#ordinaryman.excerpt

[greenbriar-j]

on today’s episode of “i love my wife:”

Bella kicks his leg harshly, sweeping back into her closet to find something else. “What color are you wearing?” she calls behind her.

“I’ll figure it out the night before.”

Her head reappears in the doorway. “I hate you.”

“Oh, I’m sorry,” he quips back. “Did I start the fake dating thing, or did you? Because I think we’re remembering this event differently.”

Another defeated sigh halts him in his path to stretch out on her tiny bed again.

“Bella?”

When she doesn’t reappear, he gingerly pushes the closet door open. She’s still in that outfit, though none of the buttons are done anymore. The curves and planes of her body, in theory, are in full view. In actuality, she’s leaning against the wall with her knees to her chest. Her forehead rests on top of those. “Go away,” she mumbles.

Squatting in front of her, Kohl stares. “Why don’t you get back in your comfy clothes, and we can talk over hot chocolate? Let’s talk about some other part of this operation, and maybe you’ll have more confidence in your outfit choice then. I genuinely think that every outfit you’ve shown up in so far is beautiful.” Understatement of the year. Every time she stepped out, Kohl couldn’t decide whether he wanted to look or not. His heart has never been so loud; his soul has never been so crushed. She was so close, yet so far. Unfair when she looked like that. Lack of oxygen made his vision dance, but how was he supposed to breathe without releasing every indecent thought on the tip of his tongue. Bright spots covered his vision in a mockery of shoujo manga sparkles. “Okay?”

“I guess.”

As he watches, Bella stands, shrugging out of the red shirt. Her hand automatically moves to one of his hoodies.

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[greenbriar-j]

It rains on the way home. Rain, they say, is significant of new beginnings. Water in general, in holy and secular senses, is an erasure of things gone wrong, a renewal of the metaphorical clean slate.

But how much rain will it take to wash Bella back to a clean slate? Is that something she wants?

With Kohl’s umbrella over her head and the weight of him next to her, she’s not sure she’d want a clean slate, even if she was offered it. No one knows better than herself that she has a mired and burdened past – but doesn’t everyone? If the sum of her mistakes led her to this… Was any of it really a mistake, in the end?

At the door, Kohl levels a boyish grin at her. His windswept hair glistens a little, damp from the rain his umbrella failed to protect him from. “Do I get to come in tonight?”

Twisting the key in the lock, Bella shoves the door open. Instinctively, Kohl’s hand comes up above her to also push the door open. His motion is gentler than hers. He is always exceedingly more gentle with her things than she is. She can only hope it extends to his treatment of her heart.

“Well. I don’t know.”

“Don’t act coy.”

“Then don’t ask stupid questions. It’s your birthday; you can do whatever you want.”

Kohl sighs, stepping through the threshold and locking the door behind him. “Don’t say that. Don’t get used to inviting strange men into your home and telling them to do as they like.”

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[greenbriar-j]

did a sprint, here’s some of how that went ~

“So, how do you want to do this, sweetheart? How urgently do you need a boyfriend?”

Bella almost instinctively says, “I don’t need one of those,” like she has every other time her friends have asked when she’s promoting Kohl from friends-with-benefits to serious-life-partner. Instead, she shrugs. “Any time you’re free. I don’t think I’m in a position to be making demands of you.”

Kohl raises his eyebrows, setting out napkins and utensils for the pair of them. He always does this in the wait between placing the order and when it comes out. At the end of the meal, he stacks plates and bowls and gathers all the trash too. “You are the only one entitled to ask anything from me.”

“Your boss?”

“Is not going to ask me to meet his parents for the holidays. Come on, darling, this will go faster if we’re straight-up about it.”

“Then what about you?” she counters. “How soon do you need a girlfriend?”

Kohl leans back. “Well, I’m feeling kind of chaotic, so maybe next week? The sooner, the more chaos we can cause.”

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[greenbriar-j]

After that horrible, sleepless experience, Kohl decides to paint his nails instead. He’s hardly as good at it as Bella is – not a surprise considering she’s had more years to practice.

Fighting all his better instincts, he goes into Bella’s box of nail polish in the third drawer of her dresser, rooting around for the black. She’s been trying to talk him into some brighter colors, but he’s not sure he’ll ever be ready for that.

“It clashes with my color scheme,” he insists every time.

To which she always responds, “Your so-called color scheme is neutrals. Black and beige go with everything.”

Yeah. Still not happening.

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[greenbriar-j]

Here’s a little something from Kohl’s perspective for once

They say that no honorable man does one night stands – and Kohl is proud to say that he never has. His one attempt ended up being a two-night stand, a three-night stand, a “can we be best friends and go to cool restaurants” stand. A “come with me to my horrible family’s holiday celebrations” stand. An “annihilate me with your love just to put me back together” stand.

Bella Vu took his heart hostage that very first night, and no amount of ransom satisfies her enough to relinquish her hold.

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[greenbriar-j]

Pure of heart, dumb of ass: Kohl Shinomiya

He grins in response, stepping to the side to watch her pack their lunches.  He’s dressed now, at least. Ignoring that his shirt is precariously buttoned and could afford to have a few more buttons fastened. His tie hangs loose across his shoulders. “What’s your question, you little butt?”

“My butt is not little,” Kohl pouts.

“Oh my- What is your question, Kohl?”

“Yeah, okay. So you know how you got all mad about petnames, like… A hot minute ago?”

Bella freezes and looks at him with a deadened expression. “That’s ancient history; why are you bringing that up?” 

She remembers it with painful clarity: That’s why- Fuck, I thought you were being cute with the pet names, but it’s just because it let you play into your little fantasy that I was someone else. Fuck, Kohl. Did any of it mean anything? 

Yeah. That memory is going to haunt her for life.

“Because I want to call you them. But I don’t want you to get mad about them.”

Sighing, Bella snaps the Tupperware shut, pushing one of the boxes at Kohl. “I told you I’m sorry about that night.”

“Yes. And I still want to make sure I don’t overstep your boundaries. Is it okay? I came up with some new ones just for you. Never used them on anyone else.”

“Oh, god. Let’s hear it.”

Kohl clears his throat. “Okay. Muffin.”

Quirking an eyebrow, Bella glances across her countertop. “I don’t have muffins, Kohl. I don’t eat breakfast, remember?”

“No, that’s you. Muffin.”

“Uh.. huh, okay that’s fine, I guess. What else?”

“Chicken nugget.”

“… Why are they all food?”

“Shnookums?”

“How do you even spell that?”

“S-h-n-o-o-k-u-m-s,” Kohl recites proudly, like he’s won the fifth grade spelling bee as a third grader. Maybe he had. Who knows.

“Just stick to the old ones, Kohl. Darling and sweetheart are fine.”

He scowls. “But those are the ones that got me in trouble.”

Bell crosses her arms. “If I don’t stop you now, you’re going to call me your left sock or something and think it’s cute.”

Kohl shoots finger guns at her. “Hey, not bad. You can call me your left sock!”

“I- No.”

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[greenbriar-j]

“Fancy meeting you here,” Kohl grins.

Bella hisses, momentarily forgetting that she and Kohl are on opposing sides. It’s not often that they are, all things considered. Surging forward, she puts a hand over Kohl’s ridiculously hot, obnoxiously loud mouth.

“Shut up. Why are you talking so loud?”

The muffled To give away your location is almost endearing. Kohl blinks at her a few more times in the dim lighting, flecks of mischief shining through the deep brown. She thinks she’d like to kiss him now, because that’s the kind of vibe he’s giving off.

In a neat motion, he pulls her hand down to his waistband, pressing her body against the wall with the weight of his own. His breath fans across her face, all at once too much and too little. “Can I just say,” he says, softly this time, “that you’re so sexy with a gun.”

“Do you prefer this or the knife strapped to my thigh image from earlier?” She teases back while reminding herself to fucking breathe. Is this a maneuver he uses on targets? They’re going to have to talk about it, if so. Way too seductive. Wayyyy too seductive.

“Oh,” he shrugs, leaning into to place a kiss on the top of her head. “I prefer this.”

Bella is halfway to responding when she feels the pressure of the laser gun creeping up her waist. She’s too numb to even stop it on its path directly to her chest. The quiet, “Pew,” Kohl voices as his finger presses the trigger causes all sorts of neurotransmitter activity in her brain – and she’s not nearly smart enough to know what any of it means.

Especially not when he immediately starts kissing her, slow and sultry and very, very Kohl. Her eyes flutter shut, enveloping her in a darkness befitting his name.

And that’s always been the case, hasn’t it? Kohl has always been the darkness in her. The good kind, though. Not the dark envy of her teenage years, the anger of losing everyone she’s ever loved, the guilt at being the cause.

Kohl is the darkness of a quiet night, a safe and starry night that allows her to rest. That encourages her to.

That tells her now, “Sorry I had to shoot you, darling. That’s two wins for me today.”

Bella can’t even be mad about it.

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[greenbriar-j]

sibling vibes:

“You have got to be kidding me.”

Yeah. That’s almost verbatim the answer Bella expected to hear from her sister when she informed her of the new holiday plans. Of the entire legion of Vu siblings, only Lisa knows the full extent of Bella’s relationship with Kohl. After all, it’s not exactly the kind of dynamic you talk to your siblings about.  

“Unfortunately, I’m not. You get to meet the guy I’ve been-“

“Fraternizing with? Bells, no offense, but I don’t really want to.”

“Lisa.”

Her sister grumbles on the other side of the phone. “So? You’re really going to pull off your favorite fanfiction tropes for an extra splash of festivities? What is wrong with you?”

“Stop being dramatic. It’s really not that bad.”

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