake. “How many of my voicemails did you listen to?”
Jake looks down at his fingers. It’s silent for several beats. “All of them.”
Though you were positive hearing those words would send you into a panic, you aren’t nearly as frightened as you thought you’d be. You chalk it up to the vast amount of feelings you’ve gone through in the past 24 hours. Compared to being assaulted by two large men in an alley, learning that your ex boyfriend knows that you’re still very much in love with him doesn’t seem that bad.
“Why?”
Jake furrows his brows slowly. “What do you mean ‘why’?”
“You clearly had no intention of calling me back.” Under your gaze, Jake shifts uncomfortably. “So why did you listen to them?”
Jake still can’t meet your eye, scratching the back of his neck. “I, um, I don’t—,”
“Was it an ego boost?” You’re not sure if it should scare you that you sound so numb, so indifferent. “To know that I’m still in love with you while you were off doing whatever you wanted?”
“I wasn’t—I wasn’t doing whatever I wanted…” His words are feeble at best, but almost like you’re speaking into a voicemail, you continue to treat Jake the same way you have for the past year. By telling him everything.
“I didn’t think you were listening to them. I thought I was deleting them before you could—I guess that sounds stupid when I say it out loud. But I told you a lot of things, Jake, a lot of things that deserved a response. You knew I needed you and you did nothing. So if you don’t care about me, why did you listen to them?”
“I do care about you,” Jake’s eyes snap up to you suddenly, his jaw set. “Don’t say that I don’t care about you, I do.”
You purse your lips slowly. “But it doesn’t feel that way to me, Jake. You left me, and said our relationship wasn’t serious, and let me cry over you and beg you to come back without ever saying anything. Where in all of that am I supposed to see that you care about me?”
Jake winces at your words and Harley gets his front paws comfortable in your lap. “I—How can I fix that? What do I have to do to make you believe me?”
Whatever he’s about to say is probably going to hurt you, you know that. But you also know that you can’t keep doing this with him anymore. You need closure. You need Jake to tell you that you never mattered to him, not the way you want to, and that he can’t keep being the person you turn to for everything. “Tell me the truth.”
“Okay,” Jake nods slowly. “I can do that.”
Your fingers tense slightly in Harley’s fur as Jake stares at you. In a weird way, you feel almost proud. If this conversation had happened even a couple months ago, you would have run away. You probably wouldn’t have said anything at all. But now it’s different, now you’re brave enough to be honest and you know you deserve an explanation. It settles over you almost like a blanket. Jake is going to break your heart, and it’s going to hurt for a while, but then you’ll be okay.
“I’m still in love with you.”
The hand petting Harley falters and you suck in a breath. For a second, you think you imagined the words, that you were desperate enough to put them in his mouth. But Jake keeps talking.
“And it’s fucked that it took this much for me to tell you, I know. But… it sucked having to watch you go to that stupid, fucking diner you hate and feel like I was just sitting there. If I went to Texas, I could do something, you know? I wouldn’t just be some deadbeat,” Jake swallows, keeping his eyes trained on Harley who is starting to fall asleep in your lap. “I always—I don’t know. I always kind of felt like you were with me because you’d just gotten used to it. When we broke up, I just wanted you to argue with me. I should have just told you, I know, but I was—,”
He closes his eyes and takes a breath. “I was scared that maybe you didn’t think we were serious enough to figure Texas out together. And then you agreed. I said our relationship wasn't serious because I wanted you to tell me I was wrong. But you didn’t, so I left…”
Harley lets out a light breath in your lap and it alerts you to the fact that you’re holding your own.
“Then you started leaving me voicemails and I couldn’t—I thought, if I ever called you back, then I’d be forced to find out that I fucked everything up so badly that I couldn’t fix it.” Finally Jake lifts his gaze to you, his eyes pleading and soft. “So… I listened to your voicemails because I’m in love with you.”
You shake your head slowly. “That’s not—That’s not fair, Jake.”
“Angel, please, I—,”
“I would have gone to Texas with you, if you asked me. I would have gone.” The words spill out of you before you fully think them through. Because you need Jake to know how wrong he had been. Part of it was your fault, you know that. You needed him so much that you could never truly be honest around him. You were scared he’d know how much he mattered to you and use it against you. Now you want him to know.
“You are the first person I’ve ever loved—The only person. And that matters to me, a lot. But I’ve grown. I—I’m getting better at being honest, and having healthy expectations for people. I can finally give away shoes that make my feet bleed.” You feel silly tearing up, but you sniff it back and dab at your eyes. “I’ve grown. All I need is to know that you have too.”
To your surprise, Jake smiles.
“What?”
“Nothing,” he shakes his head. “Nothing. It’s just—,” He cuts himself off when he notices you wince, a dull throb lighting up your temple. He gets up, grabbing the tray of breakfast from the nightstand. “Here. You should eat first, and take some medicine, we can talk after.”
Harley’s still in your lap and Jake looks like he’s trying to figure out what to do with the tray because of it. Obviously, you know what the simplest solution would be, but Jake seems hesitant and you realize he’s trying to respect your boundaries. Wordlessly, you pat the spot next to you. Jake sits down, quickly setting the tray on his lap.
“I didn’t know you knew how to cook.” It slips out before you can stop it as you look down at the omelet and toast sitting on a plate.
Jake chuckles, scratching at the back of his head. “I don’t really. But I picked up a few things.”
He cuts up the omelet for you before handing you the plate as Harley is now out cold on your lap. You sit in silence as you eat, occasionally Jake would swap out your plate for a sip of orange juice or the Tylenol he brought for your head. You offer him some of your omelet which he accepts with a small smile and it occurs to you then that, before, you and Jake had never really been the couple to sit and have breakfast together. There was always a morning shift or trip to the gym that got into the way. You wonder if, had you both had breakfast together, things would have gone differently.
“Do you have work today?”
You nod, swallowing. “In the afternoon. I get off at 5:00.”
Honestly, after everything that happened yesterday, you just want to call in sick, but you know that Tracy’s already called out and so it’s not really an option anymore. Jake clears his throat next to you.
“I’m still gonna take you… if that’s okay?” He takes your plate from you and trades it for the glass of orange juice.
“Will you pick me up too?”
“Of course I will, angel.” Like he doesn’t even have to think about it, Jake wipes a crumb of toast from the corner of your mouth. “That was already nonnegotiable, sweetheart.”
“Okay.” You aren’t sure how to feel about Jake—and the multiple confessions he made in the past 24 hours—but he’s one of the few people you feel safe with, one of the few people you have. And, as much as a part of you wants to be away from him to just think, a much larger part of you is still quite shaken. You just want to feel safe again.
“Okay,” Jake repeats, moving the tray back to the nightstand before gently moving Harley off your lap. Harley grumbles in protest, but Jake just laughs at him, holding a hand out for you with a smile. “Come on, Nurse Jake needs to make sure everything’s healing okay.”
Despite everything, you laugh.
The bell to Knockouts rings to alert everyone that someone has entered the building, though there’s really no reason for it, two men well over 6 feet are hard to miss. Jake leads Bradley to where he knows your section is, sitting down at one of the booths wordlessly as the other man glances around.
“We’re doing this here?”
“Yes,” Jake grits, part of him is still mad that Bradley had dodged him when he tried to punch him in the face. Adler kicked them both out of the gym, giving Bradley an unreadable look as he did so, and told them to figure their shit out before they came back.
Bradley sits down. Jake honestly can’t remember the last time he talked to Bradley. He’s seen him around Mav’s since he’s been back, but the brunet has always been a man of little words anyway, so Jake hardly counts it. They were somewhat closer back when they were both rookies. It’s honestly nostalgic to think about, given both their success now. But Jake doesn’t care about that right now. Right now, he just wants to punch Bradley in the face.
“Hi, can I get you two drinks—?” Your eyes widen in surprise when you realize it’s Jake at your table, your menus almost slipping from your grip.
“Yeah, actually.” Looking up at you, Jake can’t help but grin, his anger at the man across from him all but forgotten. “Do y’all have mango smoothies, angel?”
Jake hears Bradley let out a small scoff.
The trace of a smile is playing on your lips as you contemplate your next words slightly unsurely. “We do… And, um, we also have milkshakes.”
“Oh, I can’t stand milkshakes, sweetheart.” Jake lights up at your words, though he tries to keep up the appearance that he’s anything but delighted. “They’re just Big Milk’s way to covertly infiltrate the life of the average consumer,” he wrinkles his nose in mock disgust. The expression drops quickly when he hears you trying to stifle a giggle.
Bradley abruptly ruins the moment by grunting out that he’ll take a water, but there’s still a small smile on your face as you jot down their drink orders. “I’ll have those right out for you then.”
Jake’s met with Bradley’s glare when his gaze stops following you to the kitchen and the brunet rolls his eyes. “Can you not flirt with our waitress? Or is it too difficult to control yourself around any woman that moves?”
“Wait,” Jake furrows his brows. “You don’t know her?”
“No, she’s just been my waitress a couple times.”
Jake pauses as he looks at Bradley in thought. “Did you come here yesterday?”
“Yeah,” Bradley answers.
“And she was your waitress, right—Wait, did you eat alone?”
“No,” Bradley looks at him suspiciously. When Jake raises his brows expectantly, Bradley reluctantly continues. “I was with Adler’s daughter.”
Jake’s eyebrows jump to his forehead. “Why were you with Adler’s daughter?”
“Why are you asking?” Bradley’s eyes narrow. “You still haven’t told me what the fuck this is about, Hangman.”
“Right, fine. My girl got attacked last night and the only thing they wanted was to leave a message for you. I wanna know what the fuck you just dragged her into.”
Bradley glances at the kitchen door, brows furrowed as if trying to remember you as anything more than a waitress. “What did they say?”
“They just said to leave it alone if you know what’s good for you,” Jake recites, keeping his voice low if only to control his anger. “But they called you ‘Rooster’ and she didn’t recognize it. She doesn’t even seem to know you anyway, so why would they think she does, Rooster?”
“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” Bradley sighs deeply, pinching the bridge of his nose.
“Oh, I’m sorry,” Jake scoffs, rage bubbling in his stomach, and now he really wishes he punched Bradley in the face. “Is the fact that you almost got my girl murdered an inconvenience for you, Bradshaw?”
Bradley rolls his eyes. “No, so you can cool it with the whole guard dog shit.” He glances around the diner, before dropping his voice. “Look, you wanna know what’s going on? I’ll tell you, but it’s some shady fucking shit, Hangman—,”
“Sorry about that,” you rush back over to the table, looking quite frazzled as you set down a mango smoothie and a glass of water. “Can I, um, can I get you anything else?”
“We’re fine,” Bradley answers.
You nod, looking somewhat relieved, but Jake’s catching your hand before you can walk away. “What happened to your finger?”
He’s holding the digit tenderly, inspecting the slice in your skin with worried eyes. You swallow shakily, looking at him like a deer in the headlights as you catch your breath. “I—I was washing out the blender and someone put a knife in the sink. I’m fine though—,”
“You have a band-aid?” Jake asks, his gaze still trained on your injured finger.
You pull one out of your apron pocket and Jake takes it from you, only dropping your finger to open the wrapping. You watch silently as his large fingers delicately wrap the latex around your wound. He lets his thumb smooth out the padded square of your band-aid before he looks up at you.
“There,” he smiles softly.
You swallow. “Thank you.”
You walk away from the table after your gaze lingers for just a second and Jake watches you leave. Bradley looks at him flatly.
“I wish you would have just punched me in the face.”
“That can still be arranged, dipshit,” Jake growls, his gentle demeanor dropping. “Now start talking.”
And Bradley does. He explains how a poorly timed photograph resulted in Razor thinking that Bradley was in a relationship with Coach Adler’s daughter. Razor, Jake remembers—unlike most of the other boxers he’s come home to—he and Bradley had started their rivalry fairly quickly in their careers and Jake had never liked him all that much either. Razor then started stalking Adler’s daughter, causing her to move in with Bradley for protection. The young woman is more than friendly, having, on numerous occasions, started very affable conversations with you. Bradley just happened to be there for all of them.
Jake let out an incredulous laugh. “Jesus Christ, Rooster! Do you even talk to women?”
“Fuck off,” Bradley grunts. “You wanna know what’s going on or what?”
Jake holds his hands up in mock surrender.
“I’ve been looking for Razor, but not even Natasha has seen him. She told me he’s been on drugs, which I thought was bullshit.” Jake nods in agreement. Boxers in both Mav’s gym and Abnesti’s—where Razor fights—get drug tested every two weeks. There’s no way Razor could be on drugs and still fighting. “But she sent me to this address he sent her once… You ever heard of gephorce?”
“Gephorce?”
Bradley nods. “I picked it up from this random, sketchy ass dry cleaners. Here,” he pulls his phone out to show Jake a picture.
It’s of two glass bottles, no taller than a nail polish, both filled with clear liquid, as well as a pack of needles. Jake zooms in on the picture with furrowed brows. “Dude, those are steroids.”
“What?”
“I knew a few guys in Texas who used them,” Jake explains, handing Bradley back his phone. “Those are fucking steroids.”
“What kind of steroids can pass a drug test undetected?”
Jake shrugs. “Hell if I know. That seems like the sketchy shit Mav’s into.”
“I’ve been trying to drop them off at the gym, but I haven’t been able to because I don’t want to leave—,” Bradley almost seems to falter, which is unusual for Bradley, but he clears his throat. “I just haven’t.” He pauses, eyes snapping to Jake suddenly. “But you could.”
“Absolutely not.” Jake shakes his head. “There’s no way I’m getting involved in this shit,” he says firmly.
Bradley purses his lips. “I’m not asking you to. I’m just asking you to drop something off at Mav’s for me.”
“Do you fucking hear yourself? With your track record, in the amount of time we’ve been talking, these people must think we’re married with a baby on the way!”
Jake takes a deep breath, letting his eyes land on your profile, taking in your soft smile and kind eyes. He knew he loved you almost the second he stepped foot in Texas and when he listened to your voicemails that should have been his chance. But he still wasn’t the person he wanted to be yet and what was he even supposed to do? Call you and admit that he had been scared?
But then something happened to you, something happened because he hadn’t been there. He should have been, but he wasn’t. And all he could think about was the fact that he could have lost you forever. No more running into you in public, no more voicemails. Even the little part of you he had, this little piece of something that mattered, would have been ripped away from him. Again.
Jake didn’t like to think about his mom that often—at least, not her death anyway. It had been a few years ago and Jake thinks he’s come to terms with it fairly well. He knows at the time he threw himself into boxing and neglected most of his relationships, even yours, but he likes to think that he’s gotten better. But you had been the one to help him through it, you had been the one to give him some meaning again. And the thought that he almost lost you too terrified him.
He’s sure Javy would laugh in his face—if the situation wasn’t so serious—at how, practically overnight, Jake had made this complete turn around. But in the morning, when Jake had expected you to yell at him, or leave, or never let him near you again, all you asked was that he tell you the truth. And he realized that the person he thought he had to be for you was never the one you wanted anyway. You’re giving Jake another chance, a chance to love you like he always should have, and Jake is going to make up for every second that he should have been there while you were shivering in that alley. He’s going to make up for every second he should have been there for the past year and a half.
“Look, I’m sorry man, but you didn’t see her, okay? It was—Whoever these people are, they’re dangerous. I can’t let something like that happen to her again. I won’t.” He looks for you again and, just like that day in the butterfly pavilion, it’s like suddenly all he knows how to do is look at you. “I won’t.”
“You really don’t have to keep waiting there for me to finish my shifts. You can always go do something else,” you try to assure Jake as he takes his helmet off your head.
“Yes, I do,” he smiles softly. “And what else would I do, angel?”
After each of your shifts ends, Jake gives you the option of either going to his house or your apartment. You know you should probably ask for him to take you home—you need time to think about everything. But then that would mean you were thinking about everything, and that wasn’t something you really wanted to do alone. Besides, he’d given you the bedroom while he slept on the couch, which means you had plenty of time to think anyway.
“You could go to the gym or something. I don’t want you to think that I expect you to just wait for me.” You trail after him as he starts heading to his front door.
“I don’t think that, angel,” Jake turns so he can look you directly in the eye. “I feel better knowing that I know where you are and what’s going on. ‘Sides, I get to stare at you for hours and I love doing that.” Your lips part in surprise, your cheeks burning, and Jake grins, opening the door. “This honesty thing is fun.”
That was another thing Jake had started doing. Ever since you asked him to tell you the truth, he started taking it upon himself to do that all the time. It was mostly an excuse to flirt with you, but he also compliments you a lot more genuinely or asks if you want to do things together more often. It’s nice.
Harley greets you at the door, completely sidestepping Jake, and the man looks down at him in exaggerated offense. You giggle as you reach down to scratch Harley’s head and the dog wags his stubby tail excitedly.
“Unbelievable,” Jake throws his hands up dramatically. “You don’t even say hi to me anymore?”
Harley turns to look at his owner, giving him the most unimpressed look a dog can manage, before looking back at you. You can’t help but laugh at Jake’s expression.
“Yeah, alright, jerk. I like her more than you too,” Jake scoffs, putting his shoes away before he glances at your temple and his eyes soften. “Let me look at your head again, sweetheart.”
When Jake finds himself turning over on the couch for the fourth time in two minutes, he sits up with a sigh. It’s a little after midnight and, though you both had gone to bed hours ago, he can’t seem to fall asleep. Getting up, he pads out of the living room quietly, walking over to the door frame of his bedroom and peeking inside.
You’d been leaving the door open for Harley’s sake, though the dog hardly leaves your side so Jake knows there’s really no reason to. Still, it allows him to check on you when he needs to.
You’re asleep in the middle of the bed, Harley stretched out next to you as one of your arms is thrown around him. Moonlight casts in through the room’s sliding glass door and it shines gently on your features. Jake watches you carefully, taking in your peaceful expression for any sign of distress, but doesn’t find any. He knows you are scared though, it’s the reason you came out with a suitcase when you both stopped at your apartment to grab some things this morning.
Jake’s jaw clenches at the thought. Though he’s been trying to ignore them, Bradley’s words have been playing in his head in a constant loop. He meant it when he said that he wasn’t going to do anything to bring you into whatever Bradley has found himself in. But maybe the damage had already been done. Clearly Bradley has no plans to just forget about whatever he’s found—not until he’s figured it out—and if these people already think you’re some kind of leverage against him, what’s to stop them from hurting you again? The only way Jake would know for certain that you were safe is if he makes sure they can never hurt you himself.
It takes one more look at you sleeping soundly in his bed, your chest rising and falling rhythmically, for Jake to take his phone out from his pocket. He clicks on Bradley’s contact.
Alright
I’m in
please don't copy, repost, or feed my work into ai, thanks!
and every photograph that's taken here is from the summer (the house that i grew up in) | Jake Seresin
SUMMARY In which, Jake Seresin refuses to have his picture taken and no one knows why.
CONTENT SECRET WIFE TROPE (I love this shit and I will not apologize), fem reader (no use of Y/N), use of pet names (lovey), reader calls Jake 'Stanley' and the book Flat Stanley is symbolism now idk, I gave Jake family problems are we surprised but nothing too in detail his family is just toxic, Javy lives with Jake and reader, back flashes are in italics, some angst, mostly fluff, barely edited
WC 4.5k
A/N another reupload from my old account, I'm actually kinda proud of this one so enjoy! (also I am just now realizing the amount of fics I title using song titles/lyrics lol)
There’s a house on a street at the end of a block with a picket white fence and one gray sedan parked in the driveway.
The lawn is kept neat, trimmed and green, with a sprinkler system that goes off once a day. Along the front of the house are bunches of flowers in various sizes and colors. Chrysanthemums and carnations. Irises and tulips. They’re well cared for, bright and vibrant, not a single weed among them.
One would think this prestigious lawn would reflect a love of gardening—perhaps a far too strict HOA. In actuality, it’s to hide the peeling light yellow paint on this house on a street at the end of the block.
If you go inside—and take off your shoes because the floors were just cleaned—you’ll see a living room with a grand fireplace. Not one, but two throw blankets on a large beige couch. The whole room smells like pine and you’ll wonder to yourself where that’s coming from because there doesn’t seem to be so much as a candle anywhere.
(It’s an air freshener plugged into the wall, hidden behind a short shelf on the left side of the room. It’s a pain to replace when it runs out, but it’s never been moved.)
If you keep walking though, past the 18 inch television and dog bed in the corner, and make a right, you’ll end up in the kitchen. There’s high oak cupboards and countertops that complement the coloring. There’s a cupboard for dishes. A cupboard for cups. A drawer for cutlery. There’s a tall wooden cabinet with glass doors that holds all the china tableware that’s only used when guests are over.
But if you look past all of that, the grandeur and slightly intimidating refurbishments of this house, you’ll see a large steel fridge. And stuck to that fridge is a photograph printed on fancy photograph paper that you don’t want to touch because you’ll get your fingerprints all over it. It’s of a younger Jake Seresin, happy and smiling, at his graduation from TOPGUN.
Jacob Seresin. TOPGUN graduate, top of his class.
And you can scale and search every square inch of this house on a street at the end of a block, but you won’t find a newer picture of Jake Seresin. You’ll find baby pictures, family portraits, a whole photo album. Jake Seresin will never get older than he was on that day of graduation, with a toothy grin and excitement in his eyes.
Because, in that photograph, he is a frozen moment of success. There he’s never been touched by failure. There he’s perfect, the kind of son you brag to the neighborhood about. But Jake Seresin is not Jake Seresin on graduation day anymore.
Now he’s the second choice. The “almost good enough but not quite”. The fight instigator. The pilot everyone trusts about as far as they can throw. So his parents love that picture on the fridge more than they love him. They don’t want him anymore. They only want that picture on the fridge.
There’s a fridge in a house on a street at the end of a block with a picket white fence and one gray sedan parked in the driveway. And it’s the reason Jake Seresin refuses to have his picture taken.
“I’ll take it.” Jake holds his hand out for the camera, the energy in the air electric as Rooster ropes Mav in for a photo.
“But,” Natasha furrows her brows. “You won’t be in it?”
Jake smiles good-naturedly, curling his fingers around the camera placed in his palm. “You’re welcome.”
“Come on! I wanna drink!”
Fanboy’s outcry breaks Natasha’s resolve and she just nods slowly, heading over to where the other pilots are gathered together and posing. Though she was waiting for him to, Coyote doesn’t voice any argument about Jake’s position behind the camera—in fact, he doesn’t even seem all that surprised.
“If you wanna go so bad, stop blinking,” Jake argues, pulling the camera away from his face as he finally takes a picture he’s happy with.
The gang disperses, the smiles captured in their picture don’t disappear, large and bright and real. Jake hands Natasha her camera back with a small smile, turning to find Coyote before they also head out.
“Hey.” Her voice stops him and he turns around questioningly.
“Do you, um, do you want a picture with Coyote?” Natasha holds up her camera awkwardly. “I can take one.”
Confusing her further, Jake laughs. Not entirely real, not entirely like he means it. But Jake laughs. He shakes his head, “Nah, save your storage.”
“Okay…” Natasha trails off, looking down at the black metallic camera in her hands. “I’ll see you around, Hangman.”
And, like she conjured him up by name, a confident vibrato overtakes him and he smirks. “If you’re lucky.”
Jake’s aware that most people don’t think the way he does. He’s aware that most people—especially if they were in his profession—would want to have as many pictures of themself as possible. Most of all, he’s aware that most people would assume he’d want as many pictures of himself as possible, permanent reminders of everything he does that makes him better than everybody else.
But Jake doesn’t. He doesn’t even keep a single high school yearbook. Because people only take pictures of the good stuff. Pictures mean they only remember the good stuff. And remembering the good stuff means that they’ll forget that Jake’s all bad stuff. That there’s nothing good about him.
A picture of Jake Seresin is worth more than Jake Seresin could ever be. And because he’s selfish, and attention-seeking, and jealous, Jake doesn’t want there to be any pictures of Jake Seresin. Nothing can replace him if it never existed in the first place. No one can remember him as better than he is, and then decide to love that version of him more.
“Honey, I’m home!”
Jake scoffs, shouldering his best friend as they both shuffle through the front door. “She’s not your honey.”
“Javy!” Bare feet pad against the hardwood floors, soft arms wrapping around the aforementioned man before they’re thrown around Jake’s neck. “Stanley!”
Jake shakes his head with a laugh, continuing his way inside as you cling to him with your legs around his waist. He kicks his shoes off, doing his best to line them up with nudges from his sock-clad toes. Moving forward to give Javy room to do the same, Jake drops his duffel bag by one of the dining room chairs.
“You planning on letting go anytime soon?” He looks down at what he can see of the top of your head with a smile.
“Not particularly,” you respond from the crook of his neck. “Do you want me to?”
“Well, I don’t know. My wife did greet my best friend before me,” Jake sighs dramatically. “Always a bridesmaid…”
You pull away with a laugh to look at him. “Fine, I’ll just go hug Javy then.”
“I’m kidding, I’m kidding.” Jake’s hands finally wrap around you, keeping you from jumping down and scampering off to his best friend who would 100% reciprocate without question, if only just to tease him.
He walks you to the living room, plopping down on the couch with a sigh. Jake’s grateful he decided to shower before he came home as there isn’t a single part of him that wants to move from this position. Not when he’s so comfortable and you’re so warm.
“Hey, lovey,” he squeezes you just a little tighter, a content smile on his face.
“Hey, Stanley,” you shift slightly, wriggling on his chest for a moment before finally stilling, and Jake allows his eyes to flutter closed. “Say ‘cheese’.”
Jake peeks his eyes open. Your cheek is almost entirely squished against his own, your mouth a giddy smile as you look at your reflection on your phone. He shifts you both so that you're not at quite such an awkward angle, pressing a kiss to your temple before posing himself.
“Ooh, I’m gonna print this one,” you bring your phone closer to check it and Jake nods against your shoulder. You go back to the camera app, holding your phone out again. “Javy get over here, we’re taking a picture!”
“Coming!”
There have only been three times in his life that Bradley Bradshaw has gotten his ass handed to him. Once, when he was twelve and fumbled his team’s win in flag football. Carter Cleveland came up to him seething, asking him where he learned “to throw like a fucking girl”. And maybe Bradley shouldn’t have responded with “Ask your sister”, but he came home to his mom with scraped up knees and a tampon the school nurse had stuck in his nose to stop the bleeding. Being pummeled by Carter tasted like turf, vulcanized rubber, and—though Bradley wouldn’t be able to actually place it until he was 16—Jennifer Cleveland’s lipgloss.
The second time was after he found out Maverick had pulled his papers. Bradley raided his dad’s old liquor cabinet, got piss drunk, and wallowed in the bullshit that was his life. His friends came to check on him after he stopped responding. Like he always does when he’s mad, Bradley said something he shouldn’t have and was drunk enough to throw a punch, but too drunk to stand a fighting chance. That time tasted like whiskey, regret, and the salt of his own tears.
And the third time is right now.
“What the fuck, Hangman? Another bullseye?”
It tastes like beer, peanuts, and mild embarrassment.
Jake grins, weirdly quiet for a man who’s just landed his 10th bullseye in a row. But Bradley realizes that he’s doing that on purpose. That Jake being a gracious winner after kicking his ass would be more embarrassing than gloating.
“Do you want me to do it with my eyes closed? Standing on one leg? I’m just trying to give you a chance here, Bradshaw.”
Okay, somewhat gracious winner.
“Oh my god, please someone take a picture of his face!” Payback cackles pointing at, what Bradley’s sure is, his disgruntled expression.
Phoenix hops up, an almost normal look on her face, though Bradley can tell she’s trying to figure something out. “Yeah, Hangman. Let’s get a picture of you with your score too.”
“Me?” Jake furrows his brows. “I thought you wanted a picture of Rooster’s ugly, fucking mug.”
Phoenix turns her phone quickly, snapping a picture of Bradley—that has him blinking slightly dazed because her flash is still on—before turning back to Jake. “There. Now, don’t you want a picture of your score?”
“Sure.” Jake steps out of the way, giving Phoenix a clear view of the whiteboard Bob had been keeping track of points on.
The group shares a glance.
“You don’t want to be in the picture, Hangman?”
Though there’s a smile on his face, Jake appears somewhat nervous. He shrugs, opening and closing his mouth a few times, and Bradley doesn’t think he’s ever seen Jake like that before. Speechless. Nervous.
“Hey, why doesn’t Rooster stand by it?” Coyote suggests suddenly. “Ya know, since he’s the one who lost and all?”
Bradley could only sigh tiredly when a somewhat blurry photo of him looking entirely bamboozled and a picture of him standing next to Jake’s embarrassingly high darts score made their way onto Mav’s wall collage.
“Hey, Stanley.”
Jake smiles. “Hey, lovey.”
You look up from your book, sticking the bookmark in and letting it fall to the bed. “How was your night?”
“Good,” Jake moves to the dresser, rifling through clothes until he finds some pajamas he’s happy with. “I kicked Rooster’s ass in darts.”
“Yeah? You real proud of yourself?”
Jake turns around, his arms resting in the gathered fabric of his shirt, to see you wiggling your brows at him. His mouth drops open in mock offense. “What happened to our wedding vows, lovey? What happened to ‘in sickness and in health, when my husband loses darts and when he kicks his co-worker’s ass’?”
You’re giggling and Jake speeds up changing his clothes. “I don’t remember that being how it went.”
“Well, I do,” Jake tosses his dirty clothes into the hamper on the far left side of the room. “That’s exactly how it went.”
Your book is entirely forgotten, not even on the backburner of your mind as Jake climbs into bed. You curl comfortably into his side, yawning as his arm wraps around you to trace shapes on the bare skin of your thigh.
“What did you vow, then? If you remember it so much better than me?”
“Hmm,” Jake pretends to think, kissing the crown of your head. “I vowed ‘in sickness and in health, when my wife is mean to me and when she is nice to me’.”
You let out a noise of protest. “I’m not mean to you!”
“Oh yes you are, lovey. You wound my right here,” he throws his hand that isn’t occupied with playing with the hem of your pajama shorts over his heart.
A yawn interrupts you before you can respond and Jake nudges you lightly. “C’mon, I know you’re tired from waiting up for me.”
You nod, wiping at one of your eyes as you reach for your phone off the nightstand.
“You have to actually smile this time, Stanley,” you say, unlocking it and going to the camera app. “Because you always smile like I’m holding you hostage.”
Jake chuckles, waiting for you to set up an angle you’re happy with. “I’ll smile,” he promises.
“Did you just lick me?!”
Bob’s shoes tap against the linoleum floors and he stuffs his hands into his pockets. He walks wordlessly through the maze-like hallway. Right. Left. Right. Right. Bob knows everything about this repurposed office building where he often meets the others for coffee. He memorized the floor plan once when he was bored.
If he goes right, right, left, he’ll end up at some insurance firm. It’s tiny, closer to the size of a cubicle than an entire office space. The people that work there look exactly how Bob imagined them to—checkered shirts buttoned all the way to the collar, little glasses with frames far too tiny to hold their prescriptions, hair slicked over flat, stringy and greasy. They talk like Bob expected too, nasally and quiet and almost purposefully confusing.
Left, right, left takes him to a small health clinic. It’s bigger than the insurance firm and Bob’s sure it goes farther than what he can see through the waiting room window. Sometimes, if he has time, Bob watches the smiling receptionist, the kids who come out with a lollipop and a sticker, the comforting hand a man puts on his partner's knee to stop it from bouncing. Mostly he just watches how no one’s sitting in that waiting room alone.
Left, left, left takes him to a woman who does massage and waxing. Bob’s met her only a few times, their arrivals to the front door coincide sometimes. Her name is Tammy. She has a dog, three kids, and thinks Bob’s holding too much tension in his shoulders. “You can always stop by, Robert. It might do you some good.” She calls him Robert. Bob likes that.
Tammy’s space is dimly lit, with yellow lamps emanating low light. She has a diffuser too, and a speaker that plays soft classical music. There’s a poster of a cat on the wall, one of its paws hooked over a tree branch. The cat looks at him. “Hang in there!” it says.
But Bob isn’t going to any of those places. He’s going right, left, right, right. Coffee.
He’s late, he knows that, which is unusual for Bob Floyd, but nobody hassles him too much when arrives. They are all far too focused on something else.
“No, because I started thinking about it,” Phoenix starts and Bob notes, as he sips his black coffee, that Jake isn’t at the table. “We don’t have any photos with him.”
Fanboy cocks his head. “You want photos with him?”
“I’m just saying it’s weird. It’s Hangman, don’t you think he’d be, like, obsessed with his own face or something?” Phoenix defends.
Bob’s slightly confused why no one is trying to bring Coyote into the conversation. On top of being his roommate and best friend, he knows Jake better than anyone. In fact, he seems to be very actively disengaging from the conversation, fiddling with something on his phone.
Bob wets his lips. “Have you ever taken Hangman’s picture, Coyote?”
“Please, the only person I’ve met who could ever get him to take a picture is his wife,” Javy freezes, his head snapping up and his eyes widening as he and the rest of the group take in his words. “Shit.”
“Wife?!”
Jake’s returning from the bathroom before Javy can say anything, his own eyes widening as the rest of the Dagger Crew pounce on him. “Wife?!”
Javy’s mouthing the words “I’m sorry” when Jake glances at him and, after a moment, Jake simply sighs.
“Well, you gave it your best shot, buddy,” he claps Javy on the shoulder. “Lasted longer than we thought you would.”
Rooster looks between the two of them. “Wait, so you’re actually married? There’s no fucking way.”
“Believe what you want, Rooster. It’s not like it’s gonna make me unmarried,” Jake shrugs and Bob’s pretty sure he just witnessed all five stages of grief overtake Rooster’s face in a little under two seconds.
“Oh my god, he’s married. He’d be fighting me about this if he wasn’t married. Phoenix—!”
“Would you shut up?” She rolls her eyes at the brunet before pointing an accusatory finger at Jake. “You mean to tell me, you’ve had a girl this whole time and you forced me to hangout with you asshats?”
Payback raises his eyebrows. “What makes you think she’s better than us?”
“If she married Hangman?” Phoenix scoffs. “She’s got to be the closest thing to an angel there is.”
Bob watches Jake carefully. Bob noticed a lot of things about his friends, he found it interesting. And helpful. He always had a better understanding of what they were thinking. Bob had seen Hangman smirk, Bob had seen Hangman grin. Bob had never seen Jake smile.
“She is.” And Jake smiles.
“Knock it off.” Jake doesn’t even have to look up from his crossword to know you’re trying to sneak a photo of him.
You hold your hands up, dropping your phone in your lap. “What? I’m not doing anything!”
That grants you a look, Jake’s eyes looking unamused from behind his reading glasses. “Right. What’s a four letter word for ‘spice cookie ingredient’?”
“...Spice?”
Though he bites his lip to fight it, a smile grows on Jake’s face and he shakes his head with a chuckle. “That’s five letters, lovey.”
“Oh,” you nod entirely unconvincingly. “I knew that.”
Jake laughs, dropping the newspaper and holding his hands out for you. “Just c’mere already.”
You frown slightly, getting up from the couch and making your way over to where Jake is resting in the living room armchair. His arms wrap around you as you sit down, loose at your hips as you get comfortable.
After a moment of silence, Jake’s own expression falters. “What?”
“How come you never let me take your picture, Jake?”
Jake freezes and, though you just sat down, you move right back to the couch again. He lets you.
“You don’t want any picture of me,” Jake shakes his head.
“Yes, I do,” your brows furrow as you try to understand. “Yes, I do.”
Jake’s jaw clenches. “No, you don’t. Believe me.”
“Jake—,”
“Why do you even want pictures of me anyway?” Jake looks up accusingly.
“Well, I don’t know,” you shrug slightly. “I just like having them to look back on.”
You’re not sure if you’ve said something wrong because Jake just nods, taking off his reading glasses and wiping a tired hand over his face. “You don’t want pictures with me.”
“And why is that, Jake? Why should I not want to have pictures of you? You take pictures of me all the time!” You stand up in frustration.
“That’s different,” Jake grunts.
“How is it—?”
“Because taking pictures of you is—It’s nice and I can look at them and think ‘wow, how did I get so lucky’ because that’s just the way you are all the time. You’re the type of picture people hang up on their bulletin boards. Taking pictures of me is just a reminder of how awful I am. That I can only be good enough in snapshot seconds. The only thing you’ll get out of a picture of me is realizing how much of a failure I am and wishing you could go back to the brief second that I wasn’t,” Jake swallows, unable to meet your eye as he continues. “So you don’t want a picture of me, they’re so heavy they’ll… they’ll just take the bulletin board down with them.”
You don’t say anything, in fact you storm out of the room, and Jake presses his palms into his eye sockets. He lets out a shaky breath. And then another. Because this was what he was waiting for, wasn't it? The moment that you finally realized that you were too good for him. The moment that you finally realized he’s the second choice. The “almost good enough but not quite”. The fight instigator. The pilot everyone trusts about as far as they can throw.
The moment you finally realized you don’t want him anymore.
You come marching back out of the hall suddenly, tossing a book at him as you cross your arms. Jake can only look surprised as he catches a copy of Flat Stanley in his hand.
“You said that the only things you offer are pictures so heavy they’ll fall off the wall. And I could tell you how I don’t think that’s true at all. How I could never look at you as anything less than the entirely vibrant and wonderful person that you are. But even if you don’t believe that, even if you think that this is all you can offer me,” you tap your finger on the cover of the Flat Stanley book in his grip. “I want it anyway. I just—God Jake, I just want you. So… so you can crush me and that’s okay because we could just do what Flat Stanley does. And I’m pretty sure they blew him back up with a bike pump so we could just get a bike pump and—,”
Jake’s arms wrap around you suddenly, Flat Stanley dropping to the floor behind you. His face is buried in your neck, his shoulders shaking, and you wrap your arms around him quickly. You don’t say anything—you don’t know if you could if you were forced—gripping on to Jake long enough for both of you to stop crying.
You clear your throat. “You gonna let me take your picture now?”
Jake nods against the nape of your neck.
“Good.” And it is. “I wanna take one every day we can, okay?”
“Okay.” Jake allows himself one last sniffle before he pulls away, keeping you in his embrace so he can look at you.
“Hey, lovey.”
You smile, a hand coming up to cup his cheek. “Hey, Stanley.”
There’s a house on a street at the end of a block with a sturdy wooden fence and two cars parked in the driveway.
No one ever really looked twice at it, maybe only seeing it when Coyote’s car was in the shop or he and Jake drank too much after a night at the Hard Deck. No one ever really notices the painted rocks that littered the small garden or the floral wreath that hangs on the front door.
When they go inside—and take off their shoes because Jake and Javy told them it was fine but they’re taking their shoes off so it would be weird if they didn’t—they see a small dining room. There’s three chairs around a table, with enough room for just a couple more and a large window that has a sweet-looking view of the beach.
On the left wall is a picture of Jake and Javy at the Grand Canyon. They’ve got big hiking backpacks on and caps secured to their head. Jake’s not quite looking at the camera, but he’s smiling anyway. The picture is framed with light wood.
They keep walking though, and make a right, and end up in the kitchen. There’s wood cupboards painted white and countertops that compliment it because everything compliments white. And there’s a cupboard for dishes. A cupboard for cups. A drawer for cutlery. But there’s a tall wooden cabinet with glass doors that holds all the china. Javy laughs that one time, he and Jake were left alone while you were on a business trip and you came back to them eating off of frisbees—which was an idea they may or may not have gotten from Parks and Rec.
But when they look past all of that, the quaint and homey refurbishments of this house, they see a large steel fridge. Or they assume it’s steel. They can’t really see from all the pictures stuck to its doors. There’s selfies of you and Jake and Javy too. Pictures from late night snack runs. Or road trips. Or picnics at the park.
There’s pictures where Jake is pulling faces the others didn’t even know he was capable of making. Like one, Bradley points out, where you’re at Disneyland beaming into the camera, but Jake can’t seem to take his eyes off you, looking completely and utterly lovesick. But as they keep looking through all of that—through Jake and Javy in face masks and a picture of you looking disgruntled after a very long plane ride—they find a photograph printed on fancy photograph paper of a younger Jake Seresin, happy and smiling, at his graduation from TOPGUN.
And they could scale and search every square inch of this house on a street at the end of a block, but they won’t find any other picture of Jake Seresin. They’ll find wedding photos, pictures you, Jake, and Javy got done professionally at Macy’s as a joke but ended up liking too much not to hang up, a whole photo album. Jake Seresin will never appear in any other photo than that day of graduation, with a toothy grin and excitement in his eyes. Because every other photo is of Stanley.
There’s a fridge in a house on a street at the end of a block with a sturdy wooden fence and two cars parked in the driveway. And Jake has never once worried it will ever make you not want him anymore.
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Chapter 2 - “they say looks can kill and I might try”
Series Masterlist
If there was one thing worse than flying commercial, it was flying commercial with naval aviators. Specifically your naval aviators.
Because somewhere between San Diego and Las Vegas, every single member of the squad had collectively decided to forget how to behave in public.
Phoenix looked one delayed flight announcement away from committing a felony.Rooster was laughing at something Fanboy had said. Payback was trying to convince Bob to participate in a twenty-dollar airport slot machine challenge. Bob looked like he’d rather be deployed.
And Coyote? Coyote was encouraging all of it.
Naturally.
You adjusted the strap of your duffel bag and stepped off the escalator into baggage claim.
Immediately regretted it.
The airport was packed. People everywhere. Tourists. Families. Bachelor parties. Bachelorette parties. At least three Elvis impersonators. One man dressed entirely as a banana.
Vegas.
You hated it already.
“You’re smiling.”
You looked over to see Jake Seresin was walking beside you, sunglasses pushed up into his hair, hands shoved into the pockets of his jeans.
You rolled your eyes, “I’m not.”
“You are.”
“I’m literally not.”
“You absolutely are.”
“I’m looking at a man dressed like a banana.”
Jake glanced over. The banana waved. Jake waved back. The banana looked delighted. You hated both of them, “See?” you said.
Jake grinned, “You’re smiling.”
“You are the worst.”
Jake’s infamous smile was etched in his face. The one that always infuriated you in ways no one else could.
The group gathered around baggage claim while everyone waited for their luggage. Phoenix had somehow become the unofficial keeper of the itinerary. Which was impressive considering nobody had asked her to. Or voted on it. Or agreed to it.
She had simply seized control through force of personality. Honestly, it was probably for the best. Without Phoenix, there was a decent chance somebody would accidentally end up married before the weekend was over.
Which, In hindsight, Maybe should have been taken as a warning.
“Okay,” Phoenix announced, holding her phone. “Everyone listen up.”
Nobody listened.
“Everyone.”
Still nothing.
“Bradley.”
Rooster immediately looked up. “Yeah?”
Phoenix smiled sweetly. Everyone else looked terrified, “Tell them to shut up.”
“Shut up, guys.”
Miraculously, they did.
“Thank you,” Phoenix said.
Rooster beamed. Like a golden retriever receiving praise. Honestly, it was disgusting.
You caught yourself watching them. Like you’ve done plenty of times before. The easy smiles. The effortless way they gravitated toward each other. The way Phoenix reached over and fixed the collar of his shirt without even thinking about it. Rooster leaned down so she could. Like it was second nature.
Your chest tightened slightly. Then Jake shoulder-checked you.
Hard.
You stumbled sideways, “What the hell?”
“You were staring.”
“I was not.”
“You absolutely were.”
You glared at him.
Jake grinned.
There was something deeply wrong with him. A fact you had known for years. Unfortunately, years of exposure had done absolutely nothing to improve the situation.
Eventually the bags arrived And forty minutes later, the entire group was piling into rideshares headed toward the Strip. Vegas stretched out before you.
Bright lights. Massive hotels. Billboards. Tourists. The occasional person making choices they would definitely regret tomorrow morning.
The city practically vibrated with bad decisions.
Jake looked out the window, “You know—“
“No.”
“I haven’t said anything yet.”
“You were about to.” You sighed.
Jake smiled, “Vegas loves me.”
“There it is. I just knew you were going to say something stupid.”
Jake pointed at you, “That’s because you’re obsessed with me.”
You laughed. Actually laughed. The sound surprised both of you, “you wish Hangman.”
The hotel was absurd. Massive chandeliers. Marble floors. Waterfalls indoors for some reason. Everything smelled expensive. Everyone immediately stopped to stare.
Except Phoenix. Who marched straight toward the check-in desk like she had a mission. The rest of you followed. Luggage rolling behind. Jake ended up beside you.
Again.
Like always.
The woman behind the desk smiled professionally, “Checking in?”
“Please,” Phoenix said. “Before one of them gets arrested.” The woman blinked while Phoenix pointed toward Payback, “He’s currently trying to convince a security guard to arm wrestle him.”
The woman looked over. Payback was, in fact, attempting exactly that, “Ah.”
“Yeah.”
The check-in process took several minutes. Multiple room keys. Several confirmations. One incident involving Fanboy somehow losing his wallet despite having it thirty seconds earlier. Then the woman started reading assignments, “Lieutenant Trace and Lieutenant Bradshaw. Lieutenant Machado and Lieutenant Floyd.”
Then the woman glanced at her screen, “Lieutenant Seresin and Lieutenant—”
You froze. Jake looked up.
“So sorry,” the woman continued. “Due to availability, your suites are adjoining.”
Silence. Complete silence.
“What?” You and Jake said it simultaneously.
The woman smiled. Apparently believing she’d delivered good news.
She had not.
“Adjoining,” she repeated.
“Like hell they are,” you said.
“Absolutely not,” Jake agreed.
The woman blinked. Phoenix immediately started laughing. Rooster followed. Then Coyote.
Then everyone else.
The woman looked increasingly concerned, “We don’t need adjoining rooms,” you said.
“We really don’t,” Jake agreed.
“We’re capable adults.”
“Debatable.”
You glared at him.
Jake glared back.
The woman slowly looked between the two of you. Then back to her computer, “Unfortunately, we’re fully booked.”
Jake stepped forward, “Can you put me literally anywhere else?”
Rooster looked delighted, “This is the best wedding gift we’ve gotten.”
“It isn’t your wedding yet.”
“It is spiritually.”
“That’s not how weddings work.”
Coyote slung an arm around Jake’s shoulders “Oh, this is going to be fun.”
“No,” you and Jake said together, both groaning over the horrible situation. Coyote laughed harder. Of course he did.
Eventually the room keys were distributed. You snatched yours. Jake grabbed his. The woman wished everyone a pleasant stay.
Which felt wildly optimistic.
And as the group headed toward the elevators, Phoenix looked over her shoulder, A wicked smile spreading across her face, “Try not to kill each other.”
