A fic about yn faking an orgasm and colston finds out about it. The plot is all up to you.
pairings: colston loveland x reader 🏈🎬 wc: about 6.6k warnings: sexual content/references an: i made myself laugh writing this so take that as you will 🎬
You didn’t hear the front door.
In your defense, you were two glasses of wine into a FaceTime call with your best friend, and she’d just told you—in graphic, devastating detail—about the time her boyfriend tried to finger her like he was checking for a lost contact lens, and you were laughing so hard your ribs hurt. The kind of laughter that makes you deaf to everything else. The kind where you’re wheezing and she’s wheezing, and neither of you can get a full sentence out.
“I just—” she gasped, wiping her eyes. “The enthusiasm was there. The technique was not.”
“STOP.” You pressed your hand over your mouth, wine sloshing dangerously close to the rim of your glass. “Stop, I can’t breathe.”
“And then he pulled his hand back like he’d just performed surgery and goes, ‘Did you come?’”
You lost it. That full body, head-back, silent-scream laughter that leaves your stomach cramping. She was cackling on the other end, mascara smudged and hair in her face, both of you completely gone.
“Oh my god,” you wheezed, catching your breath. “What did you say?”
“What do you think I said? I said yes! I panicked!”
“No, you didn’t.”
“I literally did. I nodded and said Yeah, that was great’ and then I went to the bathroom and finished the job myself.”
“You are not serious.”
“Girl, I literally deserve an Oscar.”
And that’s where it went wrong. You were relaxed, the warmth of alcohol softening your edges, your thoughts fuzzy. The words just tumbled out before you realized you’d said them.
“No, I deserve an Oscar. Like, I should be nominated.”
The laughter stopped. Your friend’s face shifted—still grinning, but her eyes narrowed with curiosity. The tone shifted: interested. “Wait. Wait, wait, wait.” She leaned closer to her screen, eyebrows raised. “You’ve faked it? With Colston?”
You should’ve backtracked. Should’ve said you were kidding. Should’ve done literally anything other than what you did, which was shrug, take another sip of wine, and say:
“Only like... twice. Maybe three times. It’s not a big deal.”
You didn’t hear the front door open.
You didn’t hear it because Colston Loveland—six foot six and two hundred forty-one pounds of professional football player—stood frozen in the hallway, his gym bag slung over one shoulder, smoothie hovering, breath tight in his chest. Everything about him stilled, like someone had hit pause. His eyes were wide, shock flickering across his face as he processed something he absolutely was not meant to hear.
He stood there for exactly four seconds. Which doesn’t sound like a long time until you’re standing in your girlfriend’s hallway holding a smoothie and learning that your sexual performance has been, on occasion, fictional.
Then—quietly, carefully, with the kind of deliberate stealth that should not be possible for a man his size—he stepped backward. One step. Two. His hand found the door handle behind him. He turned it slowly, eased it open without a sound, and slipped back into the hallway as if he’d never been there at all.
The door clicked shut so softly that even he barely heard it.
On the couch, your friend’s mouth was still hanging open. “Only three times?”
“It’s really not that deep,” you said, waving her off. “It’s just, like, sometimes my body’s not cooperating, and he’s trying so hard, and I don’t want to make it a whole thing, you know?”
“Girl.”
“What? It’s not like he’s bad at it. He’s good. He’s really good. It’s a me thing.”
“That’s what they all say.”
“Oh my god, shut up.”
She was laughing again, and you were laughing, and it was fine. It was just girl talk. No big deal. You reached for your wine. Your friend was saying something about her boyfriend’s “signature move.” You were definitely going to need details on that.
You had no idea.
Outside, Colston stood in the hallway of his apartment building, gym bag still on his shoulder, smoothie still in his hand, staring at the wall across from his door like it had personally wronged him.
He blinked once. Twice.
Then he turned and walked to his truck.
─────
Colston sat in his truck.
Engine off. Smoothie warming in the cupholder. Staring at the parking garage wall like it owed him money.
Only like... twice. Maybe three times.
He replayed it. Then replayed it again. Tried to figure out which times. Which specific ones? Now, every time they’d had sex in the last few months was under review. His brain ran through them like game film, isolating the plays where he’d missed something.
I should be nominated.
Nominated. For an Oscar. For faking an orgasm. With him.
He pressed his palms into his eyes and exhaled through his nose.
He picked up his phone. Put it down. Picked it up again. Opened his messages, scrolled to Cooper’s name, and typed:
Colston: hypothetically
He stared at it for ten seconds. Then hit send.
Cooper responded in under a minute. Because Cooper always responded in under a minute. The man had never not been on his phone.
Cooper: hypothetically what
Colston: if someone said something about you that was bad and you weren’t supposed to hear it what would you do
Cooper: depends. how bad
Colston: bad
Cooper: like you’re ugly bad or you’re bad at something bad
Colston stared at the screen. Chewed the inside of his cheek.
Colston: second one
Cooper: what are you bad at
Colston didn’t answer. He locked his phone and set it face down on his thigh, and looked out the windshield at the parking garage wall. A pipe was leaking somewhere. He could hear it dripping.
His phone buzzed.
Cooper: hello??
Buzz.
Cooper: dude what are you bad at
Buzz.
Cooper: did you get cut
Buzz.
Cooper: are you dying
Buzz.
Cooper: is it a sex thing
Colston closed his eyes.
His phone rang. Cooper’s name, incoming call. He stared at it for two full rings, then declined.
Cooper: WOW
Cooper called again. Colston declined again.
Cooper: COLSTON LOVELAND
Cooper: PICK UP THE PHONE
It rang a third time. Colston pinched the bridge of his nose, let out a long breath, and answered.
“What?”
“What do you mean, what? You can’t text a man, hypothetically, someone said something bad about me, and then ghost. What happened? Are you okay? Did someone say something online? Did a coach—”
“She faked it.”
Silence.
Colston could hear wind on Cooper’s end. Maybe he was outside. Maybe he was standing in a field somewhere in Idaho, which was a very real possibility.
“...faked what?”
Colston didn’t say anything.
“Oh.” A pause. “Oh.” Another pause. “How many times?”
“Why is that everyone’s first question?”
“Who else have you told?”
“No one. I’m saying—she told her friend, and the first thing her friend asked was how many times too.”
“Okay, well, it’s a relevant question, Colston. How many times?”
“Like two or three.”
“Or three? There’s a big difference between two and three. That’s a fifty percent increase.”
“Thank you for the math, Cooper.”
“How’d you find out?”
“Heard her telling her friend on the phone. I came home early. She didn’t know I was there.”
“Oh no.”
“Yeah.”
“What did you do?”
“Left.”
“You left?”
“I’m in my truck.”
“You’re in your TRUCK? Like right now? In the parking lot?”
“Yes.”
“Dude, you gotta go back inside.”
“I know.”
“You can’t just sit in your truck.”
“I know.”
“What are you gonna say?”
“Nothing.”
“Nothing?”
“I’m not bringing this up tonight. I need to think.”
“About WHAT?”
“I don’t know. Everything. I don’t know.”
A long pause. Colston could hear Cooper breathing. Processing. Doing his best, which was never great, but at least he was trying.
“Okay, honestly? It’s probably not that deep. Girls fake it sometimes. It doesn’t mean you’re bad.”
“She said she deserved an Oscar, Coop.”
“...”
“Yeah.”
“Like an Oscar Oscar? Or like a Golden Globe situation?”
“Goodbye, Cooper.”
“WAIT. Wait. Just—go inside. Act normal. Don’t be weird about it. Figure it out tomorrow.”
“How am I supposed to act normal?”
“I don’t know, man, you play football in front of sixty thousand people. Pretend it’s that.”
“That’s not even remotely the same thing.”
“It’s performing under pressure. Same skill set.”
“I’m hanging up.”
“Just don’t be weird! Don’t be weird about it!”
“Bye, Cooper.”
He hung up. Sat there for another minute. Then he grabbed his smoothie—warm now, basically ruined—his gym bag, and got out of the truck.
He stood outside his apartment door. Rolled his neck. Cracked his knuckles. Took a breath.
Then he opened the door like he was making an entrance at an away game. Keys jangling, bag swinging, door hitting the wall with a thud that could’ve registered on a seismograph.
“BABE?” He was already halfway down the hall, voice pitched loud enough to give her plenty of warning. “I’M HOME.”
You flinched so hard you almost knocked your wine over. “Jesus Christ, Cole. You scared the shit out of me.”
“Sorry.” He was not sorry. He needed you to know he was here. Needed you to have heard him arrive. There needed to be zero ambiguity about the fact that Colston Loveland had just now walked through this door and had not, at any point prior to this moment, been standing in the hallway listening to anything.
“You’re home early,” you said, hand on your chest, heart still recovering.
“Yeah. Practice got cut short.”
He dropped his bag. Kicked off his shoes. Walked into the living room where you were still on the couch, phone in your lap, wine glass mostly empty, looking at him with that smile that usually made everything in his chest go soft.
It still did. That was the worst part.
“How was your day?” you asked.
Colston looked at you. At the wine. At the phone where, not long ago, you’d been laughing about your performance being award-worthy.
“Good,” he said. “Yeah. It was good.”
He kissed the top of your head on the way to the kitchen. He poured the smoothie down the sink, his shoulders tight, and stood there, hands braced on the counter, staring at nothing for a second longer than necessary.
“You hungry?” he called over his shoulder.
“Starving. Wanna order something?”
“Sure.”
He pulled out his phone and saw some new texts from Cooper.
Cooper: honestly I think you’re probably fine in bed
Cooper: not that I would know
Cooper: that came out weird
Cooper: good luck tonight champ
Colston turned his phone face-down on the counter and opened DoorDash.
─────
Something was off.
You couldn’t pinpoint it. It wasn’t obvious—he wasn’t being cold, wasn’t being short with you, wasn’t doing anything wrong, exactly. He ordered food. He ate on the couch next to you. He watched whatever you put on TV without complaining. Normal Tuesday night stuff.
But he wasn’t looking at you.
Not the way he usually did, anyway. Usually, Colston looked at you like you were the most interesting thing in any room, even when you were just sitting there doing nothing. Not in a creepy way—just present. Aware. Like keeping track of you was background software that never turned off. Tonight, his eyes kept drifting. To the TV. To his phone. To a spot on the wall just slightly to the left of your face.
And when you leaned into him on the couch—your usual move, tucking yourself under his arm—he let you. But his arm stayed stiff for a second before it settled around your shoulders. Just a second. Just enough for you to notice.
“You okay?” you asked, glancing up at him.
“Yeah, for sure.” He didn’t look down at you when he said it.
“You seem kinda quiet.”
“Just tired. Practice was long.”
“I thought you said practice got cut short.”
Silence. Barely a full second. But you felt it.
“It did. It was just intense while it lasted.”
“Ah.” You turned back to the TV. Let it go. Because he said he was fine, and you had no reason not to believe him, and sometimes he just got quiet. That was Colston. He processed internally. You knew this about him.
But when you kissed him later—just a casual thing, passing him in the kitchen while he refilled his water—he barely kissed you back. Just a tight press of his lips against yours, and then he was already turning away.
You stood there in the kitchen watching him go, water glass in hand, a crease forming between your eyebrows.
Weird.
Later, in bed, he stayed on his side. He didn’t turn his back to you or build a pillow wall down the middle. He just... didn’t reach for you. Usually, the second the lights went off, his hand found your hip, or your waist, or he pulled you back into his chest and buried his face in your hair. Tonight he lay on his back, one arm behind his head, staring at the ceiling.
You waited. Thirty seconds. A full minute.
Nothing.
“Cole.”
“Hm?”
“Are you sure you’re okay?”
“I’m good, baby.” Said to the ceiling. Not to you.
You rolled onto your side, facing him. Studied his profile in the dark—the line of his jaw, the slope of his nose, the way his chest rose and fell just a little too evenly, like he was concentrating on his breathing. Like he was trying very hard to seem relaxed.
“You’d tell me if something was wrong, right?”
He turned his head. Looked at you for the first time in what felt like hours. And for a split second, you saw something flicker across his face—something raw and unfinished and a little bit hurt—before he blinked and it was gone.
“Yeah,” he said. “’Course.”
He leaned over and kissed your forehead. Quick. Functional. Then rolled onto his side, facing away.
“Night.”
“...night.”
You lay there in the dark, staring at the back of his head, trying to figure out what the hell had shifted between 3 PM and now. You’d been fine. Everything had been fine. You ran through the day—work, errands, the FaceTime with your friend, wine—
Nothing. Nothing weird. Nothing that would explain why your boyfriend was lying next to you like a stranger on a connecting flight.
You fell asleep still trying to figure it out.
Colston did not fall asleep. Colston lay there for another forty-five minutes, staring at the wall, thinking about Oscars.
─────
The next day wasn’t better.
He went to the facility early—earlier than usual—and texted you once around noon. Just a “hey” with no follow-up. You stared at it for a while. Colston didn’t text “hey.” Colston sent voice memos about birds he saw in the parking lot and which Cheerios he should buy. “Hey” was not in his vocabulary.
You texted back: everything good?
Colston: yeah just busy
You almost typed, " You sure? But you stopped yourself. You weren’t going to be that girlfriend. If something was wrong, he’d tell you. He always told you. Eventually.
He came home at his normal time. Kissed your cheek. Asked about your day. Made himself a protein shake. All the right motions, all the right words, but performed with the enthusiasm of someone filling out a tax return.
By the time you were both in bed that night, you were determined to fix whatever this was. Maybe he’d had a bad day. Maybe practice was rough. Maybe he just needed to get out of his head.
You knew how to get him out of his head.
You rolled toward him, slid your hand across his stomach, pressed your lips to the side of his neck. The move that always worked. The one that made his breath catch and his hand find your hip and everything else fall away.
Nothing. He didn’t move. Didn’t react. Just lay there breathing like you were applying a blood pressure cuff.
You tried harder. Kissed his jaw. Let your hand drift lower. Swung your leg over his hips and settled on top of him, hands on his chest, looking down at him with clear intent.
“Hi,” you said.
“Hey.” He said it to the ceiling. His hands landed on your thighs, but they just... sat there. Like he’d forgotten what they were for.
You leaned down and kissed him. Slow, deliberate, the kind that was supposed to flip the switch. You felt his mouth move against yours—barely—and then his hands came up to your waist. But not to pull you closer. To hold you still.
“I’m, uh.” He cleared his throat. “Pretty tired tonight.”
You pulled back. Looked at him. He was staring up at you with an expression you could not read, and you were literally sitting on top of him.
“You’re tired,” you repeated.
“Yeah.”
“Cole, I’m on you right now.”
“I can see that.”
“And you’re... tired.”
“Mentally.”
You stared at him. He stared somewhere around your collarbone. Something was very, very wrong, and the not-knowing was starting to eat a hole through your patience.
“Okay. Seriously. What is going on with you? You’ve been weird for two days. You won’t look at me. You barely kissed me yesterday. You texted me, " Hey. And now I am literally on top of you, and you’re telling me you’re mentally tired, so either something’s wrong or—”
“So... how many Oscars are we talking about?”
You went still.
Completely, totally, full-body still. Like someone had yanked the power cord out of you. You were still sitting on his hips, hands still on his chest, and every single drop of blood in your body was rushing to your face.
“What?” you whispered.
He finally looked at you. Right at you. And there it was—hurt and embarrassment and something else fighting for space on his face.
“Oscars,” he repeated. “You said you should be nominated.”
You rolled off of him so fast you nearly fell off the bed. Caught yourself on the edge of the mattress with one hand, legs tangled in the sheets, and sat there with your back to him while your brain went through every stage of grief simultaneously.
No, I deserve an Oscar. Like, I should be nominated.
You’ve faked it? With Colston?
Only like... twice. Maybe three times. It’s not a big deal.
Your mouth opened. Nothing came out.
“You—” Your voice cracked. “How did you—”
“Came home early yesterday.” He said it evenly, like he was giving a post-game interview. Like he’d rehearsed this part. “Walked in during your FaceTime.”
“Oh my god.”
“Heard some stuff.”
“Oh my god.”
“Yeah.”
You pressed both hands over your face. Held them there. Considered the possibility of simply never removing them. You could live like this. Hands over face, forever. It would be fine.
“How much did you hear?” The question came out muffled against your palms.
“Enough.”
“Cole, how much?”
“The Oscar part. Your friend asking if it was with me. You saying two, maybe three times.” He paused. “The ‘it’s not a big deal’ part.”
You made a sound. Not a word. Just a sound. The kind of sound a person makes when they realize they have said the worst possible thing in the worst possible context, and the one person who was never supposed to hear it was standing in the hallway absorbing every word.
“I can explain,” you said, hands still over your face.
“I’d love that, actually.”
“It’s not—it wasn’t—” You pulled your hands away. Looked at him. He was sitting up now, back against the headboard, arms crossed, and his face was doing that thing where he was trying very hard to look neutral, but his jaw was giving him away.
“It was only twice,” you said.
“You said maybe three.”
“One of those was borderline! It was like... almost real but then I just... helped it along at the end.”
“Helped it along?”
“Like—I was close! I was basically there. I just... sped up the ending a little.”
“Sped up the—” He stopped. Ran his hand over his mouth. Looked at the ceiling. “So you’re saying one of the three was like... a real orgasm with a fake finish?”
“Yes! See? So really it’s more like two and a half.”
“Two and a half?” He looked at you like you’d just tried to explain that the Earth was flat. “How do you fake half an orgasm?”
“I just told you how.”
“That’s not—you can’t just round down.”
“I think I can, actually, because I was there and you were—” You stopped. Realized what you were about to say. Closed your mouth.
“I was what?” He was looking at you now. Really looking. “Finish that sentence.”
“You were... also there.”
“Yeah. Apparently not doing a great job.”
“That is NOT what I said.”
“You said you deserved an Oscar. For faking it. With me. What am I supposed to do with that?”
“Okay, first of all, that was girl talk. That was private. You weren’t supposed to hear that.”
“And yet.”
“And yet,” you agreed, because what else could you say? He heard it. It was out there. No amount of explaining was going to stuff it back in.
You sat there looking at each other. The TV was still on in the other room, faint laugh track bleeding through the walls. Someone’s phone buzzed on the nightstand—his, probably Cooper, because Cooper had the worst timing of any human alive—and neither of you reached for it.
“I’m sorry,” you said. Quieter now. “I should’ve just... told you.”
“Told me what? That I wasn’t—”
“No. That’s not—Cole, you’re good at it. That’s not what this is about.”
“Then what’s it about? Because from where I’m sitting, it sounds like I’ve been putting in work and you’ve been acting.”
“It’s not about—” You groaned, pressing your hands into your face again. This was going so badly. Every sentence was making it worse. “Can I just explain? Without you making Oscar jokes for like two minutes?”
He uncrossed his arms. Leaned back against the headboard. Gestured for you to go ahead. The gesture was generous, but his jaw was still tight.
─────
You took a breath. Then another. Tried to figure out where to start.
“Okay. So. You know how, like... right before my period, I get kind of...”
He blinked. Whatever he’d been expecting you to say, it wasn’t that.
“...crampy? And tired? And just, like, not super in my body?”
“Yeah,” he said slowly. Like he was waiting for the trap.
“Okay. So. Both times—the real two times, not the half—it was right before my period. Like a day or two out. And I just...” You pulled at a thread on the comforter. Couldn’t look at him. “I wasn’t really in the mood. For sex. Specifically.”
“Then why didn’t you just say that?”
“Because I was in the mood for you.”
“What?”
“I wanted—” God, why was this so hard to say? You’d had his entire body on top of yours more times than you could count, and you couldn’t get this one sentence out. “I wanted to be close to you. I wanted your hands on me and your body next to me and I wanted to feel like... yours. I just didn’t want it to go all the way there. And I didn’t know how to say ‘hey, can you just hold me and touch me without it turning into sex’ because that felt like—I don’t know. Weird. Like I was rejecting you.”
He was quiet. Processing. You could practically hear the gears turning.
“So you let it happen,” he said. “Even though you didn’t want to.”
“It’s not that I didn’t want to—”
“You just said you weren’t in the mood.”
“I wasn’t in the mood for an orgasm! I was in the mood for you! Those are two different things, and I didn’t know how to explain that without it sounding like—” You waved your hand in the air, gesturing at nothing. “Like I didn’t want you. Because I did want you. Just... differently.”
He went quiet again. Longer this time. You watched him stare at the far wall, brow furrowed, working through it the way he worked through a new play—turning it over, looking at it from every angle.
“So let me get this straight,” he said finally. “You wanted to be close to me. But not have sex.”
“Yes.”
“And instead of telling me that, you had sex anyway and then faked an orgasm.”
Hearing it out loud like that made you want to crawl under the bed. “When you put it like that, it sounds really bad.”
“How would you put it?”
“I panicked! Both times! You started kissing me, and it felt good, and I didn’t want you to stop touching me, and then things escalated and I didn’t know how to hit the brakes without making it weird, and then it was happening and my body just was not going to get there, and you were so into it, Cole, you were so—” You gestured at him. All of him. “You were doing everything right. My body just wasn’t cooperating. And you were trying so hard, and I could see how much you wanted me to feel good, and I just... couldn’t stand the idea of you thinking you’d failed. So I faked it. And then we cuddled after, which was all I wanted in the first place.”
You ran out of air. Sat there, chest heaving slightly, feeling like you’d just sprinted a mile.
Colston was looking at you with an expression you’d never seen before. Not angry. Not hurt, exactly. More like someone had just told him something that rearranged a piece of furniture in his brain, and he was still adjusting to the new layout.
“You...” He started, stopped. Ran a hand through his hair. “You could’ve just said that.”
“I know.”
“Like, I would’ve been fine with that.”
“I know.”
“I would’ve just held you. That’s not—I’m not gonna be mad about holding you.”
“I KNOW, Colston.”
“Then why didn’t you just—”
“Because I didn’t know how to ask my boyfriend to touch me without fucking me! Okay? Because every time we’re in bed and things start happening, it goes to the same place, and I didn’t have the words for ‘I want everything leading up to it but not the actual thing’ without it sounding like I was cutting you off!”
That landed. You could see it hit him—the way his shoulders dropped, the way his expression shifted from confused to something softer. Something that looked a lot like oh.
You pressed your fingers to your temples. “And then the first time, it worked. You were happy. I got my cuddle. And I told myself it wasn’t a big deal. And then the next month it was the same situation, and I did the same thing because I didn’t know how to undo it without admitting I’d lied the first time.”
“So it became a thing.”
“It became a thing.”
Quiet. The apartment hummed around you—fridge, heat, the distant sound of a car alarm outside.
“For the record,” he said, and his voice was different now. Less guarded. Almost careful. “I don’t need sex every time we’re in bed.”
“I know that. Logically. It’s just—”
“No, I mean—” He shifted, turning toward you slightly. “If you just want me to hold you, that’s enough. That’s always been enough. You don’t have to perform for me.”
The word perform hit you somewhere behind your ribs. Because that’s exactly what you’d been doing. Performing. Not because he’d asked you to, but because you’d convinced yourself that was what he needed.
“I didn’t want you to feel rejected,” you said quietly.
“And instead I get to feel like I can’t tell when my girlfriend’s actually enjoying herself. Which is way better.”
“Cole—”
“I’m serious.” He wasn’t laughing. Wasn’t making jokes. He was looking at you with those blue eyes that saw everything, and there was something raw in them. “I thought I could read you. I thought I knew when you were—” He stopped. Jaw tight. “I pay attention. I try to pay attention. And now I don’t know what was real.”
That one landed hard. Harder than the embarrassment, harder than the mortification. Because this wasn’t about his ego. This was about the thing he was most proud of—being attentive, being present, being the guy who noticed—and you’d taken that away from him without meaning to.
“Everything else was real,” you said. “Every other time. I swear.”
He looked at you. Searching. Trying to decide if he could trust that.
“...you’re sure?”
“Yes. Colston. I’m sure.”
Longer pause.
“Like, sure sure? Because I need to know that when you—”
“COLSTON. Yes. Every other time has been real. Very real. Extremely, embarrassingly real. The neighbors-can-probably-hear-me kind of real.”
Something twitched at the corner of his mouth. Not a full smile. Not yet. But close.
“The neighbors, huh?”
“Don’t.”
“I’m just saying, if the neighbors can hear you—”
“Do NOT make this into a compliment for yourself right now.”
“—then at least some of my work is paying off.”
“I will smother you with this pillow.”
He almost smiled. Almost. And then he went quiet again, and you could see him chewing on something else. Something he wasn’t sure he wanted to ask.
“What?” you said.
“Nothing.”
“Cole.”
He rubbed the back of his neck. Looked at the ceiling. Back at you.
“Would you have ever told me? If I hadn’t heard?”
The honest answer sat in your throat like a rock. You wanted to say yes. You wanted to say, of course, eventually, when I figured out how. But you’d been lying to him—small lies, kind lies, but lies—and you owed him the truth now.
“I don’t know,” you said. “Probably not.”
He nodded. Slowly. Like that was the answer he’d expected, but didn’t love hearing.
“Okay,” he said.
“Okay?”
“Okay. I’m—” He exhaled. “I’m not mad. I’m just... I need you to talk to me. Even when it’s weird. Especially when it’s weird. Because I can’t fix something I don’t know about.”
“I know.”
“And I need you to stop faking.”
“Obviously.”
“Like, ever. Even the half ones.”
“There’s no such thing as a half one, you just said that yourself.”
“I said you can’t round down. I can call it whatever I want. I’m the victim here.”
You snorted. Loud and graceless and completely involuntary. And once it started, you couldn’t stop it—the absurdity of the whole thing crashing over you, the fact that you were sitting in bed having the most mortifying conversation of your life, and he was calling himself a victim—and you were laughing. Ugly laughing. The kind where no sound comes out, and you’re just shaking.
He watched you fall apart. And slowly, grudgingly, like it was being pulled out of him against his will, he started smiling. The real one. The one that started in one corner of his mouth and spread until his whole face changed.
“It’s not funny,” he said, but he was fighting it.
“It’s a little funny,” you managed.
“It’s really not.”
“You called yourself a victim.”
“I am a victim. Of fraud.”
You were gone. Doubled over, forehead on the mattress, shoulders shaking. And somewhere above you, you heard it—quiet, reluctant, like he was mad at himself for giving in—Colston laughing.
“I hate you,” he said, but there was no heat in it.
“No, you don’t.”
“I might. I’m still deciding.”
You sat up, wiping your eyes, and looked at him. His arms were still crossed, but loosely now. The tension in his jaw had softened. He looked tired—actually tired, not the fake kind—and a little bruised, but the worst of it had passed. You could see it draining out of him, replaced by something warmer. Something that looked like relief.
“So what now?” you asked.
“Now?” He looked at you. Tilted his head. “Now you learn how to use your words like a grown-up.”
“Wow.”
“And next time you want me to just hold you?” He reached over and tugged you toward him—not urgently, not sexually, just a hand on your arm pulling you into his side. You went easily, folding into him, your head finding its usual spot against his chest. “You just say that. Okay? You just say, ‘Cole, I just want this tonight.’ And that’s what we’ll do.”
“Just like that?”
“Just like that.” His chin rested on top of your head. His arm settled around you. Warm and heavy and solid. “This is good. This is always good.”
You pressed your face into his shirt. Let out a breath you felt like you’d been holding for two months.
“I’m sorry,” you said into his chest.
“I know.”
“You’re good in bed.”
“I know.”
“The ego recovered fast.”
“Baby, the ego is in critical condition. I’m just hiding it well. I'm faking it till I make it,”
You laughed. Soft, this time. Pressed closer. His hand came up and settled on the back of your head, fingers threading through your hair, and for a minute neither of you said anything. Just lay there. Close. Breathing.
His phone buzzed on the nightstand. He reached over and glanced at it.
Cooper: you alive?
Cooper: did you talk to her
Cooper: please tell me you didn’t open with the oscar thing
Colston typed back one-handed, the other arm still around you:
Colston: handled it
Cooper: AND???
Cooper: colston I swear to god
Cooper: DETAILS
Cooper: are you guys good??
Cooper: did she explain??
Cooper: was it a you problem or a her problem
Colston: goodnight Cooper
Cooper: COLSTON
He locked his phone and set it face down on the nightstand.
“Cooper?” you asked.
“Cooper.”
“Does he know?”
“...define ‘know.’”
“Colston.”
“He knows a version of events.”
“Oh my god.”
“He was very supportive. He said I’m probably fine in bed.”
“Probably?”
“His word, not mine.”
“I’m going to die.”
"Hey." He tilted your chin up. Looked at you. Serious again, but warm. "It stays between us. And Cooper. And your friend, I guess, since she started this whole thing. But that's it."
“That’s it,” you agreed.
He kissed your forehead. Long and slow. Then pulled you back into his chest.
“Night,” he murmured.
“Night.”
A pause.
“For the record, I’d give you the Oscar. The performance was very convincing.”
“GOODNIGHT, COLSTON.”
─────
Three weeks later, you felt it coming.
The familiar ache low in your back. The heaviness in your legs. The way your skin felt was too tight and too sensitive and vaguely wrong, like your body was gearing up for something it didn’t bother consulting you about.
One, maybe two days out. You knew the math by now.
Colston got home from the facility around five. You were on the couch in his hoodie and a pair of shorts, half-watching something you’d already forgotten the plot of. He dropped his bag by the door, kicked off his shoes, and came around the back of the couch to kiss the top of your head.
“Hey.”
“Hey.”
He wandered into the kitchen, cracked a Celsius, scrolled his phone for a few minutes, then came back and settled next to you on the couch. Lifted your legs into his lap. His hand landed on your calf—warm, absentminded, already looking at the TV.
“What are we watching?”
“No idea. I stopped paying attention twenty minutes ago.”
“Cool.”
Normal evening. Normal routine. His thumb tracing slow circles on your ankle. Not intentional—just something his hands did when they were on you.
Then his hand started moving. Up your calf. Over your knee. Along your thigh, fingers slipping under the hem of your shorts. Still casual, still easy, but the direction was clear. His eyes stayed on the TV, but his hand was telling a different story.
And there it was. The fork in the road.
His thumb traced the inside of your thigh, and your body did two things at once: leaned into the warmth of his touch, and quietly, firmly, told you it was not interested in where this was going.
You wanted him close. Wanted his hands. Wanted the weight of him next to you. Wanted to press your face into his chest and just exist there for a while.
You did not want to have sex.
This was the moment. The exact moment where, twice before, you’d said nothing. Let it happen. Performed your way through it and collected your cuddle on the other side like a reward you’d paid too much for.
His hand moved higher. His head turned toward you. That look in his eyes—soft, interested, the beginning of something.
“Hey, Cole?”
“Hm?”
Your heart was doing something stupid. Which was ridiculous. This was your boyfriend. On your couch. Touching your leg. There was no reason for this to feel like standing on the edge of a diving board.
“Can we just... do this tonight? Just this?”
His hand stopped. He looked at you—really looked—and you watched the understanding move across his face. Not confusion. Not disappointment. Just recognition.
“Yeah,” he said. Simple. Easy. Like you’d asked him to pass the remote. “’Course.”
That was it. No follow-up questions. No “are you sure?” No flicker of anything other than okay.
His hand slid back down to your calf. Settled there. He shifted on the couch, stretched out on his back along the length of it, one foot on the floor, and opened his arms.
You went without hesitating. Crawled into the space he’d made and settled against his chest, your cheek on the soft cotton of his shirt, one leg slotted between his. His arms closed around you—both of them, solid and warm—and he pulled the throw blanket off the back of the couch and draped it over you without being asked.
His hand found the back of your head. Fingers in your hair. Slow, aimless strokes that made your eyes heavy almost immediately.
“This good?” he asked. Quiet. Close. His voice rumbling through his chest and into yours.
“Yeah,” you whispered. “This is good.”
He pressed a kiss to the top of your head and settled in. The TV murmured on. His heartbeat was slow and even under your ear. His thumb traced lazy lines along your spine.
Nobody was performing anything. Nobody was pretending. It was just this—his body and yours, the couch, the quiet, the feeling of being held by someone who wasn’t asking for anything in return.
You were almost asleep when you felt his chest move under your cheek. A small huff of air. Almost a laugh.
“What?” you murmured.
“Nothing.”
“Cole.”
“It’s nothing. Just—” He paused. You could hear the grin in his voice. “This is way better than an Oscar anyway.”
You pinched his side. He flinched and laughed—quiet, shaking under you—and pulled you tighter against him.
“I’m never living that down, am I?” you said.
“Not a chance.”
“Ever?”
“Baby, I’m bringing that up at our wedding.”
You lifted your head. Looked at him. He was smiling—the real one, the slow one that started in one corner and took over his whole face—and there wasn’t a single trace of hurt left in it. Just warmth. Just him.
“Our wedding?” you said.
He blinked. Realized what he’d said. A flush crept up his neck.
“I mean—” He cleared his throat. “You know what I mean.”
“Do I?”
“Shut up.”
“No, please, tell me more about this wedding.”
“I’m going to sleep.”
“Are there Oscars at the wedding? Is it a themed event?”
“Goodnight.”
“Do I get to give an acceptance speech?”
He grabbed the pillow behind his head and pressed it over your face, and you were laughing so hard you couldn’t fight him off, and his arm was still around you, and the TV was still on, and neither of you was going anywhere.
You fell asleep on the couch. His arms are around you. Your face pressed into his chest. The throw blanket tangled around both of you.
No performance. No pretending. Just this.
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