When an ordinary drugstore robbery breaks out into violent chaos, punches being thrown and guns firing, Bob knows he must act quickly to get himself out of there alive (and with his goods). Though just as he’s about to slide out the door, his eyes land on your huddled figure under one of the shelves, tears streaming down your face, eyes wide with terror. It’s a face he recognises; he just can’t pinpoint where from exactly.
With no time for hesitation, he grabs your wrist and smuggles you out like his drugs, straight to his poorly parked car, mumbling a quick “don’t worry, you’re safe,” shoving you in and hitting the brakes, speeding down the highway, heart pounding and head reeling, internally punching himself at the thought of now having to face the consequences of his moment of insanity…
Thinking about older!rockstar!sirius x runaway!reader.
Like a good age gap n reader escaped a family like siris and turns up at rhe place her parents would lest expect her to go.
Maybe she had some kind of fame surrounding her family before, but when she runs away to live with sirius he like mentors her and she starts her own career and she just reminds him of himself so much..
(Yes I love older!sirius x runaway!reader, yes I have daddy issues, no its not important)
Ps sorry for going M.I.A and not writing anything but I'm trying to get back in the groove of writing so send any requests you have!!
Summary: Instead of attending her spot at a top college in the fall, Y/N runs away from her home on the East Coast and ends up on a city bench in L.A. – lost, cold, and utterly alone. When one of her favourite actors, Jared Padalecki, passes her on his way home from a club with his best friend Jensen, while Y/N is getting ready to sleep in the street on that bench, he finds he can't just walk by.
Pairing: Jared Padalecki x Reader
Rating: 18+
Chapter Warnings: verbal abuse from step-father, mild physical abuse
Tags: AU, slow burn, ANGST, mutual pining, slow burn, gossip mags, rumours abound
Word Count: 2.3k
Series masterlist | Read ahead on my website
TAKING A CHANCE… WITH A CHEATER?
Jared Padalecki – currently in the spotlight for his lead role in Taking A Chance, and his rumoured, not-so-secret, relationship with his co-star Quinn Bradley – caused quite the stir over the weekend at the production’s end of filming publicity event. Arriving on the arm of his suspected beau, the couple posed happily for photographs before they were interrupted by the arrival of Padalecki’s long time best friend, sports journalist Jensen Ackles, and his personal assistant, one Y/N L/N.
L/N, who has been spotted out in Napa with Padalecki and Ackles, all three together as well as separately, shied away from the cameras but was heard by reporters making the comment that Padalecki and Ackles were ‘finally back together,’ as she pushed the pair together for their own photos before slipping inside the event hall.
L/N’s comment has thrown into question the rumours surrounding Padalecki and Bradley that have been circulating in recent months. It’s true that during the time when the co-stars appeared to be growing closer, Padalecki was rarely spotted with Ackles, despite the latter’s recent move from L.A. to Napa shortly after the production began filming. Many are wondering why he would have left L.A. for this decidedly less sporting northern city, and the obvious answer seems to be that he and Padalecki wanted to remain close – which of course calls into question just what the relationship between the two men truly is.
Has Padalecki’s apparent relationship with Bradley merely been a publicity stunt to drum up buzz for their movie, while conveniently covering up the fact that their leading man is, in fact, gay and off the market?
However, there’s a fourth piece to this love triangle – Padalecki’s assistant has been seen out and about in Napa with Ackles much more than Padalecki himself, leading this reporter to question if that was just another red herring to help cover up the men’s clandestine relationship. There are further reports from unnamed sources on set that Ackles frequently visited with L/N at the Napa mansion where filming took place, but was rarely publicly seen with Padalecki.
Further suspicions have been relayed to us from set that Padalecki and L/N haved seemed much closer than an actor and personal assistant tend to be. It was apparently a stipulation of Padalecki’s contract that he could select his own PA, and he specifically brought L/N along with him from L.A. to work together, despite the fact that sources tell us she’s never worked on a film set before this production. So why, if she had no experience in the role, was Padalecki so insistent that she be hired alongside himself? Photos of the pair on set, which are currently being vetted for authenticity, have been submitted to Exposé by an anonymous source, which look highly suspicious to those inclined to believe that Padalecki may be carrying on a relationship with his young employee – nearly thirteen years his junior.
So who is Padalecki’s true paramour? Or has he actually been seeing multiple people at the same time for months? Following the party this past weekend, Padalecki has been spotted with both Ackles and Bradley on separate occasions, but L/N seems to have vanished. Our sources on the film set report that she was seen leaving the Napa vineyard in a taxi, accompanied by a suitcase. Did something happen over this weekend to reveal Padalecki’s duplicity? Will he finally own up to a relationship with Ackles or Bradley?
We’ll continue to keep our readers updated as more details continue to come to light.
Cece: Don’t know if you’ve seen this, hope you’re okay
Y/N/N stared at Cece’s text, accompanied by the link to the online magazine article. Why on earth did he have to send her this? Did he know something? Or just suspect something? Y/N/N certainly had her suspicions about Cece. She would bet the very little amount of money she had to her name that he was one of the ‘unnamed sources’ on set that the article referred to.
This kind of shit stirring was exactly the sort of thing he revelled in. Did he still think there was something going on between her and Jared, and this was his way of trying to get her to admit to it? Well, if that was the case, he’d never been further from the truth. Jared hated her. The fact that there were rumours about Jared and Jensen dating had made her laugh though. If she hadn’t known that Jared was really with Quinn, she wouldn’t have been that surprised if Jared and Jensen turned out to be a bit closer than your typical best friends.
Y/N/N set her phone face down on the counter and took another sip of her coffee, letting her eyes slip closed and leaning the warm mug against her forehead. She’d forgotten how cold it could get in Washington. Everything about her stepfather’s townhouse was crisp and grey and cold as stone; the industrial concrete counters in the kitchen seemed to be sapping the little warmth that her coffee had provided right out of her body again. Pathetically, she let herself spend a moment missing Jared, who had always been so sunny and warm.
She finished her coffee and pulled herself off the kitchen stool to pour another cup. She’d only been home two days, and the jet lag was still weighing heavily on her eyes, not used to being up at what was essentially four in the morning according to her body clock. Y/N/N's mom was still asleep, she had never been an early riser after she stopped working, but she heard her stepfather moving around upstairs, getting ready to go into his office.
A moment later, Y/N/N heard his heavy footsteps on the stairs and braced herself for the cold indifference she’d been the recipient of since she’d arrived home with Carlton a few nights ago. Her mother, at least, had been relieved to see her, wrapping her in an awkward hug that Y/N/N hadn’t had the energy to return, but her stepfather had just seemed aggravated.
“Y/N/N!” His loud, angry voice echoed through the ground floor of the house from the foyer, and she startled, spilling coffee over her hand in surprise. Fuck, he sounded really upset. She wondered what on earth she could have done, then with a sinking dread she remembered the gossip article. Surely he couldn’t know about that? It had made no mention of her family, and it had given her father’s last name, not his; there shouldn’t be any way for people to connect her back to him.
“What the fuck did you do?” he burst into the kitchen like a storm, his face clouded over with rage.
“I–I don’t know,” Y/N/N stuttered helplessly. She wasn’t going to admit to anything until he told her what he was angry about. Maybe he didn’t know about the article and she’d just broken the shower or something? She really couldn’t think of anything else for him to be so angry about, though.
“So you don’t know why there’s a load of paparazzi outside of my fucking house right now?” he demanded venomously and Y/N/N couldn’t help her wince, giving away that she did know why. “Rigby told me you were shacked up with some actor, did you get yourself in the news? They better not have any fucking photos of you being some Hollywood slut, or I swear to God–”
“I wasn’t ‘shacked up’ with anyone!” Y/N/N protested, feeling tears begin to well up behind her eyelids and willing them not to spill over. “I had a job on a movie set, I was working for him, that’s all.”
“Rigby seemed to think there was more going on between you and him,” he huffed in frustration.
“Well he was wrong,” she answered weakly, her chest tight with regret. “How would he know anyways? We were on private property during filming, he couldn't have been watching us work.” Her stepfather scoffed and rolled his eyes, getting himself his own mug and aggressively grabbing the coffee pot from Y/N/N’s hands.
“You really are as stupid as you look, aren’t you? He had informants, that’s how he does his job. You really think a little thing like ‘private property’ was gonna make him abandon the assignment?”
Y/N/N’s heart sank.
“He had other people watching me? Who?” she asked nervously, feeling like she might already know the answer.
“I don’t know, some gay kid who worked there too and wanted the money Rigby offered him. Apparently he was very amenable to the terms, guess just as many people disliked you out there as here,” he grimaced creully and Y/N/N crumpled back against the counter.
Cece. She had been right, he had been spying on her and Jared. It was a good bet he was the one informing the Exposé as well, and that’s how the magazine had gotten all those photos from set, and the selfie of her and Jared on their latest cover – that photo had been the screen saver on her work phone, the phone she’d left behind in her room in Napa. And of course Carlton would have thought she and Jared were together, because Cece had always been convinced of that fact too.
The congressman’s phone buzzed along the concrete counter where he’d set it down, and he turned away for a moment to pick up the text. Y/N/N watched as his face grew darker, his frown cutting deep creases in the pudgy lines of his cheeks as his eyes darted back and forth, clearly reading something. Slowly, he looked back up at his stepdaughter and Y/N/N felt her heart drop. She knew what must have been in that message.
“You did get yourself in the news, you fucking idiot!” he screamed, and his phone flew past Y/N/N, only very narrowly missing her face and smashing against the wall of cabinets behind her. “Do you realise how this makes me look?!” Her stepfather stormed towards her in a fury, striking her hard across the face, and she collapsed back against the counter in shock. “And now we’ve got the fucking press outside the goddamn house! How do you think this looks for my career, to my constituents? Having my sorry excuse for a stepdaughter on the front page of some trashy gossip magazine with a man twice her age!?”
Y/N/N was crying now, tears silently spilling down her face as she cowered in front of her stepfather. She didn’t know what to say to any of his accusations, and she knew that no matter what she said nothing would make it better.
“Maybe I need to make you disappear again, save you from embarrassing me and this family any further,” he grunted, and Y/N/N shuddered, remembering his threat from the last fight they’d had; the threat that had made her run away in the first place.
“If you didn’t want me back here then why send a PI after me in the first place?” Y/N/N spat, then abruptly shut her mouth, surprised at her outburst. She’d never spoken to her stepfather like that before.
“What did you say to me, young lady?”
“Why did you send someone after me?” Y/N/N asked again, voice more steady, and just a little stronger this time. “If you're just gonna ‘make me disappear’, why didn’t you let me stay gone?”
“Because clearly you couldn’t handle yourself out there,” her stepfather growled angrily, pointing towards the front of the house and the press that was waiting. “You couldn’t be trusted to be left alone like that. Plus your mother insisted. She was worried,” he rolled his eyes in frustration. “And she was right to be, I suppose; you got yourself in plenty of trouble out there. Maybe Rigby should have let that director finish what he started, teach you a real lesson about the consequences of your actions.”
“Y-you know about… I mean… Carlton told you what happened?” she asked, hanging her head in shame. She had really hoped no one else would ever find out about that, she never wanted to think about it again.
“Told me? He cleared it with me. How else would he have convinced you he was someone you could trust? He needed to get you home somehow if he wanted us to pay him, that was the deal.”
Y/N/N felt the blood draining from her face in horror at his comments.
“You planned that?” she whispered, the air frozen in her lungs beneath her stepfather’s cruelly indifferent gaze. “You arranged for me to be sexually assaulted?!”
“Not specifically,” he shook his head with disinterest. “They knew the director had a record, figured it was a safe bet he’d try to take it too far at some point in time, Rigby and the gay kid just made sure it happened at a time he could be close by to swoop in and play the hero. Oh, don’t look so pathetic, it worked didn’t it? Got you running back home with your tail between your legs, and now I need you to stay quiet, stay out of the news, keep to yourself, and we won’t have any more problems,” –the congressman walked up to Y/N/N menacingly, pulling out his money clip that Y/N/N knew had a pocket knife attached on one side, and she swallowed hard– “right?”
Y/N/N nodded meekly, eyes following the money clip back to his pocket as he tucked it away.
“Stay inside today. If I see you’ve talked to any of the reporters out there, you don’t want to know what happens next, do you understand?”
Y/N/N nodded again, and her stepfather reached out and patted her shoulder heavily before taking his coffee and walking back to the front hall, getting ready to leave for work.
Chapter 31 coming April 19th or subscribe to my website to read the completed the story!
Summary: Instead of attending her spot at a top college in the fall, Y/N runs away from her home on the East Coast and ends up on a city bench in L.A. – lost, cold, and utterly alone. When one of her favourite actors, Jared Padalecki, passes her on his way home from a club with his best friend Jensen, while Y/N is getting ready to sleep in the street on that bench, he finds he can’t just walk by.
Pairing: Jared Padalecki x Reader
Rating: 18+
Warnings: brief reference to sexual assault
Tags: admission of feelings, idiots in love, so goddamn fluffy, kissing, making out, grinding, smut
Word Count: 2.9k
Series masterlist | Read ahead on my website
Jared let go of Y/N/N’s hand, and for a fleeting moment her heart dropped into her stomach, scared he was backing away; rejecting her once and for all. But then he began to lean forward, hesitantly, testing every inch of space between them, forcing it to give way, waiting for her to stop him.
She didn’t.
Their eyes fluttered closed, and their lips brushed together tentatively and sweetly. Unconsciously, Y/N/N brought a hand up to Jared’s chest to steady herself, scared her legs might give out beneath her at any moment. She was dizzy with the overwhelming feeling of relief, of giddiness, of finally.
Jared pulled back for a moment, both of them gasping for air, but their lips were still so close they only inhaled each other. His eyes searched hers hesitantly, looking for any sign that that had been a mistake, or that she regretted it. She couldn’t imagine what her expression might have told him, but she hoped it was similar to the look of incredulous bliss that she saw on his.
“I have wanted to do that for so long,” Jared admitted with a shaky laugh, his forehead coming down to rest against hers. “Longer than you could know.”
“I think I might know,” Y/N/N admitted, unable to stop herself from giggling with the absurd happiness of it all. But then her logical brain kicked in again, and she pulled away from Jared, worry ratcheting up the pace of her heart even higher.
“What is it?” Jared asked nervously, afraid he’d gone too far, overstepped a line.
“Quinn.”
“Oh,” Jared’s eyes went wide for a moment but then his body relaxed entirely. “I’m not dating Quinn, I never was. It was something our managers were pushing, a stupid publicity stunt. That’s why we never actually told the press we were dating or anything, we just let them speculate and run away with the story. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you before, they were so insistent that we keep it just between us, and honestly, I didn’t think you’d believe I was ever into her,” he laughed awkwardly in explanation, trying to placate her concern, but Y/N/N still hesitated.
“I saw you kissing,” she admitted, and Jared looked utterly bewildered. “I wasn’t spying or anything,” Y/N/N tried to explain. “I was looking for you, and you were out on her balcony and I saw you kissing.” She looked down at her feet awkwardly, not wanting him to see how upset she was by the memory.
“Oh,” Jared groaned with sudden realisation. “You’re talking about the week before the wrap party, right?” he checked, and Y/N/N nodded. “We were rehearsing, Y/N/N, that’s all it was. We kept tripping up on the kiss when we were doing the blocking runs and we just wanted to work on the scene without a million people watching and analysing everything we did.”
Fuck. Why had that never occurred to her? It was such a simple explanation. They were two actors doing a rom com, of course they would have had to practise those scenes at some point; and she couldn’t exactly blame them for wanting to do it in private, either. She’d probably want the same.
“Just rehearsing?” Y/N/N checked, and Jared nodded vigorously. “You’ve never kissed her for non-actory reasons?”
“Cross my heart,” Jared held up his hand like he was swearing an oath in court. “She’s actually kind of into Jensen,” he chuckled, “I think she’ll be relieved when I tell her we can stop pretending to be a couple.”
“Huh,” Y/N/N blinked in surprise and considered that for a moment. “You know what, I can kind of see that working. But, hang on, if it’s a publicity thing are you allowed to just stop pretending? Won’t Cassie be upset with you?”
“Well I can’t exactly date you and Quinn at the same time. That would definitely hurt my image,” Jared joked, and Y/N/N felt her heart flutter in her chest. “I mean, if uh, if you want to date me, that is,” he added, playing with the bottom button on his shirt nervously. “Because I know the paparazzi have already dragged you into one mess over me, and I know I’m probably too old for you, and people will probably judge us for that–”
“Jared, you’re doing the nervous babbling thing again,” Y/N/N interrupted him with a giggle, and Jared looked up at her sharply. “I don’t care what other people think, I want to be with you.”
“Say it again,” Jared breathed.
“I… want to date you?” Y/N/N said in confusion.
“No,” he shook his head and stepped closer, so they were toe to toe, bringing his forehead back to hers. “The part where you said my name,” he whispered.
“Jared,” Y/N/N sighed breathlessly, their lips ghosting across each other as she spoke.
And then they were kissing again, more fiercely than the first kiss they had shared. Jared’s hands came up to cradle her face against his, and Y/N/N’s arms scrambled up his chest to wrap around his neck, clinging on to his frame like he was a life raft; he was the only thing keeping her from drowning in the rest of her overwhelming life. He was her reason to stop running.
“Jared,” Y/N/N sighed again when their lips finally parted, except it came out as more of a moan.
Jared nearly growled in response, hugging her more tightly against him, feeling his whole body thrumming with the passionate energy that had burst forth from the dam he’d been keeping it carefully walled behind for months. Finally holding Y/N/N in his arms, finally kissing her, finally ridding himself of all the idiotic judgments of other people that he’d been so worried about – he felt like he was flying.
Without clearing it with his brain, his body decided the best thing to do at that moment would be to hoist Y/N/N into his arms before kneeling on the bed and laying her down beneath him. She arched her body up into his, keeping her legs locked around his waist, but letting go of his shoulders to thread her fingers through his hair. They were kissing passionately now, tongues tangling messily between their lips, sounds of pleasure bleeding out every time they parted for a gasp of breath. Y/N/N pulled Jared’s lower lip between her teeth and bit at it playfully; Jared pulled back with a chuckle and took revenge by ducking his head to the side and nibbling at her ear, which made her breath hitch and body write beneath him.
With a shock, Jared realised he was achingly hard at the same time Y/N/N noticed too, her hips grinding lower than they had previously as a result of her squirming. She gasped when she felt it, his hard member pressing between her legs and trailing over her own bundle of nerves, sending shivers through her whole body.
“Fuck, Jared,” she moaned, twisting her neck to the side so he could kiss along her throat more easily, and arching her back to grind into him again. But this didn’t have the desired effect, because Jared suddenly sat bolt upright, letting her drop back against the mattress. She shivered involuntarily, missing the warmth of his body enveloping her. “W-what’s wrong?” she blinked up at him nervously.
“I shouldn’t be doing this,” Jared panted, his chest heaving in the way that Y/N/N had always found unfairly attractive, but she wasn’t thinking about that now, her giddy elation falling away when she processed what he had said.
“You don’t want this?” she asked nervously, not wanting to hear the answer and face having the best thing that had ever happened to her torn away so quickly.
“What?” Jared baulked. “Fuck, no, that’s not what I meant. Of course I want this,” he reassured her, reaching out for her hand and cradling it between his palms. “But we should take this slower, I mean, you’re…” Jared paused awkwardly, his face going beet red. “You’re a virgin.”
“Oh god,” Y/N/N groaned in embarrassment, her head dropping back against the mattress. “I forgot I told you that.”
“I don’t mind, obviously,” Jared chuckled, leaning down and kissing her gently once more to reassure her, and she kissed him back eagerly. “It’s actually kinda hot, thinking about being the first one inside you,” he whispered when they broke apart again, and Y/N/N shuddered beneath him, the rough depth of his voice kindling an even bigger fire in her belly than there’d been before.
“You can’t just say stuff like that and then not keep going,” Y/N/N complained, embarrassed at how needy her voice sounded. “I’ve gotta lose it sometime, right? Why not now?”
“Because your first time should be special,” Jared protested, but he continued to drop small, teasing kisses on her cheeks and down her neck, apparently unable to pull himself away. “It should be with someone you love.”
“It would be,” Y/N/N breathed, turning Jared’s face to make him look at her, and he stared at her with wide eyes. “Did I say too much?” she asked nervously, but Jared was already shaking his head.
“No,” he whispered. “Me too.”
They surged together, Jared’s fingers lacing with hers as he pressed her hands over her head, holding her down onto the mattress and grinding on top of her, both moaning uninhibitedly. Y/N/N wrapped her legs around Jared’s middle again and ground herself onto his still-obvious erection, loving the feeling of it pressing against her. Jared’s groan sounded almost pained as he licked desperately into her mouth and pulled her tongue back to him, revelling in the slide of every inch of their bodies against each other, before they separated again, breathing heavily.
“Please?” Y/N/N asked sweetly, pressing her hips into his again, and Jared groaned, dropping his head onto her chest in frustration.
“You’re making it really hard to be noble about this,” he spoke into her collarbones, his voice muffled and his breath tickling her against her skin.
“Then stop trying to be noble,” Y/N/N pleaded.
“Y/N/N, you shouldn’t rush into this, you were just…” Jared broke off, swallowing heavily. “What happened two weeks ago–”
“No,” Y/N/N cut him off. “Don’t make it about that. Please. Don’t let him ruin this for us too,” she begged. “He’s already done enough damage.”
“Y/N/N,” Jared began again but she stopped him with a kiss.
“I don’t want to think about the last hands that were on my body and think about him,” she insisted, her voice a hoarse, desperate whisper, and Jared’s chest tightened instantly in painful understanding. He hadn’t considered that before. “Give me something new to remember,” Y/N/N begged, pulling one of his hands down with her own, their fingers still intertwined, and placing his palm over her breast, making him squeeze it before she let go. Jared didn’t move his hand away.
“I only want to remember you,” Y/N/N breathed against Jared’s lips, waiting for him to make the next move, and take it further. He fought with himself over the instincts he felt to protect her, and the ones that were telling him to tear off her clothes and possess her in a way that would belong to him, and him alone, if he took it. He knew that if they kept going, he wouldn’t be able to stop himself again, he was on his last ounce of willpower.
Jared’s eyes searched hers one last time, looking for any sign of hesitation, any weakness or crack in the veneer of her reasoning, but he found none.
“Okay,” he nodded, taking a deep breath.” “Yeah, okay.”
“Thank go–” Y/N/N gasped as Jared cut her off mid sentence, devouring her once more.
Jared didn’t hold back this time, he wasn’t capable of restraining the need he felt for her any longer, not after so many months of convincing himself that he could never have this – have her. If Y/N/N wanted him to help her make some new memories, he was going to make sure she felt things tonight that she would never be able to forget. Very quickly, he’d disposed of her top and her bra, kissing delicately down her chest, careful not to mark the skin. He didn't want to do anything that would remind her of that bastard.
He sucked a nipple into his mouth, teasing his tongue over it lovingly, relishing in the little whimpers that were escaping her lips. While his mouth was still occupied, his hands travelled further down her torso and landed on the waistband of her jeans. Y/N/N arched against the touch, encouraging his fingers closer to her button and zipper, and he took the hint. Sitting up, Jared undid her jeans and pulled them down her legs, shuffling backwards off the bed to get the denim down over her feet, discarding her socks and shoes while he was at it.
Y/N/N propped herself up on her elbows, growing a little self conscious as Jared continued to stare at her wordlessly.
“So does sex work differently than I thought? Because I heard we’re both supposed to be naked,” she joked to cover up her nerves as best she could, and Jared grinned widely.
“Right, sorry,” he shook his head like he was waking himself up and making short work of getting out of his own clothes, but never taking his eyes off Y/N/N. “I just… fuck, you’re so beautiful Y/N/N,” he whispered reverently as he crawled back onto the bed, now in only his boxers, to match Y/N/N in her panties. “Look so fucking pretty, all laid out and waiting for me,” Jared kissed his way from her knee up to her hip, pillowing his forehead on her stomach while he took a few deep breaths to calm himself down. He might be thirteen years older than her, but being with Y/N/N like this already had him as close to his finish as he would have been at eighteen.
“Can I taste you?” He looked up at her with dark eyes, his pupils blown wide with desire. “Please?”
“Yeah,” Y/N/N nodded instantly. “Yeah, please, want you to. Wanna feel you. No one’s ever… Wanna know what it’s like,” she couldn’t decide what she wanted to say so she said all of it. She wasn't sure that it all didn’t come out all jumbled up together, but either way, she figured Jared must have gotten the gist, because he tucked his fingers carefully beneath her panties and pulled them down her legs, spreading her thighs wider so he could lay more comfortably between them.
“Oh my god,” she groaned when Jared’s tongue traced lightly over her skin, her hands instinctively flying down and tangling in his hair to help guide him where her body told her he was needed. It was the best thing Y/N/N had ever felt, and her orgasm bubbled up inside her more quickly than she’d ever been able to make herself cum before.
“Oh my god,” she whimpered, clutching Jared’s face against her mound, letting him push her over the edge, nearly screaming as her body shook apart around him, her thighs locking his head in place until his kitten licks became more painful than pleasurable.
Jared pulled back with a cocky grin and wiped his mouth on the back of his hand.
“That a pretty good memory?” he checked with a shameless grin, and Y/N/N rolled her eyes and shoved him away playfully.
“Pretty good,” she gasped, still trying to catch her breath. “Got anything else to show me Mr. Padalecki?” Y/N/N grinned impishly, and Jared scoffed.
“So someone’s gonna have an attitude in bed, is that how this is gonna go Miss Y/N?” Jared raised a brow, climbing back over her on his hands and knees and nipping teasingly at her lips, then catching her in a fuller kiss. “We can have some fun with that,” he laughed. “But let’s save that for your second time, okay sweetheart?” he smiled. “Just let me make you feel good,” he implored, and Y/N/N giggled.
“You seem pretty sure I’ll want a second time,” she teased, unable to resist.
“I am, yeah,” Jared confirmed simply, and kissed her again before she could make any more jokes.
“What if I run away again?” Y/N/N asked breathlessly when they broke apart, and it was mostly a joke, but there was a genuine question behind her eyes. Jared smiled gently, and brushed a lock of hair out of her eyes, tucking it neatly behind her ear.
“Then I’ll come find you again,” he shrugged, like it was the easiest answer in the world. “But…” he leant their heads together, holding her gaze seriously. “Promise me something?” he asked, swallowing thickly. Y/N/N nodded, eyes searching the beautiful hazel pools above her own. “No more running away,” Jared sighed. “Please,” he added as an afterthought.
And Y/N/N nodded, a smile playing lightly on her lips.
“No more running away. Promise.”
Chapter 35 - Epilogue coming May 17th or subscribe to my website to read the completed the story!
Summary: Instead of attending her spot at a top college in the fall, Y/N runs away from her home on the East Coast and ends up on a city bench in L.A. – lost, cold, and utterly alone. When one of her favourite actors, Jared Padalecki, passes her on his way home from a club with his best friend Jensen, while Y/N is getting ready to sleep in the street on that bench, he finds he can't just walk by.
Pairing: Jared Padalecki x Reader
Rating: 18+
Tags: AU, slow burn, ANGST, mutual pining, slow burn, tension, friends fighting
Word Count: 3.7k
Series masterlist | Read ahead on my website
Two weeks later
In the wake of the Exposé article coming out, Jared had hoped that maybe Y/N/N would answer when they tried to reach out to her. He wanted to apologise more than ever, after seeing them drag her into the rumour mill alongside him. Cece told them at breakfast the morning the article appeared that he had texted her to check in, but hadn’t heard anything either. Y/N/N never picked up any of the times Jared and Jensen tried to call her, and she never answered any of their texts. After she’d been gone a few days, her number disconnected.
Dejectedly, Jared packed the black dress in his bag when they dismantled the film set and sent everyone home. He wasn’t sorry to be leaving Napa behind him, but when he walked into his house back in L.A., it felt empty knowing that Y/N/N wouldn’t be here with him anymore.
Everything had gone wrong in such a short space of time that Jared felt like he’d gone underwater and then re-emerged with his head on backwards. Nothing made sense anymore, and his temper was shorter than ever, which Jensen continued to call him out on. Jensen had somehow managed to keep a level head through all of this; he was the only reason Jared wasn’t currently in the news or in jail for attacking Spencer Morgan.
They had tried to go to the police, but as neither of them had witnessed Y/N/N’s assault, or Meredith’s, the officers had said there was nothing they could do. Y/N/N would have to make the report herself in order for them to pursue the issue. Jared had tried to argue that he should be able to make an accusation on Meredith’s behalf, as her legal guardian and since she’s been incapacitated as a result of the attack, but they didn’t have any actual evidence to accuse Morgan of her rape. All they had was the fact that he’d been at the same party as them; a party that hundreds of other people had also been in attendance at, as the police had reminded them.
“But her screaming–” Jensen tried to protest.
“Sir, I am sorry, but we just can’t arrest someone because a girl who’s mentally unwell happened to begin screaming when she heard a video clip playing,” the officer had shaken her head morosely, clearly sympathetic, but not willing to bend any rules for them. “Look, if Miss L/N decides she would like to report her sexual assault, I will of course look into it, and follow up on any further leads connected to the accused, but without her cooperation, my hands are tied,” she sighed.
Jared found himself grinding his teeth at the memory, and was only shaken from his thoughts by the sound of his phone ringing. His heart leapt with hope like it did every time his phone made a sound, but his spirits fell again when he saw it was just Jensen.
“Hey,” he answered the call dully.
“Hey, man. Are you home?” Jensen asked urgently.
“Yeah, why?” Jared yawned. He’d felt permanently exhausted the past couple of weeks. He started to head towards the kitchen in the vain hope that there was still a bag of coffee grounds in the freezer.
“Turn on the news.”
“Why?” Jared stopped short.
“Just do it,” Jensen huffed in aggravation, and Jared could picture him rolling his eyes.
“Alright, alright, I’m going,” Jared yawned again as he crossed to his living room and turned on the TV. “What channel?”
“Five.”
Jared tuned to Channel Five and saw the ticker tape at the bottom giving details of the press conference that was going on. A stuffy looking man in a crisp grey suit was standing at a podium on the steps of some fancy colonial building.
“Who’s this asshat?” Jared scoffed.
“Congressman from Virginia. I’ve been investigating him in connection with the college admissions story. There’s a lot of people who know a guy, who know a guy, who know him; lots of strings leading back to his office,” Jensen explained.
“Is that why he’s on the news?” Jared asked, “Did someone beat you to your story?”
“No, he’s announcing that he’s running for governor of Virginia – but that’s not what’s important – look behind him,” Jensen urged.
Jared squinted at the row of people lined up behind the congressman. They were all a bit fuzzy, because the cameras were focused on the speaker, but he could make out the general appearance of the men and women in equally stuffy suits – and one younger girl.
“Wait. Is that…?” Jared trailed off, staring hard at the girl to try to make out more concrete details.
“It looks like Y/N/N, right?” Jensen said excitedly. “I’m not losing my mind, that’s her?”
“The fucking cameras won’t look back at her,” Jared growled in frustration, walking back behind the couch to see if the image looked any different from a distance, like a Monet painting.
“Hang on, he’s wrapping up, maybe they’ll–There! It’s her!” Jensen was practically shouting into the phone, Jared could hear him clear as day even though he’d dropped his hand by his side, and the cell was nowhere near his ear anymore.
He was standing frozen, watching as the congressman was joined at the podium by a woman – who must be Y/N/N’s mother – and Y/N/N herself. She looked happy, but something in her expression reminded Jared of how she used to look when she saw him and Quinn together. On the outside she was what she thought people expected to see, but inside she was burying something intensely unhappy. She was hurting.
“Jensen, do you know where this guy is?” Jared picked up the phone again, interrupting whatever his friend was in the middle of saying.
“What? Uh, yeah,” Jensen stuttered, taking a couple seconds to catch up. “Yeah, I know where to find him.”
“Good. Book a flight, I’m heading to yours now.” Jared hung up and took a deep breath, looking at Y/N/N on the TV one more time.
“We’re coming to get you, Y/N/N,” he whispered under his breath. “Just hang in there.”
“How do you know where this guy’s house is?” Jared asked, mildly concerned and impressed as Jensen drove their rental car through the jam-packed streets of the capital. Jensen flicked his eyes sideways a little sheepishly.
“It wasn’t illegal or anything,” Jensen scoffed, he knew that look. “I called his campaign office, luckily I got an intern who was a bit of an idiot, said the magazine wanted to send him a congratulatory gift basket after his announcement, the kid coughed it right up,” he chuckled under his breath, honestly amazed it had been that easy.
“Sooo… that kid’s getting fired when they find out,” Jared pulled his face into an expression of disapproval.
“Relax,” Jensen brushed him off, signalling a right turn and slowing down as he drove onto a street lined with tall brick townhouses. “He’s not ever gonna know we were here.”
“He might when his daughter goes missing again,” Jared grumbled under his breath, but then remembered with a sinking feeling that Y/N/N might not even want to come back with them.
The car crept along the street as both men ducked their heads low enough to see clearly out the windows, looking for the correct address. There weren’t any parking spaces free in front of Y/N/N’s house but Jensen figured that was maybe for the best, it would help them keep a low profile. There were six concrete steps up to the stoop, and the tall charcoal double doors, almost twice the height of Jared, were flanked by two stone carvings that looked like some kind of abstract African animals. There was an iron knocker in the centre of the right hand door in the shape of a lion’s head, and Jared reached out and knocked it once, twice, three times.
“This guy’s a bit pretentious, isn’t he?” he bent down to whisper to Jensen as they waited awkwardly on the doorstep.
“He’s a politician, what else did you expect?” Jensen smirked.
They waited another few moments, but there was no response, so Jensen tried knocking a little harder, hoping the sound would echo loudly enough in the no doubt large house that was waiting behind the doors. This time they heard footsteps, and they quickly straightened up and put on their most polite smiles in case someone besides Y/N/N answered the door, but luckily, when the door finally opened, the face that was staring back at them from the other side of the threshold was just the one they had wanted to see. But they only saw it for a moment before the door was slamming shut again, and they heard the lock very audibly engaged.
“Y/N/N, come on!” Jared and Jensen were shouting through the door.
She didn’t know what to do. Half of her had been so relieved to see them, but then all the horrible things Jared had said the last time she saw him came crashing back down around her and she’d shut the door before she had really thought about what might happen next. She should have known they wouldn’t just go away – they’d tracked her down all the way from California.
How on earth had they found her? Maybe Jensen had used his press connections and gotten in touch with those reporters who’d found her house when that article came out a couple weeks ago. According to her stepfather, who’d called their publications’ offices to interrogate them, their gossip watch dogs had recognised her as the congressman’s stepdaughter in the photo with Jared. It had been on the cover of a pretty well circulated magazine, after all. There were whole offices of people dedicated to scouring the internet for anything that could be potentially embarrassing to a politician; they had face-books of all their family members that they had to study so they would recognise anyone if they ever saw them. The lengths that people would go to just to make other people’s lives difficult always astonished her.
“Y/N/N!” More knocking shook the door on its hinges, breaking Y/N/N from her thoughts. “Y/N/N, please talk to me.” It was only Jensen’s voice – and not Jared’s – calling to her, she noticed. “I sent Jared back to the car, I get why you don’t want to see him and I’m not gonna force you to, but could you please let me in so we can talk?”
There was a pause again as Y/N/N considered what to do.
“Please? It’s really cold out here!” Jensen shouted, and Y/N/N couldn’t help smirking to herself. Of course the California boys wouldn’t be able to handle the sub-fifty-degree temperatures.
With a heavy sigh she hoisted herself up off of the bottom step of the staircase that she’d been cowering on and cautiously made her way to the door, opening it a crack and peaking around the side to check that Jared really had gone to wait somewhere else, and Jensen wasn’t lying to her. But there was only one man standing on the stoop, hands buried in the pockets of his jacket looking sheepish.
“Hey,” he gave her a small smile, as if he half expected her to slam the door in his face again.
“What are you doing here?” Y/N/N asked.
“What, you thought we were just gonna let you run away and quietly accept that we’d never see you again? Especially after everything that just happened,” Jensen sighed, and now it was Y/N/N’s turn to look sheepish.
“You guys really shouldn’t be here, someone might see you,” she ducked her head out of the door and looked up and down the street, still paranoid that some persistent photographer might be watching the house.
“Can we go somewhere else then?” Jensen asked hopefully. “There’s gotta be a coffee shop or something around here.”
But Y/N/N shook her head nervously.
“People might recognise me, since my stepdad announced his campaign… if anyone sees me out with you and my picture ends up in some gossip magazine again he might actually kill me,” Y/N/N laughed awkwardly, hoping Jensen would think it was a joke, but his face fell.
“Y/N/N are you scared of him? Is that the reason you ran away from home, are you unsafe here?” Jensen asked anxiously, taking a step forward towards her but Y/N/N pulled back further behind the door.
“I really can’t talk here, Jensen,” her eyes darted around again. Definitely worried someone was watching them, then, Jensen thought.
“Okay, okay,” he held up his hands and backed up again. “Where can you?”
Y/N/N gulped nervously and wracked her brains.
“Are you staying anywhere?”
“We hadn’t gotten that far yet,” Jensen chuckled. “We kind of rushed out here.”
“Okay, go out and pick somewhere kinda cheap. Not like, prostitute cheap but not actually very nice; somewhere no one would think a politician or actor might stay,” she smirked.
“And then what?”
“And then text me the address and I’ll let you know when I can get away.” Y/N/N’s eyes glanced around the street again, looking for the car Jared might be waiting in. “Um, just you, okay?”
Jensen sighed. “He’s really sorry, Y/N/N. He wants to apologise.”
“I just…” Y/N/N swallowed thickly, “I can’t talk to him right now. Not yet.”
“Okay,” Jensen nodded in resignation. “Oh, how am I gonna text you, the phone company said your number wasn’t connected anymore.”
“I’ll switch it back on. My parents don’t know I have that phone so don’t call it or anything, just one text, yeah?”
“Okay, I’ll let you know when I find a place,” Jensen agreed. He stepped away but then turned back to Y/N/N. “It’s really good to see you, Y/N/N,” he smiled, and she shot him a sad smile back before quickly closing the door again, and locking it with a resounding click.
There was a coffee shop next to the hotel Jensen had texted her the address for, and she asked him to meet her inside. He found her sitting at a small table in the back of the shop, which was mostly empty given the fact it was dinnertime, not really a prime time for coffee. He smiled when he saw that she already had a cup of coffee for him waiting at the table.
“Do you ever stop taking care of people?” Jensen asked as he sat down. He meant it mostly as a joke, but Y/N/N smiled a little sadly and gave a shrug, because the reality was that she didn’t really stop; that was all she knew how to do, and she knew she did it well.
“I figured you’d need it, the jet lag killed me when I came back. I’m still barely over it,” she tried to keep the tone of her conversation light, upbeat.
“You don’t have to get over it,” Jensen hedged, wrapping his fingers gratefully around the warm mug and looking at her seriously. “You and Jared can clear this up, you can come back. The movie is over, everyone’s back in L.A. now.”
“So I go back to being Jared’s housekeeper?” Y/N/N raised her brow sceptically. “And keep living with the guy I’m in love with while he dates his freaking stunning co-star, and just… what? What kind of life is that?”
“Jared and Quinn aren’t really dating,” Jensen sighed, rubbing his neck awkwardly. “I told him to tell you a million times and apparently they were ‘forbidden’ from talking about it, but they’re not actually together. It’s all a publicity stunt for the movie, just to get people interested in them.”
“That’s…” Y/N/N’s head was reeling. What the hell? “That’s really stupid,” she finally landed on saying, and Jensen laughed loudly, throwing his head back in amusement.
“Yeah, I know. I told him that, too.”
“But, I saw them kissing,” Y/N/N remembered with a sinking feeling, the small shock of happiness she’d had at Jensen’s revelation melting away.
“What? When?” Jensen asked incredulously. Jared had never mentioned that to him.
“In private, on her balcony. No one else was there for them to be ‘pretending’ around,” Y/N/N gulped. She knew it was too good to be true.
“Look, you’ll have to ask Jared about that one, but I’m sure there’s a reasonable explanation,” Jensen reached out and gave her hand a reassuring squeeze. Y/N/N couldn’t keep the grimace of suspicion off her face though. “Okay, look, forget about Jared for a second. I need to know, if you stayed here, would you be happier? Because the way you acted at your house, and the fact that you already ran away from these people in the first place, I don’t think you would be. I’m not even convinced you’d be safe, which is an even bigger concern, really.” Jensen pressed, and Y/N/N let go of his hand immediately and looked around, clearly nervous about being overheard.
Slowly, she looked at Jensen and shook her head. “I don’t want to stay here. I just couldn’t think of anywhere else to go.”
“What made you run away Y/N/N? You tried so hard to leave them behind, do you still believe in those reasons?” She nodded shakily, and Jensen noticed the tears shimmering along the bottom of her eyelids. “What happened, Y/N/N?”
“I can’t tell you,” she whispered, a tear escaping and rolling down her cheek, which she quickly brushed away. “He would…” she broke off, remembering her stepfather’s threats all too vividly.
“Did you find out about something you weren’t supposed to?” Jensen asked, and Y/N/N’s head snapped to attention, but she didn’t say anything, she didn’t even blink. He knew he’d hit upon the right track. “Did you find out about the college entrance scams he’s been running?” he asked bluntly, not seeing any reason to hold back.
Y/N/N’s jaw dropped.
“How did you know?” she whispered, utterly stunned.
“It’s how I found you, actually,” Jensen leant forward so he could speak more softly, seeing how scared Y/N/N was, her eyes darting around wildly, scared they were being overheard. “That story I did for Stanford, I kept working on it after the initial player pieces came out. There’s a swimmer there who knew someone else in a similar situation, their parents had apparently done something and they knew nothing about it, they thought they’d gotten into the school on their own merit. I started following leads and it led to some more leads and eventually more and more of the strings started pulling back to one nonprofit education agency – and your stepfather’s campaign is down as the sole beneficiary.
“How did you work all that out?” Y/N/N was stunned.
“It took a long time, and a lot of work,” Jensen shrugged. “But I’m good at my job,” he winked, and Y/N/N couldn’t help the giggle that bubbled up from her chest.
“And that was how you found out who I was? Where I lived?”
“I’d been keeping tabs on him. I was watching the news when he made his gubernatorial announcement and there you were, standing right behind him the whole time.”
Y/N/N sat back and took all this new information in for a moment before taking a deep breath and asking: “What are you going to do? Now you know, I mean. Do you have enough evidence to go to the police or the FBI or someone?”
“I’ve got people willing to give evidence if we’re showing a united front,” Jensen nodded soberly. “But I don’t have enough of a paper trail yet; if I’m going to go to the authorities I need something more substantial. They won’t just go on hearsay, and if I publish something to spur on an investigation, he might have time to destroy all the evidence.”
“What if…” Y/N/N hesitated, taking another deep breath. “What if I could tell you where to find it? The paper trail, I mean.”
Jensen blinked in astonishment.
“You’ve seen papers? Actual documents?” he asked urgently. Y/N/N nodded.
“That’s what happened, what made me run away,” she swallowed thickly and steeled herself to recount what had happened, something she’d never told anyone about before. “I got this acceptance letter from Georgetown, and I never applied there. I wasn’t really great at school,” she shrugged in nervous embarrassment. “I planned on going to community college, I don’t know what for but not going to college wasn’t really an option so I figured I’d pick something once I got there. But anyways, my stepdad told me they’d applied to Georgetown for me, because ‘they knew I could get in, I just didn’t believe in myself,’" Y/N/N rolled her eyes.
“I knew that was bullshit, my grades were nowhere near good enough for a school like Georgetown. I knew girls at school with way better grades that got rejected. So I figured he must have asked someone to let me in as a favour, and I went looking for proof so I could call him out on that. I didn’t want to go to a school I knew I’d just wind up failing out of because he was embarrassed his stepdaughter was going to community college.”
“And you found something proving he’d bribed your way into Georgetown?” Jensen asked, excitement bubbling in his chest.
“Not just me,” Y/N/N admitted. “There were other emails, other letters. Checks that had been cashed… I saw my friend Katie’s name on something, but I didn’t look too hard. I didn’t want to tell her that…”
“That she didn’t make it into her dream school after all, it was a bribe,” Jensen nodded understandingly. “And when you found all the papers, you decided to run? So you wouldn’t have to say anything to anyone?” he asked hesitantly, sensing there was more to the story.
Y/N/N winced, remembering that night like it was happening all over again. “Not exactly.”
Chapter 32 coming April 26th or subscribe to my website to read the completed the story!
Summary: Instead of attending her spot at a top college in the fall, Y/N runs away from her home on the East Coast and ends up on a city bench in L.A. – lost, cold, and utterly alone. When one of her favourite actors, Jared Padalecki, passes her on his way home from a club with his best friend Jensen, while Y/N is getting ready to sleep in the street on that bench, he finds he can’t just walk by.
Pairing: Jared Padalecki x Reader
Rating: 18+
Warnings: discussion of emotional abuse, physical trauma, knife violence, insensitive talk about mental illness, mentions of suicide
Tags: AU, slow burn, angst, mutual pining, slow burn, revelations, more cliffhangers, please don’t kill me
Word Count: 3k
Series masterlist | Read ahead on my website
10 Months Earlier
It was the perfect opportunity. Her mom and stepdad were out at some charity gala and wouldn’t be home for hours, he always stayed late at those things to ‘network’.
It seemed like that was all he did these days – build up his network – he kept saying cryptic things about people he’d need at some point in the future. Y/N/N always had to stop herself rolling her eyes whenever he talked about things like he had these big plans for everyone. She knew he just liked being the one in power, being the one who was pulling everybody else’s strings. If you did someone a favour then they’d owe you, and once they owed you, they became useful. Her stepdad had been doing a lot of ‘favours’ for people, lately.
And Y/N/N suspected that he had just called in one of those I-owe-yous. Georgetown? Really? Did he think she wouldn’t question that? She had to work hard with the school counsellor on her essay to get admitted to the community colleges she’d been accepted to and she’d still been rejected from some of them, too. If she got rejected from fucking Alexandria Community College, how the fuck would a school like Georgetown let her in? Even Darcy Hannigan hadn’t gotten in, and she was in the top ten GPAs at school.
If she could just find proof that he’d somehow rigged her acceptance, she could use that to make sure he didn’t force her to go. He wouldn’t want it to get out that he’d pulled strings like that, and she doubted whoever he used in the school admissions office to push her through wouldn’t like that information getting out either.
Using the spare key she knew her mother hid at the bottom of her jewellery box, Y/N/N snuck into her stepfather’s office. He always kept it locked for security – so if anyone ever broke into the house it was harder to get at information about Congress or the bills he was working on, or the subcommittees he sat in – so Y/N/N figured if he was going to hide evidence that he’d called in a favour for her college admission, it would probably be in here too.
She was very careful as she searched, making sure she put everything back just as she’d found it. Hopefully he wouldn’t come back into his office tonight, there’s no reason he would need to, and then when the housekeeper came tomorrow morning she would erase any evidence of Y/N/N being in here in the first place. To her dismay, she didn’t find anything in his desk, or in any of the books he had on the small shelf in the room. Most of the items on display were fancy bottles of whiskey or really old bottles of wine – nothing you could hide something behind, or underneath.
That left the laptop.
That’s what Y/N/N had been afraid of. She didn’t have any hacking experience, if she wanted into the computer she was just going to have to guess at his passwords and hope she got lucky.
Sitting down at the desk, she flipped up the screen and stared at the tiny log in box and the blinking cursor, thinking. She started with the obvious – her stepdad’s birthday, her mother’s name, his parents’ names and birthdays – nothing worked. Y/N/N cast around the room, trying to remember which whiskey was his favourite, or if he had a vineyard he preferred; maybe where they’d gone on their honeymoon, or the year they got married? But Y/N/N scoffed, shaking her head. She was thinking about this in the wrong way, her stepdad was too self centred for something like that to be the answer. It had to be something about him.
A thought occurred to her; maybe it was too obvious but… She shrugged and typed ‘President’ into the box. It worked.
“That arrogant son of a bitch,” she chuckled under her breath. He’d always talked about the Presidency as this shining beacon, the everpresent milestone looming over his entire career. Nothing short of that ultimate power would attract him so much.
Y/N/N went to his emails, and found to her delight that she didn’t have to log in to access them, the app was already open. She searched for Georgetown, and she got lucky again. God, he was so cocky he barely tried to hide it. There it was, right at the top of the search results. The language was cryptic, but if you coupled the chain of emails with her acceptance letter and her latest report card, it would be obvious to anyone what was going on here.
Quickly, Y/N/N forwarded the chain to her own email and deleted the record from the sent folder. But when she did that her eye caught sight of something else that piqued her interest. The name Katie Windsor was in the subject line of one of the emails – that was one of her friends from school. Curious, Y/N/N clicked it, and her heart dropped at what she found.
She wasn’t the only one that hadn’t gotten into college on their own merits. Fuck. Katie had been working her ass off to get into William & Mary; she would be crushed. Y/N/N felt her stomach tighten in guilt. Should she tell her? What if she already knew? Had Katie known she wouldn’t get in and asked for help greasing the wheels somehow? Why would she have asked Y/N/N’s stepdad, it’s not like their families were particularly close. Their parents had only met a handful of times at school functions.
Now she was thinking about it though, she had seen Katie’s parents speaking to hers on Senior night last fall; the night the school counsellors had been talking parents through the college process and how to help their kids through it. They’d stayed far later than they needed to. Her stepdad had spoken to a lot of parents that night – networking, he’d said for the millionth time.
Y/N/N began to scan through the rest of his emails in a frenzy, feeling more and more uneasy as the list of names and schools grew longer and longer. It went back years. Always at the same high-class schools, the ones it was really difficult to get into: Georgetown, William & Mary, Harvard, MIT, Yale, Princeton, Chicago, Berkeley, Stanford, Caltech, Brown, Columbia, NYU. And there was money involved – lots and lots of money. Holy shit.
The door opened silently, the hinges well oiled, but it closed with a clearly audible snap. Y/N/N jumped up so quickly she knocked the chair over and almost flipped the laptop off the desk, the panic clear in her face.
“What the hell are you doing in here?” Her stepfather spoke calmly, which was even worse than if he had been yelling. If he was yelling her mother would hear it, if he was speaking quietly it was because he didn’t want her to overhear them. Y/N/N gulped, trying to swallow her heart back into place in her chest instead of where it was currently lodged in her throat. Her mouth opened and closed uselessly as he walked closer to her, his hands casually in the pockets of his suit trousers. “Are you going to answer me, young lady?” he asked smoothly, raising a single brow as he stopped in front of his desk.
“W-what are you doing home?” Y/N/N finally gasped, finding her voice.
“Well, I was concerned for your safety,” he mused, pulling his phone out of his pocket. “You see, I received a notification that my emails had been logged in to, so I figured there must be someone in the house. I came home straight away but,” he looked around curiously, then back at Y/N/N, “I don’t see anyone here.”
“Where’s mom?” Y/N/N asked shakily.
“Probably already asleep upstairs, so let’s not wake her, hm?”
“I-I should go to bed then, too,” she stammered nervously, coming out from around the desk and walking as calmly as she could past her stepfather towards the door.
“What were you doing in my emails, Y/N?” He stopped her with a firm grip around her bicep, pulling her back so she was between him and the desk – trapped.
“Nothing,” Y/N/N whimpered, and she knew the slap was coming, but expecting it didn’t make it hurt any less.
“Don’t lie to me, you’re no good at it,” he spat, his anger seeping through his composure. “What were you doing in my emails? What were you looking for?” he demanded.
“I know you faked my acceptance to Georgetown,” Y/N/N felt the words spill out of her mouth. She hadn't wanted to answer him, but the fear must have taken over.
“Well obviously,” her stepdad scoffed, “how would a stupid little girl like you get in any other way?” Y/N/N pushed past the insult, trying not to let the tears she felt welling in her eyes spill over.
“You’ve done it for other kids too,” she said, standing her ground. “You did it for Katie.”
“I wish you hadn’t seen that.” Her stepfather hung his head and sighed, running a hand through his hair before he looked back up at her. “But it’s not going to be a problem, right? A good girl like you wouldn’t want to upset me by telling anyone. We can keep that our little secret,” he smiled sinisterly and Y/N/N felt herself bristle under his condescension.
“What if I did tell someone? I saw all of it. I could get you arrested if I wanted to,” she hoped her words sounded braver than she felt.
“I don’t think you want to do that,” he shook his head lightly, still smiling.
“Why not,” Y/N/N seethed. “I could finally get you out of my life for good, out of mom’s life. We’d be better off anyways.”
“Better off?” he scoffed, dropping the pleasant facade in an instant, his face falling into a scowl. “Your mother was a barely functioning alcoholic when I met her, who do you think got her drinking under control? Who do you think paid off the debts she was racking up on credit cards trying to keep you in that cute little suburb you loved so much?”
Y/N/N felt like she’d been slapped in the face again. Surely not. He was lying, manipulating her. She would have noticed if her mom was an alcoholic. She would have… but then she remembered all the late nights she came stumbling home, usually not alone. And then there had been the nights she hadn’t come back at all.
“Who’s taken care of you for nearly a decade?!” Her stepfather was still ranting. “Who got you into a good private school and then paid your way through it? Who got you into one of the most prestigious schools in the country?”
“I never asked you for any of that!” Y/N/N shouted, her anger finally bubbling over. “I never wanted to go to some fancy private school. I don’t want to go to a college where I’ll just wind up flunking out because I can’t keep up with the classes! Or were you gonna pay them off to pass me, too? I don’t want to live this charade just to make your life easier!” She was just as surprised at her outburst as the look on her stepfather’s face. She’d never raised her voice to him in her life.
“You will do as you’re told, young lady! That’s how this works.”
“Well that doesn’t work for me, not anymore,” Y/N/N seethed. “I am going to tell someone, you can’t stop me.” She tried to push past her stepfather’s looming figure but he grabbed her arms again and held her in place.
“You're not going to tell anyone,” he shook his head, suddenly more calm, more rational, which didn’t make any sense to Y/N/N. Shouldn’t he be getting more worried? More angry?
“Yes, I am,” she insisted, and tried to leave again, but he held her fast.
“Who would believe you? Huh?” He shook Y/N/N harshly and then released her so she fell backwards against his desk, off balance, and she put out her wrists to catch herself.
Then he reached into his pocket and took out his money clip. Y/N/N looked at it curiously. Was he trying to pay her off? The overhead lights glinted off the dull steel clamping down around the bills as he brought his hand up to face height.
“What are you–” but Y/N/N’s question was cut short by a scream as a stinging pain sliced itself up her wrist, and she looked down to see blood dripping lazily onto the glass desktop, pooling beneath her fist where her fingers had clenched in reflex. “What did you do?” she looked back up at him in shock.
“I think you mean, what did you do,” he smiled cruelly, pointing at her with the pocket knife on his money clip that now shimmered with a lacy pattern of dark red. Y/N/N continued to stare at him, not at all comprehending what he could mean by that. Her stepfather shook his head, clicking his tongue as if he was disappointed in her.
He turned away and walked over to one of the shelves lining the wall and plucked a bottle of whiskey that was in easy reach. Turning around, he uncorked it with his teeth and walked back to stand in front of her again, careful not to step in any of the blood that was dripping on the carpet under the desk. Maintaining eye contact with Y/N/N the whole time, he tipped the whiskey over his knife, washing away the blood and guilt with the sterility of the alcohol.
“You came in here, while we were out at the gala,” he began to explain to her as if she was a small child, “you stole my whiskey.” His hand came up and upended the bottle over her mouth, spilling the burning amber drink on her tongue and all down her body. The cut on her arm stung as the alcohol dribbled over the open wound, and she bent over, coughing and sputtering as she choked on the astringent liquid. “Then you broke the bottle, and tried to kill yourself.”
A loud crack and tinkling shatter rang in her ears as her stepfather smashed the whiskey bottle against the edge of the desk, broken glass raining down around them both as she screamed again in terror while her stepfather chuckled darkly above her. He pulled her up and rolled the edge of the broken glass across her cut, staining the edges with her blood, then dropped that at her feet too.
“If you tell anyone what you saw, I’ll just tell them you’re crazy,” he grinned, the glee on his face making him look like the crazy one.
“No!” Y/N/N whimpered. “I’ll tell them what you did, I’m calling the police. They’ll listen to me.” She prayed silently that they would.
“The second they see the cut on your arm they won’t believe a word you say,” her stepfather insisted, his tone of voice making it sound like he was giving her kindly advice; it made him sound all the more threatening. “You have a family history of mental illness, and I’m a congressman. Everyone will just see this as the attention seeking behaviour it is and they’ll lock you up in some looney bin where you belong.”
“I-I don’t have a history of mental… illness…” Y/N/N panted, the pain in her arm starting to make her dizzy. She was still losing blood, she realised, and she quickly clamped her hand over her arm to hold the skin together as best she could.
“Your father deciding to kill himself is a pretty sure sign of mental illness. I think the doctors and the police will agree with me on that one,” he pursed his lips in a smirk.
“My father didn’t kill himself! He had a heart attack,” Y/N/N protested weakly, grasping at straws. She was so scared that he was right, that no one would believe a stupid high school girl over a congressman. Politicians were all smooth talkers, that’s how they got elected to begin with.
“Oh,” he gasped sympathetically, pouting, hand to his chest, “your mother never told you, did she? How silly of me, I completely forgot she decided to spare you that childhood trauma.”
“W-what are you talking about?” Y/N/N stuttered, finding it harder and harder to breathe in the small space between them.
“He left the suicide note with that teddy bear you still cling to like a little baby. Thank god your mother found it first, how awful that would have been for you,” he shook his head sadly. “She still gave you the bear; wanted you to have his last pity present, since you didn’t get to have a daddy anymore.”
“No!” Y/N/N sobbed. “No! You’re lying!”
“Sorry Y/N, but no. God’s honest truth. Ask your mother.” And with that, her stepfather turned to go, leaving her standing in a pool of her own tears, blood, and whiskey. He turned around at the door. “You’ll probably have to wait until tomorrow morning though, I think that last glass of champagne she had at the party was a bit stronger than she’s used to. She might be out for a while.
“Oh, and don’t worry about cleaning any of that up, Mariana will deal with it in the morning. Just make sure you wash that cut out and get a bandage on it. Wouldn’t want to have to take you to the hospital would we? You might never come back.”
Chapter 33 coming May 3rd or subscribe to my website to read the completed the story!
Summary: Instead of attending her spot at a top college in the fall, Y/N runs away from her home on the East Coast and ends up on a city bench in L.A. – lost, cold, and utterly alone. When one of her favourite actors, Jared Padalecki, passes her on his way home from a club with his best friend Jensen, while Y/N is getting ready to sleep in the street on that bench, he finds he can't just walk by.
Pairing: Jared Padalecki x Reader
Rating: 18+
Chapter Warnings:
Tags: AU, slow burn, angst, rumours, secrets
WC: 2k
Series masterlist | Read ahead on my website
Five Months Later
Y/N/N sat down heavily at dinner. Her feet ached from a long day running around after Jared and Quinn, who were doing a bunch of press junket interviews. They’d released the advanced trailer of Taking a Chance to the media and PR last week, and the requests had started pouring in not too long after. Y/N/N wasn’t surprised that most of them were from entertainment tabloids and gossip sites, but there were a couple more reputable publications in the mix too.
The rumours about Jared and Quinn dating had been growing steadily amongst the public and the crew since that very first tabloid cover-story featuring the now notorious ‘horse photograph’, as it was being referred to more recently. Now, there were candids of them together outside of the set floating around as well: a snapshot of the two of them standing close together, drinks in hand, at a birthday party for the executive producer; photos of them walking down a main street in Napa; the video of the two of them exiting a black car with tinted windows and walking into a hotel together had caused quite the stir when it surfaced.
Y/N/N was getting pretty fed up with all the rumour mongering, if she was being perfectly honest. Every single interview today had included questions about their relationship status, trying to get the stars to admit that they were dating. The whole thing was preposterous. Y/N/N could pull up Jared and Quinn’s schedules and find simple and perfectly innocent explanations for every shred of evidence the gossip sites were dangling out as bait, but nobody was interested in having their story refuted – that would be bad for business, after all. The truth that Jared and Quinn were just two actors who were friendly with each other after spending nearly six months sequestered in the same hallway was much less interesting than a story about two up and coming starlets secretly dating and finding true love. Just thinking about it made Y/N/N want to hurl. The media would run away with anything if it was ridiculous enough.
Cece wasn’t helping matters either. He seemed to have his heart set on proving the world right and discovering that Jared and Quinn were secretly dating. The constant digging around Jared and his private schedule was really beginning to grate on Y/N/N. If he asked her one more time if she had ever seen or heard anything that would insinuate their being together, she may actually push him down one of the vineyard hills next time the opportunity presented itself.
The only problem was, the two actors hadn’t outright denied any of the rumours, either. Anytime Cece brought it up they would just laugh and roll their eyes. Anytime a reporter had asked them about it today they’d deflected expertly. They hadn’t confirmed anything, but until they denied it, there would always be rumours; and even then, a denial might just fuel the flames, which was probably why they were both sticking with ‘no comment’.
For her part, Y/N hadn’t ever pressed Jared about the rumours. She felt like she would be able to tell if they were actually dating, and she was pretty confident they weren’t. As good an actor as Jared was, he had some pretty obvious tells when he was lying. For instance, when he’d been disappearing every weekend all on his own to ‘go for a run’. He never let Quinn, or anyone else, tag along with him, even though they’d asked plenty of times. He would take his car and drive out to the national park – apparently – to get some space and alone time. Except Y/N/N was almost positive that that was bullshit.
She knew Jared didn’t like running outside: he’d told her that not long after he took her in, when they were back in his house in L.A. He liked being able to control his pace and watch his stats on a treadmill or another cardio machine, he didn’t like how endless things felt when he went on a run outside. So why was it all of a sudden such an important ritual for him?
No, Y/N/N didn’t think Jared was going for runs every weekend, but he wasn’t spending that time with Quinn either, because she’d always been here at the villa. So he wasn’t lying about dating his co-star, but he was lying about something else.
Y/N/N tried not to think about it too often. Everyone was entitled to privacy and secrets, Lord knows she had plenty of her own, but every now and then she couldn’t help her mind wandering to Jared and his secret road trips. Where was he going? What was he doing? Why didn’t he want anyone to know?
“Hi there!”
“Jesus Christ!” Y/N/N jumped in surprise, accidentally upending her bowl of salad.
“Woah, apologies, darling,” Cece laughed, frankly unapologetically, sitting down across from Y/N/N at her table. “What were you daydreaming about so intensely?” he pried, spearing the contents of his own salad bowl on his fork.
“Nothing much, just work I guess,” Y/N/N shrugged, scooping her dinner back into its bowl and beginning to eat, too.
“Oh,” Cece simpered, and Y/N/N had a feeling she knew what he was about to say. “And by ‘work’ we mean Jared, I get you girl,” he winked knowingly, smirking at her lewdly across their food.
“How many times do I have to tell you, I don’t have a crush on Jared,” Y/N/N rolled her eyes.
“Well, that’s probably good, considering he’s taken these days,” Cece allowed, which only riled Y/N/N up more.
“And how many times do I have to tell you that it’s all rumours, Cece,” Y/N/N groaned. She was really getting sick of him harping on about this.
“You hope,” he sniggered.
“I don’t like him, he’s my boss,” Y/N/N argued, visibly frustrated now. “What do I have to do to convince you I don’t think about him like that?”
“Well, now you mention it,” Cece looked around conspiratorially and leaned across the table; Y/N/N stayed where she was. “I’ve got this friend, and he’s desperate for me to set him up on a date with you.”
“Huh?” Y/N/N raised a brow skeptically, she hadn’t been expecting that answer at all.
“Yeah, he’s uh, pretty shy, and he’s been too nervous to ask you himself, so he asked if I would put in a good word for him,” Cece explained. “I told him it was useless, you had your eyes on someone else, but if that’s not true…” he trailed off challengingly, waiting for Y/N/N to deny it again, or finally break and ‘admit her true feelings’. She scoffed, unbelieving.
“Who is it?” Y/N/N asked curiously. If it was someone both she and Cece knew, they had to be someone from set, right?
“I think it would be more fun to keep it a secret,” Cece smirked mischievously. “Oh, can you imagine the romance, you get all dolled up in a sparkly dress, stand by the bar, wait for your mystery man.”
“Cece, I don’t want to go on a blind date,” Y/N/N grumbled, unimpressed.
“Because you’re actually in love with Jared?” Cece wiggled his eyebrows teasingly, and Y/N/N came very close to chucking a cherry tomato at his stupid face.
“No!”
“Then go on a date with my friend.” Cece pouted dramatically. “Please?”
“No, I’m not gonna let you set me up with a stranger just so you can pretend we’re in some fairytale,” Y/N/N rolled her eyes in aggravation, pushing back from the table and picking up her mostly uneaten dinner.
“Y/N/N, wait–”
“See you later,” she called behind her, turning away quickly and making her escape, not in the mood to stick around and deal with his antics anymore today.
Dumping her salad in the trash on the way out, Y/N/N decided to head up to Jared’s room. He hadn’t been down at dinner either, and it was closing soon. Maybe he’d want to order a pizza with her and hang out for a bit. It had been a while since they’d just spent some time together, not working.
“Jared?” Y/N/N knocked on his door and waited for a moment or two, but there was no response. She tried again, calling a little more loudly, but still, nothing. She frowned to herself, trying to remember if Jared had had dinner plans tonight after all. If he did, she hadn’t known about them.
Considering her options, Y/N/N didn’t really want to go back to her own room and just hang around – Cece might find her there – plus Jared had the nice big TV in his room… he’d always said he wouldn’t mind if she came in and used it, so she wasn’t stuck watching things on her laptop every night. She figured she may as well take him up on that, and maybe when he got back from wherever he was, he would join her.
Pulling out her key to Jared’s room, Y/N/N let herself in. There was no sign of Jared inside, not that she’d been expecting one, except that there was a noticeable draft blowing the curtains around. Further investigation led to the discovery that he’d left the French doors to his balcony open. Maybe wherever he’d gone to, he’d left in a hurry. She wondered if he had gone on another excursion to wherever it was he snuck off to every weekend.
Y/N/N went to close the balcony doors, but a familiar laugh made her stop short. It sounded like Jared’s laugh, and it sounded nearby. But that didn’t make sense.
Poking her head out the French doors, Y/N/N took in the view of the vineyard hills and the countryside beyond, great mounds of shadow set against an ever deepening sky. Even in the dark, the valleys were beautiful. Glancing around, she saw light spilling through the un-curtained windows of the adjacent rooms on each side. One balcony was empty, the room’s occupant shut safely inside for the evening, but the balcony to the left held two figures.
From the height difference alone it would have been easy to tell that it was Quinn and Jared on that balcony. Jared’s laughter had ceased since Y/N/N had heard it a few moments before, for a very obvious reason – his mouth was otherwise occupied at the moment.
Y/N/N quickly pulled back inside Jared’s room and delicately shut the doors behind her, trying not to make a sound. As soon as they were closed she turned and ran from the room, her feet carrying her swiftly back to her own room.
When she’d made it through the door and slammed it tightly behind her, Y/N/N finally remembered to breathe. The air caught in her throat, shuddering horribly on its way to her lungs, setting all her muscles on the edge of convulsion. Unbidden, she felt tears welling in her eyes, and she tried to choke them back. A pained sob escaped her lips and she clapped a hand across her mouth, desperately trying to rein herself in.
She had been so sure it was just rumours. She had thought…
But it didn’t matter now.
Pulling out her phone, Y/N/N scrolled through her messages and clicked on the conversation with Cece.
Y/N/N: Hey, I’m sorry I was a bitch earlier, it was a really long day today
She hit send and took a deep breath, looking back at her phone with resolve.
Y/N/N: Why don’t you go ahead and set up that date?
Chapter 20 coming February 1st or subscribe to my website to read up to Chapter 24!
Summary: Instead of attending her spot at a top college in the fall, Y/N runs away from her home on the East Coast and ends up on a city bench in L.A. – lost, cold, and utterly alone. When one of her favourite actors, Jared Padalecki, passes her on his way home from a club with his best friend Jensen, while Y/N is getting ready to sleep in the street on that bench, he finds he can't just walk by.
Pairing: Jared Padalecki x Reader
Rating: 18+
Chapter Warnings: underage intoxication, withdrawal of consent, sexual assault
Tags: AU, slow burn, party time, underage drinking, mild physical violence, victim blaming (self-blaming)
Word Count: 2.9k
Series masterlist | Read ahead on my website
“No, Spencer, stop,” Y/N/N objected against the man’s lips as his fingers pulled at her body, managing to wriggle between the meat of her thighs and beginning to tug at her panties. “Sto–” but the words were cut out by another forceful kiss as he muffled her attempts to end what was happening.
She tried to struggle but he was massive, and much, much stronger than her. Pushing against his chest felt about as effectual as pushing against the wall behind her. She tried to squeeze her legs together to trap his hand but it only increased the pressure he was putting on the sensitive nerves he was clumsily groping against. Y/N/N whimpered again helplessly, and her stomach lurched when she felt his cock jump against her hip in response. Fuck, she couldn’t let it get that far.
“Please, no!” Her protest went unacknowledged yet again, but he must have been worried about someone hearing her, because Spencer clapped a hand over her mouth when he drew his head back to take a breath.
“C’mon sweetheart,” he whispered roughly, grinding himself against her again. “I treated you real nice tonight, s'time for you to pay me back.”
“Mmphhh!” Y/N/N tried to shout behind his hand but she could barely breathe in deep enough to produce a sound. Her ears were ringing as the panic mounted in her chest, drowning out every other sensation, every rational thought; the overactive fight or flight response so strong it froze her in place, each instinct in conflict with the other, the great wave of fear dragging her down and condemning her to suffering this fate.
And then the hand on her mouth was gone, and her head was above the water again; the weight pinning down her body disappeared, and she could finally breathe. She doubled over, gasping and retching, her stomach making good on its earlier threat of sickness. Distantly, over the sounds of her own dry heaving, she heard the muffled thud of flesh on flesh, and a small rustle of fabric sliding down the sandy stone walls of the alley.
A hand landed on her shoulder and Y/N/N jumped back, recoiling violently and finally looking up to take in what had happened. An older man in a clean, dark suit was standing there, hand gingerly outstretched, wanting to help but not wanting to frighten her. She noticed the skin on his knuckles was scraped and bruised, small pin pricks of blood leaking to the surface where the capillaries had burst.
Spencer was on the ground in a heap, groaning softly and holding a hand to the side of his head. It was just possible to see the small stream of blood trickling over his fingers by virtue of the moonlight’s muted reflection of the liquid.
“Is he alright?” Y/N/N asked shakily, stomach turning again at the sight.
“Who gives a fuck,” the old man grunted, holding out his hand again and cautiously stepping forward. Y/N/N glanced back down the alleyway, but the stranger drew her attention back to him. “He’s fine, I just gave him a shiner. C’mon, let’s get you out of here,” he reassured her in a gentle voice.
Y/N/N nodded weakly and accepted his arm for support as he led them out of the alley into the bright lights of the parking lot that had been just around the corner from the horror show she’d starred in not moments before.
“Um, you should pull your dress down,” the man muttered awkwardly, clearly wanting to help but not wanting to touch her anywhere more intimate than her elbow. Y/N/N massively appreciated the caution, and relinquished her grip on his arm to shimmy her dress back down her thighs.
“Thank you,” she whispered hoarsely, taking a moment to look over her saviour properly now they were somewhere sufficiently lit. They weren’t alone anymore either, which was both a cause for relief and for apprehension; other guests were milling around the entrance, some smoking, some climbing into taxis or limos, or else collecting their own cars from the valets. It was then that she noticed that the old man’s suit matched the other valets, and that he wore a name tag on his breast pocket just like the others as well.
Carlton, as his badge declared him to be, smiled down at her nervously, clearly trying to maintain a friendly composure, but also quite shaken by what had just happened.
“Are you alright?”
Y/N/N nodded softly. She didn’t really know how she felt, but she wasn’t physically hurt or anything, so it felt like the thing she was supposed to say.
“Do you want me to call the police?” Carlton asked gently, hand already reaching for his cell, but Y/N/N’s hand shot out to stop him.
“No,” she shook her head violently, “no police.” She wouldn’t know what to say to them. And what if they blamed her? She had been drinking, after all, which was bad enough considering she was underage. What if they wound up arresting her, or calling her parents, sending her back? She didn’t know if they could do any of that, but she didn’t want to take the chance of finding out. “No, please, no police.”
Carlton nodded understandingly, his face pulling awkwardly in a sad but sympathetic grimace, not pressing the issue.
“Can I call anyone else for you? Did you come to the party with him, or with someone else?” By ‘him’ Y/N/N knew he meant the man he’d just caught trying to rape her.
“S-someone else,” Y/N/N stuttered. “But I don’t want to see him either,” she sniffled, and realised that she’d begun to cry.
“Okay, it’s okay,” Carlton ducked down a little and tried to soothe her. “Do you want me to call you a cab home? Or do you have another friend you can go to, I just feel like you shouldn’t be alone right now.”
Y/N/N nodded, knowing he was right, she didn’t want to be alone right now either, but she also didn’t know anyone she wanted to see. The thought of Jared or Jensen seeing her like this was mortifying, she couldn’t face them right now. Carlton must have sensed her dilemma because he spoke again.
“Do you want to get a cup of coffee? There’s a restaurant two buildings down, still lots of people around, lots of light,” he offered kindly, but detached, not trying to push her into anything. Y/N/N got the odd, sad sense that he’d dealt with something like this before. She swallowed, considering for another second, then nodded gingerly.
“Okay, that’s good,” Carlton smiled. “Let’s just tell my other valets where we’re going, so someone else knows where you are in case your friend asks about you, okay?”
That was sensible, Y/N/N realised. She felt comfortable around Carlton, he was a kindly old man after all, he’d already saved her once tonight, but it would be incredibly stupid to just go off with a stranger after what just happened. She should text Jensen too, let him know she’d left so he at least didn’t worry if he couldn’t find her. Not that he’d be missing her; he seemed to be having a nice night with Jared and Quinn when she’d left them in the garden earlier, anyways.
The coffee was hot, and the sharp sensation of the liquid scalding her throat on the way down helped Y/N/N drag herself back to sobriety. She and Carlton sipped their drinks in an awkward silence, and he seemed perfectly comfortable to sit there and stir his coffee, but Y/N/N felt like she should be saying something; thanking him, explaining herself, just something to fill the void that she felt herself on the edge of tumbling into. She cleared her throat as if she was about to speak, began to say something, though she didn’t know what exactly, but the words died on her tongue, and she fell silent again.
Carlton gave her a kind twitch of his lips. “You don’t have to talk, Y/N/N, it’s okay.”
That startled her out of her silence though.
“How do you know my name?” Y/N/N’s head shot up, looking at her companion suspiciously. For the first time that evening, Carlton looked uneasy – wrongfooted.
“I heard that man say it,” he said after a careful swallow of coffee, his face back to its placidity.
“No, you didn’t,” Y/N/N shook her head. Morgan hadn’t called her by her name while any of that was happening. He’d only called her sweetheart; the word made her feel sick just thinking it. She studied Carlton’s face, and then a shock of recognition came to her.
“You’re a valet?” She asked pointedly, and Carlton nodded. “Do you ever work for hotels?” The old man took a deep steadying breath, and nodded.
“You recognise me?” He asked her calmly.
“I saw you outside that hotel in town once.”
“Twice,” Carlton corrected. “I was on the balcony next to yours on the night of your birthday.”
The memory of an old man smoking on the adjacent balcony flashed blearily in her mind’s eye. Y/N/N felt a twist of unease.
“Who are you?” she demanded, her voice much steadier than her nerves felt.
“My name is Carlton Rigby,” he explained, folding his hands around his coffee cup on the table. He fixed Y/N/N with a steady gaze and went on. “I’m a private investigator, and I was hired by Congressman Nelson to find you and keep an eye on you.”
“My stepfather sent you!” Y/N/N sat up angrily in her seat. “How long have you been following me?!”
“Since just before you got to Napa,” he explained calmly. “We knew you’d started to move west when you left D.C. When the production filed your employment papers I was able to track you down to Los Angeles, and then follow you up to Napa.”
“And you’ve just been watching me this whole time?!” Y/N/N hissed, horrified. How had she never realised she was being followed. Why had it never occurred to her? God she was so stupid thinking her mother and stepfather would just leave her alone for once in her life. That wasn’t their style, of course they wouldn’t let her ruin the perfect family image they’d crafted so carefully by running away and disappearing. Fuck, she really should have known better, should have been more careful.
“Why didn’t you just show yourself and bring me back home?” She asked, curious as to why her stepfather would have let her stay out here if he’d known where she was this whole time.
“I would have needed the police to bring you in, and the Congressman and I both agreed that arresting his own stepdaughter to force her to come home when she doesn’t want to be there wouldn’t be a good image in the press,” Carlton explained reasonably. Y/N/N scoffed, of course, this all came down to his precious image.
“Where have they told people I am? College?” Y/N/N asked, picking a flaw in the ceramic of her coffee mug.
“No, they’ve said you took some time off to travel before you start school. Charity work abroad, that sort of thing,” he answered with a slight smirk. That must have been his suggestion, Y/N/N thought bitterly.
“Must be pretty boring for you, following some runaway teen around California.” Y/N/N couldn’t think of what else to say. “Were you ever going to try to bring me home? Or were you just going to stalk me for the rest of my life,” she asked bitterly.
“Eventually, when the right opportunity presented itself, I was planning on introducing myself, and asking if you would like to come back,” Carlton explained, not unkindly. “And regardless of whether you’re happy with the situation as it stands, I for one am very grateful I was following you tonight,” he added earnestly. Y/N/N deflated a little at the reminder. He was right, he had saved her tonight. Who knows what kind of nightmare she may still be stuck in if he hadn’t been tailing her.
“Thank you,” Y/N/N whispered softly. “You’re right, I’m not happy with being followed for the last six months, but I am glad you stopped… him tonight. I owe you… I don’t even want to think what might have happened if–”
“Y/N/N,” Carlton reached across the table and laid a wrinkled hand over her own. It was softer than she’d expected. “You don’t owe me anything for that. I would have stepped in no matter who that was, it wasn’t just because it was you. What that man did was a horrible violation of human decency, and I’m still happy to go with you to the police, if you’d like.”
“No,” Y/N/N refused the offer again. “No, I don’t want to go to the police, I just want to forget it ever happened.”
“Okay,” Carlton nodded solemnly, and he withdrew his hand. “I won’t bring it up again, but if you change your mind – and you are allowed to change your mind – I can help you.”
Y/N/N nodded, but didn’t say anything. She couldn’t escape the feeling that even with a witness, the police would somehow make the whole thing her fault. She wasn’t so sure it wasn’t her fault to begin with – she had been the one to kiss him, after all, even if he’d made the offer first. It had been her own stupidity that got her into that mess, and she was fucking lucky Carlton had been there when he was.
“Y/N/N,” Carlton said again, and she looked up, shaking herself from her thoughts. “Going through something like this, it can take time to heal from. Why don’t you let me take you home, you can be around your family again, you’ll be safe there.”
Y/N/N scoffed, snorting into her coffee. She wondered how much Carlton knew about her stepfather, whether he’d told her why she’d run away in the first place. Home, back in D.C., wasn’t a safe place for her. When she thought of safety the image that came to her was the teddy bear from her father, sitting back on her bed at the villa, where her room was right down the hall from Jared’s.
For the first time that night, the thought of Jared brought her a small bit of solace. She might be upset with him right now, she might be pining for a silly unrequited love, but Jared was more to her than that, she realised. Jared was her home; he was where she was safe.
“Thanks, but I’m not interested.” Y/N/N stood, suddenly desperately tired, and wanting nothing more than to hug her teddy bear in the safety of her own room.
“I thought you’d say that,” Carlton sighed heavily and followed suit standing up. “You’re allowed to change your mind about this too, you know.” He reached into the breast pocket of his suit and pulled out a card, handing it over. “If you need anything, anything at all, please call me.”
“Won’t you still be following me? You’ll just see if I get into trouble again,” Y/N/N answered sharply, not any more comfortable with the idea of being followed now that she knew about it, than she had been when she’d been in the dark.
“I don’t want you to think I’ll always be there to save you,” Carlton said seriously, putting a firm hand on her shoulder. “I’m serious, the next time I might not be there. You’re not my only job, kid.”
“I’m not a kid,” Y/N/N snapped.
“You’re right, you’re not,” he agreed solemnly. “Which means you need to be careful, and take responsibility for yourself. Do you understand?”
“Yes,” Y/N/ rolled her eyes, but she pocketed the card with his phone number all the same.
“Come on, let me call you a cab back to the villa,” Carlton gestured towards the door, and Y/N/N followed him outside and back down the block toward the building with the wrap party, still going strong from the noise that was reaching them.
“Stay safe,” Carlton smiled as he held open the door to a cab, and Y/N/N slid inside gratefully, looking forward to crawling into her bed as soon as possible.
“Hey, Y/N/N!” She looked up and saw Jensen running toward her, waving her down. “I’ve been looking everywhere for you,” he panted as he reached the car, giving Carlton, who was still holding the door, a strange look.
“Goodnight miss,” he gave Y/N/N a little nod, and left the pair alone. Jensen climbed into the car alongside her.
“Why didn’t you tell me you were going home? I’ve wanted to ditch this place for hours,” he laughed, and Y/N/N smiled apologetically.
“I uh, haven’t had a great night,” she cleared her throat when a lump started to form unexpectedly. “Didn’t want to ruin yours, too.”
“Aw, c’mere,” Jensen opened his arm and pulled her against his side, rocking her gently and kissing the top of her head. “Let’s go back to my place, yeah? It’s a shorter drive, get you to bed faster.”
“That sounds nice,” Y/N/N nodded, and Jensen gave the cab driver his address. “Thanks Jensen.”
“Don’t mention it,” he squeezed her against him again, and Y/N/N settled into the comforting hold. Jensen wasn’t Jared, but he was a very close second, and this would be good enough for now.
Chapter 26 coming March 15th or subscribe to my website to read up to Chapter 30!
