Hi Mae!!! Im SOO HAPPY that i've finally built up the courage to ask you for a post!! I love ur writing soo much. Could I get like a tasm!Peter Parker x reader where she somehow convinces peter to let her try on his suit and when it properly fits her she kinda looks super hot in it and Peter is all over her?? Feel free to ignore this if u want! I LOVE UR WRITING BTW. Byyyeee
Love you!! Thanks for requesting <3
tasm!Peter Parker x fem!reader ♡ 456 words
Your laughter echoes ominously from inside the bathroom.
"What?" Peter asks.
"Nothing," you say back. "I just don't know if I could fight crime in this thing. The cameltoe is insane."
He snorts. "Yeah, I don't really have that problem with it."
"I guess," you admit, as you open the bathroom door and step out, "we're not really the same size…"
Peter has no witty comebacks to that. He has no words, period.
When you asked to try on his suit, he didn't expect it to fit you. And it doesn't really, some excess fabric puddling around your ankles and hanging off your shoulders, but the places where it is fitted are distracting enough to leave Peter tongue-tied like a twerpy pre-teen.
"Wow," he manages to get out. One syllable, two distinct sounds. A feat.
You're not wearing the mask (a lucky thing, otherwise this might have proven a pretty sexually confusing experiment) so Peter sees every ounce of mischief in your eyes when you tilt your head and smile. "Can I try the web shooters, too?"
"Totally." Peter flicks his wrists, latching onto your hips on either side. When he pulls tight, you have no choice but to stumble towards him, laughing as you fall into his lap. "Another time."
"Why not now?"
"Too much power."
You grin at him, positively impish as your legs shift to straddle him more fully. "Oh, yeah?"
"Yeah. Sorry, you've got to go through orientation first."
You set yourself down in his lap. Peter's hands travel from your hips down your legs, meandering, but your bravado slips when you hear a ripping sound.
"Oh, no." You twist your neck to see your backside. You arch toward him a bit in the process, which Peter is not mad about. "I'm sorry—"
"It's fine," he says. "I'll fix it."
You still look guilty. "I didn't think it would tear."
"I tear it all the time. Trust me, this is not the worst tear this thing has seen." Peter touches your jaw, angling you for a kiss. "Anyway, it looks good on you. Worth it."
You soften. "You think?"
You let Peter kiss you a while longer. Your fingers cup his face and curl in the hair at the back of his head. He knew the material of his suit was slippery, obviously, but he never really considered how that might feel for you until he experiences the sensation of you moving smoothly over the material of his jeans. He can feel your body heat through the spandex.
"Are you super sure I can't try the web shooters?" you murmur near his ear after a while.
Summary: You came in to work every day with a fun fact, determined to catch the BAU's genius with one that he wouldn't know (friends to lovers, co-workers to lovers, mutual feelings, fluff, confession)
Note: my spencer reid debut fic <3 sorry if there are any inaccuracy, just started rewatching after 3 years
Word count: 10.9k (sorry)
“Small facts lead to great knowing” - Patrick Rothfuss (2011)
“I can’t believe anybody would do something like this,” you commented whilst looking down at the two documents in your hands—your thoroughly highlighted case dossier and your finished report. Every new case always exhibits unimaginable horror and unfortunately, there will always be something worse than your current worst.
You turned to Spencer whilst perched cross-legged on the edge of his table.
The corner of the genius’s mouth curled at your words. They were the very same ones that sprouted daily despite the nature of your job. But to Spencer, there was a strange comfort in such small repetitive murmurs of disbelief.
“I gotta agree with Rossi. This job really includes some of the worst lunatics out there.” You sighed before straightening up at a sudden thought. “Actually, fun fact…” You noticed the way your words peeled Spencer’s attention from his report. He finally glanced up, eager for the second half of that sentence.
“The word lunatic was invented based on the belief that mental illnesses were affected by moon phases.” You beamed at the idea of potentially providing your genius friend with new knowledge.
“Yeah, and it actually originated from the Latin word ‘lunaticus,’ which means moonstruck or influenced by the moon. The word was first used for conditions like epilepsy or overall just madness,” Spencer replied, perking up at the thought of a potential conversation about this.
The excited smile on your face instantly faltered and you groaned in feigned annoyance. Perhaps you should have known better than to think you could out-fact Spencer and say something he had not already known.
“Is there anything you don’t know, Spence?” you glowered jokingly.
“Well, it’s hard when you’re a child prodigy and genius.” You let out a scoff-like laugh at Spencer’s cocky admission, but you knew he was joking. Despite his IQ of 187, Spencer rarely ever announced himself a genius. It was a title dubbed by those around him. You knew if you had Spencer’s brain, though, you would hardly ever stay as humble as him.
“I’ll get you someday.”
Your declaration drew a snort from another work desk and you twisted around to face the source of such a faithless sound.
“You don’t believe in me, Derek?” You arched a brow, your competitiveness rising to the surface.
“Sweet girl, I believe in you for many things, but this is just not one of them.”
“But surely there is one single fact out there that Spencer doesn’t know about.” Penelope piped up from next to Derek, defending you.
“We’re talking about the same Spencer, right? Spencer Reid? Three PhDs and an IQ of Einstein?” JJ spoke as she made her way down the bullpen.
“Actually, there is no way of measuring Einstein’s IQ as he never took the test, so to say that—” Derek quickly interrupted Spencer.
“Come on, pretty boy. She’s backing you up.”
“Sounds like grounds to start a betting pool going,” Rossi spoke up as he approached the whole group, briefcase in one hand, car keys in the other. “$20 says she’ll do it within four months.”
“I think she can do it within three months.” Emily chimed up from her desk.
“I’m placing my bet on eight months,” Penelope added confidently.
“Alright, and if she can’t do it within one year, JJ and I will split the win,” Derek announced before directing his next words to you, “Stakes are on, sweetheart.” He winked.
“Yeah, yeah. I got it.” You rolled your eyes before turning towards Spencer, declaring to him with exaggerated cockiness, “I’m gonna get you real soon, just wait.”
“You’re welcome to try.” The challenging glint in Spencer’s eyes met your own. Again, you knew better than to think that you would know something Spencer did not already know. He was practically the master of facts. But, unfortunately, you were incredibly bad at quitting.
So, let the challenge begin.
﹏ ﹏ ﹏ ﹏ ﹏ ﹏ ﹏ ﹏
“Did you know that Australia is wider than the moon?” you questioned the second you saw Spencer enter the office the next morning. “Fun fact.”
“Yes, diameter-wise. Australia is almost 4,000 kilometres wide, while the moon’s diameter is nearly 3,500 kilometres. However, in terms of their masses, the moon is still larger.” You sighed dramatically at Spencer’s reply before spinning your chair towards your computer, turning the device on.
“And day one status: unsuccessful,” you grunted to yourself, catching Spencer’s grin from your peripheral vision.
“Oh? It’s gonna be daily?”
“You bet your ass it’s gonna be. There’s a betting pool and I’m unfortunately too competitive for my own good.” You caught the amusement dancing in Spencer’s gaze.
“Well then, good luck.”
“Won’t need it.”
﹏ ﹏ ﹏ ﹏ ﹏ ﹏ ﹏ ﹏
“Did you know a cloud can weigh like a million pounds?” You crossed your arms while peering at the cotton candy-like objects floating amidst the bright blue summer sky. “Fun fact.”
Both of you had your bulletproof vests on, leaning against a car while waiting for JJ to finish speaking to the press before driving back to the precinct. Another case wrapped. Another unsub locked up.
Under the nice weather, you had your cap and Spencer’s sunglasses on, having forgotten yours. He had heavily insisted so, even after you had declined a handful of times.
You turned and looked at Spencer briefly. Though, for a split second, your body stilled as the sun played in his favor, casting nice highlights to his woodsy colored locks. The light crinkle of his nose and his squinting eyes made your lips curl, cause once again, it showcased just how self-sacrificing Spencer can be when it came to the people close to him.
“Yeah, because they contain different states of matter like trillions of condensed water droplets and ice crystals. Its weight is equivalent to the world’s largest aircraft working at full capacity. Though despite its heaviness, clouds have lower density in comparison to the dry air around them, enabling them to float in the same way as oil floats on water.” Spencer tried to maintain eye contact with you despite the blaring sun shining into his eyes.
“Hmm…” you pursed your lips before removing your navy blue cap and placing it on your friend’s head. This cast a shadow over his eyes, blocking the harsh sun from blinding his vision. “Beautiful weather to fail at winning this fun fact thing again.”
Spencer didn’t reject the clothing item.
Some time in the history of human beings, the act of sporting others’ clothing items—especially of the opposite gender—had been made to seem important. Spencer has never understood the significance in such a small exchange. But as your hat landed on his head, Spencer felt an added weight that was beyond the small clothing item.
Neither did he have it in him to adjust how you had left the cap on him, even if it didn’t sit on his head perfectly.
“I still have time to get you,” you continued after a moment of silence.
“359 days left.”
“More than enough.”
﹏ ﹏ ﹏ ﹏ ﹏ ﹏ ﹏ ﹏
The clock was close to hitting 11pm. The whole team was taking a short break for a fresh perspective. Most were on their phones or taking a quick nap, but Spencer and you were playing a round of cards.
“Did you know ketchup used to be medicine? Fun fact.”
Both Emily’s and Derek’s watchful gaze panned from you to Spencer, anticipating his reaction to your daily shot at winning the bet.
“Around the 1830s, yeah. They marketed it as a cure for various ailments such as indigestion and diarrhea.”
Emily instantly groaned at Spencer’s reply while Derek snickered. Once again, Spencer already knew the information you provided, just like the 13 previous times.
“See? Not a single thing he doesn’t know,” Derek chirped up, earning him a glare from the co-worker beside him.
You finally placed your next card down, instantly eying Spencer, wanting a read of his reaction to your play. There was a distant look in his eyes, a clear indication that he was taking this game just as seriously as you were.
Your eyes swept over the rest of your opponent. The un-neat edges in his usually tidy work attire and the way his hair stuck in different directions had your lips curling. They were details that only unveil during late work hours after a long day. But strangely enough, there was something endearing about the slight tiredness in his eyes and the way his cardigan hung disheveledly on him.
“I won.”
Your eyes snapped to the pile of cards on the table at Spencer’s declaration.
“What?! No way. You must have cheated.”
“Now, now, don’t be a sore loser just because pretty boy over here won,” Derek teased you, despite also highly suspecting that Reid had cheated.
“Are we talking about the same pretty boy who is banned from many Vegas casinos because of his expert skill in counting cards?” JJ countered, placing her phone down.
Your co-workers’ discourse began fading out of your focus as Spencer took out a ticket from his bag and handed it to you with a cheeky grin. With hesitation, you took the paper begrudgingly. You knew you had to hold your end of the deal. You had lost, after all.
You glanced back at the winner of the card game, catching his toothy grin at your sulking manners. Against all maturity, you poked your tongue out in petulance, but such childish action had Spencer laughing quietly in his spot, eyes gleaming with fondness.
“Sore loser.”
“Cheater.”
﹏ ﹏ ﹏ ﹏ ﹏ ﹏ ﹏ ﹏
Hotch halted in his tracks upon spotting you and Reid in the break room.
Both of your heads were side by side, just a hair short from touching, fighting to have adequate sight of the newspaper that the two of you were sharing. Each of you also sported a pen in hand, scribbling hastily onto the delicate paper with vigorous competitiveness.
The unit chief entered to refill his coffee, though his eyes continued investigating you two. In the narrow gap between your heads, Hotch caught sight of Spencer rapidly filling out a crossword puzzle. Meanwhile, just as fast, you were solving a Sudoku piece that resided on the same page.
“Did you know, like fingerprints, people also have unique tongue prints?” you murmured, eyes still glued onto the puzzle in front of you. “Fun fact.”
“Yeah, humans have unique color, tongue shape, and textural features, therefore making it a great form of identification. However, we currently do not have the suitable technology to capture intricate surface details of tongue prints. Also, switching costs are high partially because the idea of having to stick one's tongue out in public for authentication can be seen as rather awkward, unhygienic, and undignifying.”
You pursed your lips at another unsuccessful day. But such expression vanished when you dropped your pen on the table and declared with unadulterated joy:
“Done!”
Your victory drew a defeated noise from Spencer.
“Imagine though, having to stick your tongue out at airport immigration and place it onto a public scanner or something like that.” You cackled at Spencer's grimace and the way his body slightly shivered from such a mental image. Eventually though, your laugh reduced to a teasing smile.
Spencer’s gaze lowered to the little crinkle that appeared around your eyes as you smiled, before holding eye contact with you. Spencer knew there was no such thing as “eyes twinkling,” but you had him doubting that scientifically established truth for a second. It was lighting and he knew that, but he had to admit that he could finally somewhat understand why poets and writers were so obsessed with dedicating lines towards such a tiny detail.
Because even though there was no reason for him to, his own lips began to curl, mirroring the smile on your face.
From behind you both, Aaron Hotchner took a sip of his coffee before departing the room. Though on his way out, his eyes glinted a knowing look, while his lips lifted just the slightest bit before schooling back to a neutral expression again.
﹏ ﹏ ﹏ ﹏ ﹏ ﹏ ﹏ ﹏
“Did you know that back then, when raising a toast, people would literally drop a piece of toast into their wine?” you blurted out the second you slid yourself into the empty seat opposite Spencer at his breakfast table. Never have you ever skipped free hotel breakfast and today was no exception.
“Well, hello to you too.” Spencer grinned at your straight-to-business behavior.
He carefully placed the coffee he made for you into your hand—a casual daily routine. You took a good whiff of the comforting aroma before humming at the first taste. It was exactly how you liked it: a dash of milk along with two and a quarter teaspoon of sugar.
To date, Spencer has never asked how you liked your coffee.
He simply has always gotten it right.
It was not hard to guess that he had learnt your preferences from watching you make your coffee in the past. But you could not help but wonder if he took mental notes on others the same way he did with you. However, like every other time, you dismissed it as an occupational habit. Every member has been trained to be observant and notice little details. Spencer probably knew everybody’s coffee preferences.
“It actually originated from Ancient Rome, and back then, toast was an act to honor the gods and people would pour wine onto the floor. However, the custom evolved in many ways over time, depending on geographic regions. Around the 1600s, it became a common custom in England and this is where people would put a piece of spiced toast into their wine. They did it to improve the flavor of their beverage and also to “toast” to good health.”
Spencer caught your hum of satisfaction at the coffee and instantly felt pleased.
Science has long documented humans as naturally validation-seeking creatures. Your existence often humbled him from thinking he was not a recurring participant in that particular human instinct.
His eyes fell from you to your coffee—a particular mix that has ingrained itself into his memory since your first meeting. Funny that some time since then, he could no longer look at the beverage without ever thinking of you.
Neither could Spencer for the life of him recite the coffee order of anybody else at the BAU.
“36 days down…” you murmured, already picturing yourself rummaging the internet for more fun facts tonight.
“Maybe tomorrow.” The words came out softly, almost encouragingly. You hummed before matching his tone.
“Maybe.”
﹏ ﹏ ﹏ ﹏ ﹏ ﹏ ﹏ ﹏
“Flies rub their hands as a sanitizing act, rather clean for an insect commonly associated with dirty places, no?” you murmured before peering up from your book whilst curled up in your seat on the BAU’s jet.
“Yes, it’s a self-grooming act. They do this primarily for two reasons. First and foremost, it’s because their legs are their flavour receptors, so they rub their front legs to ensure they can taste when eating. The other motivation is to remove dust and debris, therefore, ensuring survival.”
Your bottom lip jutted out slightly at another unsuccessful attempt.
“I’ll get you tomorrow…” you murmured with a teasing smile before re-immersing yourself in the fantasy world of your current novel.
Reading has become your escapism and method of self-grounding prior to any case. You tried to plunge into fictional worlds while flying to prepare yourself for the terrible realities that accompanied upcoming cases. Though at one point, Spencer started joining in. But instead of having his own book, he would lean over and scan your current page with unrealistic speed while you leisurely let each letter sink in. It became a routine that occupied your journey from Quantico, whereas on the way back, Spencer and you maintained your tradition of engaging in chess matches.
Spencer spotted your finger flipping the page once more and his eyes instantly swept over the printed words hastily.
Twenty thousand words per minute. That was Spencer’s known reading speed, which meant in merely two seconds or three, he was already done with the two pages in front of you both. As always, you were still reading at your own pace, unhurried. He knew he could adopt a slower speed to enjoy your chosen fictional literature. But lately, he found himself in a hurry, rushing himself to finish pages in a way that made him think maybe he was now above his previously established reading speed.
Why?
His gaze flicked over to you, mulling over the familiar details that made you, you. He studied the way your fingers trace the fore-edge of the book mindlessly, lingering on the way you tease your lips with your teeth as you registered the adventure that the story was taking you on. Spencer caught the slight shift in the space between your eyebrows and how they slightly twitch according to plot progression, displaying your commitment to your reading content.
Spencer would not classify himself as a people watcher, despite his necessary observant and analytical traits as a profiler. Yet, somehow, watching you had become one of his favorite quiet activities. In your little habits were his comfort. In moments when cases were overwhelming, his eyes have made a tendency to land on you. The spike in his heartbeat would normalize, whilst rapid thoughts would regulate. It was only in moments when Spencer would get caught by you that he would tear his gaze away sheepishly, before attempting to pretend that he was looking elsewhere instead.
The sound of paper rustling pulled Spencer out of his mind, and he instantly plunged himself into the same self-established cycle again.
And despite his fondness for literature, for once, it did not hold a candle in his eyes.
﹏ ﹏ ﹏ ﹏ ﹏ ﹏ ﹏ ﹏
“Cows have best friends, how great is that?”
Spencer stopped eating his ice cream the second he spotted someone passing the two of you in a cow onesie, giving away why you decided on that particular fun fact. His eyes fell back on you, glimmering with amusement.
“Yes, cows do have a ‘best friend’ who they tend to share spaces and rest side by side with. Research shows that when separated, these cows would show signs of stress and anxiety with higher heart rates.”
You hummed at that. By now, you were used to his immediate expansion on your facts, no longer surprised or disappointed every time he added onto your words.
In fact, you fondly looked forward to hearing what he had to say about whatever fact you would sprout. There was a deep sense of appreciation that you have grown for this challenge. You felt like, intellectually, your general knowledge had expanded immensely, both from researching fun facts to tell Spencer and also from the informative responses that you would receive from him.
“You know, cows also can develop what some may refer to as ‘accents.’ Research observed variations in their moos based on different regions and herds.” Spencer leaned closer to you before adding cheekily, “Fun fact.”
“Nuh uh, don’t go stealing my line. You’re not allowed to put me out of business.”
This tore a laugh out of Spencer, and you immediately bit back a smile at such a sound.
If humans have the ability to bottle noises for keepsake, you know now what sound you would try to capture.
Surprisingly, this was only the second time that Spencer and you had spent time together one-on-one out of work.
With the working hours at the BAU that forced you and all your co-workers to be in close proximity for an extensive amount of time, you tend to allocate your scarce free time to those who were outside of your work circle. But something about spending time with Spencer today had struck you with an epiphany:
You really, really wanted to see Spencer outside of work more often.
Both your phones started ringing at the same time.
“Penelope, is everything okay?” you answered quietly.
“Emily?” Spencer whispered at the same time into his phone.
After a few seconds, you both ended your respective phone calls before slowly turning to face each other again. You scanned yours and Spencer’s outfit before sighing.
“There’s not enough time to go home and change.” The devastation in your voice was imminent.
“I know.”
A few minutes later, both of you entered the office, and almost instantly, the noise level declined significantly as the whole team paused their actions. You winced, knowing immediately that you two were about to be the butt of many incoming jokes.
“Whoa, what time period did you guys travel back from?” Emily teased.
“We were at a convention, okay?” You huffed, picking up your go-bag from under your desk for a change of clothes.
“And you two are dressed up as…?” Rossi crossed his arms, undoubtedly amused.
The team scanned over both of your outfits. Spencer was wearing a brown fedora hat, an oxblood colored corduroy jacket, and grey pants. Despite the only semi-chilly weather, he also sported a colorful striped knitted scarf around his neck. As for you, you were in an all pink attire, but what stood out was your long pink coat, high pink boots, and long white scarf.
“The fourth doctor and Romana II, from Doctor Who,” Spencer answered, grabbing his go bag.
Derek’s eyes comedically bulged out at that, and he immediately spun his chair towards you. “Blink twice if Reid is blackmailing you with something to make you go to this convention with him.” You laughed at his remark.
“Listen, remember the card game I lost two months ago? That’s why I had to go, but when I actually started the show, I really enjoyed it.” You raised your hands in surrender.
“Oh, we lost another one. She got Reid-ified,” Derek exclaimed dramatically before placing a hand on his chest in jest heartbreak, grinning at your eye roll.
By now, Spencer had returned to your side with his go-bag. Though just as you two turned around to head off and change, an abrupt flash halted you both in your steps. Blinking away the after-effect of the blinding light, you saw Penelope with her phone facing you two and a cheeky grin on her face.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa. Delete that,” you immediately instructed, hands on your hips while your brows furrowed in fussiness. You then sucked in a deep breath and used your hand to comb through your hair before a smile broke your feigned annoyed expression. “I was not ready.”
Then, with dramatic flair, you posed properly for the camera, grabbing Spencer’s scarf exaggeratedly with both hands while tugging him lightly.
Spencer was unsure if his knees had buckled due to a slight loss of balance or from your proximity. He glanced at the camera, face slightly flushed, before witnessing another flash go off, evidencing his blush and putting it on record.
Your hands were gone from his scarf like a breeze.
“Alright, I’m gonna go change now.” By the time Spencer registered your words, you were already gone. All that was left at the spot you previously occupied was his attention. Spencer's eyes eventually moved when he heard a quiet giggle from Penelope, who was indescribably entertained by the dazed look on his face.
The tech expert slowly angled her phone towards Spencer to show what she had captured, and she carefully observed Spencer’s contemplative gaze. His eyes landed on you first, and they softened at the sight of your beaming face. They then traced the slope of your smile and the crinkle of your eyes before reluctantly trailing down to your hands and the way they bossily clung onto his scarf.
The sentiment of pictures has always been just a concept to Spencer Reid. He does understand the logic behind people’s attachment to colored captures of moments and why people have ‘important’ photos in their wallets or have framed physical copies. But personally, he rarely ever practiced it. Yet, in this precise moment, he suddenly wanted to begin.
Without even looking at himself in the photo, Spencer murmured to Penelope:
“Can you send that to me, please? Thank you.”
﹏ ﹏ ﹏ ﹏ ﹏ ﹏ ﹏ ﹏
“Where is she?” Derek’s gaze darted up to his friend. One glance at Spencer and the man already knew who he was referring to.
“Garcia said she called in sick this morning. Why?”
“Nothing.”
Derek scanned over Spencer from head to toe properly this time. Realisation flashed through his eyes before the man smirked as he looked back down at his work.
Ah, the perks of being a profiler.
“Sure, pretty boy.”
“What was that loo—”
The sound of Spencer’s phone ringing interrupted his question. He took the device out of his pocket, and the phone almost flew out of his hand when he saw your name flashing on the screen. He immediately picked up and placed the device beside his ear, breathing out your name in greeting.
Instead of your usual cheery tone, Spencer was met with a muffled voice and snifflings.
Immediately, his body stiffened.
“Are you okay?” He was by his desk within seconds. His fingers grazed over his jacket, as if prepared to scoop the clothing up and dash out of the office if your answer indicated any distress.
“My nose is blocked. Both sides. It’s horrendous,” then came a dramatic sigh, “I’m becoming a mouth breather, Spence.”
Your melodrama tore a laugh from Spencer’s throat.
Derek’s lips curled discreetly at the noise.
“Anyway, don’t think you can escape your daily fun fact just because I’m not physically in the office.” Spencer was glad you were not physically with him, because if you were, you would have seen the idiotic grin stretching his face. But how could he not smile at your stubborn resilience, and the cute sound of your nasally voice that was slightly more high-pitched than normal.
“You’re sick, and you took a day off work, but not off the fun fact thing?”
“In sickness and in health, as they say.”
Spencer accidentally snorted at your words and immediately cleared his throat in an attempt to cover it.
Derek’s brows scrunched at that.
“Apparently, while wired to specific scientific machines and whatnot, two lucid dreamers can have two-way communication in real time. How cool is that?” Spencer hummed fondly at your words before sitting down, his plan to flee from office hours long gone.
“That’s quite a recent fun fact. The study was recently concluded just about two years ago,” his voice came out soft as he focused on any sound that the technological device beside his ear could carry over from your end.
He caught your hum, though the sound resembled the same one you always did while sitting next to him on the jet as the team flew back to Quantico. The noise that often preceded the soft landing of your head on his shoulder and the way he’d sit straighter up to accommodate you entirely despite his germaphobia-led touch aversion.
“You should sleep and rest,” he whispered, despite wanting to hear your voice for longer. But selflessness came easy when you were in consideration.
Spencer carefully began listing all the things you ought to do later to get better. But halfway through, he noticed the lack of noise from the other end, except for your rhythmic breathing, signaling your sound asleep state. Spencer sighed before removing the phone from his ear. He stared at the device in long contemplation before clicking the end call button.
Finally placing down the device that signified his only contact with you today, Spencer flipped open today’s case dossier. However, he found himself re-reading the first sentence over and over again. His eyes kept scanning over the same words, and he felt the way they slid past his comprehension the same way small external details occasionally would escape his notice whenever he spent time with you.
Spencer’s mind kept trailing back to the phone call and to you.
It’s familiarity—he tried to tell himself. Humans were, afterall, creatures of habit, and considering you have been swirled into his daily routine like a necessity, it made sense that the lack of your presence had set him off balance.
Eventually, Spencer got up and went to the break room for coffee. But the second he opened the cupboard and his eyes landed on your mug, he felt his mouth run dry.
For the past one and a half years, he has always made two cups of coffee instead of one at the start of each day.
His eyes darted to his mug right next to yours. The idea of separating them sent some sort of ache in his heart, even if logically they were just ceramic vessels.
Perhaps he had mislabeled what missing someone meant all along, because your absence was bringing a hollowness that nobody had managed to carve out of him before. It was the kind of emptiness that made him feel incomplete, as if a piece of himself was not with him. Yet, as opposed to the expected numbness that often accompanied such a feeling, Spencer felt every second of your absence with a constant stinging ache that felt too akin to withdrawal symptoms.
Eventually, Spencer shut the cupboard and returned to his desk, coffee-less.
That evening after work, Spencer made a detour instead of going straight home, missing the way his friends huddled together, exchanging hushed whispers about his departure.
﹏ ﹏ ﹏ ﹏ ﹏ ﹏ ﹏ ﹏
Twenty two hours, forty eight minutes, and thirty one seconds.
Spencer witnessed as time quietly slipped through the cracks of his remaining strength.
The whole bullpen lacked the life his work family usually colored in. The janitor had long shut off the main lights, so the only thing illuminating the space near Spencer was his desk lamp. Everybody else had gone home except for Hotch, but the unit chief was in his office, leaving Spencer as the last man standing in the bullpen.
After a few more ticks, Spencer finally tore his gaze from the timing instrument and glided his vision back down to the pen in his hand, forcing it to ink his unfinished report, but words refused to string together.
Spencer’s free hand began tapping his desk rhythmically in a pathetic attempt to comfort himself.
Twenty two hours, fifty one minutes, and twenty one seconds.
Spencer wanted to say that it didn’t matter. Why should it? But he knew damn well that the answer was because the team mattered to him.
However, perspective was truly a funny thing. Someone could be your number one priority, and you barely just made it in their list.
Spencer averted his gaze from the unfinished report to the brand new photo frame on his desk, where a captured version of the recent memory of you two as Doctor Who characters resided.
It did not take a genius to see that you two were closer to one another than with others on the team. However, the fun fact challenge had truly unlocked another level of bond. It was the kind of connection that meant he had started placing you above the others, a position that implied he also expected more from you, cause perhaps he thought you had also valued him just as much as he treasured you in his mind.
So as much as the whole team was the source of his dismay, there was a spotlight reserved for your absence, one that was beyond glaring and punched his guts in ways that others could not.
His eyes traced your face in the photograph again, like they had done every morning since he had gotten the picture framed.
Oftentimes, you could never be absolutely sure where you stand in someone’s life.
Twenty two hours, fifty nine minutes, and ten seconds.
A resigned breath escaped the narrow gap between his lips.
With more effort than it usually took, Spencer got on his feet, hoping that another cup of coffee would be the cure for his inefficiency. He slowly placed more weight on one side of his body to turn around. At the same time, Spencer began rubbing his face in hopes that exhaustion and melancholy would push themselves aside for a brief moment so that he could finish this impending task.
When Spencer finally reopened his eyes to navigate the darkness, he froze at the sight that was once behind him.
Eight steps away was you, looking like a deer caught in headlights.
Then came your escaped nervous laughter, like you were scared of screwing up, but that was only because you were unaware that you could almost never do wrong in Spencer’s eyes. His heart—which Spencer’s brain has been having a harder time controlling lately—provided you with a much larger margin for error than anybody else.
Your gentle tone filled the fragile silence that was intertwined with suspense.
“Fun fact, birthday cakes are traditionally round as an Ancient Greek tradition to resemble the moon for the goddess Artemis.” Your eyes crinkled as your lips curled into that familiar smile that had previously held Spencer powerless on numerous occasions. “Happy Birthday, Spence.”
There you were, cake in hand after a long day of work on a gruesome case.
There you were, with a homemade cake after a long day of him thinking everybody had forgotten his birthday, or more importantly, that you had forgotten.
But maybe his probability was not entirely against him.
“I know I’m quite late, but trust me, there’s an explanation. When I got to the office this morning, I realized that I had forgotten your cake at home. I was planning to grab it after work, but the case kept us all back so late, and then traffic was super bad because of a concert today. But hey, I got the cake now, and I really hope you like it.”
You peered down at your own baking product and the slightly wonky penmanship before turning your eyes back onto Spencer.
“Also, since it’s your birthday, I’ll give you a bonus fun fact. There are roughly 30,000 people who have their birthdays on October 12th in the States, but…”
Your voice fell quiet as your eyes diverted back to the cake again.
“You’re my favorite October 12th.”
And right at that second, all of Spencer’s previous attempts at rationalising his feelings via scientific explanations collapsed. For once, science could no longer shield him, because as much as it was a field built on facts of concrete evidence, there was also an undeniable truth: he liked you.
It might not be rational, but it was still a fact, and that alone terrified Spencer.
And while he was your favorite October 12th, you were his favorite every day.
Spencer glanced down at the handmade cake and the singular purple candle pierced in the center. The tiny flame provided just enough light for the space between you both. His eyes then flicked back onto you, and they softened.
God, you were so clueless about the effect your actions have on him and his whole world.
One breath extinguished the fire, and grey smoke fluttered into the air.
Then, for the first time since he saw you five minutes ago, Spencer managed to form the only words he felt were worthy enough of your time.
“Thank you.”
Even if the significance behind those words didn’t reach you today, it was okay. But they carry the weight of his whole heart and every unspoken reason behind his gratefulness.
Thank you for not forgetting about him today. Thank you for always being so kind and paying attention to the details about him. Thank you for being such an important part of his life. Thank you for choosing the exact career path that you did to lead you to him. Thank you for existing.
And someday, maybe Spencer Reid will gather enough courage to tell you all of this.
﹏ ﹏ ﹏ ﹏ ﹏ ﹏ ﹏ ﹏
You halted in your step, and almost immediately Spencer followed suit. His eyesight followed yours, and he instantly knew what you were gonna ask from him.
“Come on, can you play for me? Please?” you urged, and it didn’t take more than your pleading face to make him approach the instrument that lay abandoned in the corner of the hotel where the whole team was staying.
Saying “no” became a significantly harder task for Spencer ever since he realised what kind of position his feelings were in when it came to you. It especially felt like an impossible task when your words came in that pleading tone and the smile that had him wishing stopping time was one of his abilities.
You followed Spencer and leaned against the instrument eagerly. You observed as he lightly cracked his knuckles, eying the mixture of ivory and ink-dark keys with a calculative gaze before placing his fingers delicately on them while his foot pressed gently on one of the pedals at the base.
For a moment, you wondered what Spencer would play. Maybe one of the classical pieces he liked a lot. Perhaps Bach? Or—
A familiar tune overtook the pleasant quietness in the empty hotel lobby, and recognition struck you with every flawless execution of each note.
First off, you knew he was a liar, saying he only dabbled in piano. But what caught you off-guard was hearing the piano version of your favorite song.
It was things like this that made you conclude that Spencer Reid was one of the sweetest individuals you have ever had the privilege to know. From making you coffee daily to hunting down first editions of your favorite books (the most recent one in which he handed over along with soup the day you got sick and were off work). Now, he was learning your favorite song on the piano.
Lucky felt like an inadequate word to describe your position in life when Spencer was in the equation.
Only when he finished the very modern composition did you speak up.
“I thought you only listened to classical?”
“I…did,” was all that came out of Spencer’s mouth, but it was enough for you to catch his implication that he had learnt this song specifically on the piano for you.
Spencer sniffled, diverting his gaze from you shyly as he inspected the keys in front of him again.
Ever since his birthday, Spencer could constantly feel the urge to confess right on the tip of his tongue while his lips trembled in self-control to keep them to himself for now. According to the internet and its various articles, he should try to ‘woo’ you first, and hence these actions instead of confessing right away. He wondered if you got his message. He wondered if you could tell this was his version of flirting. However, Spencer also knew that he had accidentally portrayed himself as an extremely sweet friend from your perspective, so thoughtful actions with the aim of impressing you romantically were most likely ruled as platonic gestures.
You began toying with the ring on your middle finger, the flattery from his sweet action manifested itself through the heat beneath your cheeks. For the first time in your almost three years of friendship with Spencer, you were struck by a minor nerve-wracking sensation. There was also a fleeting stutter in your chest that you decisively ignored.
You moved on with a quiet murmur.
“You know, humans owe squirrels a lot. They have planted at least thousands of trees.” You gave him a soft smile when his eyes met yours again. “It’s accidental, but no less a noble act contributing to the environment.”
“Yeah, they would bury nuts for later usage, but forget their locations. Many forgotten nuts can grow into trees, therefore, contributing to forest regeneration.”
“Anddd another fun fact failure.” You groaned, though your expression melted into a smile when you heard Spencer chuckle at that.
“We should head up. It’s getting late.”
You nodded in agreement and began walking, but looked back briefly at Spencer. “But it’s not too late for an episode of Doctor Who, right?”
An outstretched grin spread across Spencer’s face at your words.
“Never.”
﹏ ﹏ ﹏ ﹏ ﹏ ﹏ ﹏ ﹏
“No way.” You were speechless as you made way out of Spencer’s car, staring at the building in front of you in disbelief. “Don’t tell me…”
“Yeah, it’s for your favorite film,” Spencer confirmed your suspicion.
“So, it didn’t matter that I had lost, huh?”
Shortly after your Doctor Who convention together, Spencer had invited you to this event that was two and a half months after. Though he insisted on keeping the details a secret, relaying only the dress code—smart casual, but whatever you were most comfortable with.
The secretive factor of the whole ordeal had you guessing in suspense for the entire two months, but now that you were here, you fully understood why.
This was the event that you both would have gone to instead of the Doctor Who convention if you had won that game of cards.
An orchestra movie concert of your favourite movie.
Spencer sucked in a deep breath, fingers toying with the loose threads of his cardigan. There he went again, attempting to present to you that he was an option—the best one, at that—and giving signals that he was pursuing you. He has read at least five hundred online articles on the art of flirting in the past week alone. If Derek ever found his online searching history, Reid would never live it down.
“God, this is the best thing ever.” Seeing how pleased you were with his action made Spencer want to physically preen with pride.
Once you two had settled down inside, you took a couple of photos and observed your surroundings. You looked around at your neighboring audiences before averting your gaze to the empty chairs that were soon to be filled by instrumental experts. Your body was flooded with excitement at the prospect of finally being at this event.
You decided to chime in with your daily fun fact just minutes before the concert was due to start.
“Did you know that there’s a planet that is ⅓ made of diamonds?” you whispered.
“55 Cancri e, right?” he matched your volume, shifting in the chair beside you to make himself comfortable.
“Yeah, that one,” you confirmed, turning your head back to him. “Go on, I know you have details on it.” You encouraged, shifting yourself into a comfortable position as well.
“55 Cancri e is a super-Earth exoplanet, approximately twice the size of Earth, though roughly eight times heavier in terms of mass. First sighted and discovered in 2004, scientists have found that it is a very hot and rocky planet with a molten lava ocean surface due to its incredibly close orbit to its star…”
You were leaning into your palm while listening to him, clinging onto every word as they absorbed into your brain. The space you left in between you both out of consideration for Spencer gradually lessened as he leaned in closer the more he talked. His tone, too, grew more quiet as he went on, as if the information he was telling you did not exist in some cyclopaedia, but a secret passed in full trust.
The corners of your lips curled at the twinkle in Spencer’s eyes as he detailed out knowledge that previously sat in the corner of his brain, collecting dust.
Spencer’s intellectual rambling will always be one of your favorite things about him. You loved hearing him talk and the way he enunciated each syllable so clearly, as well as his wordings and his tonal patterns. You should have gotten used to it by now, but it marvelled you every single time that you had the chance to listen to him talk about things you would rely on an internet search to know. Just like usual, today was no different.
Spencer Reid was remarkable. It was almost impossible to take your eyes off him when he talked. He was a bundle of many things that made him an individual worth a lifetime of getting to know.
You wondered if you were looking at him a little bit too fondly right now. But how could you not when he was whispering sweet facts to you as if he only wanted you to know of it? It felt almost as if this fun fact challenge had turned into a sacred tradition between you two.
“Even though it is widely said that the planet is ⅓ of diamond, this is actually still only a theory and yet to be proven. So, to dub it the Diamond Planet when they’re not even sure if there are diamonds on the planet itself is like…suspecting you are a quarter or half French and then introducing yourself as French to people anyway.”
Your laughter burst out unfiltered, and you instantly grounded yourself by clearing your throat and pulling yourself away from Spencer slightly, putting yourself on timeout.
That was kind of embarrassing.
The joke was slightly funny, but nowhere close to warranting that kind of laughter.
It sort of reminded you of the videos you have seen on the internet about the kind of laugh that people would let out in reaction to their crush’s jok—
Oh.
You subtly slid deeper into your chair as thoughts shot in your mind at a hundred miles per second. Your fingers immediately curled into your palms to dig at it. You could not look back at Spencer in fear that he would notice that something was wrong.
Oh God.
But were you really surprised though?
A part of you had seen it coming, because as much as you adore all your co-workers, you knew in the bottom of your heart that Spencer was the only one you were willing to lessen your sleeping hours to prolong hanging out and conversing with. Also, to be immune to such sweet actions, you would have to be some statue made of stone. For years now, Spencer had intently taken time to know you and go out of his way just to make you happy. If anything, you were grateful that your heart had picked someone so kind and worthy to give itself away to.
You glanced at Spencer from the corner of your eyes, and just the sight of him alone had your heart hiccupping in a way that you had become familiar with for the past month. It was the kind of stutter that you had outright been trying to ignore and written off as nothing. But unlike all the previous times, you knew you could no longer deny that man next to you was the reason for such palpitations.
And maybe it was also time to face it: you like Spencer Reid, your genius of a friend and very much also a profiler.
Your eyes snapped away from him the moment you realized the significance of playing it cool. You could not have him picking up the signs and figuring out that you have feelings for him. But then again, you have seen how clueless he was around women who were hitting on him and failing to pick up their signals. So, maybe he would not notice your current body language either.
Before you could think more on the matter, the lights dimmed and instruments began stringing together in a well-rehearsed manner. It was only then that you began breathing again, relieved that you had two hours to collect your thoughts and come to terms with the newly attained knowledge about yourself.
﹏ ﹏ ﹏ ﹏ ﹏ ﹏ ﹏ ﹏
“Alright, what’s the fun fact of today?” you heard Spencer’s voice before peering up and seeing him behind your chair, hands on the back of the furniture, looking down at you with a shy smile. The sight of his adorable expression made your cheeks heat up, and you had to avert your gaze to prevent him from spotting signs of your flustered state.
The other members just boarded the jet as well, settling into their own spots after a tiring case. You were much less the same, sporting the now more noticeable eye bags that matched Spencer’s. Yet, that does not deter his gaze from the warmth they hold.
You gestured to Spencer’s usual seat right next to you. Once he had settled down, you made your next move on his chessboard, resuming your current ongoing match with him. You could see the instant way the cogs in his brain started spinning. At that, you provided your fun fact of the day, hoping it would serve as a distraction.
“You know, I read that there are more possible variations of chess games than the number of atoms in the universe.”
“Yeah, it’s known as the Shannon number—the number of possible chess games, I mean, which is 10 to the power of 120. Meanwhile, the estimated number of atoms in the observable universe is 10 to the power of 80, to 10 to the power of 82.”
He made his move, catching your discreet yawn in the corner of his eyes.
“Fascinating, isn’t it?” The weight behind your eyes turned them half-lidded. They landed on the chessboard, trying to formulate the next best move, but your brain refused to cooperate as a fog of sleepiness overclouded your judgments.
“You don’t have to play now, you know. We can just play next time.”
“No, no. Give me a second, I’ll make my move.”
“You’re tired.”
You slowly turned your head towards Spencer, and there it was again. You caught the concern leaking from his gaze, and it instantly reminded you just how caring Spencer was to those in his life and especially you. Your mouth formed a tired yet grateful smile at his expressed worry.
You felt sorry for those who have never had the opportunity to be the subject of his affections.
For a split second, you pondered the kind of doting that Spencer would do if he were pursuing someone romantically. You have never seen him express interest in any woman during your time at the BAU, despite the advances he has gotten from various good-looking women. But if he was already this sweet platonically, you were fairly certain your heart would give out at what he had in mind as romance.
Your shoulders finally slumped before a truthful sigh escaped from you. “Yeah.”
Unlike usual, where you would fall asleep and land on his shoulder while you were knocked out, he outright shifted to sit up straighter for you, offering his shoulder.
Spencer never admitted it out loud, but he had foolishly started wanting the friction of your skin against his or the fabric of his belongings. It was an impossible he thought would never occur, but here he was, anticipating the next rare moment of physical touch beside the one where his shoulder would become your pillow.
Of course, he had noticed it—your lack of touch when it came to him. He was devastatingly aware of your mindfulness of his germaphobia, and Spencer was grateful, he really was. However, your reservation to accommodate his tendencies had begun feeling like deprivation. In fact, Spencer could count on one hand the amount of times you had ever touched him deliberately, with the last one being one hundred and sixty three days ago.
But it was that particular initiative factor that Spencer deeply yearned for. He craved and awaited for a touch made with purpose.
He wanted you to mean it.
You stilled at such a small action, gaze stopping on his shoulder. You did not want to over-interpret such a simple movement, but knowing Spencer, there were implications and significance in that little offering.
You knew it had become a recurring thing. As embarrassed as you were, you could not help the fact that you were the type to move around a lot in your sleep. You had tried using an airplane pillow, leaning against the wall, and so many other methods. However, most of the time, you would still wake up on Spencer’s shoulder before instantly jolting up and freeing him from the physical touch.
But the certainty on Spencer’s face left your rejection stuck in your throat.
Hesitantly, you began shifting closer, giving Spencer just enough time to retract the offer if he wanted to. But he stayed confidently still as your head started leaning down before finally landing on his shoulder.
One single small action had Spencer questioning how much longer he could go on like this. How much longer could he keep these feelings tightly locked and concealed? Because Spencer was utterly gone for you. Gone in the kind of way where one casual compliment from you about the cardigan he was wearing had him immediately putting the item into his clothing rotation a lot more frequently.
“I’m gonna get you some day, Spence…” Spencer watched as you drifted to sleep before closing his own eyes, all while he wished the flight back would last forever.
Unbeknownst to you both, the team exchanged knowing looks and discreet smiles at the sight they were witnessing. There had been nothing more obvious to them than this, but instead of intervening, they decided to let things play its course.
Because, despite the uncertain nature surrounding the occurrence of events in life, this was the one thing everybody was sure was inevitable.
﹏ ﹏ ﹏
The jet finally arrived back at Quantico around 11pm. Spencer had finished his report a few minutes before you did, but lingered behind as usual to wait for you. About two weeks ago, he had established a new routine between you both.
“Ready?” Spencer carefully peeled your bag from your hand, checking his watch to see that it was already past midnight, marking a new day.
“Yeah…” you breathed out tiredly, eager to collapse in bed. “More than ready.”
You like to think you have kept it cool well, in general. But Spencer’s new routine of walking you to your car after work had you a nail tip away from laying all your cards bare and revealing your feelings. Even on days when you finished your report first, he would walk you to your car before returning to the office. But the thing was:
Spencer Reid rarely ever drove to work, which meant he was going to the employee parking lot every day with you for no reason.
Well, for no reason but you.
The elevator began making its descent from the sixth floor with both of you inside. You were listening carefully as Spencer discussed an academic paper he had read last night. The doors soon jerked open, revealing the fairly empty parking lot. At the sight of your car, you subtly began slowing down your steps, biting back a smile when you noticed him mirroring your change of pace.
You observed as he animatedly gushed about the methodology of the research paper, paying particular attention to the tiny detail of his body language. The way his hands were passionately waving around, exaggerating certain points Spencer was trying to make. The flutter of his eyelashes as he blinked a bit faster than he usually would—a habit that often occurs when he speaks quickly, as you have learned. The smooth movements of his lips as his mouth tried to rush out words to match the pace of his incredibly brilliant brain.
Now that you were looking at his lips, you have to admit that it was kind of hard to look away.
Suddenly, an idea brewed in your mind, and it felt like the holy grail had finally landed in your lap. Who would have known that a random Thursday would be the day you ought to finally win this challenge and put Spencer in checkmate.
“Spence?” Your lips curled mischievously, observing the way Spencer halted in his steps at your tone.
God, despite being subjected to harsh and unflattering parking lot lights, Spencer still had the audacity to look good in a way that tugged at your heartstrings. The sight had you questioning if he was capable of ever looking bad. His warm eyes colored with interest as he eagerly awaited your next words. You took a couple more steps forward, wanting to hide the plotting expression on your face.
“Fun fact…” You paused before peering back at him. At those two words, you instantly caught the anticipation rolling off him. There was also a subtle confidence from him that signalled he was sure he already knew whatever you were planning to tell him. But you knew that this time, things would be different.
With a competitive glint in your eyes, you finally divulged today’s fun fact, your voice calm and stable.
“I like you.”
Just as you predicted, Spencer froze while his mouth fell agape. No words fell out of those talkative lips, a stark contrast to how fast he was speaking a couple of seconds ago. You practically beamed in victory at such a reaction. You wanted to celebrate, you really did. But you decided not to gloat about your win yet. Instead, you prioritised the better option: teasing your friend.
“I recalled you mentioning once that kissing spreads fewer germs than shaking hands?” You winked playfully, expecting nothing from it. It was simply a joke to make Spencer flustered for your entertainment, and there was zero expectation that he would somehow miraculously confess that he had been secretly liking you too and would actually kiss you at your workplace’s parking lot at 1am.
Because there was no way Doctor Spencer Reid liked you, right?
You observed as his lips slowly curled up in amusement as your words sunk in, and that partially made your shoulders relaxed. Well, at least your joke landed, and your friendship would make it out intact despite your confession.
But then, out of nowhere, that closed-mouth smile stretched into a full-on grin before a chuckle of disbelief escaped from Spencer.
Now, you were on alert. Instantly, you tried to read his reaction—was he in disbelief that he was finally stumped by a fact he had not yet known of? Was he amused by your clever trick of using your own feelings as a fun fact? But the elation on his face and the awestruck look in his eyes hardly aligned with someone who had just lost a long-term challenge.
Your lips parted as you continued assessing the man, but you caught the way his eyes flickered down at that small movement before he sucked in a deep breath.
Oh…?
Suspicion crept in, but confirmation came quicker.
In the blink of an eye, Spencer had completely eliminated the two steps between you both, sealing you two in a proximity that was closer than you had ever been with him. His palms found your face, and they cupped your cheeks in a careful yet certain way.
Spencer’s eyes darted all over your face, searching for all the clues that you were okay with what he had next in mind. He could see that your pupils were slightly dilated, as well as feel the way you were leaning into his touch and the heat that was transferring from your cheeks to his hands. Though it was only when you did not pull away and instead, had your tongue dart out to wet your lips, did Spencer kill the remaining space between your faces.
His lips slanted against yours in a desperate manner that outmatched his need for oxygen, kissing you like it was long overdue. He swallowed the gasp escaping your throat and the surprised noise that followed. There was an urgency he could not hide as his straining self-control snapped from your green light.
You began kissing him back just a second or two after, and almost instantly, you heard a sigh of relief. Your lips curled, but any trace of smugness vanished when his thumb began rubbing your cheek fondly. Suddenly, you were aware of just how close you two were. Every point of contact was sending a searing heat through your body, because despite his fears of germs, Spencer was touching your skin like it was a need, rather than an obligation for moments like these.
You pressed your lips harder against his.
Good lord, Spencer could do this forever.
He might have been able to count the number of times you have touched him on one hand, but even with the whole team, there were not enough fingers to account for the number of times he had glanced at your lips this week alone.
Your own hands touched the sides of his waist, and you instantly caught the longing noise that escaped from Spencer’s throat, echoing onto your lips. At such an encouraging sound, you curled your hands to the back of his body and snaked them up his back. Your lips smirked against his at the way he arched into your touch.
One hundred and sixty three days—Spencer reminded himself again, humming in utter satisfaction at the way those numbers spun down to zero. Finally, you were touching him on purpose and with purpose. He practically melted at the way your hands roamed so confidently without any trace of guilt that he was uncomfortable, because he was far from that.
In fact, he eagerly wanted to keep the number of days since the last time you touched him at zero permanently.
You picked that precise moment to pull away, documenting the way his eyes fluttered open and dawned into existence the unadulterated glimmer of yearning in them.
You have always thought he was gorgeous, but how he looked right then rendered the word inadequate. It was a vision exceeding all your daydreams, and to be the reason behind the look made you feel like you were an award winning fashion designer who had just invented a magnificent masterpiece. But unlike most, you had no intention of sharing this artwork with the world or with anybody else.
Spencer felt his heart squeeze at the sight of you again. Was it possible to miss someone so badly from not having a visual on them for approximately a minute? Maybe he was more screwed than he thought.
Breathlessly, he finally whispered the confession that he had long to say for a month.
“Despite all the facts I already know and have learnt during my whole entire life, you’re my favorite thing to study and know more about, and have been since you stepped into my life. Nothing I learnt after felt like it could outrank anything I learnt about you.” It was true. Every speck of information about you gets the forefront of his memory’s line-up, taking priority over every other knowledge. Spencer licked his own lips for remnants of you before continuing, “You’re my favorite fun fact, you know that?”
Your heart tugged at his words. You had no idea how you managed to compete with the vast amount of interesting information that existed in the world, but under Spencer’s stare, you truly could see he meant every word.
“But…” The smile on your face instantly dropped at that single word from Spencer. Good rarely ever followed that three-letter conjunction.
“But?”
“I do have to admit that, uhm…” The familiar sheepish glint in his eyes had one of your eyebrows shooting up. “I kinda already know that fun fact already, that you liked me.” Your hands on him stilled their movement before falling onto your sides in disbelief.
“Oh, come on. You can’t be serious.” He resisted the urge to whine at the lack of physical touch from you. “But you looked shocked.”
“I was shocked you actually said it. I didn't think you’d do it today…or tomorrow…or maybe ever–” You slapped his arm, but he gladly welcomed that contact. Anything was better than nothing.
“I thought you’re like highly oblivious to romantic signals? I’ve seen you being completely clueless and not picking up on the fact that women were flirting with you.”
“I think I wasn’t clueless when it came to you because my eyes were always on you.” Those words came out shamelessly. In fact, Spencer almost sounded proud of himself. You tried not to let his words make you flustered.
“When did you figure it out?”
“That you like me? At the orchestra.”
“How? I barely figured it out myself that I liked you then.”
“Yeah, I could tell.” Your huff drew a chuckle from him.
You finally peeled yourself completely away from Spencer, grabbing your bag from his hand before making your way to your car. As you unlocked the vehicle and swung the driver’s door open, you could hear his footsteps following. You crouched to lean into your car and place your bag onto the passenger seat. You could feel Spencer’s presence stopping just behind you, standing much closer than he had ever before tonight.
As you bent back up and leaned against your car, you didn't miss the way Spencer’s fingers twitched, giving away his urges for physical contact. You crossed your arms before tilting your head back teasingly.
“I’m still gonna get you someday.”
Spencer’s gaze melted to an even softer look than before at your declaration. There was a freeing component in his eyes, showcasing the joy from being able to openly look at you in the way he had really wanted to for a while. His voice lowered to a sweet, promising whisper.
“I’m counting on that.”
With that, Spencer leaned in again, wanting a second run of things before the two of you had to part ways for the night.
You grinned into the kiss and quickly wrapped your arms around him again. Quietly, your mind logged in today’s score.
Day 187 status: unsuccessful.
But it hardly matters when you think you’ve already won something a lot better.
link to: epilogue/bonus bit
・┈・┈・┈・┈・┈・
⟡ navigation ⭒ masterlist
⟡ spencer reid masterlist
⟡ join my spencer reid tag list (or to remove yourself from)
summary: you've spent years convincing the bau that your love life is chaotic, casual, and completely detached—while quietly dying every time aaron hotchner looks at you. but when your dating profile attracts the wrong kind of attention and your unit chief is forced to look a little closer, it turns out there are very few things more dangerous than being profiled by the man you're hopelessly in love with.
notes: i've been a little conflicted about posting lately, but... it's my birthday, and i want aaron hotchner—so here you go! i've been working on this for a while and had a very very smart friend help me with the "profiling" parts (especially reid) so i hope y'all enjoy! i also really wanted to actually write the smut, but this fic hit the block limit so hard and fast it actually hurt. as always, please please let me know what you think!
warnings: swearing / cursing, blushing, italics, reader wears a skirt (and heels), reader has a cat, implied age gap, best friend!reid, some pretentious ranting, horny thoughts, likely incorrect behavioural and psychoanalytical information, likely incorrect technical information (sorry garcia), canon-typical themes (homicide, etc. referred to off page), stalker / stalking behaviour, ambiguous use of "online dating" (because i tried to keep it vaguely around s6/s7 era), kind of rushed ending? and... fade to black / implied sex (i’m so sorry) 18+ only still, mdni.
word count: 19001
MONDAY 9:25AM
Working for the FBI means having secrets is difficult. Working with the BAU makes it downright impossible.
Not because your colleagues are nosy—no, they’re just… perceptive. Which means if you want to keep something to yourself, you need to know how to manipulate their perception. Even if it doesn’t work on all of them—you glance at Reid, already seated at the round table with his nose buried in a book—at least it works on most of them.
At least, it works on Aaron Hotchner.
Your boss. Your unit chief. The man who absolutely cannot find out about your big, fat, massively inconvenient, deeply inappropriate crush on him.
Reid glances up from his book as you drop into the seat beside him. “You’re wearing a skirt.”
You cross your legs and lean back. “Excellent observation, Reid.”
“It’s impractical,” he says simply. “Especially with heels. Your centre of gravity shifts forward by almost fifteen degrees, which shortens your stride length and reduces balance recovery time. You’re significantly more likely to trip while running.”
You roll your eyes. “Good thing I’m not planning on fleeing the scene of a crime today.”
“Ignore boy genius, baby girl,” Morgan says as he steps into the room, heading straight for the espresso machine. “You look good.”
You flash him a grin. “See? Somebody appreciates me.”
Reid hums as he glances back down at his book. “Interesting how your clothing choices become statistically less practical in direct correlation to Hotch’s proximity.”
Your stomach flips. “Spence.”
He lifts one shoulder. “What? He’s not listening.”
You glance back at Morgan, whose eyes are glued to his phone, brow furrowed just slightly as he waits for the whirring coffee machine to fill his cup.
“That’s not the point, Spencer,” you mutter, turning back to him. “You need to—”
The conference room door swings open again and Hotch walks in—files tucked under one arm, the rest of the team trailing behind him.
“Morning,” he says, dropping the files on the table. “Hope everyone had a good weekend.”
Morgan snorts. “What weekend?”
“Yeah,” Prentiss mutters, dropping into the seat beside Reid. “I was here until five on Saturday finishing geographical profiles.”
“That’s because you alphabetise your paperwork,” you point out.
She gives you a look. “I enjoy being proficient.”
“Well,” you say lightly, leaning back in your chair “some of us managed to finish our paperwork on Friday and still have a very enjoyable weekend.”
Garcia gasps dramatically as she falls into the last empty chair, coffee in hand. “Ooh, look at you. Was there a man involved?”
You shrug one shoulder, biting back a smile. “I’m choosing to plead the fifth.”
Morgan points across the table. “That means yes.”
“Or,” Reid says without looking up from his book, “it means she enjoys making people speculate.”
“Aw, Spence,” you tease. “Don’t sound so bitter.”
He finally looks up from his book and fixes you with a look so flat it borders on threatening—because he knows what you’re doing. It’s what you always do. It’s how you manipulate their perception. How you keep your secret.
You perform.
You scroll through dating profiles, talk about men, brag about your weekends without ever being too specific. You flirt with almost everyone on the team—Reid more than the rest, because he’s your scapegoat... and your best friend.
He’s the only one who can see through the charade. Not because he’s emotionally perceptive, but because he did the math. He noticed the pattern. He realised very quickly that every time Hotch walks into a room or says your name, you react in a way that can only mean one thing:
Hotch is the secret you’re trying so hard to hide.
Because if you give a team of profilers an easy explanation—harmless flirting with a messy dating life and a weakness for attention—they won’t notice the way your entire body betrays you whenever your infuriatingly gorgeous boss gets too close.
Hotch clears his throat. “Well, lucky for all of you, it’s a quiet week.”
Reid shuts his book and sets it on the table.
“No active cases as of this morning,” Hotch continues. “Which means we’ll be catching up on consults, court reports, and the mountain of paperwork everyone’s apparently been neglecting.”
His eyes meet yours for the briefest second, and your pulse skitters.
“I’m bored already,” Morgan sighs, leaning back in his chair.
Hotch ignores him. “We’ve got two local consult requests from Fairfax County and a follow-up review from the Richardson case. Dave, I’ll need your notes finalised by this afternoon.”
Rossi nods once. “You’ll have them.”
“Garcia,” Hotch continues, “the Milwaukee office wants that digital forensic review by Wednesday.”
Garcia gasps softly, pressing a hand to her chest. “But I already colour-coded my entire week. That review wasn’t supposed to be due for another fortnight.”
Morgan blinks. “You colour-code your schedule?”
“Obviously,” Garcia says. “How else would I maintain my sparkling personality under crushing institutional pressure?”
Reid straightens. “Technically, organising information activates the same reward pathways as—”
“Don’t,” Prentiss says immediately.
Reid frowns slightly. “I was just going to say gambling.”
You snort softly before you can stop yourself, covering it quickly with your hand. Reid shoots you a look. Prentiss just shakes her head. And when your eyes finally flick back to the front of the room, Hotch is already watching you.
Not the team. You.
Your stomach twists.
That signature Hotchner scowl should not be as hot as it is. It shouldn’t make you cross your legs a little tighter or make your heart race the way it does. You should be used to that scowl by now. You’re on the receiving end of it often enough—whenever you crack a poorly timed joke or flirt a little too hard with Morgan.
Yet somehow, you still feel like you can’t breathe until his gaze finally shifts.
“Moving on,” he says evenly, “JJ will forward the consult details after the meeting.”
He spends the next thirty minutes briefing the team on consults and court appearances while you do your best to stay focused—but it’s hard. It’s hard because every time you look at him, your gaze drops to his mouth and your mind fills with all sorts of filthy ideas. Then he starts moving his hands as he explains something and you can’t help but wonder what they might feel like wrapped around your waist, your thighs, your throat.
His voice is a low rumble at the back of your mind, warm and firm, but you have no idea what he’s actually saying. All you can do is think about how that voice might sound, wrecked and rough, telling you how pretty you look when you—
“The briefing ended three minutes ago,” Reid says.
You blink hard. “What?”
He closes his notebook with a sigh. “The meeting’s over. You can stop internally monologuing now.”
You frown. “I’m not—”
He gives you a look.
“Ugh,” you groan. “You’re so annoying.”
You push up from your chair and walk out of the conference room without waiting for him, but you’re not surprised that he’s right behind you by the time you reach the bullpen. You drop down at your desk with another indignant huff, watching Reid do the same from the corner of your eye.
Everyone else is already settled at their desks—keyboards clicking, pens scribbling—and there’s a fresh stack of files next to your computer with a sticky note on top that reads: Fairfax files. Prioritize pages 12–18. – Hotch.
You want to laugh at the little sign-off, as if anyone else would have put these files on your desk. Your fingers trace over the note once before you peel it off and stick it to the bottom corner of your computer screen.
Reid snorts. “You know most people throw those away, right?”
You glance sideways at him. “I don’t want to forget the page numbers.”
He hums. “Sure.”
“You know,” you say, turning your chair to properly face him, “you’re being particularly judgemental today. What’s your problem?”
He stares at you for a moment, then glances back at the sticky note still attached to your monitor.
“I’m experiencing prolonged second-hand embarrassment,” he says plainly. “And repeated exposure tends to increase irritability.”
You roll your eyes. “Yeah, well—you’re increasing my irritability.”
“Exactly,” he says, already turning back to his computer.
You glare at the side of his head for a long moment, searching for a comeback—but your mind is completely blank. So with another irritated sigh, you turn back to your own screen, scoot your chair into the desk a little harder than necessary, and settle in for what’s shaping up to be a very boring Monday.
The next two hours pass by in a blur of interview transcripts, witness statements, and crime scene photos. The Fairfax County PD files detail the death of a woman in her late thirties who accidentally overdosed in her Reston home early last week. No prior history of substance abuse, financial instability, or high-risk behaviour—until forty-eight hours before her death.
In just two days, she withdrew a large amount of money, missed work without explanation, visited several bars she’d never been to before, and bought herself thousands of dollars’ worth of expensive jewellery and lingerie.
To anyone else, it might look like some sort of breakdown—an impulsive spiral that led to the kind of recklessness you can’t come back from. But to you, the behaviour feels too... artificial. As if someone is trying to construct the narrative of a troubled woman—checking all the right boxes to give investigators an easy explanation for a tragic overdose.
Only there isn’t enough concrete evidence to support your instinct. No stalker. No ex. No clear unsub who could have orchestrated this kind of ruse to cover what might actually be homicide.
You sigh. “Reid.”
“Hm?”
“Tell me if I’m overthinking this.”
Reid pushes back from his desk and scoots across the narrow stretch of carpet between your workstations. He doesn’t stop until his chair bumps the side of your desk, causing your pen cup to topple over and spill across the files you’ve got carefully laid out.
“Oops,” he says absently, pushing the pens aside.
You roll your eyes and start gathering them while he scans the files.
“The behavioural shift feels manufactured,” you say, dropping the pens back into their cup. “But there’s enough legitimate stressors here that I can’t tell if I’m forcing a pattern because it’s too clean.”
Reid examines the highlighted timeline for another few seconds.
“You’re focusing too much on the existence of the stressors,” he says. “Stress explains escalation. It doesn’t explain inconsistency.”
You frown slightly.
“She suddenly becomes impulsive socially, financially, and sexually, but her organisational habits never change.” He taps the timeline. “She still pays bills early. Still meal preps. Still attends a dentist appointment two days before her death. Real behavioural deterioration isn’t usually selective.”
Your brows lift. “So, I’m right?”
Reid nods, leaning back in his chair. “You’re right.”
“What’s she right about?”
You nearly jump at the sound of Hotch’s voice—low and even, a little rough around the edges in that way that always makes your stomach tighten.
“She thinks the behavioural shift is staged,” Reid says. “And I agree.”
He scoots back slightly as Hotch leans in, one hand braced on the back of your chair while the other pulls the file closer so he can read it properly. His tie falls forward, brushing lightly against your thigh—and suddenly, you can’t breathe.
He’s close. Way too close. You can feel the heat of his breath on your skin. Smell the bitterness of coffee beneath his cologne. Hear the quiet creak of leather from his belt as he leans in further.
“It’s too compartmentalised,” Reid says, his voice more distant than it was just a second ago. “Real behavioural spirals usually bleed into every aspect of a person’s routine. Sleep disruption, missed payments, changes in grooming habits, social withdrawal—something.”
Hotch lifts his hand off the desk and presses his thumb to the tip of his tongue—then flips the page.
Your pulse jumps so hard it almost hurts. Heat crawls up the back of your neck. Your whole body feels too hot, your clothes suddenly too tight, the bullpen too small—but you can’t move. Not with Hotch’s hand still on the back of your chair.
“But this is curated,” Reid goes on, tapping the timeline with the end of his pen. “The impulsive behaviour escalates while the foundational routines stay completely intact, which suggests intentional narrative construction.”
Hotch turns his head just slightly, dark eyes finding yours. “You caught that?”
You clear your throat. “I just... thought the escalation pattern felt off.”
“Her behavioural analysis is spot on, actually,” Reid says. “I can’t find a flaw in it.”
Hotch hums quietly as his eyes move back over the file.
“Good girl,” he says absently.
Your entire nervous system short-circuits.
“Keep it up,” he adds, smoothing his tie as he straightens.
You don’t say anything as he turns and walks away. You couldn’t even if you wanted to.
Reid just sits there, hands folded in his lap as he watches Hotch disappear into his office before slowly turning back toward you.
“You know,” he says thoughtfully, “the age-gap preference is actually more interesting than the authority fixation.”
You finally blink. “What?”
“Because the authority thing makes perfect sense. High-pressure careers tend to reinforce attraction to competence, decisiveness, emotional restraint—especially in workplace environments where leadership qualities become psychologically linked with safety and stability over long periods of exposure.”
You frown. “What are you—”
“But the older man preference is statistically more complicated because you don’t actually display the attachment markers usually associated with paternal absence or instability.”
Your eyes go wide. “Spencer—”
“You have a healthy relationship with your father, no documented authority issues, and relatively secure interpersonal attachment patterns, which suggests the preference is less psychologically compensatory and more rooted in behavioural reinforcement.”
“Reid.”
“For example,” he goes on, ignoring you completely, “you spent your formative professional years surrounded almost exclusively by older men in positions of intellectual and behavioural authority. Gideon, Rossi, Hotch—which likely created a reinforcement pattern where emotional competence became unconsciously associated with attraction, arousal, and sexual interest.”
You freeze. “Reid, I swear to—”
“You don’t react this strongly to older men generally,” he continues. “You react strongly to Hotch because he’s emotionally controlled, professionally authoritative, intellectually intimidating, and—”
He pauses, tilting his head.
“Very obviously your type.”
You glance frantically around the bullpen, scanning the desks for the rest of your team.
Morgan has his headphones on, completely focused on whatever report he’s typing. JJ’s desk is empty, as usual—she’s probably with Garcia. And Prentiss is only halfway back from the kitchen, still stirring her fresh cup of coffee.
Your gaze cuts back to Reid. “You are so lucky no one heard that, Spencer.”
He shrugs. “Wouldn’t matter if they did.”
Your brows pull together. “What’s that mean?”
“You’re good at redirecting attention,” he says, slowly pushing his chair back toward his desk. “You’re less good at hiding physiological responses.”
Your hand flies up to your cheek, palm pressing flat against the burning skin.
“Whatever,” you mutter. “It’s warm in here.”
Reid glances around the bullpen. “It’s sixty-eight degrees.”
“I hate you.”
“No you don’t.”
You shoot him one last glare before turning back toward your computer, aggressively waking up the monitor with your mouse.
You stay chained to your desk for the next few hours, finishing up the victimology report for the Fairfax files before taking them to Rossi for final review. Then you head out with JJ to grab a late lunch from the deli down the street, and when you get back, there’s a brand-new stack of files on your desk—only this time, with a tall takeaway cup of coffee set on top.
“Hotch got dragged into some last-minute Section Chief meeting across town,” Morgan says, pushing his headphones down. “Said he needs those cross-referenced before tomorrow morning.”
“Great,” you mutter, dropping into your chair.
Morgan chuckles softly as he pulls his headphones back up, turning back to his own pile of reports.
You grab the coffee from the top of the files and find a sticky note stuck beneath it—written quickly but still in his unmistakable handwriting: I owe you one. – Hotch.
Your stomach flips.
God. That’s pathetic.
You peel the note off and drop it into the top drawer of your desk, not wanting another psychoanalytic lecture from Reid if he were to spot that note stuck to your monitor.
The rest of the day passes the way every other caseless Monday afternoon does. JJ’s the first to head out—not long after five—taking advantage of the slow week to spend a little extra time with Henry. Rossi leaves about an hour later, announcing to the bullpen that he’s got a date with a bottle of wine and reruns of his favourite medical drama. Morgan manages to clear the files on his desk before seven, finally putting his headphones away before bidding the rest of the team farewell.
Prentiss and Reid linger until nearly nine, and only when the motion sensor lights blink out does Prentiss finally glance up, realising how late it is. She gathers her things and nudges Reid, who’s been firmly stuck in hyperfocus mode despite the rest of the world quietly slowing down around him.
“You coming?” he asks, adjusting the strap of his satchel.
You look up slowly, your brain buffering as it untangles itself from the files spread across your desk.
“Not yet,” you reply, blinking tiredly. “Hotch needs these by morning.”
Reid tilts his head. “Want me to wait?”
You wave a hand. “Nah, go ahead. I’ll get security to walk me to my car.”
“Alright,” he says, already turning away. “Just remember that positive reinforcement loses effectiveness when the subject becomes emotionally dependent on it.”
You glare at his back. “I’m reporting you to HR.”
“You’d have to explain the context,” he calls over his shoulder.
You roll your eyes as you turn back to the last file on your desk, taking a deep breath and flipping it open.
With the bullpen almost completely silent and the promise of sleep so close you can taste it, you manage to get through it in record time. You even give it a quick second pass to make sure you didn’t miss anything glaringly obvious in your tired state—but you’re used to working through sleep deprivation, and by ten p.m., you finally start packing up.
You organise the files back into a neat pile, then open the top drawer of your desk for Hotch’s note. You stick it to the top file and grab a pen, scribbling just below the words he wrote: Dangerous thing to promise me.
And, just as he did, you sign off with your name.
Then you gather the whole stack in your arms and cross the bullpen toward his office. Unlocked, as usual. You nudge the door open with your foot, warm lamplight casting an orange glow over the quiet space. It smells faintly like coffee and his cologne—enough to make your heart start racing the second you step inside.
You set the files neatly on his desk, trying not to linger on the quiet traces of him scattered throughout the room.
There’s still half a mug of cold coffee abandoned beside some paperwork, and the cashmere sweater he’d been wearing beneath his jacket this morning is draped haphazardly over the back of his chair. Quiet evidence of just how suddenly he’d been called away.
It makes you feel a little better knowing you really have helped him out.
You adjust the files until they’re perfectly straight, then take the sweater from the back of his chair and fold it neatly before setting it on the chest of drawers beside his desk. You hesitate for just a second before grabbing the mug of cold coffee and heading out of his office, straight for the break room. You empty it, wash it, dry it, then return to his office, placing it back on his desk exactly where you found it. Then you switch the lamp off on your way out, pulling the door most of the way shut behind you—the way it’d been before you stepped inside.
It doesn’t take long for you to gather your things, head down to security, and badge out. One of the guards escorts you to the parking garage, waiting until you’re safely inside your car with the engine running before he takes the elevator back up.
Once home, you quickly feed the yowling Leia—your cat, who’s very unimpressed by your late arrival—take a quick shower, change into your comfiest, threadbare sleep shirt, then crawl into bed with your laptop balanced on your knees. You know you should just try to get some sleep, but you’ve been ignoring a few personal messages and emails for a couple days now, and you know that if you don’t get to them soon, you’ll start to feel guilty.
You open your emails, reply to a couple, then pull up a new browser tab and type in the login address for the dating site Garcia set you up for. Not that you couldn’t have set up your own profile if you’d really wanted to.
No—this profile is just the unintentional byproduct of your ongoing attempt to redirect attention.
One slow Thursday evening in the bullpen, while you’d been loudly complaining about how impossible it was to meet men with a job like yours, Morgan had the brilliant idea of making you a dating profile. Garcia immediately lit up at the idea, pulling the site up on her computer while Reid launched into a rambling statistical analysis about the probability of finding genuine compatibility online.
Hotch hadn’t contributed to the conversation, but you’d known he was listening.
That had been the whole point. You always perform a little harder when Hotch can hear.
The site finally loads and you type in your credentials, waiting a few seconds for your profile to pop up.
Twelve notifications.
You click on the ‘messages’ tab and start scrolling. There are a few old conversations that fizzled out and you’ve long since decided not to reply to. There are a couple of messages from people you never intend on starting a conversation with. Then there are two new messages—ones you’d seen pop up on your phone but couldn’t be bothered to engage with over the weekend.
After all, you’re not actually looking to date anyone.
But one of the messages catches your eye.
DCRunner00: You seem like the kind of person who’s either very funny or very mean. I’m willing to risk it.
You snort, then type out a reply.
You: Unfortunately for you, those traits aren’t mutually exclusive.
Just as you hit enter, Leia leaps up onto the bed.
“Hey, sassy girl,” you coo, moving your laptop to reach for her.
Your fingers graze her soft coat, and she gives you an incredibly disapproving look.
You roll your eyes. “Alright. Sorry for loving you.”
You settle back against the pillows as she makes her way to the other side of the bed, curling up as far as she can possibly get from you.
Ping! Ping! Two more messages pop up.
DCRunner00: That’s probably the best possible answer you could’ve given.
DCRunner00: So what’s your worst personality trait? I feel like that’s more interesting than hobbies.
That answer comes a little too easily.
You: Workaholic. You?
DCRunner00: I get bored easily.
DCRunner00: Which usually means I either start running or annoying people for entertainment.
You: Sounds like a public safety issue.
DCRunner00: Depends who you ask.
DCRunner00: You should probably get some sleep, Workaholic. It’s late.
You glance over at Leia as she rolls onto her side, stretching her front legs, and only then do you realise you were actually smiling at your screen.
You shake your head, typing quickly.
You: Yeah, I should.
You: Night, Running Man.
Then you shut your laptop before he can send another message.
TUESDAY 9:50AM
“Morgan, you’re with me at district court this afternoon,” Hotch says, closing the file in front of him. “The defence attorney’s pushing back on the Richardson testimony, so we’ll need to review our timeline before the hearing.”
He’s wearing a grey suit today.
You can never think straight when he’s wearing a grey suit.
Morgan sighs dramatically. “Nothing says excitement like four hours in a courthouse basement.”
Hotch ignores him completely.
“JJ, I want the media requests filtered through Strauss’s office before lunch. Reid, finish the geographic overlays from the Fairfax case and send them to Rossi when you’re done.”
He glances once around the table.
“If anything urgent comes in, you’ll be notified. Otherwise, continue using this downtime to catch up on reports.”
Then he gathers the files into a neat stack and stands, turning toward the door.
The rest of the room starts moving slowly. Morgan mutters something to JJ about the court hearing, Prentiss turns to Reid, asking something about a case you don’t quite catch, and Garcia is already explaining something on her laptop to Rossi, who’s watching the screen with quiet concentration.
Which leaves you to shamelessly stare at your boss’ ass as he walks out of the room.
“You should probably blink.”
Your head snaps toward Reid, frown already forming. “I’ll blink when I want to blink.”
He presses his lips together to keep from laughing, and you know he’s fighting the urge to launch into some deeply unwanted psychoanalysis of your behaviour—but thankfully, the rest of the team is still too close for him to risk it.
Eventually, everyone starts filing out of the conference room and back into the bullpen. You end up being the last to leave, behind Reid and Garcia who are chatting animatedly about some new phone app they’re both obsessed with.
You’re just about to pass Hotch’s office door when—you hear your name.
You turn your head, and he gestures for you to come in.
Reid glances briefly over his shoulder, an irritatingly knowing look on his face as you turn and step into Hotch’s office.
You clear your throat, stopping a few feet from the desk. “Sir?”
“How late were you here last night?” he asks.
You lift a shoulder. “About ten.”
His jaw shifts as he leans back in his chair. “That’s late.”
“Morgan said you needed them done by the morning.”
“I didn’t mean first thing,” he says, smoothing the end of his tie. “You could’ve finished the rest before lunch.”
You blink. “Oh.”
His gaze holds yours for a second too long.
“You don’t need to stay late to impress me.”
Your eyes widen slightly before you force out a small, awkward laugh. “Oh—uh—good to know.”
He glances briefly at the navy-blue cashmere sweater still folded neatly on the chest of drawers.
“Still,” he says, lower this time. “I appreciated it. The files, and… everything else.”
Your breath catches softly in your throat.
“Anytime, sir,” you manage.
He nods once, then drops his gaze back to the paperwork on his desk.
You don’t need any more of a dismissal than that, so you turn quickly and step out, pulling the door shut behind you. He prefers it closed, even if he won’t admit it because he doesn’t want the team to think he’s shutting them out. He’s just more comfortable in private—it helps him focus.
By the time you get back to your desk, everyone else is already settled and working quietly. Not even Reid glances up or offers a teasing remark.
You drop into your chair and wriggle your mouse, grabbing your phone while you wait for the screen to wake up.
Two new messages from DCRunner00.
DCRunner00: Running Man?
DCRunner00: Great book. Slightly concerning nickname, though.
You can’t help yourself, so you type out a quick reply.
You: Better than ‘Workaholic’.
You: You read Stephen King?
“Hey, you busy?”
You glance over at Reid. “Aren’t we all?”
He tilts his head. “You’re on your phone.”
“I could be working.”
“Are you?”
“No.”
“Good,” he says, shuffling the files on his desk. “Hotch wants us to prep the full geographic and timeline package for the Fairfax files in case it turns into an active investigation.”
You sigh, already pushing back from your desk. “And by ‘us’ you mean...?”
“I could use your help.”
“Fine,” you mutter, setting your phone down.
He scoots over as you roll your chair toward his desk, settling in beside him. The files are all laid out, including your victimology report with Rossi’s few annotations. There are crime scene reports, autopsy summaries, witness statements, geographic overlays, and maps—everything needed to justify escalating the case into a full BAU investigation.
“Where do you want to start?”
“I’m trying to rebuild the geographic timeline digitally,” he says, “but half the field reports were logged out of sequence and now the movement patterns don’t align.”
You nod. “Okay, walk me through where it stops making sense.”
Three hours later, you feel like your eyeballs are bleeding. You’ve read the same witness statement at least twenty times now, but with every pass it only makes less sense. How could Annabelle Hutton possibly be placed in two different counties less than forty minutes apart?
“It’s physically impossible,” you mutter, rubbing your eyes.
Reid hums quietly beside you. “Not necessarily.”
You stare at him. “Care to elaborate?”
“Well, depending on traffic conditions, inaccurate timestamp reporting, and the reliability of eyewitness memory retention, there are at least four scenarios where the timeline could still technically work.”
You sigh, leaning back in your chair and staring up at the ceiling. “If you know so much, then why can’t you figure this out?”
He still doesn’t turn away from his screen. “I will. Eventually.”
You groan softly, dragging both hands down your face just as a familiar voice cuts through the quiet bullpen.
“No, listen to me carefully.”
Both you and Reid glance up automatically.
Hotch is walking slowly past the desks with his phone pressed to his ear, expression calm but impossibly stern in a way that immediately makes heat crawl beneath your skin.
“You don’t need to explain the problem again,” he says evenly. “You need to tell me how you’re fixing it.”
He pauses briefly beside Reid’s desk, listening.
“Then prioritise the transfer first,” he says. “If the paperwork isn’t filed before opposing counsel reviews discovery, the timeline becomes vulnerable and the entire testimony gets picked apart.”
He rests a hand on the partition between the desks, gaze fixed somewhere distant as he listens to the person on the other end.
“No,” he says after a moment, voice lower now. “I’m not asking you to stay late. I’m telling you this needs to be finished tonight.”
Your stomach flips.
This absolutely should not be as hot as it is.
“Good,” he says calmly into the phone, straightening again. “Call me when it’s done.”
Then he keeps walking, cutting through the bullpen before turning sharply toward his office.
You stare after him, the thought slipping out before you can stop it. “Do you think he talks you through it?”
“Probably,” Reid says, turning back to his screen. “High-control personalities usually prefer maintaining verbal direction in intimate situations because it reinforces predictability and compliance dynamics.”
You go still. You hadn’t actually expected an answer.
“Someone like Hotch would probably place a pretty high psychological value on responsiveness,” Reid continues. “The immediate compliance aspect reinforces authority, which means verbal direction would likely become part of the overall intimacy dynamic rather than just communication.”
Your face heats.
“Especially because he’s not impulsive enough to rely on unpredictability. He’d want constant awareness of how the other person is responding emotionally and physically, so talking them through things would help maintain control of the situation while also reinforcing trust.”
Oh my God.
“And honestly,” Reid goes on, “people with highly structured leadership personalities usually develop pretty strong positive associations with obedience because it confirms stability, attentiveness, emotional investment—” He pauses briefly. “Which means he’d probably find it disproportionately attractive when someone follows instructions immediately or responds well to praise because it validates both the authority dynamic and the emotional trust beneath it, so statistically speaking he’d—”
He stops.
Then slowly turns toward you.
“...I crossed a social boundary somewhere in there, didn’t I?”
You nod slowly, your voice coming out unnaturally high. “Just a couple.”
He sighs, dropping his chin slightly as he turns back to his screen.
You huff out a breathless laugh and lean back in your chair again. You need a minute to recover from that, because now you’re hot all over and the only thing you can think about is your boss hovering over you, praising you in that low, steady voice while his hand settles around your throat—
Fortunately, it doesn’t take Reid long to start rambling about geographic overlays again. You do your best to focus on what he’s saying, but after another hour of scrutinising the timeline inconsistencies, you decide you need an actual break.
You grab your phone and your jacket and head out of the office, sending a quick text to the team chat asking if anyone else would like a coffee from the cafe down the road. It’s a thousand times better than break room coffee.
When you step out of the elevator on the ground floor, you bring up your messages with DCRunner00. You’re not sure why, because normally you only check your profile when you feel like you need to keep up the act, but something about this guy keeps making you want to reply.
DCRunner00: I’ve read a few.
DCRunner00: What does a workaholic do for fun?
You type your reply as you step out of the building.
You: Work, mostly.
You: And sleep.
By the time you return to the office with a tray of four coffees, you have two new messages—but you can’t reply to them until you set the tray down at your desk.
“Thanks, pretty girl,” Morgan says as he takes one, flashing you a grin.
You smile back. “Anything for you, gorgeous.”
Then you pull your phone out of your pocket and bring up the message thread.
DCRunner00: What’s your schedule even like?
DCRunner00: You strike me as an “answers emails at midnight” type of person.
You: Nah. That’s my boss.
You: My schedule is chaos, though.
“Thanks,” Reid says as he takes his coffee, leaving only two.
You set your phone down and take the last two coffees out of the tray, leaving one at your desk before taking the other to Hotch’s office. You can see through the window that he’s not on the phone—for once—so you knock twice on the slightly ajar door before stepping inside.
He glances up, his brows pulling together slightly. “I didn’t ask for coffee.”
“I know,” you say quickly. “But it’s almost three, and you always need another coffee around three, and I figured you probably didn’t answer the team message because you still feel bad about me staying so late last night, which you shouldn’t, by the way.”
He straightens, brows drawing tighter.
“And I know you’ve got court with Morgan this afternoon, and you’re going to try to leave early, but someone’s definitely going to call at the last second and derail that plan, so you’ll only have enough time to get to the courthouse—not enough time to stop for coffee.”
You set the cup down in front of him.
“So,” you tilt your head, “coffee.”
He leans back in his chair, studying you for a second.
“That’s some pretty solid profiling, Agent.”
Your face heats instantly.
“Well,” you say, backing slowly toward the door, “maybe now you owe me two.”
The corner of his mouth lifts, just slightly, but it’s enough for the butterflies in your stomach to explode. You can’t help but grin as you turn away, slipping quickly out the door before your lungs forget how to work entirely.
You spend the rest of the day at Reid’s desk, finishing the case package for the Fairfax files and complaining about unreliable witnesses. Hotch and Morgan head off to court just after three, announcing to the rest of the team that they won’t be back. JJ is the first to head home again around five, followed by Prentiss, then Rossi—then you and Reid finally decide to call it a day just after six.
Which is also when you finally check your messages again.
DCRunner00: Chaos how?
You type a quick reply while you wait for your car’s AC to warm up.
You: Long hours.
You: Weird hours.
You: And a deeply unhealthy relationship with caffeine.
Then you tuck your phone away and head out of the parking garage.
Leia is already yowling by the time you step through your apartment door. She’s always hungry, even though she has an automatic feeder for dry food—but apparently that isn’t good enough. She prefers the wet stuff.
You quickly peel open a packet of fishy-smelling chicken jelly sludge and drop it into her bowl before washing your hands and moving into your bedroom. You flip the ensuite light on and start the shower, pulling your phone out of your pocket while you wait for the water to warm.
DCRunner00: Ah. So you’re one of those people.
You: Rude.
He replies almost immediately.
DCRunner00: Accurate, though?
You: Unfortunately.
You drop your phone on the bed and start undressing.
Ping!
DCRunner00: What do you actually do?
You hesitate. It’s not like you can just say you’re in the FBI. Contrary to what some people might think, real FBI agents can’t just go around bragging about their highly classified work status. It’s dangerous.
You: Mostly admin.
You: Governmental stuff.
You toss your phone back onto the bed and turn into the steamy ensuite. You shower quickly, dry off, run product through your damp hair, then pull on a shirt and a pair of sweatpants before heading back out into the kitchen.
You’re not in the mood to cook tonight, so you grab a protein bar out of the cupboard and start boiling the kettle while you check your phone for what feels like the hundredth time.
DCRunner00: Sounds boring.
DCRunner00: Do you get days off, though?
You drop a teabag into your mug before typing out a reply.
You: Sort of.
You: But if my boss calls, I answer.
He replies instantly again.
DCRunner00: I’m starting to think you secretly enjoy being overworked.
You: I think I’d get bored otherwise.
You pour the boiling water into your mug and watch his next reply pop up.
DCRunner00: That sounds suspiciously unhealthy.
You: Probably.
What about you? What do you do?
You tuck your phone into your pocket, then grab your tea and protein bar and head to the couch. There’s nothing you’re really interested in watching—since you don’t usually have the time to keep up with any shows—so you turn on the nightly news before grabbing your laptop and pulling up a new browser.
He’s already replied by the time you log in.
DCRunner00: Run.
DCRunner00: Read.
DCRunner00: Annoy people professionally.
You: That sounds made up.
You open your protein bar.
DCRunner00: It mostly is.
DCRunner00: So your boss actually calls you outside work hours?
You hesitate at the sudden redirection. Most men on dating apps prefer talking about themselves. Their jobs, hobbies, gym routines, childhood dogs—whatever makes them seem interesting—but this guy seems far more interested in observing than being observed.
You type out a vague response.
You: Sometimes.
You: Occupational hazard, I guess.
DCRunner00: And you always answer?
You: Pretty much.
You: He’d only call if it mattered.
His next reply takes almost two minutes to come through.
DCRunner00: Hm.
DCRunner00: I’m starting to think your boss gets more attention than I do.
You almost choke on your tea.
That’s... weird.
Maybe you have mentioned your boss a little more than strictly necessary, but he’s the one asking all the questions about your job. It’s a little hard not to mention your boss when your life practically revolves around him—in more ways than you care to admit.
You: Jealous already, Running Man?
DCRunner00: Should I be?
You sit up straighter, suddenly a little nauseous.
You: I think you’re spending too much time talking to strangers online.
DCRunner00: Maybe.
DCRunner00: You still replied, though.
“Okay,” you say, startling Leia who was half-asleep on the other end of the couch. “That’s enough.”
You: I’m going to sleep.
You: Try not to spiral while I’m gone.
His last message pops up just before you shut your laptop.
DCRunner00: No promises.
WEDNESDAY 8:10AM
“Come on,” you mutter, mashing the elevator button for the doors to close.
You’re a whole thirty minutes earlier than usual this morning. You didn’t even make a coffee in your travel mug before running out the door. You just woke up, brushed your teeth, checked your messages—and decided you needed to talk to Garcia immediately.
“Hey—woah.” Reid steps out of your way as you rush into the bullpen. “You’re early.”
You drop your bag on your desk and quickly shrug off your jacket.
“Is Garcia in yet?”
He frowns slightly. “I think so. Why?”
You pull your laptop out of your bag.
“I just—I need her.”
You’re already walking away before he can press any further, moving back through the bullpen with your laptop hugged against your chest. You’re just about to round the corner toward the elevators when—
“Hey—” Hotch stops short just as you nearly run into him. “Slow down. You alright?”
His hand is hovering near your waist—not quite touching, but close enough for you to feel its warmth.
You blink up at him. “Sorry. Yeah. Uh—totally fine. Just going to see Garcia about... a case.”
His brows pull together slightly.
“Alright, well, Garcia’s not going anywhere,” he says evenly. “Take a breath.”
You nod slowly, already stepping around him.
“Right,” you mutter. “Breathing. Got it. Sorry, sir.”
You can almost swear you see the corner of his mouth lift—but then the elevator dings behind you, and you have to hurry to slip through the doors before they slide shut.
It feels like an eternity before they finally open again, but once they do you practically sprint down the hall to Garcia’s lair and burst through the door without warning.
She startles so hard she nearly drops her coffee. “Sweet mother of encryption, knock first!”
“Sorry,” you say, breathless. “I need you.”
“Well, obviously,” she mutters, checking her shirt for any spills. “I’m the backbone of this entire operation.”
You drop down into the spare chair and open your laptop, setting it on her desk.
“You cannot judge me for what I’m about to show you.”
She glances up, brows lifting. “Oh. So this is serious?”
You grimace. “I don’t know.”
“Okay,” she says slowly. “Slightly less reassuring than I was hoping for. Tell me what’s happened.”
You take a deep breath, then let it out in a rush.
“You remember the dating profile you set up for me?”
She nods.
“Alright, so, I won’t lie, I haven’t really met anyone on there yet, but I check the messages occasionally. When I’ve got time, you know? And I don’t have a whole lot of ongoing conversations, but this one guy sent me something that was kind of funny, so I responded, and the conversation was pretty normal for the most part. I couldn’t reply all that quickly, but he didn’t seem to mind.”
You shift awkwardly, scooting your chair closer to her desk.
“Nothing really felt out of place until—well, he wouldn’t talk about himself much, which is strange because most people on dating apps are usually more interested in presenting themselves than gathering information. He kept asking questions about my job, actually. Not that my job is on my profile, but he was really curious about my schedule, or—I guess—lack of schedule.”
You wince.
“So now that I think about it, that was probably the second sign something might be off. Or maybe he just wanted to meet up, I don’t know.”
You hesitate.
“But then he sent me this message at like... two a.m.”
She squints at the screen.
DCRunner00: Bet you answer your boss faster than you answer anyone else.
“Mmm. Nope. Don’t love that,” she says, shaking her head. “That is not a normal amount of emotional investment for a stranger.”
You sink back in your chair. “That’s what I thought.”
She starts scrolling back through the messages.
“Have you told Hotch?”
“Nope.”
She glances at you from the corner of her eye. “You answered way too fast for that to be a normal response.”
“Because the answer is no,” you say firmly, leaning forward again.
“Mm-hm.” She keeps scrolling. “Okay, well... technically this could still be nothing. He could just be some lonely basement cryptid with Wi-Fi and poor social skills.”
You groan, dragging both hands over your face.
“You do mention Hotch kind of a lot.”
Your head snaps up. “He’s my boss.”
Garcia gives you a long look.
“Okay,” she says slowly. “Sure.”
“Garcia.”
“I’m just saying, if a man talked about a woman this much online, we’d all be making faces.”
You point at the screen. “Focus.”
“Right. Yes. Creepy internet man. Sorry.”
Her expression settles into something more focused as she turns back toward her array of monitors.
“Okay. Here’s what we’re going to do. Don’t block him yet.”
You sigh. “I don’t love that idea.”
“Neither do I, babycakes, but if he’s routing through the website normally, I might be able to pull connection data if we keep him talking long enough.”
You frown. “In English?”
She gives you another look. “Timestamps, login patterns, regional pings, possible VPN usage, device signatures if he slips up—basic digital stalking fun.”
“Oh, of course,” you say sarcastically. “Normal stuff.”
“For me, it is normal.” She points toward the laptop. “Now reply to him. Something casual. I want to see if he responds immediately again.”
Your fingers hover over the keys for a second before you type out your reply.
You: I thought I told you not to spiral.
He replies so fast that even Garcia flinches.
DCRunner00: Relax. It was a joke.
DCRunner00: Mostly.
She stares at the screen. “Okay, I officially don’t like him.”
You lean back in your chair again, nausea twisting low in your gut. “I feel sick.”
Garcia’s expression softens slightly. “Maybe you should tell—”
“No.”
She sighs quietly. “Okay. Fine. Can you keep replying from your phone?”
You nod.
“Good. Don’t overdo it, just enough to keep him engaged.” Her fingers start flying across the keyboard. “I’ll work my magic down here and call you if I find anything.”
You push yourself out of the chair, clutching your phone a little tighter.
“You’re the best, Pen.”
“I know.” She waves a hand without looking away from her screens. “Now go pretend to be emotionally stable upstairs.”
By the time you get back to your desk, almost everyone is already in the conference room ready for the morning briefing. You drop your phone beside your keyboard—too anxious to have it with you during the meeting—then quickly unpack your things and grab a notebook before making your way up.
Reid nods at you from his usual seat, gesturing to the empty one beside him.
“Hey,” you mutter as you drop down next to him.
His brows pull together. “Everything alright?”
You nod. “Yeah. Fine. I’ll explain later.”
Hotch keeps the morning briefing quick. He goes over yesterday’s court hearing, outlines the Fairfax briefing package in case it escalates into an active investigation, then gets JJ to run through the highest priority consultation requests.
You spend most of it toying with a loose thread on the cuff of your blouse. You’re pretty sure it’s the first briefing in years where you haven’t spent at least part of it staring at Hotch instead of your notes—and when the room finally relaxes and everyone starts to filter out, Reid turns to you.
“Okay, now I’m concerned,” he says.
You glance at him. “Why?”
“You didn’t look at Hotch once during that entire meeting.”
You roll your eyes. “Spence—”
“Something must be seriously wrong.”
You let out a long exhale, glancing briefly around the almost empty room. Only Morgan and Rossi are left, halfway to the door, deep in discussion about something that happened at the court hearing yesterday afternoon.
“Okay,” you say quietly, turning back to Reid. “I’m having some... trouble, I guess, with a guy.”
His brows shoot up. “A guy—”
“Online,” you add quickly.
He tilts his head. “I’m confused again.”
You sigh. “Remember that dating profile Garcia set up for me?”
“You mean the profile you allowed Garcia to create as part of your increasingly unsustainable performative dating strategy?”
You glare at him. “Yes. That one.”
“Then yes, I remember it very clearly.”
“Well,” you mutter, pinching the bridge of your nose, “I had this guy message me a couple days ago. It was normal at first but now it’s gotten... weird. So, I’m getting Garcia to look into it.”
His forehead creases. “Have you told—”
“No.”
“Maybe you should—”
“I said no.”
“Alright.” He raises both hands in surrender. “Okay. I’m dropping it. It’s just…”
You narrow your eyes at him.
“Well, statistically speaking, the majority of uncomfortable online interactions don’t escalate into actual stalking behaviour. Most people displaying premature emotional fixation online are socially isolated rather than violent.”
You lift a brow, waiting for the punchline.
“However,” he adds, “cyberstalking offenders also tend to develop parasocial attachments disproportionately quickly because the perceived emotional intimacy bypasses a lot of normal social barriers, which means escalation patterns can become highly personalised in a very short period of time.”
You stare at him.
“In cases where the fixation becomes grievance-oriented, the offender is usually highly organised rather than impulsive, so the behaviour tends to be significantly more deliberate and psychologically targeted.”
He pauses, frowning faintly.
“That was supposed to be reassuring.”
“…Thanks, Reid,” you mutter, turning away from him slowly. “Now I feel so much better.”
When you get back to your desk, you decide it’s time to reply again. You grab your phone and bring up the messages, taking a minute to think about what to type—knowing Garcia will be seeing the conversation too.
You type out the only mildly casual response you can think of.
You: You’re weird.
He replies just as fast as usual.
DCRunner00: You disappear a lot.
You: Workaholic, remember.
You: I told you my schedule was chaos.
You’re about to turn your phone over on your desk when a different notification pops up—from Garcia.
Garcia: If this is your version of flirting, baby girl, I think I just figured out why you’re still single.
You snort softly, typing out a quick reply.
You: Trust me, that’s not the reason.
Garcia: So there IS a reason?
You: Shh. I’m working.
Garcia: Boo!
You huff another quiet laugh as you turn your phone over, nudging it toward the edge of your desk in the hopes that you might be able to focus on work rather than creepy internet man for at least a few hours.
It doesn’t work.
Barely half an hour later, you lift your phone to check for another notification—but there’s nothing there. You pull up the message thread again and scroll up, checking the timestamps to see if he’s ever gone quiet on you before—but he hasn’t. Not really. So you type another message.
You: You went quiet. Should I be concerned?
It’s a calculated move. If he’s paying attention to response patterns—and at this point you’re pretty sure he is—then following up first helps maintain the illusion that nothing has changed. No sudden distance. No obvious discomfort. No reason for him to think you’re pulling away.
If he is dangerous, the last thing you want is for him to feel rejected.
An hour later, Rossi drops a legal pad onto your desk, asking you to take another look at a witness timeline that doesn’t feel right—which keeps you occupied for a good forty-five minutes. Then Morgan leans over the partition between your desks, asking if you can translate Reid into English. That takes up another hour of your day, and by the time you grab your first afternoon coffee, you’ve got three notifications.
One is a missed call from Garcia. The other two are from creepy internet man.
DCRunner00: Depends. Are you worried about me?
DCRunner00: Blue looks good on you, by the way.
Your stomach drops. “Oh my God.”
You immediately call Garcia back.
She answers on half a ring. “Are you wearing blue?”
“You saw me this morning.”
“I can’t remember,” she says. “Are you?”
You drag a hand through your hair. “Yes.”
“Holy shit,” she whispers. “You’ve got to tell—”
“No.”
“Are you insane?”
“Maybe, but—” You squeeze your eyes shut for a second. “Okay, just—hear me out. Blue is a statistically safe guess. It’s a neutral professional colour with high frequency in workplace attire, especially in government buildings.”
Garcia goes quiet for a second.
“And does this unsub know you work in a government building?”
“Don’t call him that,” you snap. “And—well, kind of. I didn’t tell him exactly, but I said... government adjacent.”
“I swear to God,” she mutters, “if I have to identify your body next week, I’m going to kill you.”
You press your free hand against your forehead.
“You won’t,” you say firmly. “Alright? We’re getting ahead of ourselves.”
Garcia scoffs loudly.
“Seriously,” you insist. “It could still be nothing. A weird coincidence, maybe an awkward guy with boundary issues and too much free time. We deal with actual predators every day. I can handle a few creepy messages.”
The line goes quiet again—then she sighs.
“Why are you so against telling Hotch?”
“Because I don’t want to bother him,” you say quickly. “We’ve got a quiet week, he finally seems slightly less stressed, and I don’t want to cause a whole fuss over something that might turn out to be nothing.”
She sighs again, louder this time. “Fine. I won’t go to Hotch.”
Your shoulders sag. “Thank you.”
“On one condition,” she adds. “I’m sleeping over tonight.”
You nearly choke. “What?”
“Non-negotiable.”
“Penelope, that’s insane.”
“No,” Garcia says firmly, “what’s insane is you trying to casually explain away potential stalking behaviour while actively refusing to inform your unit chief.”
“He is not stalking me,” you protest, keeping your voice low.
“Mm-hm.”
“You’re overreacting.”
“And yet,” Garcia says, “if you die, I become morally complicit because I knew about creepy internet man and failed to intervene.”
You frown. “…Morally complicit?”
“Accessory to murder-adjacent,” she corrects. “And my guilty conscience requires eight hours of sleep minimum, so congratulations. We’re having a slumber party.”
You let out a long sigh. “Okay. Fine.”
She hums, satisfied.
“I need to reply to him again.”
“Well, don’t ask me,” she mutters. “You’re the one who’s apparently fluent in creepy internet freak.”
You laugh despite yourself. “Thanks, Pen.”
“Mm-hm. And just so we’re clear, tonight we are watching wholesome romantic comedies and eating enough sugar to kill a Victorian child.”
“I was actually thinking psychological thriller marathon.”
“Absolutely not.”
You smile faintly, leaning back in your chair. “Fine. Romantic comedies it is.”
“Good,” Garcia says firmly. “Now hang up before I change my mind and march upstairs to Hotch’s office myself.”
You roll your eyes as you hang up, then open the message thread again. You don’t have to think too hard about what to type. You don’t want to escalate or accuse him, but you need him to stay engaged. You want him to explain himself to see how he reframes the behaviour.
You: Lucky guess.
The next few hours slip by in a strange blur of routine tasks and fragmented conversations.
At about three o’clock, Prentiss drops a file on your desk and asks if you can double-check a victim timeline while she’s stuck on the phone with Chicago. Then Rossi calls you into his office to sanity-check a profile theory he’s working through out loud—which means fifteen minutes of listening to him argue with himself while you sit there trying not to focus on Hotch’s voice through the wall.
When you finally get back to your desk, Reid spends twenty minutes walking you through a probability model nobody asked for but everyone somehow ends up listening to anyway. He only stops when Hotch appears, carrying a stack of files from the Richardson case he wants Morgan to look over before he signs them off—and for the first time in God knows how long, you don’t stare shamelessly at his ass as he walks out of the bullpen.
By six p.m., JJ and Rossi are gone, Prentiss is helping Morgan with the Richardson files, and Reid is building a tiny tower out of paperclips while he reads over a file Rossi dropped on his desk before he left.
At exactly six-fifteen, your desk phone rings.
“Hello?”
“Pack your things, baby girl. Your government-issued sleepover is about to begin.”
You snort softly. “Alright. I’ll see you soon.”
You hang up the phone and start clearing your desk, organising paperwork into piles and packing away stationery while you wait for your computer to shut down.
“See who soon?” Reid asks.
You glance at him. “Garcia.”
He tilts his head.
“She’s staying over tonight.”
His brows lift. “Because of your stalk—”
“Girl’s night,” you interrupt, eyes widening. “That’s all.”
His gaze narrows. “Should I be worried?”
You scoff. “About me? Never.”
You slide your arms into your jacket then finally pick up your phone, finding two new notifications from creepy internet man waiting for you.
“Really?” Reid asks, turning his chair to face you. “Because you’ve spent most of the day staring at your phone like it’s a bomb, you spent most of Rossi’s profile discussion peeling the label off your water bottle instead of contributing, and you reorganised the same stack of paperwork three separate times.”
You pause mid-motion.
“Also,” he continues, “you usually correct Morgan when he misquotes case statistics and today you let him do it twice, which honestly might be the most concerning—”
“Okay!” you cut in quickly, slinging your bag over your shoulder. “Good talk. Love the observational skills. Bye.”
He doesn’t say anything else as you walk away, murmuring goodbyes to Morgan and Prentiss as you pass, but you can still feel him watching you. You’re just about to press the button for the elevator when—
“Agent.”
You stop automatically, turning to find Hotch with a file tucked under one arm and that signature frown etched between his brows. Only this time it isn’t frustrated or disapproving—it’s curious.
You force a small smile. “Sir.”
His eyes move over your face briefly. “You alright?”
You nod once. “Of course.”
He takes a step forward, his voice dropping lower. “You sure?”
Your breath catches.
He’s close now. Too close. You have to tilt your head back to meet his eyes. You can smell his cologne, feel his warmth, count the beauty marks dotted across his cheek.
“You’ve seemed distracted today,” he says.
You swallow hard. “Uh—no. No. Sorry, I just—I didn’t get much sleep last night.”
His brows draw a little tighter, and he opens his mouth as if he’s about to say something else—press harder, maybe—but then seems to think better of it.
“Alright,” he murmurs. “Get some rest tonight.”
Then he nods once and steps back, his jaw tightening for just a second before he turns away.
You don’t move immediately. You can’t. Your mind is reeling, your pulse is still hammering, and your breath is caught somewhere between your ribs while your lungs try to remember how to work.
“Hello?” Garcia calls from behind you. “I cannot hold these doors forever, babycakes.”
You shake your head. “Shit. Sorry.”
You turn and hurry into the elevator, slipping in beside her just before the doors slide shut.
For a moment, neither of you says anything.
Then—
“So, that thing you said earlier about there being a reason you’re still single…”
You shut your eyes. “Penelope.”
“I’m just saying,” she continues lightly, “unless I hallucinated whatever just happened in that hallway, I’m starting to develop theories.”
You ignore her, watching the numbers on the elevator slowly descend like counting down the days you have before the entire team figures out your secret. Because if this guy really is a creep, if you do have to tell Hotch, then it’s only a matter of time before the BAU are dissecting your dating life and realising what a ruse it really is.
And you know better than anyone that once these profilers start looking too closely at something, they rarely stop until they’ve pulled it apart completely.
The second you step through the door to your apartment, Garcia rushes past you to sweep the place. Leia startles almost immediately, running from the couch to your bedroom while Garcia complains about the fact that Leia is the only cat she’s ever met that doesn’t like her.
“Leia hates everyone,” you tell her, kicking your shoes off by the door. “Even me.”
Garcia just rolls her eyes, continuing from room to room to check the window locks and balcony doors.
Once she’s satisfied that everything is secure, she sets her laptop up on your kitchen counter and starts running a program that looks like hieroglyphics to you.
“Have you seen his latest messages?” she asks.
You shake your head, setting your phone on the counter. “No.”
She opens your laptop and logs into the dating site—because apparently she knows your password now.
DCRunner00: Maybe.
DCRunner00: Or maybe you’re just easier to read than you think.
You type out the first response you can think of, not wanting to seem like you’re overanalysing this.
You: Or maybe I’m just not trying so hard to be mysterious.
Garcia then spends the next ten minutes trying to explain her process to you in terms that almost make sense. So far she’s managed to narrow him down to a general region through login patterns and routing behaviour, but she still can’t lock onto a direct IP address. Not because she can’t—apparently that part would actually be pretty easy—but because doing it properly would mean running requests through systems that leave a trail. And right now, this definitely isn’t an official investigation.
“The second I start pulling the fun federal strings,” Garcia says, typing furiously, “there’s paperwork, access logs, oversight, and approximately twelve thousand ways for this to become a whole thing.”
You lean against the counter. “We don’t want that.”
“Not yet.” Her expression sharpens slightly. “Also, if creepy internet man is more sophisticated than he seems, there’s always a chance he’s monitoring for targeted tracing attempts. If he realises someone’s looking too closely at him before we know who he is, he could disappear completely.”
Your stomach twists. “Or escalate.”
You spend the next couple of hours keeping creepy internet man engaged while Garcia rambles tech jargon that makes less sense the longer the night wears on. At some point, you order pizza, then you migrate to the couch, and eventually you both end up sitting through the credits of Two Weeks Notice while waiting for one last reply in the hopes that he might finally answer something about himself.
DCRunner00: Refreshing
DCRunner00: Most people hide too much.
You: Depends what they’re trying to hide.
DCRunner00: What are you trying to hide?
You: Besides the fact that I’m exhausted? Nothing.
DCRunner00: You seem distracted tonight.
You: Long day.
DCRunner00: I noticed.
You: How was yours?
You wait until almost midnight before finally deciding to call it a night.
Garcia checks all the windows and doors again while you brush your teeth and change into pyjamas. When you step back out of your bedroom to say goodnight, Garcia is trying her hardest to lure Leia onto the couch with her, but Leia is very stubbornly curled up beneath the TV unit.
“Night, Pen,” you murmur, rubbing your eyes. “Thanks again... for everything.”
“Night, gorgeous,” she calls, peering over the back of the couch. “Wake me up if you hear literally anything suspicious. Or if Leia finally decides it’s my time.”
You laugh softly, blinking slowly as you turn back into your room and fall face first into bed.
THURSDAY 6:45AM
You’re not sure whether to be relieved or concerned when you wake up to no new messages from creepy internet man. He hasn’t gone quiet for this long before—but if he is just a normal, slightly awkward guy with boundary issues and an internet connection, well... it’s not that hard to believe he might just be sleeping.
Garcia is already up making coffee by the time you step out of your room, trying to bribe Leia out from under the couch with a tube of tuna paste.
The second she sees you, she jumps up and launches into another long-winded explanation about login activity and movement patterns across different access points. Apparently, creepy internet man logged in from three different geographical locations over the course of a few hours last night—which is normal, right? That means he was out doing normal human things, not just lurking in his mother’s basement, stalking women online.
Garcia isn’t entirely convinced that him moving locations is enough to get him off the hook as the BAU’s next unsub, but it at least shuts her up until you’re both back at the office.
“Hey,” Reid says as soon as you walk into the bullpen. “You haven’t been murdered.”
You frown slightly. “Good morning to you too, Spence.”
Morgan glances up from the file on his desk. “Uh—why are we getting murdered?”
Reid gestures vaguely in your direction. “Because she’s potentially being cyberstalked by a—”
“Oh, wow, look at the time,” you interrupt, glaring at Reid. “Wouldn’t it be such a shame if we all started minding our own business right about now.”
Prentiss turns in her chair, brows raised. “Cyberstalked?”
“Nobody is cyberstalking anybody,” you say as you drop into your chair. “And nobody’s getting murdered—but great start to the morning, everyone. Love the energy. Now leave me alone.”
Morgan chuckles quietly. “Damn. Thought you said you got laid last weekend.”
Your hands slip off the desk as you try to pull yourself closer.
“Technically,” Reid says, “she only implied it by refusing to answer Garcia’s question during Monday morning’s briefing.”
“Ah.” Morgan leans back in his chair. “I knew this was a drought issue.”
You scowl at him. “A drought issue?”
“Statistically speaking,” Reid adds, “people experiencing prolonged romantic or sexual dissatisfaction often display lower frustration tolerance and increased agitation in familiar social environments.”
Morgan looks at him. “Man, just say she needs to get laid.”
“Oh my God,” you snap. “I do not need to get laid. I am having a completely normal amount of sex already, thank you very much—and frankly I think it’s deeply inappropriate that you’re all this invested in whether or not I’m orgasming regularly.”
Reid tilts his head. “You’re having sex?”
Morgan’s brows shoot up, Prentiss chokes on her coffee, and you open your mouth to fire back at him when—
Someone clears their throat behind you.
Heat crawls violently up your neck—but you don’t turn around. You can’t.
“Briefing room. Five minutes,” Hotch says, his voice dangerously even. “JJ’s got an update on the custodial interview with Wallace.”
Morgan presses a fist against his mouth, trying—and failing—to smother the strangled sound of laughter.
Very slowly, you turn in your chair.
Hotch is standing at the edge of the bullpen with a coffee in one hand and a file in the other. His expression is almost perfectly composed, but there’s something dangerous lurking beneath it—something suspiciously close to amusement in the tightness of his mouth.
“Be right there, sir,” you blurt, lifting two fingers to your forehead in the most ill-timed attempt at a salute the FBI has ever seen.
Hotch just looks at you, the muscle in his jaw jumping once before he turns away.
You want to die.
The second his office door clicks shut behind him, Morgan drops his fist and smacks his palm flat against the desk with a choked laugh.
“Oh, you are never recovering from that,” Prentiss mutters, smirking behind her coffee cup.
Morgan leans back in his chair, grinning. “Baby girl, that was painful to watch.”
You drop your head into your hands.
“You somehow escalated the situation at every possible opportunity,” Reid says thoughtfully.
“I hate you all,” you mumble into your palms.
You spend the next half hour with your nose buried in your notebook, avoiding eye contact with the entire team while JJ explains the month-long back-and-forth that it took to finally get approval for the Wallace interview.
Apparently, the prison is limiting the interview to a single hour and reserving the right to terminate it early if the inmate becomes uncooperative—which Rossi thinks is less about policy and more about Wallace trying to dictate the terms of the interaction.
It’s not ideal, especially considering you were the one who convinced Hotch to push for the interview before Wallace is transferred to death row. His case was one of the first you ever studied during the BAU training programme, and there isn’t much you wouldn’t give to pick the sociopath’s brains. One hour with him feels dangerously short—that is, assuming Hotch actually picks you to be in the interview with him.
“We don’t have enough time to waste managing personalities in the room,” Hotch says, gathering the files in front of him. “I’ll decide on a second agent and send out the interview schedule later today.”
Chairs start scraping back almost immediately, files and notebooks snapping shut as everyone gathers their things and starts filtering out of the room—but you don’t move. You stay firmly planted in your seat, chewing thoughtfully on the inside of your cheek while you debate whether to follow Hotch into his office and ask to be part of the interview. You don’t even have to be asking the questions, you just want to be there. You were the one pushing for it in the first place.
But then your brain very helpfully reminds you that Aaron Hotchner heard you say the word orgasming less than an hour ago and suddenly, being on death row yourself feels infinitely preferable to making eye contact with your unit chief.
“You alright?” Reid asks, lingering beside you.
You sigh heavily, finally closing your notebook. “Yep. Just thinking about how I’ll probably have to fake my own death and change my name after this morning.”
He shrugs. “Hotch probably isn’t even thinking about it anymore.”
You glance up at him hopefully.
“Morgan definitely is, though.”
You roll your eyes, letting out another resigned sigh as you stand up and follow him out of the briefing room.
The rest of the morning manages to pass without incident. You stay chained to your desk, reviewing reports and processing any files that come your way while very deliberately not glancing up any time Hotch steps out of his office. At around eleven, Morgan and JJ head out to the cafe down the street and come back with coffees for the whole team. Then there’s a printer jam that gives the rest of the office a rare glimpse at just how angry Emily Prentiss can get when frustrated.
It isn’t until just before midday that you finally get up to go to the bathroom, and when you return to your desk, there’s one new notification in your inbox.
From: Aaron Hotchner
Subject: Wallace Interview
You’re with me next Thursday. We leave at 0700.
Your stomach flips.
“Wow,” Reid says, suddenly standing right beside your desk. “He picked you pretty quickly.”
You shoot him a warning look. “Spence.”
“I’m just saying, he usually deliberates longer.”
You glance back at the screen, rereading the first five words that make your pulse skip a little faster.
“You and Hotch do work unusually well together in confined conversational environments,” Reid adds.
You turn back to him, frowning.
He tilts his head. “That sounded more suggestive than I intended.”
You open your mouth to tell him how deeply unhelpful he’s being when your phone buzzes twice against your desk—like it does several times a day, but something about it feels different this time. Wrong.
You reach for it slowly, your stomach twisting tighter as you turn it over.
Two new notifications from creepy internet man. The first since last night.
You open the message thread—and your stomach drops.
DCRunner00: [Image attachment]
DCRunner00: Did you and your friend have fun last night?
The image is of your apartment building. It’s grainy, slightly crooked, clearly taken from somewhere across the street—but your living room windows are unmistakable. Warm light glowing through the glass. The blurred silhouette of someone inside.
Ice floods your bloodstream.
You stop breathing.
“Is that... your apartment?” Reid asks, leaning over your shoulder.
You don’t answer him. You can’t.
The bullpen dissolves into white noise around you.
Until—
“I’m done!” Garcia’s voice cuts through the static. “I can’t do this anymore!”
She’s marching right toward you, your laptop—that she’d still been monitoring—tucked under one arm.
Reid gasps. “Wait. Is that—”
Morgan straightens in his chair. “What’s happening?”
“Hotch’s office,” Garcia says, her expression dangerously stern as she stops beside your desk. “Now.”
You nod slowly, your shoes almost slipping against the carpet as you push your chair back. Reid steps aside just enough to let you stand, but before he can get too far, you reach out and wrap your fingers around his wrist, silently dragging him with you as you follow Garcia back through the bullpen.
Hotch glances up the second Garcia pushes open his office door.
“What’s going on?”
His tone is calm, automatic, already slipping into that low, calculated cadence he uses when he’s trying to talk someone down from the ledge. His gaze moves from her to you—and something in his expression shifts. Hardens. That muscle in his jaw ticking just once before he turns back to Garcia.
“What happened?” he asks, sharper now.
Garcia crosses the room quickly, opening your laptop and sitting it on his desk while you hover uselessly in the doorway with Reid still caught in your grip.
Hotch glances at the screen, his eyes flicking through the messages.
Then he looks back up—right at you—and something unreadable settles across his face. Something dangerous.
“Who sent this?”
Garcia spends the next five minutes explaining the entire situation at hyper speed while you just... stand there, leaning slightly against Reid like the whole world has tilted on its axis.
It’s funny how you can spend years building a career around finding bad people. Thinking like them. Predicting them. Profiling them. But the moment something happens to you—something real—that’s when all the theory suddenly stops feeling theoretical. And maybe it’s because you know exactly what people like this are capable of, or how quickly situations like this can escalate once someone decides they’re emotionally invested in you.
Or maybe it’s just the horrifying realisation that some part of you knew where this was heading all along. And you still didn’t do anything about it until now. Not until you put yourself—and your friend—in danger.
“Get everyone in the briefing room,” Hotch says the second Garcia finishes. “Now.”
Garcia nods once before slipping back out the door, and only then do you finally let go of Reid’s wrist—making a mental note to apologise later for the excessive physical contact.
Hotch’s eyes drop down briefly, following the movement almost automatically. Something tightens in his expression for half a second before his attention snaps back to the laptop still open in front of him.
“Reid,” he says. “Print the entire message history and document everything. Full timeline, screenshots, attachments—all of it. I want copies ready for the team in ten.”
You swallow hard. “The—the entire message history?”
“Yes,” Hotch says simply. “Every message.”
Could this day get any worse?
Fifteen minutes later, you’re back in the briefing room with the entire team flipping through printed copies of your dating profile and messages. It almost feels like an out-of-body experience. Like one of those mortifying dreams where you watch everything unfold from above without any real ability to stop it.
“Okay,” Prentiss says. “Where do we start?”
“Victimology,” Morgan answers immediately—then he glances at you. “Sorry, baby girl.”
You wave him off. “Reid’s been profiling me all week. Go for it.”
There’s a quiet ripple of laughter around the table, but Hotch barely blinks. He’s sitting on the opposite side, between Prentiss and JJ, with his arms folded tightly across his chest and gaze fixed on the copies spread out in front of him like he’s trying very hard not to look directly at you.
“We need to be careful building a victimology this early,” he says evenly. “Especially considering how well we know the victim. Personal familiarity creates bias.”
Reid tilts his head. “Normally, yes. But stalking crimes are often highly individualised.” He starts flipping through the printed messages as he talks. “Statistically speaking, stalking victims are usually targeted for a very specific reason. The motivation is generally rooted in either resentment, fixation, revenge, or romantic obsession.”
You grimace. “Fantastic.”
“Most victims also know their stalkers,” Reid continues. “Approximately seventy-five percent of stalking cases involve some form of prior relationship or perceived emotional connection.”
“Okay,” JJ says carefully, looking toward you. “Is there anyone you can think of who might hold a grudge against you? Someone you arrested, rejected, testified against—anything like that?”
You snort quietly. “Does every criminal I’ve ever interviewed count?”
The room goes still for half a second.
“Wait,” Prentiss says, sitting forward slightly. “Actually, that makes sense.”
Hotch’s eyes flick up as Prentiss pushes one of the printouts into the middle of the table, tapping the page.
“This escalation happened fast. Less than a week. That’s not somebody slowly building emotional trust from scratch—that’s somebody who already came into this interaction emotionally invested.”
“Or angry,” Morgan adds.
“Exactly,” Prentiss says. “He doesn’t lash out until she has Garcia over. That’s jealousy. Possessiveness.”
You sink lower in your chair.
“And he starts reacting every time she brings up her boss,” Rossi says, flipping through the printouts. “That’s territorial behaviour. He’s fixating on a prominent male figure in her life.”
“Not the only one fixating on him,” Reid murmurs beside you.
You elbow him immediately.
“Ow.”
Hotch glances up sharply. “Something to add, Reid?”
Reid straightens. “Uh—no. No, I think Rossi covered it.”
Hotch’s eyes narrow slightly, like he knows there’s something he’s missing, but he lets it go.
“Garcia,” he says instead, “tell me you found something useful.”
“Oh, I found things,” Garcia says immediately, the rapid clacking of her keyboard echoing loudly through the conference room speaker. “Deeply unsettling things. Our creepy little internet goblin has been very busy.”
Prentiss frowns slightly, mouthing ‘internet goblin’ across the table to JJ.
“Okay, so—profile was created nine days ago using a burner email and a VPN bouncing between three different states, which normally would make me want to set my computer on fire, but our boy got sloppy.”
Hotch leans forward slightly. “How sloppy?”
“Sloppy enough that one login pinged off a public Wi-Fi network less than six blocks from her apartment last night,” she says. “And before anybody asks, yes, I’m already pulling traffic cams.”
Hotch nods once, already shifting into command mode.
“Morgan, Prentiss—start canvassing within a ten-block radius of her apartment. Garcia will feed you anything useful from the traffic cams. JJ, coordinate with local PD and see if there’ve been any complaints of suspicious activity in the area. Peeping, prowlers, stalking complaints—anything that fits this escalation pattern. Rossi, start pulling names from old cases. Anybody with a history of fixation, stalking behaviour, or inappropriate attachment to investigators. Garcia, keep digging and keep me posted.”
Everyone starts moving immediately, papers shuffling and chairs scraping back as the room shifts into motion.
“I want to help,” you say suddenly. “This is my mess, let me fix it.”
“You can help,” he says evenly, “by going home, locking your doors, and staying there until we know exactly what we’re dealing with.”
You open your mouth to argue.
“I mean it,” he adds, voice low.
“I’ll take her,” Reid offers immediately.
“No,” Hotch says, gathering the printouts into one neat pile. “You go with Morgan and Prentiss.”
Then his eyes flick up, meeting yours.
“I’m taking her home.”
The next hour is one of the strangest of your life.
Hotch tells you to take your laptop back down to Garcia, who’s already in full FBI investigation mode—her screens covered in maps, metadata, CCTV stills, and enlarged screenshots of your own dating profile staring back at you in horrifying definition. When you finally make it back to your desk, Rossi spends twenty straight minutes walking you through every violent offender you’ve interviewed in the last three years, forcing you to revisit dozens of interactions you’d long since filed away as routine.
Somewhere in the middle of it all, Morgan drops a schematic of your apartment building onto your desk and starts questioning you about entrances, exits, blind spots, and security cameras while Reid quietly replaces the coffee you forgot existed an hour ago. It isn’t until Morgan leaves and JJ immediately takes his place beside you that you realise nobody has let you out of their sight for more than a few minutes at a time.
Then, finally, Hotch steps out of his office—files in one hand and his go-bag in the other, like he fully intends on staying the night if necessary.
“Ready?” he asks, stopping beside your desk.
You stare at the go-bag for one long, deeply horrified second.
“Yep,” you manage, voice tight as you slowly push out of your chair.
Hotch drives. You don’t even try to argue. You just sit in the passenger seat with your knees pressed together and your heart beating out of your chest. It’s not like you haven’t been in the car with him before. You have, plenty of times. This just feels... different.
Neither of you speak until he cuts the engine in the parking garage of your building, and you have to try very hard not to dwell on the fact that he hadn’t asked for directions the whole way here.
“Wait,” he mutters before climbing out of the car.
He grabs his bag from the back, then moves around the car and opens your door.
It takes an embarrassingly long time for you to unbuckle your seatbelt—your hands are shaking and your pulse is still pounding hard enough to make you dizzy—but once you finally do, you slip out of the car and lead him toward the fire stairs.
He never leaves more than a foot of distance between you. Never checks his phone. Never glances down. He stays glued to your side like a real protection detail. And thanks to your avid and wildly inappropriate imagination, you’ve already mentally written an entire bodyguard romance plot starring Aaron Hotchner and yours truly by the time you finally reach your apartment door.
“I—uh—wasn’t really expecting company,” you say as you push the door open. “Sorry.”
The second you step inside, Leia leaps off the couch with a loud, rumbling trill—probably wondering why you’re home before dark for the first time in years.
Hotch pauses, his brow furrowing slightly. “You have a cat.”
You glance back at him as you kick your shoes off and nudge them out of the way. “Is that really the most surprising thing you’ve learned about me today?”
He watches Leia for another second before glancing back at you. “It’s unexpected.”
You roll your eyes, trying to ignore the way your heart skips when he quietly toes off his shoes beside the door without even asking. Like he already expects to stay awhile.
Leia chirrups again as she pads through the living room toward you, no doubt about to demand an early dinner—until she catches sight of Hotch and abruptly stops short. Her ears flicker, her tail waving from side to side as she assesses the new man in her apartment.
Hotch crouches slightly, holding one hand out toward her.
“Oh, she doesn’t really like people,” you say quickly. “So don’t take it personally if she—”
Leia immediately walks straight up to him. She sniffs his hand once before pressing directly into his palm with a loud purr rumbling through her entire body.
Your eyes go wide.
Traitor.
Hotch’s mouth twitches faintly as Leia leans harder into his hand.
Oh my God. Are you jealous of your cat right now?
He gives Leia one final scratch behind the ears before straightening, the softness in his expression fading almost immediately as he slips back into work mode. He scans the apartment briefly before setting the files down on your tiny dining table and shrugging his jacket off, draping it over the back of a chair.
You stand there for a second longer than you probably should, watching him move through your apartment with the same calm focus he brings to crime scenes and briefing rooms and interrogation tables. He checks the windows, the balcony doors, glances briefly—thank God—into your bedroom, then double-checks the locks on the front door.
The whole thing feels weirdly surreal. You’ve imagined Aaron Hotchner inside your apartment a thousand times in a thousand different ways—just not like this. And nothing you imagined could have possibly prepared you for the reality of it. The way everything feels so much smaller. Warmer. More exposed.
Every object in every room suddenly feels mortifyingly personal.
If he lingers long enough in your kitchen, he’s going to notice the unusually empty trash can and realise you survive almost entirely on caffeine and convenience. If he looks too closely at your bookshelf, he’s going to find an unhealthy collection of romance novels with more trigger warnings than plot points. And if he looks into your bedroom again and turns his head just a little more to the right, he’s going to see your vibrator sitting on the nightstand—and then you’ll actually have to fake your own death.
Because you’ve spent years carefully curating a version of yourself that keeps people from looking too closely. Flirty. Casual. Detached enough to joke about bad dates and hookups and sex without anybody ever realising that none of it means anything. It’s easier that way. Easier to let everyone assume your attention is scattered in every direction instead of fixed very specifically on the one person you absolutely cannot have.
But this?
This feels dangerously close to being found out.
The next couple of hours pass in strange, uneven waves of normalcy and low-grade psychological torture.
Hotch sits at your tiny dining table without complaint, dwarfing it as he hunches over files and asks careful questions about your routines, your neighbours, and whether anyone in the building has seemed overly interested in you recently. His phone rings a lot, which isn’t unusual, and every time he answers it you spend almost the entire conversation staring unashamed at the way his shirt pulls tight across his back when he reaches for another printout.
Which is wildly inappropriate considering the circumstances, but you can’t really help it. You’re strung out, on edge, and, as Morgan so helpfully pointed out this morning, severely under-fucked.
And Leia, unfortunately—but not unsurprisingly—remains no help whatsoever.
By seven o’clock she’s fully abandoned you in favour of draping herself across Hotch’s lap while he reviews new data from Garcia, completely oblivious to the fact that you haven’t been able to breathe normally since he walked through the door.
“Are you hungry?” you ask eventually, moving back into the kitchen as if you have anything in there to offer.
Hotch glances up from his laptop, one hand resting absently against Leia’s back while she purrs in his lap.
“I’m fine.”
You lean a hip against the kitchen counter, folding your arms tightly across your chest. “Any updates?”
He glances back down at his screen. “Garcia narrowed the traffic footage down to three vehicles that stayed in the area longer than they should have—Morgan and Prentiss are running the plates now. And Rossi’s pulling relatives connected to your previous cases. Family members who attended trials, sentencing hearings, interviews. Anyone who might’ve had access to your name outside the official reports.”
You nod slowly, silence settling again for a moment before you exhale sharply.
“Are you sure sitting here doing absolutely nothing is really the best use of me right now?”
His eyes flick back up, that signature Hotchner scowl set between his brows.
“You think this is nothing?”
His voice stays calm, but there’s something firmer underneath it now.
“You’ve spent the last four days being threatened, surveilled, and followed by someone we still haven’t identified,” he says. “Morgan, Prentiss, and Reid are out chasing leads because somebody targeted you. Rossi’s pulling case files because somebody targeted you. Garcia’s been at her desk for six straight hours because somebody targeted you.”
His jaw tightens slightly.
“My job right now is making sure nothing happens to you,” he says quietly. “Let me do that.”
Your breath catches, something warm and uncomfortably familiar twisting in your chest as Aaron Hotchner just sits there watching you like he hasn’t said anything unusual at all.
Which, to him, maybe he hasn’t.
He’s just doing his job. Looking out for his team. He’s not here because he wants to be. He’s here because someone threatened one of his agents.
That’s all.
You clear your throat, pushing away from the counter before the silence stretches too long. “I’m—uh—I’m just going to shower quickly. If that’s alright.”
He nods once. “Want me to clear the—”
“No,” you say immediately. “God, no. No. It’s fine. Totally fine.”
His brows pull together slightly, confusion flickering briefly across his face before you turn and hurry into your bedroom, shutting the door a little harder than necessary behind you.
Then you take the longest shower known to mankind. You stand beneath the scalding spray for at least ten minutes before even touching anything. Then you scrub, exfoliate, shave, condition, rinse twice, and stand there for just a little longer before finally gathering the courage to step out. All the while trying desperately not to think about the fact that your unit chief is only two thin walls away while you’re dripping wet and completely naked.
You rummage through your dresser until you find an oversized sweater that isn’t totally threadbare and a clean pair of pyjama shorts. Technically, they’re just striped flannel pants you cut into shorts, but at least they’re not as short as the rest of your pyjama collection that definitely needs replacing.
If only you actually had time for things like shopping... and emotional stability.
“No, wait for Morgan before you approach,” Hotch says as you step quietly back into the living room, phone pressed against his ear while he paces slowly beside the dining table. “If the registration’s fake, I don’t want you making contact until we know exactly who’s inside.”
He pauses, expression sharpening slightly.
“Alright. Keep me updated.”
He lowers the phone slowly before looking over at you for the first time since you re-emerged—and for half a second, he visibly loses his train of thought. It’s only tiny. Barely there. Just a brief pause before his expression shutters back into place.
“Garcia tracked one of the vehicles from the traffic footage to a motel outside Arlington,” he says, glancing back down at the files scattered across the table. “The driver’s been masking his activity through multiple VPNs, so she couldn’t pull a clean trace from the motel Wi-Fi, but only one room in the motel was actively using the network.”
Your stomach tightens.
“The name on the reservation was fake,” he continues, “but the room was paid for using a credit card belonging to Daniel Mercer.”
The name hits you immediately.
“Ethan Mercer’s brother,” you say quietly.
Hotch nods. “Rossi confirmed it about twenty minutes ago. Morgan and Prentiss are waiting for local PD before they move in.”
You nod slowly, your pulse fluttering anxiously in your throat as you move toward the kitchen. Not because you actually need anything in there, but because standing still feels almost impossible right now.
“Ethan barely spoke during the trial,” you murmur, folding your arms as you lean back against the counter. “I don’t think I ever even met his brother.”
“You wouldn’t need to,” Hotch says, already gathering the files into a neat pile. “People build attachments to investigators without ever interacting directly. Especially when they’re looking for someone to blame.”
Your skin prickles. “You really think it’s him?”
“It fits,” Hotch replies evenly. “Established emotional investment, personal motive, no prior record. Which explains the inconsistency. The escalation without follow-through. The long gaps between contact attempts. He knows enough to be cautious, but not enough to stay controlled.”
He straightens, turning back toward you—and for the briefest second, his eyes drop to your bare legs before snapping back up to your face almost immediately.
He clears his throat. “This probably isn’t something he’s done before. But his brother has.”
The apartment falls quiet again after that. Hotch returns to collecting files while you stare absently toward the dark balcony doors, your pulse still refusing to settle beneath your skin.
“Well,” you mutter eventually, gripping the edge of the counter to hoist yourself up. “On the bright side, I still think I’ve dated worse.”
The joke leaves your lips lightly enough, the same way they always do—easy, detached, halfway between genuine and ironic so nobody ever pauses long enough to look too closely.
Except this time Hotch does pause.
“Why do you do that?”
You frown. “Do what?”
“Deflect.” He straightens again, one hand still holding a stack of printouts. “Every time something gets too serious, you make a joke. Or you flirt. Or you say something just inappropriate enough to throw people off balance.”
You lift a shoulder. “Maybe I’m just charming.”
“No.” His eyes narrow slightly, brows pulling together. “No, because it changes depending on the situation.”
Your pulse stutters.
“With Morgan it’s competitive,” he continues, setting the papers back on the table. “You tease him because he pushes back and it keeps conversations superficial. Garcia gets exaggerated stories because she responds emotionally instead of analytically. Half the things you say to Reid are specifically designed to make him flustered enough to stop examining what you actually mean.”
“Wow,” you murmur, shifting your weight against the countertop. “Starting to feel a little attacked here.”
But Hotch doesn’t seem to hear you.
“The dating profile doesn’t fit,” he says, almost to himself. “Neither does the apartment.”
Your stomach twists as his gaze moves briefly across the room. The bookshelves. The carefully organised clutter. Leia now curled up asleep on the couch.
“You project someone impulsive. Social. Sexually confident. But nothing in here supports that.” His eyes flick back toward you again. “You live like someone who protects their space carefully. Even the cat.”
“Leave Leia out of this.”
“She doesn’t like strangers.”
“She likes you.”
The words slip out too quickly, and something in his expression shifts.
“You keep people at a distance,” he continues slowly, close enough now that you can hear the quiet rasp beneath his voice. “Even the team. You let people think they know you because it keeps them from looking closer.” He hesitates, brow furrowing. “Except Reid.”
Your fingers tighten instinctively around the edge of the counter.
“You trust him,” Hotch says. “Not just socially. Behaviourally. You anchor yourself to him when you’re stressed. Physical proximity. Eye contact. Redirecting conversations through him.” He pauses, watching you carefully now. “And earlier you said he’d been profiling you all week.”
Oh God.
“Which means Reid already noticed the pattern.”
He goes quiet for a moment, his expression tightening almost imperceptibly as he looks back over the last few months—years—in real time. You can practically see it happening behind his eyes. Every interaction. Every joke. Every look you thought you’d hidden quickly enough.
“You track me.”
The words come quieter now. Less certain. Like he’s still realising them.
“You know my routines,” he continues slowly. “You anticipate questions before I ask them. You look up when you hear my office door open even when you can’t see me.” He steps closer again. “You know when I need coffee before I do. You watch my reactions before anyone else in the room.”
Your breath stutters.
And Hotch notices immediately.
His expression shifts slightly as his eyes flick across your face, your posture, your hands still locked around the edge of the counter hard enough that your knuckles have gone pale beneath the kitchen lights.
“Your breathing changes when I get too close to you,” he says quietly.
He takes another slow step forward, close enough now that you have to tilt your head back slightly to keep looking at him.
“You stop fidgeting,” he continues. “You go completely still.” His gaze drops briefly to your hands before lifting again. “Like you’re afraid movement alone is going to give you away.”
Your heart is beating so hard now you’re half-convinced he can hear it.
“You lose verbal fluency,” he says, voice lower now. “You trip over words you normally wouldn’t. Your pupils dilate. Your heart rate increases. And every single time I get close to noticing it—”
His eyes lock onto yours.
“You redirect.”
You can barely breathe now.
He’s standing right in front of you, close enough that the heat rolling off him sinks straight into your skin, close enough that one more step would put him between your knees where you’re perched on the counter.
And somehow the worst part is that he still sounds calm. Thoughtful. Like Aaron Hotchner is profiling you with the same careful focus he’d bring to an unsub—except this time the thing he’s slowly uncovering is the fact that you’ve been hopelessly in love with him this entire time.
You swallow hard, your gaze catching just briefly on his mouth before you drag it back up to his eyes, pulse hammering so hard you can barely think straight.
“Figured it out yet, Agent Hotchner?” you ask softly.
He goes still for half a second, something unreadable flickering across his face as his eyes drop to your mouth before lifting back to your eyes again.
The apartment suddenly feels oppressively quiet.
His throat shifts slightly.
And then—
His phone rings.
He steps back immediately, his expression shuttering back into something careful and unreadable.
“Hotchner,” he says, pressing his phone against his ear.
You don’t hear much after that. Not really. You recognise Morgan’s muffled voice, but you can’t quite hear what he’s saying. Not while Hotch slowly paces your living room. You catch fragments of the conversation. Questions. Short answers. The low, steady cadence of his voice slipping effortlessly back into work mode while your own nervous system continues actively collapsing in on itself.
Because holy fuck.
Holy fuck.
What the hell just happened?
“They got him.”
Your head snaps up. “They what?”
Hotch moves back to the dining table and starts gathering his things.
“It was him. Daniel Mercer,” he says. “Morgan and Prentiss found him in the motel room with multiple burner phones, printed screenshots from the dating profile, and enough surveillance material to establish intent.”
“Oh.”
“Local PD recovered notebooks too,” he continues. “Names, schedules, work addresses. Everyone connected to Ethan Mercer’s conviction. Judges, prosecutors, witnesses. You were first because you were the arresting agent.”
A cold shiver slips down your spine.
“Garcia also confirmed the motel Wi-Fi matched the same VPN chain used to access the dating profile,” Hotch adds. “Once Mercer realised the Bureau was involved, the direct contact stopped. After that he shifted to surveillance. Morgan said the room was covered in trial material. Photos. Notes. Newspaper clippings. He’d been building the grievance for months.”
He pauses, then looks at you.
“But they got him.”
“Good,” you say quietly.
Hotch nods once before turning back to the dining table, slipping his laptop into his bag with careful efficiency before gathering every file and printout into one neat pile.
“Local PD will hold Mercer overnight until federal transport clears,” he says, sliding the papers into his bag. “Garcia’s already started coordinating with the U.S. Attorney’s Office. You’ll need to give an additional statement tomorrow regarding the dating profile.”
You nod. “Okay.”
Hotch reaches for his jacket, draping it over one arm.
“There’ll still be additional officers patrolling the area tonight,” he says. “And if you don’t want to be alone, I can have Reid or Garcia stay here.”
“I’ll be fine,” you mutter, glancing down at the kitchen tiles. “You can stop babysitting me now.”
Hotch stills.
Then slowly, deliberately, sets his jacket on the table.
“Babysitting?” he repeats.
“You know what I mean.”
He steps toward you, brows drawn. “I don’t think I do.”
“You solved the case,” you mutter, heat crawling up the back of your neck. “You profiled me. Thoroughly. So congratulations, I guess. You figured out the whole sad little secret, the weird avoidance issues, the entire personality disorder cocktail—” You let out a short, humourless laugh. “You can go back to pretending none of this ever happened now.”
He closes the distance between you before you even fully realise he’s moving, stopping directly in front of the counter again. Exactly where he’d been when you asked him if he’d figured it out. Close enough that you can feel his warmth. Close enough that you can see the day-old shadow of stubble lining his jaw.
“You’re being deliberately provocative now because you’re embarrassed,” he says. “But embarrassment isn’t actually your primary response here.”
His gaze drops to your mouth again, and your pulse stumbles.
“If it was,” he adds quietly, “you wouldn’t still be looking at me like that.”
Your breath catches in your throat.
You want to say something. Anything. Another joke. Another deflection. Something sharp enough to cut through the tension in the air and stop him looking at you like this. Exposing you like this.
But you can’t.
All you can do is stare at him. At the steady intensity in his eyes. At the way his tie has loosened slightly over the course of the night. At the slow rise and fall of his chest beneath the white shirt you’ve spent an embarrassing number of years picturing on your bedroom floor.
You swallow hard, and he notices. Of course he does.
Something shifts in his expression then. Something softer. Less guarded.
His hand comes up beneath your jaw, his thumb pressing gently into your chin as he pulls you closer. You fall forward without hesitation, and he leans in, dark eyes still searching yours as if he isn’t entirely sure he has permission yet.
Then he kisses you.
It’s not rushed. Not messy. If anything, the first press of his mouth against yours feels almost unbearably controlled, like he’s still holding himself back even now.
But the restraint doesn’t last long.
Your hand catches his tie, tugging him closer, and something rough slips from the back of his throat as he steps in, his hips slotting between your thighs. His hand slides from your jaw into your hair, fingers tightening just enough to tilt your head back exactly as far as he wants it.
Your lips part against his with a broken sound, and he deepens it slowly, his tongue moving against yours like he has all the time in the world. Tasting you. Learning you. Mapping every small sound and ragged exhale with the same focused intensity he brings to everything—and somehow that’s what undoes you the most. Not urgency. Attention.
His breath mingles with yours, hot and uneven, and when his teeth catch your bottom lip it’s deliberate, measured—a sharp little spark shooting straight through your spine. Your hips roll toward him without permission, and his answering groan rumbles through his chest, vibrating beneath your palm and making you ache everywhere you’ve been starving for him.
Then he pulls back just enough to look at you properly again. His hand still tangled in your hair. Thumb dragging once across your jaw. His eyes move over your face with the same intensity he uses in every debrief, every case, every crisis, except right now you are the thing he’s making sure of.
Like he needs to be absolutely certain this is real.
“Aaron—”
“Bedroom,” he says immediately, voice low and rough enough to send heat crashing straight through you. “Now.”
FRIDAY 6:15AM
Your alarm blares somewhere beside the bed, startling you awake hard enough that your heart immediately starts pounding. You reach for it blindly, determined to silence it before it wakes—
Oh God.
The second your hand hits the snooze button, you freeze.
Your heart is beating faster now, your pulse thrumming in your throat as you turn slowly—so slowly—toward the other side of the bed, where Aaron fucking Hotchner stirs sleepily.
Your stomach swoops.
You slept with your boss last night.
With a shallow, shaky breath, you carefully start to move. His arm is heavy at your waist, but you manage to slip out from underneath it without fully waking him. You shove the covers off and shiver at the sudden exposure, leaning over the side of the bed to find your discarded sweater. You pull it over your head before quietly padding toward the ensuite, refusing to glance back at your very hot, very naked unit chief still tangled in your sheets.
You only just make it around the other side of the bed before something tugs at the back of your sweater. You stop, glancing back to find Hotch half-awake, eyes half-lidded with one hand caught at the hem of your sweater.
“Do you really get up this early?” he asks, voice rough with sleep.
“Yeah,” you murmur. “Most days.”
His brows pull together slightly. “Why?”
You let out a small, breathless laugh. “Because my boss is kind of a hard ass about punctuality.”
Something that almost resembles amusement flickers across his face.
“Sounds like a terrible boss,” he murmurs.
Then he tugs on your sweater again—hard enough this time that you let out a startled laugh as you stumble backward onto the mattress and into him. He catches you easily, one arm wrapping around your waist before you can even fully recover, pulling you back against the warmth of his chest.
“Yeah,” you murmur, laughing softly as his mouth brushes beneath your ear. “He’s awful. Very demanding.”
He hums, breath warm against your skin.
“He’s really hot, though,” you add, smiling despite yourself. “So I like having time to put in a little effort, you know? Hope he notices.”
“Oh, he notices.”
Your stomach flips. “Really?”
“Mhm.”
His arm tightens around your waist. “He notices the skirts.”
Heat floods your face. “Aaron—”
“He notices the tights.” His mouth brushes against the nape of your neck. “The ones with the seam up the back.”
“Oh my God.”
You try to turn your face into the pillow, but he just holds you tighter, pressing his lips firm against your neck.
“And the red bra,” he murmurs.
Your breath catches.
“Noticed that so much I had to wait until everyone left the conference room before I could get up.”
You let out a strangled sound, squirming in his arms, but it’s no use. His chest vibrates against your back, something suspiciously close to laughter.
“My washing machine broke that week,” you whine. “It wasn’t my fault.”
“Mm, sure.”
You twist around immediately. “I’m not lying.”
The corner of his mouth twitches, like he doesn’t quite believe you, but before you can protest again—he kisses you. Warm, slow, sleep-soft. His mouth moves against yours almost lazily, his hand tightening slightly at your waist when a pathetic little whimper slips out before you can stop it.
“Careful,” you murmur, breathless against his mouth. “Don’t want to be late.”
You feel his lips curve.
“Good thing I’m the boss.”
10:35AM
You made it to work well on time. Even after three orgasms, a shower, and an awkward attempt at a ‘What Now?’ conversation—that ended in the aforementioned third orgasm. Because fortunately for your rapidly fraying nervous system, Hotch hadn’t even hesitated when you’d finally asked what happens next. In fact, he’d answered a little too quickly.
The first thing he’d asked was whether you’d be comfortable keeping things quiet for a while. Not because he’s worried about the team finding out—he trusts them. Trusts you. The concern is Strauss, and the Bureau, and keeping you in the BAU while he figures out exactly how much trouble the two of you have just created for yourselves. At some point he’d even started muttering about reporting structures and supervisory chains, half-thinking out loud while pulling on his tie. Something about possibly moving your reporting line over to Rossi. Something else about needing to review the Bureau’s fraternisation policies before making any moves.
That was when you kissed him—effectively, and very quickly, kicking off round three.
Because he’d clearly been thinking about this for a while, which means Aaron Hotchner has been noticing a lot more than just short skirts and inappropriately coloured underwear. It means that the second he decided to kiss you in your apartment last night, he’d already known exactly what he was getting himself into.
“Alright, gorgeous,” Morgan says, startling you as he raps a knuckle against your desk. “They’ll be ready for you downstairs in ten.”
You glance up at him, brows drawn—and it takes an embarrassingly long second for you to figure out what he’s talking about.
“Oh.” You blink. “Right. Yeah, I’ll head down soon. Thanks.”
Prentiss looks over from her desk. “You gonna be okay?”
You lift a shoulder. “Sure. What’s another case report?”
Morgan frowns, dropping into his chair. “It’s not exactly every day you’re the victim, baby girl.”
“Yeah, but nothing really happened.”
Morgan and Prentiss both stare at you.
“Because of the team,” you add quickly. “You guys caught him before he actually did anything. So... you know, nothing bad happened.” You plaster on a smile that feels reasonably convincing. “Thanks for that, by the way.”
Prentiss narrows her eyes, but before she can say anything else, Reid appears.
“You’re in a remarkably good mood for someone who was being actively cyberstalked twelve hours ago,” he says, stirring his second coffee of the day.
You turn back to your screen, trying to ignore the heat creeping into your cheeks. “Maybe I just have a newfound appreciation for life.”
Reid studies you for a moment, clearly unconvinced—but he doesn’t push. He just moves slowly back toward his desk, setting his coffee down with unnecessary care while the rest of the team turn away, finally deciding to mind their own business.
You force your attention back to the report in front of you, determined to at least look productive for the next ten minutes—when a familiar voice cuts through your concentration.
“Rossi’s taking Wallace with you next week,” Hotch says, setting the file down on your desk.
You blink up at him. “I thought you were leading the interview.”
“I was.”
Something in his expression tightens briefly before he lowers his voice.
“Wallace has a long history of using sex, intimidation, and emotional targeting to destabilise people during interviews,” he says. “Especially women.”
You frown. “Hotch, I—”
“And if he says something to you in that room,” he continues evenly, “or looks at you the wrong way, I need to know the agent sitting beside you is still capable of thinking objectively.”
Your stomach flips as his eyes meet yours—steady, intense, devastatingly honest.
“Right now,” he says quietly, “I’m not sure that’s me.”
Then he’s gone. Moving through the bullpen back toward his office like he hasn’t just set your pulse racing and your head spinning. You watch after him for a moment before shaking your head, glancing back at your computer screen as if you’d been focused on it at all in the first place.
“…Huh.”
You turn toward the sound and find Reid staring at you again. Not rudely. Just watching with the same focused curiosity he’d been wearing since your suspiciously cheerful comment about cyberstalking.
Summary: After submitting your transfer application to Briar U, your best friend, Hannah, invites you to spend a weekend on campus. There you catch a glimpse of what your life could be like. Unfortunately you aren’t ready to put down any roots at Briar before application decisions are out. It’s also unfortunate that John Logan is a persistent person you come to learn
Warnings: Drinking, fluff, slight angst if you squint (need a magnifying glass for it), friends’ who scheme and meddle in your love life
A/N: holyyyy this is long. I was thinking of splitting it up but I think it reads better as one. Feel free to send me request again! I have some more one-shots coming up 😈
When Hannah asked you to visit for the long weekend, you immediately said yes ready to escape your boring liberal arts college. Visiting Briar U would also be nice considering you submitted your transfer application there for the following semester. Good bye middle of nowhere Ohio!
“So what are the plans tonight?” you said eagerly, tucking your luggage into the corner of Hannah’s dorm. The place was so nice compared to your own shoebox back at your university.
“Easy there,” Hannah laughed, “I thought we could meet up with Allie and some friends in about an hour at Malone’s.”
“Will I get to meet Garrett?” you teased.
You vividly remember impatiently checking your phone every hour for updates on the crazy situation that was Hannah and Garrett’s deal. Despite its weird origin story, you could tell your best friend was happy. But that still wouldn’t stop you giving a firm talk to Garrett when you eventually met him tonight.
“Of course and the rest of the hockey team probably,” Hannah said, “They’re all happy to meet you.”
“Are any of them cute?” you asked, wiggling your brows, “I won’t tell Garrett. Back at my school we’re seriously lacking some muscle from the student body.”
Hannah just laughed and shook her head. The two of you were inseparable in high school and when everything happened, it was you that held Hannah’s hand every step of the way.
Hannah knew your current school felt too small for your energy and she was hoping that maybe this escape to Briar would be a glimpse into the future semester when you transferred. Yes she was that confident that you would get in.
“I’ll let you decide for yourself,” she shrugged, “They’re all kinda players though.”
“So that means they’re good in bed,” you wiggled your brows causing Hannah to chuck a pillow at you.
You hold up your hands in surrender just teasing your friend. In all honesty, you weren’t expecting to meet anyone tonight. Your priorities were to soak up as much time with Hannah as possible, and perhaps track down the admissions office to speed up your application status.
After putting on some makeup and changing out of your bleak airport outfit, you and Hannah were ready to take on the night. It was nice to see Hannah so eager to go out and take on the night with a quiet confidence. The long distance friendship was hard for both of you but you were glad at least Hannah had found her people. You secretly worried you wouldn’t get along with them which would signal to Hannah that you were outgrowing each other. You shook the thought out of your head.
“Wellsy!” someone exclaimed as the pair of you entered the crowded bar.
It was a tall blonde guy with the most handsome pair of dimples you’d ever seen. There was a girl with an amazing haircut, sitting on his lap in the booth which you recognized as Allie. She immediately jumped from her spot and rushed over to wrap you in a hug.
“You’re finally here in person!” she squealed as you returned the hug, “Wow your outfit is so cute! That lip color is also so pretty. Are you so excited to be here? I have a very busy girls day schedule for us on Sunday. Do you like soap operas? I’m Allie by the way.”
“Take a breath Allie,” Hannah laughed.
“It’s also great to meet you! Your haircut is gorgeous,” you smiled.
“Come sit!” Allie said, grabbing both you and Hannah’s hand to join the large group barely fitting in the booth, “We’re gonna get Garrett to buy us a round of drinks!”
There were three other people squished in the booth besides the blonde. Allie made the blonde pull up two seats for you and Hannah.
“Which one is Garrett?” you asked, eyeing all the options. Hannah had already shown you photos but this was your time to mess around.
“That would be me,” Garrett raised his hand, extending his hand, “Wellsy talks a lot about you.”
You accepted his firm handshake and watched as you began to scout Hannah’s chair closer to his spot on the edge of the booth. Ok bonus points for you Garrett.
“Hannah might’ve mentioned you once,” you teased, “If you break her heart, I’m a black belt in karate.”
Your face was dead serious which made Hannah laugh and pressed a quick kiss to Garrett’s cheek as he swallowed nervously.
“I’m Dean,” the blonde introduced, “And I would pay good money to watch you beat up Graham.”
“After the frozen four finals,” the curly haired boy piped up, “John Tucker by the way. But everyone calls me Tucker.”
You give him a friendly nod, looking now to the last guy with soft hair and the most mesmerizing pair of brown eyes you’d ever seen.
“Logan,” he said, giving a casual wave, “John Logan. How was your flight?”
“We were delayed on the runway for like half an hour but other than that smooth sailing from there,” you shrugged.
“Glad you made it,” he said with a devastatingly handsome smile, “Hannah said you go to school in Ohio.”
“Yup. Well hopefully not for long. I’m trying to make my escape to Briar U,” you said.
“Oh no way you’re transferring?” Tucker asked.
You give a firm nod.
“I already found a great three bedroom apartment for us,” Allie said casually which made Dean chuckle.
“So we gotta show her a good time guys,” Hannah said.
“Yeah you better not lose your game Saturday or I’m accepting my transfer offer to Emory,” you said which made all of them laugh.
“Boston College is always good competition,” Dean said, “It’ll be an entertaining game for sure.”
From then the conversation flowed so naturally that you actually feel like you’re a part of their group. Garrett earns a couple more points in your book as he buys the first round for you and Hannah.
You and Allie bond over vintage clothing and Tucker got really passionate about his new pasta recipe. Dean’s friend, Beau, came by which only added to the chaos of the group. But most surprising of all it was Logan who you were vibing the most with. You both loved movies leading into an intense debate about one another’s favorite movie series.
“Mission Impossible is a way better franchise than the Bourne series,” you argued.
“It’s Tom Cruise doing the same dumbass stunts!”
“No taste,” you chided, “I bet you like the 80s Bond movies.”
“Nah I’m a Daniel Craig fan.”
Your face lit up as you found yourself scooting closer as he discussed why Casino Royale was his favorite Bond movie. By now your knees were brushing against his under the table not neither of you were making any plans to move away.
Logan also had very good reactions to your jokes which was rare since sometimes guys found you a bit too blunt. Always the first to break out into a smile whenever you make a sarcastic comment or off hand joke. Not to mention his great looks and physique. You would never meet a guy like this back at your college.
But you were also attracting attention from just about everyone in Malone’s. A fresh face and laugh to the usual Thursday night cloud.
Eventually, when you go up to get a cup of water a guy approaches you to offer to buy your next drink.
“I haven’t seen you around here,” he said, introducing himself.
“Visiting a friend,” you answered, catching Hannah and Allie’s dropped jaws.
“Are you enjoying yourself?” he asked to which you responded with a nod.
You two talk about small things, where you’re from, what you’re studying. He was cute but you don’t plan on going home with him. He must’ve gotten the wrong idea because when he leans in asking to leave with him, you just flash him one of those sweet smiles of yours and politely decline. He doesn’t press on thankfully and allows you to return to your friends.
“He was cute! What happened?” Hannah said when you returned and he moved on to the next girl.
“Yeah but I’m here to see you. Not random guys at Hastings,” you said, giving her hand a squeeze.
Later it's you, Logan, and Beau still sitting around as the rest of the crew decide for a quick dance break or mingle with the other patrons.
A group of girls approach the table, more specifically Logan, wishing him words of encouragement on the game. You watched him flash that smile as the girl’s fingers lingered on his shoulder.
“Is it weird?” you asked, “Being a mini celebrity here.”
“I wouldn’t say I’m celebrity status,” Logan chuckled.
“I literally saw your face on five different posters before I made it to Hannah’s dorm,” you scoffed.
“Logan’s being humble,” Beau said, “Guy is like our golden boy with that smile of his.”
“I mean I love playing hockey so I guess it’s nice that I also get attention from it,” Logan shrugged.
You nodded at his response, sipping on your drink. Beau excused himself to go talk to Dean, leaving the table empty besides just you and Logan.
“What about you?” Logan asked.
“What about me?”
“Do you like the attention?”
“What attention?”
“I saw you and that guy earlier,” Logan said, leaning in.
“That was nothing,” you shrugged, “I like attention from specific people.”
“You sound like trouble,” he joked.
“I’ve been told I’m fun,” you shrugged.
You hold his playful gaze, trying to ignore how fast your heart is beating. Damn Garrett for having attractive friends. But you made a promise to yourself. No guys until you figured out your schooling situation.
Luckily Garrett saved you by coming over announcing they should call it for the night because of practice the next morning. You said your goodbyes and walked back to the dorm alongside Hannah and Allie.
“Whatcha think of him?” Hannah grinned, interlocking arms with both you and Allie.
“Honestly Garrett seems like a good guy,” you said sincerely, “Very respectful. All of them are I guess.”
“Well you missed out on Dean’s adventures before he settled with Allie,” Hannah joked, earning a snicker from Allie.
“You and Logan were really hitting it off,” Allie teased, “He’s single by that way so you should totally go for it.”
Your face grows warm in embarrassment that it was that obvious you were into him. So you tried deflecting.
“We just have similar humor. He seems like a good friend,” you shrugged, "Besides I’m here to spend time with you guys not hook up with a hockey player.”
“If you change your mind just know you have my full support,” Hannah said which surprised you, “What? Logan is a great guy and you’re the best.”
“Ugh enough,” you groaned but Allie and Hannah just continued their teasing.
–
Meanwhile the boys were having the exact same conversation.
“Dude she was so into you,” Dean barked.
“She laughed at every joke you made,” Tucker pointed out.
“But she turned down that guy at the bar so fast,” Logan groaned. You and your glossy lips were tripping him up.
“Just got a text back from Hannah,” Garrett announced, causing all eyes to turn to him.
“She says ‘She says he’s a good friend but I think there might be more to it. I’ll investigate further.’” Garret read.
“Damn bro,” Dean sighed, holding back his laughter.
“Don’t sweat it,” Tucker comforted, but Logan couldn’t help but feel a little disappointed.
Being friends was fine. Especially if you did decide to go to Briar U. But it’s been so long since he’s really vibed with a girl before you.
You were witty and confident. But also very kind from the way you were always hyping up Hannah and offered to buy everyone a round.
It was also a bonus that you were also drop dead gorgeous. Your style, hair, and makeup just made complete sense to your personality. Logan was down bad for his best friends’ girlfriends’ best friend. What a mouthful.
“It’s chill,” Logan shrugged, “This might be the last time I see her anyways.”
Garrett gave his best friend a supportive smile before they all headed into their respective rooms. But before Garrett went to bed he made sure to text Hannah back
Operation BFF x BFF needs to happen
–
The following day was a great time spent with just Hannah and Allie. They took you around campus, showing you where their classes were and the best spots to study. Later you all went to the diner for lunch and then chilled out until it was time for the hockey game.
You never really been to a school sports game before since you came from a small school but this was different. If anything Briar U hockey was just as exciting as the professional league.
Hannah let you borrow some Hawks merch so you could blend in with the crowd. You gripped her hand tightly as she guided you through the busy arena. You were shocked to see how packed it was.
When the three of you shuffled into the first section, right near the plexiglass, you were buzzing with excitement.
“This is so cool!” you exclaimed to the girls.
The entrance song to the visiting team played causing the chaos to start. It was Boston College with their dark red jerseys and gold accents.
However the real party was just getting started when the Hawks song began to blare over the speakers. Everyone got up on their feet to cheer while you also joined along.
On cue number 66 skated right up to the plexiglass to blow a kiss towards Allie who squealed and returned the gesture.
“Go win baby!” she screamed.
You recognized Garrett with the “C” stitched to his jersey. He skated around the rink with the crowd erupting in excitement. But he made sure to stop and point to Hannah.
Tucker also skated by and waved. Following not too far behind was number 22. Though his face was covered by the helmet, you still caught his brown eyes through the glass. He sent you a nod and you ignored the flutter in your heart.
With the whistle blow, the game began with Briar having possession of the puck. Your eyes tracked the puck as the players skated at impressive speed and agility. Occasionally someone will body slam into another person causing the crowd to cheer even louder.
Garrett got pushed right in front of where you were sitting. But he was quick to send Hannah a wink, calming her nerves and skating away to catch the prick.
Tucker scored the first goal which made the crowd scream so loud you felt like you were at a music festival. Hunter Davenport secured another goal at the very end of the first period.
The second period carried that same energy as the first. Although BC managed to get one goal past Briar, the Hawks made it up later towards the end of the period with Garrett scoring thanks to Logan’s assist. You didn’t miss him pointing his hockey stick towards Hannah before embracing his buddy.
It was natural your eyes were tracking that 22 jersey. Logan’s handling of the puck was like no other. You were secretly hoping he wouldn’t be that so that you would be less attracted to him. Instead you felt your heart beat faster watching him zip past you making a beeline for the puck.
The second period ended 3-2 with the Hawks still in the lead. A short break consisted of a T-Shirt canon and you being featured on the Jumbotron for you and Allie’s dance moves.
The third period brought a whole new intensity to the game with both teams becoming significantly more aggressive. Dean got put into the penalty box for hooking but he wasn’t that upset since you three were right next to the box. He blew Allie another kiss.
It was approaching the end of the period with neither team scoring yet, but Garrett had gotten possession of the puck and skated down the ice in a blur. You saw Logan rounding the edge, shoving his way past the BC defenseman. Everyone was now standing as the suspense was growing. There was a solid crack of the puck as Garrett passed to Logan. Logan wasted no time slamming it right into the net, causing you to scream alongside Allie and Hannah. You missed the look they exchanged behind your back.
From across the ice, you saw Logan point to you and then gesture to the goal as if to ask if your thoughts on the play. You couldn’t help but smile and give him a thumbs up.
The whole crowd was cheering as the buzzer blared signaling an end to the game. Briar U continued to cheer for their team as they skated back to the locker room. You followed Hannah and Allie through the crowd where they brought you to the tunnel outside the boy’s locker room. Hannah offered congratulations to the players exiting but when she caught sight of Garrett’s curls she immediately lit up. Allie wasted no time running into Dean’s arms who was already ready to pick her up.
“Great game,” you beamed at Tucker and Logan.
Tucker accepted your praise before catching up with Birdie. Now you and Logan were trailing behind the group, getting ready to make their way to Malone’s to celebrate. His hair was damp from the shower, curling at the ends. There was a slight flush to his face and the fitted t-shirt he wore did a great job of outlining his biceps. You had to physically stop yourself from licking your lips.
“Whatcha think of the game?” Logan asked.
“Oh it was awesome! I’ve never been to a sports game like that before,” you said, “You’re really talented by the way.”
“I mean I wouldn’t be at this school if it weren’t at least decent at hockey,” he shrugged.
“Fair but the way you play..” you paused, getting embarrassed you sound like a fangirl but Logan’s gaze told you to continue, “It’s mesmerizing."
“Thank you,” he said, “I never thought of my playing in that way.”
“Well you have a gift,” you said, “And now I’m officially done adding to your ego for the night.”
Logan just chuckled and shook his head. Man he was fucked watching you skip ahead to Hannah.
–
Malone’s was way more crowded than the previous night and the vibes were just going up. With the arrival of the four boys the bar erupted into cheers and praises for their stars. Beau sauntered over with a tray of shots.
“For my favorite ice kings,” he shouted, offering a shot to everyone in their group.
You found yourself on the dance floor with Allie, shaking your hips and letting your hair fly everywhere. You felt good. You felt sexy, throwing your hands up in the air to sway to the rhythm of the music. Dean came to join the two of you, wrapping an arm around your shoulder and the other around Allie’s waist. Soon Dean was now just behind Allie, his large hands splayed over her stomach. You turned the other way to let them have your fun only to see Logan next to you.
“Need a partner?” he said, holding out his hand.
You laughed and gladly accepted. He spun you around which made you laugh even more, the alcohol only heightening your desire to be close to him. Soon enough the two of you were nearly in the same position as Asllie and Dean. You shivered as Logan’s large hands ran up your arm while one planted itself firmly on the side of your hip to keep you swaying against him. You instinctively leaned back and reached up to tangle your hands into his soft hair.
“Wanna get some air,’ he mumbled, lips brushing your ear.
You turned back and gave him a small nod. He took your hand and guided you through the crowd to lead you outside the bar. The cool air was a nice refresher from the sweaty chaos in Malone’s. But your heart rate had not calmed down since Logan approached you on the dance floor.
“I know you’re Hannah’s best friend and I mean this in the most respectful way possible,” Logan began, “But you are divine.”
“Divine?” you laughed.
“Beautiful, gorgeous, pretty, sexy, funny, witty, kind. You’re every positive adjective in the English dictionary.”
You laughed again, shaking your head in disbelief. You knew now that you were going to fall for Logan. But that looming thought of what if. What if you don’t get into Briar U makes you hesitate from throwing yourself onto him.
“Sorry if that was weird. I know you’re not into me like that but I had to tell you before you left,” he said awkwardly, scratching the back of his neck, “Fuck I’m sorry I-”
“It’s ok,” you interrupted, “I also think you cover a couple adjectives as well. I just…”
Your voice trailed off as now you let your gaze fall to your feet. But Logan was a patient man, he didn’t say anything but he leaned closer as if to signal ‘I’m not going anywhere.’
“I’m scared that I won’t get into Briar,” you sighed, “I think I'm a strong applicant but it’s also just such a competitive school.”
Logan just nodded, letting you speak freely.
“This weekend was amazing and now I wanna go here so bad that if I don’t get in I know I’m going to be crushed. I just don’t want to have expectations for myself when my future is so uncertain right now.”
“I get that,” Logan said, “You’re already taking a risk transferring which I commend you for. I don’t think I have the confidence to make a decision like that.”
“Thanks,” you mumbled, “You’re a really nice guy Logan. I’m glad to have met you anyways.”
He smiled down at you, with a hint of sadness in his eyes. You returned a similar expression before his face lit up with an idea.
“Give me your phone,” he said.
“Why?” you said, but you were already handing it over.
“I’m putting in my number,” he said, casually typing in the digits, “When you get into Briar–”
“If.”
“When,” he repeated, “When you get into Briar and you think you’d still want to see me again. Text me.”
“Text you,” you repeated, accepting your phone back.
There was the contact profile for John Logan 22
“Yup. If you give me your number I’ll be too tempted and probably flood your messages as soon as you leave for the airport. So the decision is up to you.”
“That’s a lot of pressure.”
“Again it’s all up to you. Maybe you need a hand moving in. Just know that next semester I have a secret coffee spot that I’m waiting to share with someone,” he said, flashing you a smile.
You just laughed as Logan opened up the door to let the both of you rejoin your friends. And for the rest of the night everything seemed to be alright.
–
A couple weeks later you were screaming on the phone with Hannah letting her know your acceptance into Briar. After chatting and planning room plans, you let her get ready for her shift at Malone’s. Sitting in the silence of the dorm room you would never have to return to you to open up your contacts.
You
Hey, I might need a big strong man to help me move into Allie and Hannah’s apartment next fall.
summary: When you confessed your love to the idiot on the hockey team and he rejected you like a coward… only to write you 22 letters later, ignore your silent treatment, and confess everything to you in the rain like he’s in a Nicholas Sparks movie. Because of course, talking like a normal person is too hard, but declaring eternal love while soaking wet is totally reasonable.
warnings: Prepare yourself for some angst with a happy ending, fueled by heavy pining and absolute emotional constipation. This story features miscommunication (but make it dramatic) and, yes, literal kisses in the rain. Expect Logan being a simp in denial, lots of crying in aprons and on shoulders, and friends who consistently give much better advice than the main characters actually listen to. Fair warning: you will experience severe secondhand embarrassment, endure excessive dramatic monologues, and encounter plenty of swearing along the way.
a/n: hey guys, I’m back! I hope you like it. You have no idea how fucking much I love kisses in the rain. Sending you a kiss — I hope you enjoy it as much as I did. xoxo
part one.
'Cause all I know is we said, "Hello"
And your eyes look like comin' home
All I know is a simple name
And everything has changed
(Guys, you lost me.)
I don’t know what to do with this. With all this love I have for him. I don’t know where to put it now.
The world kept spinning like nothing had happened. And I hated it a little for that.
Every morning I looked at myself in the bathroom mirror of my room with that question stuck somewhere inside me, unanswered, with nowhere to go. Love doesn’t disappear just because you want it to. It doesn’t work like that. There’s no switch, no drawer where you can stash it and lock it away. It was just there, huge and useless, taking up space that no longer had anyone to belong to.
When was the last time I actually slept?
I couldn’t remember.
I wasn’t trying to be dramatic, but fuck, not talking to him had hit me hard.
I washed my face with ice-cold water until my cheeks burned to bring down the swelling, then I put on concealer under my eyes and a little blush so I wouldn’t look so dead. War paint, I told myself. As if calling it that turned it into something that required courage instead of just the small, sad act of trying to look like a functional person.
Today I finally decided to leave my cave—my incredible, comfortable bed—to dignify myself with going to work. One of the perks of your mom being the owner is that she really doesn’t care if you miss work. I think she’s even at peace when I’m not at the café. It must be exhausting to see me moving around like a ghost in an apron.
The walk was twelve minutes. Janis was still at the car wash, so I had no choice. I usually didn’t mind walking, but now I couldn’t stand those twelve minutes alone with my thoughts. Before, I’d spend them with music or my phone in my hand, answering Logan’s messages like a dumb teenager. Now I just wore the headphones without playing anything. Just the dead weight of them as an excuse for no one to talk to me. So I could be, for those twelve minutes, exactly as broken as I was before having to pretend I wasn’t.
I’d been replaying the same moments all weekend. The feeling of his lips against mine. His big, warm hands closing around my hips. The way he looked at me right before he kissed me, like he’d been holding back for years. The hoarse sound that escaped his throat when I kissed him back. Everything played on loop, sharp, cruel, perfect.
And then came the memory of the next morning. His voice in the kitchen.
“I fucked everything up.”
“I need you to leave.”
I shook my head and picked up my pace, as if I could leave the memories behind on the sidewalk.
“The only thing I learned that night,” I muttered, dropping my forehead onto the table with a dull thud, “was that I should’ve stayed home.”
We were sitting at one of the outdoor tables in the central courtyard at Briar, under a sun that felt way too cheerful for my mood. I had a coffee that had already gone cold between my hands. Sarah was nibbling on an apple with a bored face, and Alison was stirring her chocolate milkshake with a straw while listening to me repeat the weekend story for the thousandth time.
Sarah let out a snort and ran her hand down my arm in a caress that was supposed to be comforting but mostly looked like she was holding back laughter.
“What if he’s gay and just hasn’t realized it yet?” she whispered mischievously, leaning toward me.
Alison let out a short, dry laugh.
“Men,” she said ironically, clinking the ice in her drink. “Tell them you love them and you’ll never see them again. They disappear faster than my patience on a Monday morning.”
“God, my life sucks,” I lamented, letting out a pitiful groan against the cold wood of the table.
The silence lasted barely two seconds before Sarah leaned in closer.
“For God’s sake! You’re twenty-two years old, what do you know about life?” she exclaimed, though her voice had that protective tone she always used when she saw me like this. “You’re beautiful, smart, and never apologize for feeling things, for setting boundaries, or for having ambitions, babe. Got it?”
I lifted my head enough to look at her. Sarah had that kind of confidence I envied with all my soul: short hair, sharp gaze, and a tongue that could destroy male egos in less than ten words. Alison was the same, only more cruelly funny. Both of them were like a man’s ego put into the bodies of beautiful, fearless women. The exact opposite of me right now.
“Besides,” Alison continued, pointing at me with her straw, “if John ‘Eat Me’ Logan is dumb enough to let you go after you told him you loved him, then fuck him. There are more guys at Briar. Most of them are worse, but at least some know how to use their mouths for something more useful than babbling excuses.”
I tried to smile, but it only came out as a crooked grimace. I knew they were saying it to cheer me up. I knew their words came from a good place. But none of that took away the weight I felt in my chest.
“Who needs therapy when I have you guys? Hooray…” I said in a tired but sincere voice.
But then I saw him.
Logan was walking along the path that crossed the courtyard with that stride of his I knew by heart—not too fast, not too slow, that way of moving that had always felt somehow inevitable. Tucker was beside him talking about something, hands in his pockets, and Logan had his head slightly tilted toward him with no expression at all.
And then he looked up.
I don’t know if it was instinct or bad luck, but his eyes went straight to mine. Without searching. Without hesitation. Like he already knew exactly where I was before he looked.
His brown eyes locked onto mine.
And I saw everything on his face in the space of a second: the impact of finding me there, the tension that rose up his jaw, something that could have been relief or pain or probably both at the same time. He had dark circles. A tight line between his eyebrows that I hadn’t seen before, or maybe I had and just didn’t know what it meant at the time.
Now I did.
He stopped dead.
Tucker took two more steps before realizing and turning around. I saw the exact moment he processed the situation—his eyes going from Logan to me and back to Logan—and something in his face closed off with an expression that wasn’t exactly pity but was too close for my comfort. Logan watched me with a mix of pain, regret, and something else I didn’t dare name. He took an involuntary step toward our table, like his body reacted before his brain. Tucker, beside him, noticed immediately and grabbed his arm firmly, stopping him.
Logan didn’t even look at him.
His eyes moved quickly over mine, my mouth, the line of my jaw, scanning my expression with an urgency that almost hurt.
He didn’t even like me. Why was he torturing me like this?
His lips parted slightly and then closed. I could see him working inside, the tension in his shoulders, the way his fingers briefly clenched into a fist and then opened. His entire posture was a question. Almost a plea.
Give me something. Anything.
I felt my heart rise to my throat and stay there, huge and inconvenient, pulsing with a force that I’m sure showed on my face.
No. I’m not going to be the one who does it this time.
I can’t be the one again.
I looked away with effort, breaking the contact like I was tearing off a piece of my own skin. I lowered my head and tightened my fingers around my coffee cup until my knuckles turned white.
“I’m not taking the first step,” I whispered, more to myself than to them, though the words came out loud enough.
“Bravo girl, Bravo” Sarah said proudly, giving me a gentle pat on the back. “Let him crawl this time.”
----
J.L
I sat on the edge of the bed with my head in my hands, feeling like my chest was going to explode. In my head, the same image played on loop without stopping: the way her eyes filled with pain. And then she looked away. Like looking at me burned her. Like I was something she could no longer stand.
Like I was something she could no longer stand.
The three of them looked at me in silence. It was weird seeing the guys so quiet. Disturbingly weird. Normally Dean would’ve already said some shit to lighten the mood, but even he didn’t dare. Garrett had his arms crossed and his jaw tight, staring at the floor. Tucker was leaning against the wall with his arms crossed, looking at me… with a lot of pity.
How fucked up was I?
“…I ruined everything,” I muttered, my voice hoarse.
Dean let out a dramatic sigh and threw himself onto my bed like it was his.
“Yeah, we already know that. The question is: what the hell are you going to do about it?”
I stayed quiet for a long time. The knot in my throat was choking me. I ran my hands through my hair, pulling harder than necessary, as if the physical pain could organize the chaos inside me.
“I’m in love with her,” I admitted almost angrily. “I love her eyes… fuck, I love the way she looks at me like I’m someone decent. I love her hair, the way it falls in her face when she’s focused. I love her smile when she hears the stupidest thing that comes out of my mouth… like I’m the best thing that’s ever happened to her.” My voice was shaking by the end. I stood up without really knowing why. I needed to move, I needed to do something with my body because if I stayed still I was going to explode. I stood in the middle of the room like an idiot. “She confessed everything to me… and I told her I couldn’t. What kind of son of a bitch does that? After what happened that night?”
Dean, for the first time in a long time, didn’t make a joke. He just looked at me seriously.
“Bro… you’re really fucked.”
Garrett moved.
He’d been silent the whole time, staring at some point on the floor, and that silence from Garrett was what had me the most nervous since they arrived.
He leaned forward. Looked straight at me.
“So what are you going to do now? Because avoiding her and looking at her like a lost puppy isn’t working.” He said it without cruelty, but without softening it either. “Listen to me, Logan. You’re a mess, I know. But you can’t go dump all of this on her at once.” He paused, choosing his words. “She’s hurt. Really hurt. If you go now and tell her everything you’re feeling, she’s going to think it’s pity or that you’re confused. You have to take it slow… but don’t drag your feet. Do it right. Approach her little by little. Start by asking for forgiveness. Be honest, but gentle. Give her room to breathe.”
Garrett continued:
“You know where she works. You should go. Not like an ambush, just you. Order a coffee, sit down… and talk to her. On her turf. No pressure.”
Tucker pushed off the wall. He nodded slowly.
“Fast, but careful. Show her with actions that it wasn’t a mistake.” His voice was calmer than Garrett’s, quieter, but just as firm. “That she wasn’t a mistake.”
-
-
-
I stood in front of the café door for almost ten minutes, hands in the pockets of my jeans, my heart pounding against my ribs like it wanted to get out. The smell of fresh coffee and sweet bread reached me from inside, but it didn’t calm me. It did the opposite. It reminded me of her. Of her hands moving with that calm motion behind the counter, of how she bit her lower lip when she focused on making a latte.
Breathe, Logan. Don’t fuck this up again.
I pushed the door open and the little bell sounded way too loud in my ears. There weren’t many people. A couple of occupied tables and her behind the counter, cleaning the espresso machine. She was wearing the black apron she always wore, her hair pulled back in a loose ponytail with some strands falling in her face. God… she looked beautiful.
I approached the counter with heavy legs. She looked up for a second, her eyes passing over my face without stopping, like I was just another customer. No surprise. No pain. Nothing. Just cold indifference.
Ouch. I deserve that.
“A black coffee, please,” I said, my voice rougher than I intended.
She nodded without meeting my eyes and turned toward the machine. Her shoulders were tense. I knew that body language. She was holding herself back.
Say something, John. Now.
“…I need to talk to you,” I murmured, lowering my voice so only she could hear. “Alone. Please.”
She didn’t respond. The sound of the espresso machine filled the silence between us. She served the coffee with precise movements, placed the cup in front of me, and wrote something on the order slip like I hadn’t said a word.
“That’ll be four fifty,” she said, looking at a point over my shoulder.
“Hey… please,” I insisted, leaning a little over the counter. “Just five minutes. I know I don’t deserve even that, but…”
She took the bill I held out without brushing my fingers. She gave me the change with the same empty expression, like she was serving a stranger. Her eyes didn’t meet mine even once. It was worse than if she had screamed at me. That indifference was destroying me inside.
She’s hurt. Really hurt. Shit, Garrett was right.
“I understand that you don’t want to see me,” I continued, almost in a whisper. “But I can’t keep going like this. What I did… was shitty. I was shitty. I need to explain…”
“Here’s your change,” she cut me off in a neutral voice, placing the coins on the counter. Then she turned back to the machine and started cleaning again, giving me her back.
The knot in my throat tightened so much I thought I was going to choke. I stood there like an idiot, the coffee burning my hand and my chest on fire. I wanted to jump over the counter, grab her by the arms, and force her to look at me, to see everything that was eating me alive inside. But I couldn’t. Not after what I’d done to her.
I took the coffee and sat at one of the tables in the back, where I could see her. I wasn’t moving from there. Not today. Not tomorrow. Not for as long as it took.
I’m not giving up on you. Even if you ignore me. Even if you look at me like I no longer exist. I’m going to prove to you that you weren’t a mistake. That you never were. That you’re the only thing I want in this fucking life.
-
-
-
“Hey, kid!”
A strong, decisive voice snapped me out of my sleep. I blinked, confused, my cheek stuck to the table and a trail of drool that didn’t even embarrass me. The café was empty. The chairs were already up on the tables and the main lights were off. Only the dim light from the counter remained.
In front of me was her mom. And fuck… she was just as pretty as her daughter. The same expressive eyes, the same way of tilting her head when she was half amused and half serious, the same hair falling softly over her shoulders. Seeing her was like seeing a more mature, confident version of her. It hurt my soul.
“What, you think this is a hotel?” she said in a half-mocking, half-annoyed tone. “You’ve been sleeping there for like three hours, drooling on my table. We closed a while ago.”
I sat up quickly, wiping my mouth with my sleeve, my face burning. I looked around desperately.
“Did she… already leave?” I asked, my voice thick.
She let out a soft, almost maternal laugh and shook her head while picking up a rag.
“My daughter left a while ago. She said she had things to do.” She looked at me for a second longer, with that warmth she’d always had toward me. “You okay? You look… tired.”
Ma’am, I’m trying to prove to your daughter that I’m not a complete son of a bitch.
“Yeah, I’m… I’m fine,” I lied, standing up. My neck hurt like hell. “I just wanted… to talk to her for a bit.”
She pointed at the door with the mop. “Come on, out. I have to open early tomorrow and I’m not leaving you here as decoration.”
I got up unsteadily, still half-asleep and with a sore neck. I tried to keep some dignity, but it was hard with the table mark on my cheek and my hair a mess.
She took the mop and gave me a gentle but firm push toward the door, like she was shooing out a big, clumsy dog that didn’t want to leave.
“Ma’am, I just—”
“Out, out,” she cut me off playfully, opening the door. “I open early tomorrow and I’m not tripping over you drooling on my tables. I don’t know what happened between you and my daughter, but I hope you can fix it soon. It kills me to see her walking around like a ghost. Good night.”
The cold of the night hit me as I stepped out. The door closed behind me with that cheerful little jingle that now sounded like mockery.
I stood there on the dark sidewalk, running my hands over my face.
How pathetic. Ugh.
---
“Hi…” The low, close voice startled me so much I let out a small scream and nearly dropped the cup from my hands. I spun around, heart hammering in my throat.
Tucker took a step back and clutched his chest with one hand, eyes a little wide.
“Fuck… you scared me,” he muttered, breathing deeply, clearly surprised by my reaction. “Got a minute?”
I didn’t answer. Instead I stood there, pressing the cup against my chest like a shield. My pulse thundered in my ears.
He ran a hand over the back of his neck, uncomfortable, and looked down for a second before speaking. “I’m sorry,” he said simply, with that calm but heavy voice. “I’m sorry about what happened.”
I looked at him in silence. Tucker had always been the quietest. Seeing him here apologizing squeezed something in my chest.
“It’s not your fault, Tucker,” I answered quietly, forcing a weak smile. “Really. You didn’t do anything. You don’t have to apologize for something that wasn’t your responsibility.”
He frowned slightly, like he didn’t fully agree, and still insisted, but before he could say anything I beat him to it:
“It’s okay,” I added, trying to sound firmer than I felt. “I’m fine. I don’t need anyone carrying this. Not you… not anyone.”
What a huge lie. I’m not fine. Nothing is fine. But what else can I say?
Tucker nodded slowly, still with that pitying look I hated so much. He stayed one more second, like he wanted to add something, but in the end he just murmured:
“How are you feeling?” he asked quietly. “Don’t lie to me.”
Crack.
I couldn’t hold it anymore.
The knot that had been tightening in my throat for days, weeks, broke all at once. Tears flooded my eyes and I started crying uncontrollably, right there. Everything came out in a shaky, broken torrent.
“I really… I really didn’t want to like him,” I sobbed, covering my face with one hand. “I didn’t want to, Tucker. I tried not to… but it just happened. And now I miss him so much it hurts to breathe. I miss his stupid voice, the way he looks at me… I miss feeling safe with him. But he told me he couldn’t and… and I had to walk away. I needed to walk away. I don’t know how to keep pretending I’m okay when everything reminds me of him. He’s been coming nonstop, leaving these stupid letters I haven’t even bothered to open, and fuck, it complicates everything when I see him on campus… I’m drowning. I regret going to that stupid party. I regret confessing my feelings. If only… if only I’d held back a little.”
The tears kept falling, soaking my cheeks and my apron. I felt pathetic, exposed, but I couldn’t stop.
Tucker walked around the counter without saying anything. His steps were quiet, steady. Suddenly his arms wrapped around me carefully, pulling me against his chest in a warm, protective hug. I tensed for a second, but then I collapsed against him, crying harder into his sweatshirt.
“Shh… it’s okay,” he murmured against my hair, rubbing my back with slow, comforting strokes. “Cry as much as you need. You don’t have to be strong all the time.”
I felt pathetic. I admit I really tried not to cry, but I just couldn’t hold it back anymore.
When will this suffering end?
I had to rip it out by the roots.
Maybe not right now. When I’m ready.
“Eight days!?”
They said it at the same time. Both of them. With the same incredulous face that made the lady at table three look up from her newspaper and stare at me like I was the problem.
“Shh, lower your voices.” I leaned on the counter with my arms crossed and waited for the echo to fade. “Eight days in a row,” I confirmed, lowering my voice.
Alison and Sarah were sitting on the high stools in front of the counter, their half-finished milkshakes in front of them and that look on both their faces that meant they weren’t letting me out of this conversation easily. The café was quiet at that hour, only four tables occupied and my mom in the kitchen making muffled clattering noises from the back. It was the kind of afternoon I normally liked. Calm. Manageable.
Until they showed up.
“And what does he do?” Sarah asked, raising an eyebrow while pointing at Logan’s table with her straw.
“He writes.”
“He writes?” Alison repeated, like the word didn’t quite fit, looking at me with a “Seriously?” face.
“He sits down, takes out paper, and writes. At first I thought he was studying, taking notes, whatever. Something normal.” I grabbed the rag from the counter and unfolded it, wiping the drops of chocolate Sarah’s straw had left. “But then on the third day he slipped a folded letter into the tip jar when he left.”
Both of them looked at the jar. It was there in its usual spot next to the register, completely innocent.
“In the tip jar?” Sarah pointed out, still not believing it.
“In the tip jar.”
“Why there?”
“Because I was giving him the silent treatment and every time he tried to talk to me I found something super urgent to do in the kitchen.” I folded the rag. Unfolded it. “So he stopped trying and found another way.”
Alison turned her stool slightly toward Sarah. Then looked at me.
“And what do the letters say?” Sarah asked.
“I don’t know.”
Silence.
“What do you mean you don’t know?” Alison said slowly, her voice showing that something didn’t add up.
“That I haven’t opened them.”
“None of them?”
“None.”
Alison stared at me. Then at Sarah. Then back at me.
“How many letters total?” she asked, and something in her tone told me she was already bracing for the answer.
I wiped a part of the counter that was already perfectly clean.
“Twenty-two.”
The silence lasted exactly two seconds.
“Twenty-two,” Alison repeated, toneless.
“Sometimes he leaves me three in one day. He sits, writes, folds the paper, puts it in the jar, and starts again. Like he always has something more to say.”
“But why?” Sarah frowned, not in judgment but with the genuine confusion of someone trying to solve a puzzle. “I mean, what’s the point of him writing you letters if he’s the one who told you no?”
“Exactly what I keep asking myself.”
“And you have no idea what they might say?”
“None.” I shrugged, though the gesture came out a little forced. “Maybe it’s an apology. Or he wants us to stay friends and doesn’t know how to tell me in person. Or he just feels guilty and this is how he’s dealing with it. I don’t know.”
“Or maybe,” Alison said finally, measuring her words, “they say something that has nothing to do with any of those things?”
“Alison.”
“I’m just saying.”
“Well, don’t say it.” I grabbed the rag again. “He made it pretty clear where things stood. The letters will be what they are, probably something I don’t need to read, and when I get the courage I’ll open them and that’s it.”
Sarah rested her chin on her hand and looked at me with that calm of hers that always felt slightly destabilizing.
“Do you have them on you?” she asked.
Of course I had them on me. I’d been carrying the wad folded in my apron pocket since Monday, but I had no explanation that made me look good. I took them out and placed them on the counter between the two milkshakes.
Alison and Sarah looked at them.
“Can we take a look?” Alison asked.
I glanced sideways at the table in the back. Logan was sitting with Dean Di Laurentis, a ridiculously hot blond who had always seemed almost unfairly attractive. They both had muffins they’d ordered a while ago in front of them. Logan was saying something with his elbows on the table and Dean was listening, leaning back in his chair with that half-smile of his, like he found the world generally entertaining. Neither was looking at me.
I shrugged.
“Whatever you want,” I said, and turned to clean the coffee machine. “They’re probably just apologies or something. I don’t think they’re a big deal.”
I heard the rustle of paper unfolding.
Silence. More silence.
The kind of silence you notice because there should be some comment and worryingly there isn’t. There should’ve been an “aw how sweet” or “look at his handwriting” or anything, but there was nothing, and that nothing started to itch somewhere I tried to ignore.
I turned around.
Alison had the letter in her hands and an expression I’d never seen on her. It wasn’t exactly surprise. It was something quieter, deeper, something that had settled on her face while she read and hadn’t moved when she stopped. Her eyes were still fixed on the paper.
“Oh,” she said.
Just that.
Oh.
Oh?
She passed the letter to Sarah without looking at her, pointing to a specific spot with her finger. Sarah read. I saw the exact moment she reached that part because her shoulders dropped a centimeter, she let out a very slow breath through her nose, and then she looked at me with an expression that was half tenderness and half something pretty close to “oh, sweetie.”
“This…” she started.
“What?” I said.
“This is pretty…”
I leaned over the counter without realizing it.
“Pretty what?”
The two of them looked at each other like accomplices and let out a small laugh.
“Give it to me,” I said.
Alison picked up the letter from Sarah’s hands.
“No.”
“Alison.”
“Nope.”
“Come on, it’s probably just a long apology—”
“It’s not an apology.” She said it without thinking and then closed her mouth like she’d said too much. Sarah pinched her.
I stayed still for a moment.
“What do you mean it’s not an apology?”
“Nothing, forget it.”
“Alison, if it’s not an apology then what—”
“When you’re ready you’ll read it and that’s it.” She leaned on the counter with a firmness that left no room for negotiation. “And don’t look at me like that, I’m serious. This is something you have to read alone and at the right moment, not here in the middle of your shift because we pressured you.”
“But I didn’t even want to know—”
“And now you do, right?”
I shut up. She was right. Damn it, she was right, because ten minutes ago I was perfectly convinced those letters were probably some elaborate apology or a request to stay friends and I didn’t need to read them to know they’d hurt anyway. And now I was leaning over the counter with my heart doing weird things because Alison had said “it’s not an apology” in that voice and—
A shadow fell over the counter.
The three of us looked up at the same time.
Dean Di Laurentis was standing on the other side of the counter. He didn’t say anything. He simply reached out, took the letter from Alison with a calmness that left no room for argument, grabbed another from the stack still on the counter, and placed them in front of me with startling ease.
I looked at him.
He held my gaze for a second, nodded slightly like he’d just done the most reasonable thing, then turned his head toward Alison.
And winked at her. Slowly. With total and absolute premeditation.
And he walked back to his table with his hands in his pockets like he hadn’t just dropped a grenade, leaving calmly.
The silence he left lasted exactly three seconds.
Sarah and I looked at each other.
Alison’s cheeks were flushed. Alison, who had once told a guy trying to hit on her at a party that his technique was conceptually deficient. Alison, who in the three years I’d known her had never lost a millimeter of composure in front of any male human being.
She had flushed cheeks.
She picked up her milkshake. Took a long, absolutely deliberate sip while looking out the window.
“Don’t even think about it,” she muttered.
Sarah opened her mouth.
“Don’t. You. Dare,” Alison repeated without looking at her, with a calmness that didn’t match someone with cheeks that color.
Sarah closed it. But no one could wipe the smile off her face.
I looked down at the two letters in front of me on the counter. White paper, folded in three, nothing written on the outside. Just the paper. And underneath all of that, that phrase spinning nonstop: it’s not an apology.
If it wasn’t an apology, then what was it?
I didn’t want to know. Lies. Yes, I did.
It was past midnight. I was sitting on the floor of my room in my pajamas, with the twenty-two letters spread out on the rug around me in roughly chronological order of when Logan had left them in the tip jar. They formed a semicircle that completely surrounded me. From the outside it probably looked pretty bleak, but there was no one watching so it didn’t count.
I’d taken them out of the drawer where I’d been saving them one by one, with that weird mix of care and denial that didn’t make much sense if you analyzed it. I’d organized them. I’d been staring at them for a while, convincing myself that as soon as I opened them I’d find something manageable. An apology. Maybe several apologies, one per letter, with different wording because Logan had always been that meticulous when he wanted to be. Something that would hurt a little but that I could fold back up, put in the drawer, and move on with my life.
It’s not an apology.
Damn Alison.
I picked up the first letter.
I held it for a moment without opening it, fingers on the fold of the paper, staring at it like I could read through it. Logan had spent eight days sitting in the café writing things I didn’t understand why he needed to write.
He had told me no. He had chosen to reject me. Those were concrete, verifiable facts and there was no reason for any of this to mean something different from what I had already assigned it.
No reason.
I unfolded it.
Logan’s handwriting was exactly as I remembered, a little careless at the edges with some words crossed out and rewritten.
I read the first line.
I froze completely. This can’t be real.
“Oh, shit,” I said out loud.
Hockey.
I wasn’t really into hockey until I met Logan. Before, it was just that sport they showed on TV that my dad sometimes watched and that I completely ignored. Noise, ice, guys crashing into each other at speeds that made no sense. I didn’t get the appeal.
Now I know exactly how many points the team needs to advance to the next round. I recognize the plays. I can tell for sure when a referee is calling too many penalties and when a defenseman is being deliberately dirty. Which says a lot—and nothing good—about what John Fucking Logan does to a person’s critical judgment.
I sighed and sank deeper into my seat.
The stadium smelled of popcorn and that weird mix of sweat and excitement that exists in sports venues. The stands were full, Briar colors everywhere, and the noise was that constant, dull kind that after a while just becomes pressure. Sarah was gripping her soda cup with both hands like it was the only thing anchoring her so she wouldn’t lose her mind, while Alison had been taking pictures of a certain player wearing number sixty-six for twenty minutes.
Meanwhile, I just couldn’t stop looking at player number twenty-two.
You’re an idiot.
My conscience scolded me. We’ve hurt each other and I’m still sighing and staring at him like an idiot. Why can’t feelings have an off button? What’s the point of loving him if he doesn’t feel the same about me?
“You okay?” Alison leaned toward me with genuine concern that, in the three years I’ve known her, had never once fooled me.
“Perfect.”
“Sure,” Sarah said from my other side, without taking her eyes off the ice. “That’s why you have that face.”
I didn’t answer because I didn’t have a response that didn’t incriminate me. Technically, it was the idiot with number twenty-two skating on the ice who had unfinished business with me. Though “unfinished business” was a very generous way to describe a situation that basically boiled down to: I had made the huge mistake of feeling things I shouldn’t, he had told me he simply couldn’t (or didn’t want to) be with me, and since then I’d been trying to disappear from my own life as discreetly as possible.
I shouldn’t have come.
I knew it since this morning. I knew it the exact moment I opened the reminders app to see what I had pending and found “Briar Game — 8pm” marked in red. I’d written it down weeks ago, in another life almost, when Logan and I were still whatever we were before I ruined everything by being honest. And then, without meaning to, without looking for it, with that masochistic tendency I have and should probably work on with a professional, I went to the messages.
Just to see. Just to remind myself why what happened was the right thing.
And there it was, among three unanswered messages I had left on read with absolute cowardice. One that simply said: Hope to see you tonight.
The message that made me want to check my reminders list and the reason I was here tonight.
I should have ignored it. I should have stayed home with a movie, a pack of cookies, and some dignity intact.
Instead here I was, in the stands at Briar’s stadium, flanked by Alison and Sarah who were pretending—not very effectively—not to monitor me every thirty seconds, with my stomach in knots and my eyes fixed on one spot on the ice so I wouldn’t keep unconsciously searching for number twenty-two.
Because I was searching for him. That was the worst part. That despite everything, despite the days avoiding him and the speeches I’d given myself and the times I’d repeated that I was fine, my eyes found him on their own. Like they had their own memory. Like no one had told them the memo.
Logan skated well. That was the fundamental problem—that he was really good and knew it without being arrogant about it, and when he moved on the ice there was something about him that settled, that relaxed.
I looked away.
The scoreboard was two to one in favor of Briar and the atmosphere had that electricity of the final minutes of a close game. Alison had put her phone down and was standing without realizing it. Sarah was muttering something under her breath.
And then it happened.
Logan intercepted the puck in the offensive zone. He dodged the first defenseman with a turn that seemed physically impossible, the second with an acceleration that made the whole crowd collectively hold its breath, and shot.
Score.
The stadium exploded.
I stood up with everyone else. I clapped without thinking. Alison grabbed my arm screaming something I couldn’t hear over the shouts. Sarah whistled with her fingers in her mouth.
Then Logan raised his hockey stick.
He turned toward the stands with a smile—that smile I knew by heart and that right now was doing damage to me that had no name—and I saw it before I could prepare myself.
He pointed at me. What the fuck is that supposed to mean.
Straight. Unmistakable. With his arm extended and his eyes locked exactly where I was standing, like there weren’t three hundred other people in the stadium, like there was no chance he was pointing at anyone else, like he wanted to make sure there was absolutely no doubt.
The stands made that collective sound. That “oooh” people make when they smell drama from afar. And the commentator, the damn commentator, didn’t miss the moment:
“Looks like one of our favorite guys had his heart stolen tonight, ladies and gentlemen. Don’t cry all at once, girls—there are still more players on the ice—”
Heat shot up my neck to my ears in about half a second.
Alison let go of my arm.
Sarah turned her head toward me very slowly, still looking stunned at what had just happened.
They both looked at me. They didn’t say anything. They didn’t need to. And thank God they didn’t.
“No,” I said.
I grabbed my jacket from the seat. I put it on wrong, one arm inside out, and fixed it with more violence than necessary. My stomach was in a tight knot, my cheeks were burning, and my ears were ringing. I needed to get out of there.
“I’m going to the bathroom,” I lied.
“Sure,” Alison said, glancing sideways at Sarah, who returned a worried look.
Neither of them made a move to follow me.
I went down the stands almost tripping twice, dodged three groups of people still celebrating, pushed the exit door with both hands, and the cold air hit me in the face the second I stepped out. Honestly, it was a relief. I needed that hit. I needed something to remind me that it was real, that I was real, that what had just happened inside that sweaty, noisy stadium had also been real.
He had pointed at me. In front of everyone. What the fuck.
I’m overthinking this.
I shouldn’t let it affect me. I shouldn’t let it break my decision to stay away from him.
I closed my eyes for a second and the commentator’s voice came back like a horrible echo: “Looks like one of our favorite guys got shot by Cupid tonight, don’t cry ladies—”
I wanted to die. For real. Not metaphorically. I wanted the ground to open up and swallow me whole and not even spit out the bones.
I started walking fast. Then faster. The parking lot was dark and the streetlights made those blurry orange spots that multiplied on the wet asphalt, and I was only thinking about getting to the car, getting inside, and crying with dignity where no one could see me. I had parked Janis in the fifth circle of hell because I arrived late and there were no spots nearby, so when I finally found her I was going to be completely soaked.
Good. Perfect. Great. And it was raining.
Not just raining. Pouring. Like the entire universe had decided that tonight wasn’t humiliating enough and needed a little more drama. The water soaked my hair in seconds, ran down my neck, my shoulders, got into my shoes. Good. Perfect. Great.
I kept walking.
I had spent entire days convincing myself that what we had was just a friendship I had misinterpreted, that I had seen things where there was nothing, that when he told me no—when he simply told me he couldn’t give me what I wanted—it was the most honest truth anyone had told me in a long time. I had forced myself to accept it. I had forced myself to keep functioning.
And then he scored and pointed at me. Son of a bitch.
“Wait!”
I stopped.
I didn’t want to have stopped. It was a reflex, a betrayal by my own body recognizing that voice before my brain could tell it no, to keep walking, to pretend to be deaf, to die a little.
I turned slowly.
Logan was running toward me. With his hair completely stuck to his face and still in his team uniform darkened by the water, and his eyes—God, his eyes—searching for me with an urgency I didn’t understand, didn’t want to understand. Didn’t want to understand.
Wait.
Did he just leave his game? Just to talk?
“Stop,” he said when he reached me, breathing hard. “Please, stop.”
I looked at him. I tried to make my face say nothing. I tried to be a wall. I swear.
“Logan.” My voice sounded calmer than I felt. That was the only miracle of the night. “Seriously, you don’t have to do this. You don’t have to apologize or explain anything, okay? It was me. I misread things, I was stupid, and—” I swallowed. “And when you told me about Hannah and I felt this bad, that was my problem. Not yours. So really, seriously, you can go back inside and—”
“For God’s sake, shut up.”
I blinked.
“Excuse me?”
“Shut up.” He didn’t say it cruelly. He said it with something like desperation, jaw tight, eyes bright, rain running down his face like it didn’t exist. “Don’t regret anything. Please. Don’t.”
“Logan, I just—”
“I realized too late that she wasn’t you.” His skin was wet from the rain too (obviously), and one drop hung from the tip of his nose, about to fall. His brown eyes traced my face, moving over my eyes, my cheeks, and my mouth, before he said in a hoarse voice:
“I ruined everything.” He ran a hand through his soaked hair, a nervous, desperate gesture, like he didn’t know what to do with his own body. “I didn’t want Hannah. I never did. I just wanted someone to love, someone to spend the rest of my days with, and I was such an incredibly idiot, so completely blind, that I didn’t realize the person I actually loved was standing right in front of me.”
“Logan, stop—”
“It’s you.”
Oh God. My heart stopped. Literally. I swear it stopped.
“Stop—”
“And if your feelings are still the same, if you still love me, then right now—” his voice cracked a little there, just a little, but I heard it, I heard it clearly over the rain—“right now I’m telling you I want to spend the eight thousand seven hundred and sixty hours, the five hundred and twenty-five thousand six hundred minutes of every one of the three hundred and sixty-five days with you.”
The rain was starting to get heavier. The parking lot lights became orange and white spots behind him and I didn’t know if what was running down my cheeks was water or tears and honestly it didn’t matter anymore because no one was going to notice anyway.
“Don’t pity me,” I said, and my voice was no longer calm. “Don’t. You don’t have to—” I bit my lip. I was nervous, mostly because I really wanted to tell him how I felt and what I wanted. I took a deep breath and he cut me off instantly.
“Every single one,” he continued, like he hadn’t heard me, or like he had heard me perfectly and decided to ignore it. “No exceptions. No conditions. If I stay quiet, if I let another day go by without telling you that you’re the only thing that has made constant sense, I’m going to spend the rest of my life unable to forgive myself.”
“Stop, Logan, seriously, stop—”
“And I’m not going to let you give this story that ending.”
He took one step closer. Just one. But I felt it in my chest like he had closed miles.
“Nor will I allow myself to give our story an ending.” His voice had something broken and something completely certain at the same time and I didn’t understand how those two things could coexist. “A story that hasn’t even begun and that I’m already anxious to know the next chapter of. I’d rather die tomorrow knowing I loved you than live a hundred years wondering what it would’ve been like to be with you.”
I opened my mouth. Nothing came out.
“Even it would be an honor if you broke my heart. Over and over, as many times as it took. Because even broken, even in pieces—” he paused and looked at me, and in his eyes there was something I had never seen before, something I recognized because it was exactly what I had felt all these months—“my heart would come back to you. Thirsty. Without conditions. Without holding anything back.”
My hands were shaking.
“I’ve always been a better person when I’m near you.” He said that lower, almost to himself, and it was what hurt me the most because I believed him. I believed him without wanting to. “And that’s something I haven’t told anyone until now. Because my heart is yours. Not from today. From way before I had the courage to admit it.”
He closed the last few feet between us.
“Forgive me. I’m asking you please.”
I shook my head. I tried to articulate something coherent.
“Don’t… don’t do this to me.” It came out broken, fuck. “Don’t do this to me now that I had already… that I had already…”
“What do you want me to do?” he cut in, and there was something urgent in his voice, something bordering on a plea. “Do you want me to pull the fucking moon down for you? I’ll become an astronaut for you. Tell me. Tell me what you want and I’ll do it. I’ll do anything.”
The rain pounded my shoulders.
“But I love you,” he said. “And that’s not going to change.”
I don’t know how long I stood there without saying anything. It could have been ten seconds or ten years and neither would have surprised me. I only heard the rain and my own breathing and the beating of something I had been trying to kill for weeks by ignoring it.
It was still there.
Stubborn. Damn stubborn heart. Damn body that doesn’t listen. Damn it.
I threw myself at him, wrapped both arms around his neck, and pressed my lips to his. The smell of his cologne mixed with the rain and completely intoxicated me. John froze for a second, motionless while my mouth was pressed against his. I thought, too late, that maybe he didn’t.
Shut up. He literally just bared his heart to you.
But then, as if lightning had struck him, John took a breath and cupped my face with his hands. He was kissing me back. I was kissing John Logan and he was kissing me. I went from being scared and breathless to a fire burning inside me in an instant.
John tilted his head and kissed me the way John was supposed to kiss—wild, and sweet, and entirely too confident in himself, all at the same time. He knew exactly what he was doing when his big hands slid into my hair, but it was the shudder in his breath and the slight tremble in his hands that drove me crazy. The fact that he had lost control as much as I had.
John pulled me even closer until we were pressed together, chest to chest. For the first time in my life, I understood why people said they could forget where they were, and he gave me a little bite on my lower lip, and then I touched his face, felt the rigid solidity of his jaw, and he kissed me like it was his job and he wanted a raise. He made a sound when I sank my fingers into his hair, like he liked it, and I wished it would keep raining like this forever, and never stop. Until he said my name, until he whispered it against my lips three times, I didn’t come back to reality.
“Huh?”
I opened my eyes, but my vision was unfocused.
Logan laughed. Softly, with his forehead almost resting against mine, his thumbs still on my cheeks, he laughed in that way of his that crinkled his eyes and that I had secretly collected for months like they were worth something.
They were. God, how much they were worth.
“Your name,” he said, his voice still hoarse. “I was calling you by your name.”
“Yeah.” I blinked. “I know. It’s just…”
“What?”
I looked at him. With his hair completely soaked and stuck to his forehead and that expression on his face I had never seen and now couldn’t stop looking at. The rain kept falling on both of us with that absolute indifference water has, that doesn’t distinguish between the most important moment of your life and any other Tuesday.
I opened my mouth. Closed it. Opened it again.
“Look,” I said, “I’m not… I mean, I’m not good at this. At saying things. The important things, I mean, the ones that really…” I made a vague gesture with my hand that meant nothing concrete. “You just told me a bunch of really big things and I’ve spent weeks convinced that this was all in my head and that you didn’t… that there was nothing and…” I breathed. “And right now my brain is completely fried and the words aren’t coming out in the right order.”
Logan didn’t say anything. He just looked at me.
“But I love you,” I blurted out, all at once, without elegance, without the firm voice I would have wanted. “I mean, I love you a lot. Too much, probably. For longer than I think is smart to admit out loud. And I tried to let it go, I really did, but it turns out I’m pretty bad at letting go of things that matter to me and you matter to me an amount that frankly seems excessive for my own well-being and—”
“Hey,” Logan said.
“What?
“Shut up.”
And he kissed me again. And for the first time I was glad I had parked Janis so far away.
summery: you didn’t meant to send nudes to the cute guy in your business class, obviously.
content: 18+ smau
⠂⋆ ･ ⠄⠂⋆ ･ ⠄⠂⋆ ･ ⠄⠂⋆ ･
imessage
josh 🚨❌
Pls yn, let’s talk
I promise i’ll change
Shes nothing like you
“can you believe the nerve of this guy?” hannah asks, handing back your phone after reading through the messages.
allie just sips her juice. she’s back on that ‘weird and green’ liquid diet again. “sounds exactly like sean. it’s not even worth it, babe”
you sigh, adjusting your bag. “i’m not going back to him, aj. i just wanted to show you guys in case he totally bombards us on the way to class and you don't know what to say”
“he’d actually do that?” hannah asks, her eyes wide.
“oh, they’ll do that and more” allie chimes in, setting her green juice down.
“well, i have to get to my business class” you stand up from the couch and head toward the door, pausing just before you grab the handle.
“oh, wait! can one of you swing by my dorm later? see if those dresses by my bed fit either of you. i might need to retake your measurements, han, i think i lost the old ones”
“yeah, i can totally do that” hannah reassures you.
you shout a quick goodbye and slip out the door.
instagram
yourusername
yourusername lil catch up :)
comments
user so stunning
user lovee
summer.d my girllll
user fashion major girlyyy
hannahwells very needed talk
↳ yourusername veryy
tap to load more
imessages
my girls !!
aj
movie night tn?
you
yess
han
can’t, tutoring
ava (roomie) <3
who?? bruh, cancel rn
aj
garrett graham 🥵🥵
han
sigh
you
WHAT
ava (roomie) <3
WHAT
instagram
yourusername
yourusername digicam hardlaunching han’s..idk
comments
user waitttt teaaaa
alliehayes thanks 4 the coffee
↳ yourusername anything 4 u ;)
user wait i love them tg
graham44 send me that pic
tap to load more
imessages
han :)
garrett is friends w that cute guy in ur business class
you
🤨 ?
han :)
i could totally put in a good word for u
you
HAHAH i love u but no
han :)
whyy don’t get stuck on josh now
you
it’s not that LOL but like we are classmates, wouldn’t it be awk?
han :)
ur not classmates forever
you
the rest of the semester is long enough
plus if i rlly wanted him, i already have his #
han :)
well, text him !!
you
so adamant
why
han :)
🤷♀️ u need to get laid?
you
HA, bye han
han :)
think abt it
think about it? of course you have! you’ve done more than just think about it — just not out loud.
well, maybe a little out loud. you mentioned it, very briefly, to hannah and allie, but that was back when the semester had just started and hannah wasn’t all buddy-buddy with the whole hockey team.
plus, jocks weren’t really your type anyway.
instagram
yourusername
yourusername don’t remember last night but ;)
comments
user cuteee
joshuaap 😍 so hot
user what camera ??!!
alliehayes don’t drink ever again
↳ yourusername i’m scared
↳ alliehayes no, ur screwed
tap to load more
* @j.logan started to follow you *
you don’t really remember how it happened.
you were at the bar, building up the courage to finally talk to the cute guy from your business class — john logan, you’d remembered his name. hannah and allie were both there, hyping buying shots you up and pushing you to just go for it. but the exact second garrett, hannah’s new (and totally fake) boyfriend, showed up, your courage completely plummeted. you couldn’t believe you had actually been about to walk over there.
it wasn’t just the loud, unmistakably energy garrett brought with him everywhere he went, but the sudden realization that every other athlete on the team probably pulled that exact same level of attention. and you weren’t exactly wrong. by the time you downed your third— and what you had hoped to be your last — shot, logan was already chatting up a cute redhead. her hand was resting on his arm, and she was leaning in, giggling at whatever he was saying.
your disappointment didn’t last long, though. a few quick texts to josh, and you were out of the bar, hooking up in the back of his car.
which brings you to right now, a couple of days later.
you're standing here in a black, incredibly skimpy lingerie set. maybe it’s just your hormones, or maybe it’s the fact that ever since that night, the one you still can't fully piece together, logan has actually been making an effort to strike up small talk with you.
your head can handle it just fine. you can keep the conversation easy and casual. your heart, though, not so much. so, you pushed it away.
you snap another picture, your hair tossed messily to the side, framing your body perfectly. that makes three photos in total. josh will like them, of course he will. they’re simple and direct, and what guy wouldn't? you're horny, josh is a guy, and he’s easy. he’ll drop whatever plans he has to come over, satisfy you, and leave.
no strings, no effort. that’s what you wanted.
you open your contacts and type 'j' into the search bar. you don’t even hesitate, automatically assuming josh’s name will pop up first because he was the most recent. you hit send without a second thought, tossing your phone aside to change back into your cotton shorts and pj shirt.
imessage
you
*attachment: 3 images*
need you so bad
come over pls ;)
you understand he might be busy, but in josh time, twenty five minutes of silence after receiving nudes is crazy.
maybe he’s jerking off? whatever.
you open your phone again to look through the pictures you sent. there was the one on the bed, back arched and boobs pressed up. another one, taken through your computer's webcam, showing off all your curves. the last one is what you’d consider the most revealing, in the mirror, legs open, your fingers playing with your own arousal.
as you go to exit the chat, your eyes catch the icon at the top of the conversation, and you feel like you might actually go into cardiac arrest.
you freeze in bed, then slowly sit up. you might honestly have to erase yourself from planet earth, because there is absolutely no way this is happening to you. in the mindless, stupid, totally checked out state you were in, you didn't just send those pictures to the wrong person, you sent them to someone who makes you want to end either your own life or his.
fuck.
meanwhile, those exact images were popping up on john logan’s screen just as he was wrapping up practice.
he’d noticed your name flash on his phone earlier, which was weird since the cute girl from his business class had never texted him before. he figured maybe you just needed the lecture notes. but the second practice ended, his sweaty, bruised body won the debate, and he decided to hit the showers before checking his messages.
only ten minutes had passed since you sent them. half the team was already out of the locker room, and the few guys who remained were packing up to leave. it had been a genuinely shitty practice, with coach o’shea forcing the d-men to stay late for extra drills. but the moment logan actually opened your message, every ounce of that exhaustion completely vanished from his mind and body.
holy fucking smokes.
he blew a heavy breath out of his mouth and leaned back against his locker cubicle, his eyes locked onto the screen, unable to look away for even a second.
his dick seemed to work a hell of a lot faster than his brain did, because before he could even process what he was looking at, he was already sporting a semi.
he couldn’t tell if ten seconds or ten minutes had flown by, but he finally snapped out of the million racing thoughts in his head, one louder than all the rest.
this wasn’t meant for him. no way.
sure, he’d received plenty of unprovoked nudes from girls before, but you just didn’t seem like the type to do that.
fuck. he knew for a fact those pictures weren’t meant for him, but he couldn't simply just look away, and—
before his thoughts could spiral any further, another text from you flashed across the screen.
imessage
you
omg wrong person!!!
don’t look at those, or save them
not for u obvi
fuck, i’m sorry
john logan (business class)
sure, but only if u tell me who were they for?
because i’m pretty sure your pretty little pussy isn’t going to take care of itself.
you
???????????
just forget abt this pls
john logan (business class)
i can’t, baby
*attachment: 1 image*
you don’t understand anything anymore.
one second you are dying of total embarrassment, practically booking a one way flight to antarctica while begging john logan to forget about your... completely indecent, completely accidental pictures. the next, your airway almost entirely shuts down at the sight of his text, showing a clear image of logan gripping his dick right through his sweatpants.
oh my gosh. this cannot actually be happening to you right now.
you're usually the good one at texting. your friends always come to you when they need the perfect reply written for them, but you never, in a million years, thought you’d find yourself in a position like this.
you
thanks ?????
thanks? you truly are an idiot.
meanwhile, logan chuckles. yep, you definitely don’t do this very often, or ever, by the looks of it.
based on the last text he sent, he had been hoping for something a little more than your dry, unintentionally funny response.
he had already walked out of the arena by now and was sitting in his car. logan isn't blind, he obviously finds you extremely attractive. jumping from simple classmates to a quick, accidental hookup doesn’t sound like a bad idea at all to him. he knows you aren’t usually the type for that kind of thing, but maybe he can sweet talk you into it.
john logan (business class)
c’mon, don’t u need someone to take of u?
i’ll make it worth ur while, i promise
he almost gives up when five minutes pass and there’s nothing but a 'read' receipt under his message.
almost, though.
john logan (business class)
pls, baby
want u so bad
his dick twitches in his pants when he reads the message that comes through.
you
🙄 bristol house, door #67
he smiles at your text and immediately turns on his engine. before pulling out, he sends a quick reply.
john logan (business class)
good girl, i’m omw
i rlly like the set but im sure i’ll like u better without it so don’t bother having it on when i get there.
instagram
j.logan
j.logan thanks for letting borrow the cam, babe❤️
comments
deandilaurentis pussy whippeddddd 🤣
↳ beaumaxwell @alliehayes
↳ alliehayes pls 😭
user so cute
hannahwells i recognize that camera anywhere 🧐
↳ yourusername 🤭
j.tucker as long u don’t bring her around my kitchen anymore
➷ summary: you’re the captain of the briar girl’s volleyball team, leading your team through the ncaa volleyball semifinals in the hopes of reaching the championship. and you do achieve that, but not after experiencing the most insane introduction with john logan, a man you hadn’t known to exist until now
➷ word count: 5464
➷ warnings: cursing, sexual references kind of (no smut), probably inaccurate volleyball because i literally have never played and don’t know anything about it (i was researching as i wrote this, so i'm genuinely so sorry if it’s completely wrong. also, for the sake of plot making sense, we’re gonna say the ncaa volleyball tournaments take place in march because i want hannah and garrett, and allie and dean to be together)
ˏˋ°•*⁀➷
It was nearing the end of the 5th set, and yet, still, both Briar U and Harvard’s girl’s volleyball teams were tied. Fucking 24 points each, both having two winning sets beneath their belts. Meaning, whoever got the last two points– the points that both teams desperately needed– would get a ticket straight to the NCAA Championship.
And you, the libero on the team, the captain, were fucking livid.
Your team, as well as yourself, had been playing sloppy– or at least, it felt like you had– and you really had no clue why. You guys had been perfect during practice, together as one team. Hell, the first two sets had been great, too. Wipeouts.
But then, of course, because it was fucking Harvard, they won the third set. And then the fourth.
And now you were on the fifth and final set of the NCAA Semifinals, tied 24 points each.
It had to be the most intense game you had ever played in your 15 years of volleyball.
It didn’t help that Harvard was absolutely, 100%, targeting your ass. You guess it made sense– since your freshman year, you’d been talked about. A prospect that sports sites couldn’t stop talking about. Your name had been in their mouths since your first game at Briar U, and it hadn’t left since.
And that’s because you– to be totally, completely humble– were a really fucking amazing libero.
Your defensive moves and tactics were the highlights of many games, the Briar U volleyball account literally reposting edits that fans have made of your best saves. You didn’t let it get to your head, of course. You couldn’t, even if you had tried. You weren’t like that– you could never be like that, because in all honesty, you knew the only reason you had gotten as good as you had was because of past coaches and teammates. As well as current ones.
So yeah, you were good, maybe even great as some of the sports sites put it, but it was all through the effort of others.
And, to be honest, right now, you didn’t feel great.
Or good.
You felt completely, utterly, horrible, because during this set– despite it being in the beginning– you had failed to save two hits, the spikes from the opposing team smacking the center of your side of the net. This meant that Harvard had earned two points because you couldn’t get your shit together, and it was driving you fucking nuts.
You felt like you had the pressure of this win on your shoulders, and it really didn’t help that the stands were filled to the brim with students. Harvard students, yes, but mostly Briar students, since it was ‘Briar Blackout’ tonight, a term coined for any sports event when they were wanting to fill the stands, especially now, since it was semifinals, which were held in an arena very close to campus. And boy, were they filled. Which made this all that much worse. God, did it feel like you were letting them down right now. It was embarrassing. Every time Harvard got a point, the disappointed groans of your supporters met your ears, and the usual smile that you wore on your face as you played had been completely wiped from your features during the third set. Because genuinely what the fuck?
This game had been disappointing on so many levels to the point that you were now actively listening to the chants from fellow students and supporters, something you never did. You always tried to block them out, to focus on yourself, but right now, you needed the support.
And it helped a bit, hearing the chants of your name, as well as the other names of girls on your team, shouting how you guys totally ‘got this’.
The people sitting in the courtside seats were the loudest.
In the chairs to your right sat people who had actually bought tickets, while the courtside seats to your left was the Briar boys volleyball team. And, in the courtside seats directly behind you sat the Briar U boys hockey team. Which was new.
You’re pretty sure it was because they had won nationals, so they were here to support the girls volleyball team as they fought for their place. Which you were dreading may be coming to a dead-end tonight.
But you couldn’t be thinking about the hockey boys right now– you couldn’t be thinking about any of this, not when you watched as Luisa Elliot, your best friend, your outside hitter, stumbled as her hands tapped the ball, sending it in the completely wrong direction. Instead of it going back over the net like it was meant to, it had been hit completely off course.
It flew over your head, and was heading straight for the stands directly behind.
That was no good.
You sprint with not an ounce of hesitation towards the ball, following its movement with your eyes and legs, and you knew there was no way in hell you were going to make it– not when you were coming horribly close to the hockey boys. And, if you ran into them before you sent that ball back where it was meant to go, then you might not get the point, or, worse, Harvard could get the point.
And, fuck, you really couldn’t have that.
So you did what you always did– you leaped, quite literally throwing yourself forward in a dive, right arm pointed straight out, desperate to hit that ball back to your teammates. And you felt it, the ball smacking against the fleshy part of your hand below the knuckle of your thumb.
You figured it went as planned, your eyes watching as the ball went back over your head– and, when a loud, collective, deafening cheer sounded from your side of the stands, you were positive that your play had gone perfectly, the ball going exactly where it was supposed to be.
However, you were not where you were supposed to be.
No, you were currently dangling over one of the Briar hockey boys.
In the save that may have kept Briar in the game, you had sacrificed your dignity, because here you were, body pressed against and over a man you had never once spoken to– hell, you didn’t even know which hockey player was beneath you. All you knew was that you could feel his face pressed into the fabric that covered your stomach, the rest of your upper body draped over the top of his head. The only reason why you hadn’t flipped completely over the man was because his right arm had instinctively secured itself around the back of your thighs, keeping you in place.
To your left, you heard the loud cackle from one of the boys, and to your right, you heard another one of the guys react with a shocked, “Oh, shit!”
You tried to move quickly, hearing the game continuing behind you as the ball was passed between the Harvard girls. Your hands, which had previously been held out in front of you, trying to balance yourself, now were being grabbed by the two other hockey players beside you, who helped tug you to an upright position as quickly as they could.
As they do this, you feel the arm of the guy that you are currently straddling slide away from your thighs, and he holds his hands back, palms facing you as if he was surrendering to something.
You only get a quick glance of the guy’s baffled– but heavily amused– eyes before your left hand quite literally presses against his face, using it as leverage to push yourself off him, where you start at a sprint back towards the game that had your entire focus. And, it’s lucky you did that, because just as you were about to make it back to the court, the middle hitter of the Harvard team had spiked the ball straight to the floor on your side of the court.
Again, you dove to the ball, slamming your hand down on the polished wood floor just in time. Instead of the volleyball making contact with the planks of wood, it ricochets off the back of your right hand, moving upward where another one of your teammates– Liliana Amato– bumps it up and over to Louisa.
Louisa, the fucking amazing hitter that she is, spikes the ball with the palm of her hand, sending it straight to the back corner of Harvard’s side of the net.
Their libero isn’t fast enough.
No one on their team is fast enough, because the ball hits the wood with a loud smack, resulting in the entire room to vibrate with the loud cheers and screams of Briar students and fans.
You jump up quickly when you hear the whistle from the referee, and you swear you could cry from pure glee when the ref announces that, yes, the point did count, despite the Harvard team trying to claim that your pancake move hadn’t actually saved the ball.
This causes another wave of loud cheers to erupt in the room, and you move to Louisa and Liliana, a giant grin on your face as you three high five, but not before each of you took a running headstart, jumping as you met in the middle, your shoulders colliding in a celebration of glee. It was something you always did, the three of you, because, as fate had it, you three were the ‘big three’. You guys moved with an efficiency like no other, and as it turned out, sports websites loved it.
All you needed now was one point.
One point, and you would be two points ahead, and then you’d win.
If you guys got this point, you’d make it to the NCAA Championship, something that Briar girls volleyball hasn’t been to in over ten years.
The arena gets quiet again as the two teams get ready, and from the corner of your eye you watch as Macey Cameron, your team's setter, tosses the ball up into the air, using her palm to serve it to Harvard.
And, like that, another intense battle ensues. You swear to God you’ve lost at least twenty pounds through this game because the Harvard girls really were putting you to work– the ball had gone over the net and back three times in the last thirty seconds, and each time, you’ve had to dive to save the ball from one of the girls' vicious spikes.
Like now.
You had just gotten to your feet again when Harvard’s middle hitter sent a completely fucking lethal spike your way. It was going down and over your head with a speed you didn’t even know was possible, and you tossed yourself backwards, right hand out to save the ball from hitting the floor. As it flies up, your body rolls on top of itself, and you’re pretty sure you’ve done some sort of fucking backward sumersault, because one second you’re on your back, and the next you’re on your knees, panting as you rise back to your feet, watching as Liliana sends the ball back over the net.
You watch as the ball flies near the back of the court, hitting the polished wood planks before any of the girls can get it.
But the room stays deathly silent because was that out?
It couldn’t be out.
There was no way you guys just did all that shit for the fucking ball to go out.
Everyone’s eyes are on the ref, who’s talking to the other referees. They’re huddled in a group, and after thirty seconds, they step apart. You watch, and you feel like it’s in slow motion as the man points to your team, nodding.
It had gone in.
The ball had gone in, meaning that Briar had just won the second point needed.
Meaning you were going to the fucking NCAA Championship.
In an instant, the room erupted in cheers so loud that it vibrated through the ground, reaching your feet as you and your team jumped up and down, your coaches– who have yelled at you more times than you could count this game– joining in. You’re so ecstatic that you don’t even think to apologize to the hockey boy that you had run down just minutes prior.
The hockey boy that is now watching you as he cheers, a soft, intrigued smile on his face.
ˏˋ°•*⁀➷
Typically after volleyball games, you went straight home, where you would take a shower and then slump into bed, passing out before you could even question if you were comfortable. It was a ritual at this point; you play a game, you go home and sleep immediately after.
But tonight was different.
Tonight, you and your team had made it to the fucking NCAA Volleyball Championship, which Briar hadn’t done since you were still in elementary school. So, yes, you would fight through your exhaustion for one night, and head to Malone’s for a late night meal with three of your teammates– your best friends– and you would have a great time despite desperately wanting to get comfy in your bedsheets.
Which is how you found yourself now, at 10:30 p.m., entering Malone’s with Louisa, Lililiana, and another girl on the team, Jade, at your side, the four of you walking through the doors of the popular diner.
You were chatting with Louisa who walked directly next to you, and you laughed at something she said, the soft sound carrying through the diner over the group you had yet to notice. The group you had yet to ever meet.
“Holy shit, it’s her!” Dean hissed, leaning across the table to nudge Logan in the shoulder from where he sat beside Garrett. “She’s literally right there–”
“Yeah, I have fucking eyes and ears, man,” Logan responded back quickly, voice terse as his eyes sideglanced you and your group, watching as the four of you walked past the table that currently held six people, including himself, without any knowledge that you were being watched. He looked back to Dean, eyes narrowed, “Can you be quiet?”
“Why?” Dean asked with a smirk, leaning back against the booth chair, his arm still hung comfortably around Allie, who was grinning with Hannah. “You’ve been aware of this girl for four hours now, and it’s obvious you already have a massive crush on her.”
“I don’t–”
“You’ve been stalking her Instagram since the game ended,” Garrett interrupted with a snort. “I’m pretty sure you’ve scrolled down to her sophomore year of high school.”
Hannah laughs into her drink at that, sharing a look with Tucker who had been snacking on the basket of fries that sat in the middle of the friend group.
Logan feels his face heat up at that, and he promptly shuts off his phone, pressing it face down onto the table. Then, he picks up his drink, taking a large sip as he shrugs, speaking into the glass, “She’s interesting.”
“Yeah, interesting because she practically gave you a lap dance mid-game,” Tucker snickered, which, as a result, caused Hannah and Allie to erupt into fits of laughter.
Logan glared harshly at Tucker, “That’s not why I find her interesting.”
“Sure,” Dean drawls out.
“Dude, I’m serious,” Logan huffs, taking a fry and chucking it at the blonde’s head. Then, he leans back against his seat, crossing his arms over himself, “She’s good at her sport. It's fun to watch."
“I think he’s so intrigued because she has no idea who he is,” Hannah butts in with a grin, laughing as Garrett nods along, his arm resting firmly around her, his fingers rubbing against the fabric of her cardigan. “And that’s new for any Briar hockey boy.”
“Oh, definitely,” Garrett agrees.
Logan only stays quiet with a sharp roll of his eyes. But he doesn’t deny it. He can’t deny it, because it’s true.
Just hours ago, after your amazing win, you had been asked for a post-game interview by Briar’s sports media team. And you had said yes, because why would you not? It was better than having to deal with the glares and snarky comments from exiting Harvard fans.
Now, one thing about you was, you didn’t do hockey. Like, at all. You’ve never been to a game before. You didn’t understand how the stupid little ice game worked. Which, very fucking embarrassing for you, was discovered by the entire internet just hours prior.
It was discovered by John Logan hours prior.
The questions had been basic; they always were. Just repeats of the same things, such as certain plays, how you felt winning, yada, yada, yada. However, tonight, the last question had been different, directly tied to the man you had plowed down hours ago. The man who you didn’t know a fucking thing about, because you seriously didn’t do hockey.
“Alright,” the reporter, Sammy, had said, moving onto the next question. “Now, kinda venturing off… we actually wanted to talk about a specific save tonight.”
You smiled your practiced smile, the type that was sweet and polite and all the right ways, “Oh yeah?”
“John Logan. How are you feeling about that?” The reporter stated the question like you were supposed to know who the fuck that was. And maybe it was because your brain was practically mush from the brutal game, paired with the fact that you were running on pure adrenaline post game, but you couldn’t for the life of you connect that the guy you had run down was John Logan. Again, whoever the hell he was.
“Sorry, who?”
Yeah, you couldn’t have picked a worse fucking response.
But, in John Logan’s eyes, that was the perfect fucking response. When he watched the interview on the way to Malone’s after the game– because he was intrigued with volleyball, that was the only reason– he couldn’t help the amused but giddy smile that laced his face.
The reporter’s smile faltered, and she looked back to the camera that was videotaping the entire thing for the school’s media, before her gaze returned back to you like you guys were in an episode of The Office, “Uh… John Logan?”
“Yeah, um... I’m really sorry, I have no clue who that is.”
“The guy you ran into. When saving one of the passes.”
“Oh,” you respond. And because for some fucking reason you can’t help but embarrass yourself tonight, the situation finally clicks in your head, and you say the worst thing humanly possible: you smile, and say, “Hockey boy.”
Like a fucking idiot.
Or, in John Logan’s eyes, like a fucking angel.
“...Right. He plays right wing for Briar men’s hockey,” she explains. And then, she looks back at the camera as she asks, “You didn’t know the hockey team was behind you, watching tonight?”
And, of course, because for some reason your brain’s goal is to get you to make a complete fool out of yourself, you answer an even worse answer.
But, no, you weren’t a fool in Logan’s eyes. Not even close. You were the complete opposite and it had his heart going like a freight train was headed straight for him.
“I knew they were here. I just don’t have a clue who they are.”
“You don’t know Garrett Graham?”
“Uh… nope? I don’t think so.”
“Dean Di Laurentis?”
“Not ringing a bell, sorry.”
“John Tucker?”
“The guy I ran into?”
Logan had laughed at that, making up a quick excuse to Tucker, who had been sitting next to him in the car back when Logan had first seen the video.
“What? No– no, that was John Logan.”
“Right.” You shake your head and you laugh, “Too many John’s, am I right?”
The reporter was watching you like you had grown another head; she did not laugh. You felt a swell of embarrassment creep up in your chest, but you pushed it away, trying to finish the interview as quickly as possible. And you had.
Jesus Christ, Logan practically ate the thing up. He’d played it back, telling himself it was for educational volleyball purposes, when really it was to watch as your eyebrows furrowed in confusion when asked who he was.
And not caring when finding out who he was.
Which is how he ended up searching your name on Instagram, scrolling through your feed, post by post like some weird stalker, according to his friends. Who, presently, were watching him, because he had turned on his phone yet again, eyes flickering down to the screen, watching an old volleyball practice video you had posted.
“Just go talk to her, dude,” Garrett finally said after another thirty seconds of watching Logan silently yearn at your Instagram profile. “She’s two tables down.”
Logan followed Garrett’s gesture, his head turning a fraction, his eyes catching your form as you hovered over a laminated menu, talking pleasantly with the girl who sat beside you. You pointed at something on the menu, wiggled your eyebrows at the girl across from you, and then snorted at what you had said while your three friends gave you bored expressions.
God, he hadn’t even spoken to you and he was positive he was in love.
“No,” he finally says, twisting his head back to his friends.
“Okay, this is painful,” Dean finally said, throwing his hands up. “Give me that–”
Dean had reached forward, plucking Logan’s phone from his loose grip.
“What– dude, stop– give it back–”
But Dean had stood in the booth, holding Logan’s phone out of reach, and he scrolled all the way back up to the top of your Instagram. He wasted no time, clicking the follow button with a sigh of content before shutting off the device and tossing it back to Logan.
And, oh, if looks could kill.
“Are you fucking–”
“Shhhh, thank me later.”
ˏˋ°•*⁀➷
“No way.”
“What?” Louisa had said, smiling at the waitress as she brought out the four Cokes that you guys had ordered. She took a long sip, staring at you from over the rim, “What’s up?”
You silently turn your phone, showing your three best friends your most recent notification.
John Logan has requested to follow you.
“Holy fuck,” Jade gapes. Then, she snatches your phone from your grip, and you reach forward, trying to snatch it back. However, she’s already leaning far away from you, “Oh, we are accepting this right now–”
“No! No, we are not,” you respond, voice stern as you stand to try and reach for your phone again. “He literally just followed me. If I accept now, he’ll think me plowing into him was intentional or something, so give–”
“And, accepted! Alrightly, follow back… and look at that, he already approved it!”
“I hate you,” you groan.
“Bro,” Liliana said, gesturing to your phone, “he was the one who followed you first. Which means that after you ran him down, he looked you up on Instagram. Which means he has been debating following you for four hours now. Which means he has the hots for you.”
“You guys are all delusional,” you respond, but not before quickly thanking your waitress, who brings over the four burgers and fries you guys had ordered just a bit ago. The food had come quickly, and you know it’s because Malone’s is relatively empty tonight. Only three tables are taken, including the one that you and your friends occupy.
“I don’t think you’re grasping the severity of this situation.”
“‘The severity of the situation’?” You repeat Jade’s words. “The hell does that mean?’
“That you have one of the hottest guys at Briar, a hockey player, following you almost immediately after you straddled him–”
You feel your face burn, “I did not straddle him.”
“Babe,” Louisa interjects, “you absolutely straddled him. Wanna see a video?”
You groan, “They already posted it?”
“Girl, they posted it three minutes after it happened,” Liliana said. She grabbed her phone, typing quickly, and then slid her phone across the table. You steadied it in front of you, leaning over to watch. And, yeah, you definitely straddled the guy. But not after you fucking launched yourself at him like a rabid squirrel, nearly flinging over his shoulder– you only hadn’t because he had held you against him.
“Oh,” Louisa says from beside you, pointing to the phone. “So that’s Garrett Graham,” she points to the guy who was on your right, the one who had vocalized his surprise when it had happened, “and that’s Dean Di Laurentis,” and then she points to the guy who had cackled. You watch as her finger points to the man next to Dean, “That’s John Tucker. The other John. They all live together. They throw the best parties, too, out of all the hockey boys.”
“How do you know all this?”
“Literally everyone does except you, apparently.”
“Okay, whatever.”
Jade groans loudly, “Can we return to the issue at hand here? John Logan thinks you’re hot.”
“No, he doesn’t.”
“Girl, look at his smile after you push your hand against his face.”
Jade leans over, using two fingers to zoom the video on the guy’s face, and sure enough, after you push off against his face, sprinting to save the volleyball once more, he watches you with what looks to be a dazed grin, his bottom lip tucked beneath his teeth.
Fuck, it was kinda hot.
“That doesn’t mean anything,” you choose to say instead.
“Oh, Jesus Christ,” Jade groans. “Look, whatever. Do you at least find him attractive?”
You shrug, lying, “I dunno. Didn’t get a good look at him.”
“Alright, Liliana, pull up the edit.”
“What the fuck do you mean, ‘the edit’?” You question, absolutely baffled. “This guy has edits made for him?”
“He’s a college hockey player, and he’s fucking amazing. And really fucking hot. So, yeah, he’s got edits– but this one is like, top tier. Really gets you going, if you know what I mean–”
“You guys are disgusting.”
“Here,” Liliana says, clicking a video in her liked posts. She shifts her phone towards you, turning up the volume with the pad of her thumb, and you watch as the song “Do I Wanna Know?” by Arctic Monkeys sounds through her phone, an extremely well crafted edit of John Logan both on the ice and in interviews playing before you.
“Okay,” you say once the edit finishes, “he’s hot. I get it.”
“See!” Jade grins, “He’s hot, and he’s definitely interested in you after tonight, which means that–”
But you all pause. All four of you freeze, because two tables down, you hear the sound of your voice on full blast, coming from someone’s phone. It’s you answering a question after a relatively successful game, followed by a song. Meaning that somewhere in this fucking diner, someone was watching edits of you.
“Shit! Dean, turn it down–”
It was too late, though.
You and your friends’ heads snapped in the direction of the noise, only to be met with the eyes of six others– five who seemed absolutely thrilled that you had noticed, while the sixth definitely looked like a deer in headlights.
The sixth being John Logan.
You can’t even react accordingly, because Louisa is grinning like a madman, shaking your shoulder and pointing very obviously at the group that’s only two tables away, “Holy shit, he’s right there, oh my God–”
“I can see that, Louisa,” you hiss, pushing her hands off you. Then, you turn back to John Logan, watching as he whispers heated words to his friends before standing. And holy fuck, he’s making his way over to you. Before he even reaches the table, Liliana, Louisa, and Jade are standing, gathering their things and food, and your eyes widen with an alarmed expression, and you hurriedly whisper, “Where the fuck are you guys going?”
“To a different table so we don’t block his cock.”
“Oh my–”
You can’t even finish your words, because your friends are gone. And John Logan is standing right in front of you, a small, gentle smile on his face as he watches your friends scurry over to the table he had just come from. They shove themselves into the booth next to Logan’s friends, acting as if they knew the people they now sat with, which they did not.
Logan’s friends didn’t seem to care, though. They looked just as eager, making room so your three obnoxious teammates could sit comfortably.
You fight the urge to audibly sigh, looking back at the man in front of you. You match his smile, and you really don’t know what’s with your fucking head today, but the first words that leave your mouth aren’t something sweet. They aren't cute. They make you look like a dipshit.
“My victim.”
You immediately want to get up and leave, because genuinely what the fuck were you on today?
But you don’t leave, not when John’s smile widens, and you can see his pretty teeth. He looks thoroughly amused, excited even, and he nods along with your words as he responds, “My attacker.”
“I wouldn’t call it an attack–”
“What would you call it?” He asks with his gentle grin, and he pulls out the chair where Jade had just been, sitting directly across from you.
“A collision on the playing field,” you offer with a hint of playfulness, which he catches onto instantly. “I’m sure you’re used to those. With hockey and everything.”
“So you know who I am now?” He asks, his eyes sparkling with something exciting.
“Hard not to when our video is already making its way through social media. Have you seen it?”
“Absolutely,” he says with a nod, and his tone is serious in a joking way. He’s got his arms now on the table, leaning forward as he speaks to you. He’s still grinning, and you conclude now that this guy is insanely good at keeping eye contact. It's really hot. “You tackling me, me catching you–”
“Straight out of a sports romcom,” you conclude. Then, you shake your solemnly, “What a waste, am I right? If we had some good dialogue, we would’ve gotten a ticket straight to the Oscars!”
“Oh, I know,” he says, and he throws his hands up dramatically. “We’ve been snubbed.”
Fuck, he was fun to banter with.
All the nerves you felt when you first realized he was walking over had vanished into thin air, because you guys got along good. You clicked instantaneously, falling into an easy back and forth that had you leaning forward as you spoke to him, words playful as he nodded along, eyes wide in a way that showed he was having just as much fun as you were.
You guys had been so invested in your many conversations about literally whatever the fuck came up that you didn’t even realize when your friends left. Or when his friends left. Or when you two were the only people left in Malone’s, except for the staff.
And, through the long, witty, playful conversations you were having with John, you two somehow ended up staying at Malone’s until close. It was late out, just past 2 a.m., and John offered to walk you home, which you refused at first, worried about keeping him out too late. But the man pouts dramatically, a playful expression as he told you there's nothing else he'd rather do, and you can’t help but agree.
Which is where you found yourself now.
Pushed up against the front door of your apartment, lips pressed against his, hands threaded through his hair while his fingers held your waist, thumbs rubbing over your hipbones with the type of gentleness that made your heart ache.
He presses more kisses to your lips. They’re firmer, eager, and it’s now that you know you have to break the news to him.
“Wanna know another thing about me, John?” You grin, tilting your head back as he presses kisses down your neck.
He hums against your skin, sucking gently at your pulse point before smoothing it over with his tongue, pressing once final kiss to the skin. He moves his way back up your neck and jaw with soft kisses, pressing one final kiss to the softness of your lips, “What?”
“I don’t do hook-ups. Or casual.”
You expect him to falter, to pull back with a face of disappointment. You figured that’s what would happen, but you didn’t necessarily care. Sure, it was going to suck, having to end this short-lived thing with the hottest guy you ever met, but you weren’t going to change your rules for a guy you had just met.
But, no, Logan doesn’t react how you were expecting at all.
No frown, no hint of irritation. He does something else, something that catches you off guard in the best way possible.
Check Engine Light // John Logan x Fem!Reader - [Chapter Six]
Synopsis: What starts as a simple repair turns into late-night diner runs, coffee deliveries to the garage, and a growing attachment neither of you expects. Logan likes that you talk too much when you're nervous. You like that Logan becomes softer when nobody’s watching.
But as pressure mounts with Logan's hockey career and real life starts pulling at you from opposite directions, you begin to wonder if you’re just a temporary stop in Logan’s fast-moving future.
And Logan realizes far too late that somewhere between oil stains and midnight drives, you became the closest thing he’s ever had to home.
Pairings: John Logan x Fem!Reader
A/N: A little short fluff - gotta build the foundation so the plot makes more sense later. Enjoy! :)
Three weeks after the hockey game, you realized you had accidentally developed routines around John Logan.
Routines like stopping at the garage after class “for ten minutes” and leaving three hours later. Like expecting a good morning text before you were fully awake. Like automatically reaching for his hand whenever you walked anywhere together. And, knowing which nights he stayed late at the garage.
It had happened quietly.
“Hi, Y/N,” Jeff said, as you looked up from your textbook, where you sat at the counter at Logan & Sons.
“Leave her alone,” Logan called from beneath the hood.
You smiled. The garage had become your favorite place without you noticing when it happened. Not because of the cars, of course, but because of Logan.
The second he would spot you arrive at the garage with a coffee in hand, his whole face softened automatically now. It was like seeing you reset something in him after a long day.
Logan slid out from beneath the car, grease smudged across one forearm, and an old Briar t-shirt stretched across his shoulders.
Your stomach flipped every time you saw him.
“You done pretending to study?” he asked, walking toward you.
“…maybe.”
“Thought so.”
He stepped between your knees where you sat on the counter, one hand resting automatically against your thigh.
“You smell like motor oil,” you informed him softly.
“And you keep stealing my hoodies.”
“That’s unrelated.”
A grin tugged at his mouth before he leaned down and kissed you. Jeff gagged dramatically somewhere behind you.
“Workplace misconduct,” he yelled. Without breaking the kiss, Logan lifted his middle finger in Jeff’s direction.
You laughed against Logan’s mouth, and he smiled into the kiss in a way that you’re your chest ache.
Logan casually brushed his thumb against your knee. Three weeks ago, touches like that made you spiral internally. Now? Now they happened constantly. Not in a settled, years-long relationship way, but in a we physically cannot stop touching each other way.
Later that night, you ended up at Logan’s place again after the garage closed. At this point, you’d been there enough that Garrett greeted you with, “Thank God, somebody responsible is here.”
You blinked. “What happened?”
Dean pointed toward the kitchen.
“Tucker tried making a turkey and almost set the house on fire.”
“I said I was sorry!” Tucker yelled from deeper inside the house.
Logan dropped onto the couch beside you while Garrett handed you a drink. Just like that, you had settled naturally into the chaos of the house.
Just a few weeks ago, these people had just been hockey players; strangers. Now, Dean stole fries off your plate like an annoying older brother. Life was weird.
You curled one leg beneath yourself on the couch while Logan’s fingers found yours beside your leg on the couch. You looked down briefly at your intertwined hands and felt your chest tighten softly.
Later, after the boys disappeared upstairs one by one, you and Logan stayed downstairs alone. The house was quiet, rain was tapping lightly against the windows again.
His hand moved gently against your jaw, and then he kissed you again. You kissed him harder immediately because you suddenly felt too full of feeling to do anything else.
All you could do was focus on Logan’s hands, his mouth, and the overwhelming feeling that you were falling for him much faster than you knew how to stop.
He kissed just below your ear absentmindedly, sending heat immediately spiraling down your spine. Logan noticed, of course, he did. His mouth brushed your skin again, slower this time.
“Logan.”
“Hmm?”
“That was intentional.”
A quiet laugh vibrated against your shoulder. “Yeah.”
Thunder cracked loudly outside, but you barely heard it now because Logan’s hands had tightened slightly against your waist, and suddenly all you could focus on was his mouth against your neck, the warmth of him against you, and the fact that you were alone.
The kiss became heated almost embarrassingly fast. Logan lifted you onto his lap without breaking the kiss, and you laughed breathlessly against his mouth.
“You’re very determined right now.”
“You noticed?”
His hands slid beneath the hem of your shirt, carefully, like he was still giving you every chance to stop this. You kissed him harder in response. Logan made a low sound against your mouth that nearly destroyed your emotional stability entirely.
At one point, Logan rested his forehead lightly against yours.
“Come upstairs with me,” he whispered.
You kissed him once softly before whispering back, “Okay.”
The two of you made your way upstairs, Logan’s fingers tangled through yours. By the time Logan closed his bedroom door behind you, your pulse was racing hard enough that you were pretty sure he could hear it.
You reached for him this time, pulling him into another kiss. When Logan kissed you back, one hand gentle against your waist while the other brushed softly through your hair, you realized she’d never felt safer with another person.
The rest unfolded naturally after that: hungry kisses, soft laughter, whispered reassurances, and hands learning each other carefully. Nothing rushed, nothing careless, just want and trust and the overwhelming feeling of finally letting yourself have something you’d already fallen into emotionally.
Later, you lay curled against Logan beneath the blankets while rain tapped softly against the windows.
His fingers traced slow patterns against your bare shoulder absentmindedly. You tilted your head slightly to look up to him in the dim room. Logan was already watching you.
“You okay?” he asked quietly.
You laughed softly against his chest. You looked at him for one suspended second, then answered honestly.
“Yes.”
For the first time in a long time, you meant it completely.
--
You woke up slowly the next morning. Sunlight was streaming through the window, and you could hear Dean yelling.
Honestly, at this point, it was becoming a pattern. You felt Logan stir underneath you.
You smiled faintly and tilted your head up. That was a big mistake.
Morning Logan was unfairly attractive. His dark brown curls were messy, his eyes were still heavy with sleep, and he had a soft expression on his face as he looked at you.
You narrowed your eyes suspiciously.
“You’re staring.”
“Yeah.”
You shifted slightly closer beneath the blankets, one hand sliding lazily across his chest while he brushed his thumb slowly against your naked hip.
“You know what’s concerning?” you murmured sleepily.
“What?”
“I think I sleep better here.”
Something in his expression softened even further.
“You definitely sleep better here,” he said quietly.
Before you could spiral properly, the bedroom door burst open. Dean stopped mid-step and then looked between you dramatically.
“Oh, this is revolting.”
You buried your face immediately into Logan’s shoulder as you clutched the blanket higher up, and Logan groaned.
“Have you ever heard of knocking?”
“Nope.”
“Get out,” Logan said.
Dean grinned.
“Breakfast in ten, Loverboy’s on breakfast duty.”
Then, he disappeared. Logan looked exhausted already.
“You live with actual chaos,” you laughed.
“Yep.”
“I love it here, though.”
“You fit here,” Logan said, and leaned down to kiss you.
“Let’s get up, we have breakfast to make!” you said, breaking the kiss as Logan laughed.
Breakfast downstairs was chaotic. Logan cooked, as Tucker supervised. Dean criticized as he leaned on the counter, and Garrett ate some of the ingredients before they made it into the pan.
You sat on a barstool near the kitchen, watching everything unfold. The domesticity of it all felt deeply dangerous.
After breakfast, Logan drove you back to campus so you could change before your afternoon class.
“We saw each other literally all night and this morning, and I’m annoyed I have class,” you blurted as you pulled up outside your dorm.
A grin spread slowly across his face.
“You’re way too pleased by that,” you said.
“I’m choosing to think it’s romantic.”
You laughed softly and unbuckled your seatbelt.
He leaned over and kissed you again.
“Alright, I should probably go,” you said, kissing him one last time.
He laughed as you forced yourself out of the truck before you ruined your GPA permanently. The second you shut the door and were a few steps away, Logan rolled down the window.
“Y/N.”
You turned back immediately. He was leaning across the console.
“You forgot something.”
You frowned slightly. “What?”
Logan crooked one finger toward himself. You laughed helplessly but stepped closer again anyway. The second you leaned near the window, he kissed you quickly.
You stared at him in betrayal.
“You’re unbelievable.”
“You like me.”
You laughed, stepping back, as a grin took over his entire face.
You knew, just from the way Logan looked at you or touched you, that if he’d asked, you’d skip your entire day and forget the outside world existed entirely.
The realization sent warmth flooding through you immediately.
And the way Logan looked at you afterward, nearly convinced you that you were already halfway in love with him.
Behind Closed Doors ~ John Logan x Fem!Reader - (Part Two)
Synopsis: Behind closed doors, Logan kisses you like you're the only thing he wants.
The problem is, being private feels a little too much like being hidden.
When you unexpectedly show up at a Briar athlete house party, and Logan suddenly acts like he barely knows you, every insecurity you've tried to ignore comes crashing down at once and Logan is forced to realize your relationship stopped being casual long before either of you admitted it.
Pairing: John Logan x reader
Part one here: read here.
My other Logan fic: read here.
A/N: Here's the last and final part of this two-part story! Hope you enjoyed! Let me know if you want to see more Logan stories :)
The walk back to your dorm was brutal. You sent Cassie a text to let her know you left and told her to stay and have fun. She let you know she was spending the night with Beau.
When you got back to your dorm, you changed into your pajamas and scrubbed off the makeup you’d barely wanted to wear In the first place. Then, you crawled into bed and stared at the ceiling.
Your phone buzzed once. Logan. You ignored it.
Then, it buzzed again, and again.
Logan: please talk to me
Logan: y/n
Logan: I’m outside
Your stomach dropped. You sat up too fast, nearly tangling yourself in blankets. You crossed the room and pulled the curtain aside, which showed the front walkway.
There he was.
He was standing outside of your dorm in his thin gray long-sleeved shirt, with his phone in one hand and another shoved in his pocket.
You stared at him for a second. Then, your phone buzzed again.
Logan: please
You hated him a little for how impossible it was not to care. A few minutes later, you had changed and you were slipping quietly out of the entrance of the dorm building.
He looked up immediately when the door opened. Relief hit his face so fast and so honestly that your chest clenched again.
Neither of you spoke for a second. It was late, and it was cold.
You crossed your arms tightly over yourself.
“You’re gonna get sick standing out here.”
He looked at you.
“I deserve worse than getting sick.”
You looked away immediately because that almost made you smile. Almost. Logan stepped closer carefully.
“I’m sorry,” he said quietly.
You swallowed hard. “I know.”
“No, I really need you to understand this,” he said. “I wasn’t embarrassed of you.”
You looked at him. “That’s what it felt like.”
Logan nodded immediately. “I know, and I hate that.”
Silence stretched for a second.
“I saw you walk into the party and I completely panicked.”
You blinked slowly.
“Why?”
Logan laughed softly once, frustrated at himself.
“Because I didn't want to share that part of myself with anyone else yet, share you with anyone else yet.”
Your mouth twitched slightly, and he noticed immediately.
“Okay, there. That’s progress.”
“Don’t get too excited.”
Some tension eased visibly from his shoulders anyway.
“What I mean is,” he looked at her carefully, “When it’s just us, I don’t think. I just kiss you, touch you, want you around all of the time,” a quiet breath left him. “It feels easy.”
Your heart thudded painfully.
“And tonight, you were standing in the middle of my house looking…” he stopped.
“Looking what?”
Logan’s eyes held yours.
“Fucking incredible. Important.”
You forgot how to breath for a second.
“I realized everyone else could see you too,” he admitted quietly, “and it scared the hell out of me how much I cared about that.”
You stared at him.
“You cared about what people thought?”
“No,” he said immediately. “I cared because suddenly this thing with you stopped feeling casual.”
Your chest tightened. He stepped closer to you, carefully.
“So instead of acting normal, I acted like an idiot.”
You laughed softly. “Little bit.”
“Massive bit.”
That pulled a real laugh from you this time. The relief on Logan’s face nearly destroyed you.
“There you are,” he murmured.
You shook your head slightly. “You really hurt my feelings tonight.”
The honesty in your voice wiped the smile from his face immediately. “I know.”
“No, like…” you looked away briefly, “I already feel weird there sometimes, Like I don’t fit with your world or the girls you usually—”
“Stop.”
You blinked. Logan had fully stepped into your space now, enough that you could feel the warmth rolling off of him in the cold night air.
“Don’t do that.”
“What?”
“That thing where you act like those girls are somehow better than you.”
You let out a quiet disbelieving laugh. “John.”
“I’m serious.”
His hand lifted carefully to your jaw then, thumb brushing softly beneath your cheekbone.
“You walk into a room and I forget how to act,” he said. “Do you understand how insane that is for me?”
Your heart fluttered, and he looked almost frustrated by his own honesty.
“I couldn’t focus on anything after you started talking to that guy.”
You stared at him, and suddenly, all of the hurt from earlier mixed dangerously with hope. Logan’s gaze dropped briefly to your mouth.
“I really like you,” he admitted quietly.
Your breath caught, and neither of you moved.
“Can I kiss you now, or are you still mad at me?” he asked softly.
You tried to stay offended, really. But Logan standing outside of your dorm looking wrecked over hurting your feelings was making it extremely difficult.
“A little mad,” she admitted.
He nodded, “Fair.”
Your eyes dropped to his mouth before you could stop yourself. That was all the permission he needed as his hand slid gently into your hair and kissed you. It was like he knew exactly how close he’d come to breaking something fragile between them tonight.
You melted against him anyway, because this, this version of John Logan, the honest one, was impossible not to love.
He kissed like he was trying to fix something. Slow at first, careful. His hand was warm against the side of your neck as the cold night air curled around you both.
You hated how quickly your anger unraveled when he kissed you like this. When he pulled back, his forehead rested against yours.
“Are you cold?” he asked.
You shivered, answering for him.
“You wanna go inside?” he asked.
You hesitated because letting him into your dorm room right now felt dangerous in a completely different way.
Logan must have seen the hesitation on your face because his expression softened immediately.
“I can leave if you want.”
The fact that he sounded sincere about it made something inside of her melt. You shook your head once.
“No, come upstairs.”
The relief on his face was almost embarrassing. He followed you inside quietly. You became hyperaware of everything suddenly. Like the closeness of him being you, the fact that you’d never actually brought him here before, and the way this felt more vulnerable than being in his bed ever had.
Your dorm room was small. There were string lights, books stacked absolutely everywhere, and a knitted blanket tossed across your desk chair.
Logan stepped inside and immediately looked around with open curiosity. You suddenly felt very self-conscious about it.
“It’s completely you,” he said.
That should have not affected you as much as it did. You shut the door quietly behind you as he stood in the middle of the room, looking around.
His gaze shifted back toward you, and something changed in his expression suddenly. The room felt smaller. Your pulse kicked hard when Logan crossed toward you slowly.
“You know,” he said quietly, “I’ve spent weeks convincing myself this was casual.”
You swallowed hard.
“And?”
He stopped directly in front of you.
“Pretty sure casual doesn’t involve standing outside of someone’s dorm feeling like your chest got ripped open.”
His hand slid slowly along your waist.
“I really am sorry,” he said quietly.
You looked down briefly. “I know.”
“You looked at me tonight in a way that I've never seen before. Like I really hurt you,” his jaw tightened slightly, “I hated that.”
You leaned against your desk slightly, fingers twisting nervously in your sleeve.
“You really don’t realize what it’s like standing in that house watching girls who actually fit there flirt with you.”
Logan stared at you like the sentence itself offended him.
“You fit with me.”
The words came instantly.
“You fit next to me, you fit in my life.”
You felt heat flood your face. Logan’s fingers caught your chin gently.
“Hey.”
Your eyes lifted slowly.
“You know what I really thought when I saw you tonight?”
You shook your head.
“That outfit is gonna kill me.”
A startled laugh escaped her as he grinned.
“I’m serious. You walked in looking all nervous and pretty and I swear my brain stopped functioning.”
You groaned quietly, covering your face with both hands. “Please stop talking.”
“Nope.”
“This is humiliating.”
“You’re blushing.”
“That’s your fault.”
He laughed softly and then pulled your hands away from your face.
“You really thought I didn’t mean it?” he asked quietly. You hesitated too long.
“Oh, baby.”
The nickname nearly killed you on impact. Before you could recover, Logan pulled you gently into him, arms wrapping warm and solid around you.
“I meant every kiss. Every time I asked you to stay, every time I couldn’t stop touching you.” He murmured.
This. This is what you’d wanted. Just reassurance that you hadn’t imagined how real this felt between you. Logan tilted your face up gently before kissing you again, and this time, you kissed him back without holding anything careful anymore.
--
Rain tapped lightly against your dorm window as you woke slowly. Logan was asleep beside you, like he belonged there.
You stayed still for a moment, just looking at him. He had one arm wrapped securely around your waist, his face half-buried into your shoulder, and one of your pillows beneath his arm.
As if sensing you were awake, he shifted closer automatically before even opening his eyes. Then, he opened one eye.
“Hi,” he said sleepily.
“Good morning to you, too.”
He groaned quietly and buried his face deeper into your neck.
“What time is it?”
“Just past seven.”
“Ugh,” he groaned.
“You have practice, right?”
“Don’t remind me.”
His grip tightened on you.
“You’re clingy,” you said.
“Mhmm,” he murmured.
He finally lifted his head enough to look at you properly. His hair was all over the place, sleep marks faint against his cheek, but still unfairly hot somehow.
Your fingers slid automatically into his hair, and he immediately closed his eyes again.
“Oh, that’s nice,” he moaned.
“You know,” he murmured, “I really like it here.”
“In my dorm?”
“In your space,” his thumb brushed softly against your hip, “feels like you.”
You hid your face briefly against his shoulder as he laughed quietly.
“Baby, you’re blushing again.”
A few minutes later, after much complaining from Logan about leaving the bed, you both got dressed.
You pulled on leggings and one of your sweaters while Logan sat half-awake on the edge of your bed. You leaned down to kiss him.
“I’m going to go to the library this morning,” you informed him.
“Can I walk you there?” You were surprised.
“Your practice is in the complete opposite direction.”
“I want to walk you there,” he insisted again.
“Okay,” you agreed.
The morning air was cold and crisp, and being a Saturday, the campus was quiet. Students around you moved in sleepy little groups while he walked beside you with one hand shoved into his pocket while the other was brushing lazily against yours every few steps.
You noticed it immediately. Yesterday, he would’ve hesitated. Today, he kept touching you without thinking about it.
“You’re smiling again,” Logan said.
You looked away quickly. “No I’m not.”
Before either of you could answer, a familiar voice called from across the quad.
“Well, well.”
Garrett Graham.
Your stomach tightened automatically. Garrett jogged toward you both with Dean beside him, carrying water bottles and looking far too awake.
Dean’s eyes flickered between you and Logan once, before immediately narrowing.
“Oh my God,” he said slowly.
You felt Logan glance at you briefly. A tiny beat of tension.
Yesterday, this would’ve been the moment he pulled away. The moment he got careful.
You braced for it instinctively.
Instead, Logan reached for your hand. It was natural, like he didn’t even think about it before intertwining your fingers. Your breath caught so hard it almost hurt.
Garrett immediately started grinning. “There it is,” Garrett said smugly.
“Shut up,” Logan muttered.
Dean looked delighted, “I KNEW IT.”
You stared down at your joined hands for half a second longer than necessary. Logan squeezed your hands once gently before looking back at Garrett.
Garrett snorted, “Brother, you’re not as sly as you think. We know that you’ve had something going on with Y/N.”
You nearly choked.
Dean laughed loudly. “You think we didn’t notice you staring at her all night at the party last night? We tried to talk to you about the game coming up, and you barely said anything because you were too busy staring at her.”
A faint flush crept up the back of Logan’s neck.
“Okay,” he muttered, “everyone relax.”
Garrett and Dean both laughed. Logan squeezed your hand again.
Dean pointed between them, “So are you guys, like, official now? Or…”
You laughed softly before you could stop yourself. Logan looked over at you immediately at the sound.
“How this for an answer?”
Then, without even thinking about it, he leaned down and kissed you right there, in the middle of campus.
Your heart turned over as Garrett and Dean whistled.
Bed on Fire | John Logan x Fem!Reader [chapter five]
Summary: No one knew about John Logan’s crush on Hannah Wells except for Y/N L/N, because every time she was looking at him, he was looking at her.
Read the previous part here.
Pairings: John Logan x Fem!Reader
With mentions of Garrett Graham x Hannah Wells and Dean Di Laurentis x Allie Hayes
A/N: I took a bit longer to write this part. For one, because it's the conclusion of Act 1. Welcome to the roller coaster, baby. I included a couple of parts that were important to set up for later, as well as to perfectly display everyone's feelings and emotions. Also, finally figured out how to properly stylize an em dash lmao. Still struggling with showing, not telling, but practice makes perfect. Hopefully.
Again, thank you so much for all the support. I hope this chapter was worth the wait.
A week passed. Your dorm was a mess. Allie’s scripts for tonight's show lay scattered across the floor, along with extra Drunk Shakespeare posters, casting sheets, and Finn’s special drink menus. He’d called you at 2 a.m. two nights earlier, asking for help one last time. You couldn’t refuse. The next day, after class, you spent a few hours designing menus in the play’s theme.
In the meantime, you hadn’t seen anyone much. Everyone stuck to their routines. The hawks had practice. A couple of matches were planned. Finn, Allie, and Dexter were busy preparing for tonight’s Drunk Shakespeare. Hannah continued tutoring Garrett for their oral exam, which he surprisingly passed. You admired her patience. She could be an excellent teacher if she ever decided to change careers. You had considered Garrett hopeless.
The door of Allie’s room opened. She emerged in costume. You looked up, your jaw almost on the floor. She looked incredible.
“What the hell,” you muttered, standing, then sitting, then standing again, too excited to stay still. “Girl!” you shrieked, rushing to her and grabbing her arms.
Her hair was styled as always, except for a detailed pink flower crown of varying sizes. Her hair spilled over her wings. Glitter highlighted her bone structure. Her marine-blue dress hugged her curves. If you didn’t know better, she looked ready for a second dynamic duo party, this time as Flora from Winx Club. She had the look (and body).
“How—who—what—” you stammered, squeezing Allie’s arms as she laughed. “Everyone’s jaw will drop once you’re on stage,” you finally said, glancing her up and down again. She grinned, gently removing your arms, but didn’t let go of them. Narrowing her eyes, an idea popping in her head, she said, “I’ve got another dress. It’s pink, but other than that, it’s pretty similar. Want to wear it?”
It sounded like a love confession. Allie was down on one knee, except she was right in front of you, staring at you with anticipation, wondering if you’d say yes. In her hand, the perfect pink dress instead of a ring.
You nodded slowly, then faster, bouncing on your heels. “Of course I want a pink dress!” you squealed. Allie joined in. She took your hands and pulled you into her bedroom. “To the salon,” she said, voice high.
A few hours later, it was almost time for the show to start. A bright smile played on your face. To say you were excited was an understatement.
The evening air was thick. Dangerous. Disastrous. A sudden cold breeze tangled your hair and made you stumble, almost dropping Finn’s last-minute prop box, which was absolutely necessary to make his vision of ‘A Midsummer Night's Dream’ come to life.
You entered the building behind Allie. The door’s entrance almost hit you. “Thanks!” you yelled, but she didn’t hear you.
You scanned the crowd, heart pounding with a tangled mix of anticipation and dread. The person you secretly wanted to see wasn’t there, so disappointment looped in your stomach. Still, you couldn’t help yourself, and your eyes continued to search for him anyway, your breath catching every time a face popped into view.
You hated how much you cared. How desperate you looked if you could see yourself in a mirror right now, and you resented the flutter that twisted your insides at the thought of him noticing you tonight. Just as you were about to calm down, Logan’s soothing voice pulled your attention with magnetic force.
“Here, let me help you.”
Your hands were suddenly free. As you looked up, your eyes met Logan’s brown ones. You clutched your dress tighter. Suddenly aware of how much pink Allie had managed to put you. Glitter covered your shoulders, collarbone, and chest.
“Thank you,” you finally managed to say. Logan caught your gaze for half a second. Then he was swept up by an arm around his shoulder.
“Logan! Y/n! How art thee?” he asked, his voice high as he dragged Logan backstage.
Finn had impeccable timing.
You stood rooted in place, heat rising up your neck and almost matching the blush on your cheeks. Allie nudged your arm, giving you a small, knowing smile.
“Don’t combust yet,” she whispered. “You still have two hours of Shakespearean tragedy to survive.”
You snorted, but the sound was shaky. “Please forget all your lines. I want to get drunk.”
Logan laughed loudly at something Finn said. You glanced at him and your brother. Then, you looked back and placed a hand on your friend’s shoulder.
“Scrap that, I need to get drunk,” you said, begging her.
Allie grabbed your hand. Together, you made your way backstage, navigating the chaos of half-dressed students, dresses, and other costumes littered on the floor. You couldn’t help but glance back one more time, hoping that just maybe, Logan was watching you too.
Minutes had passed. The flickering lights signaled showtime. You turned to Allie and Finn and blew them an air kiss, and mouthed, “Good luck! Break a leg.”
You shuffled quickly towards your friends, who had already taken a seat. The seat next to Tucker was free, so you filled it. As you sat down, you glanced at the watermelon he was holding. “Bernado didn’t make the cut?” you asked, laughing. Besides Tucker, the two frat boys started laughing.
“Dean ate him,” he deadpanned, switching the watermelon from his left side to the side you were sitting on. You smiled back at him. “So what’s this guy’s name?” You patted the watermelon softly, like you would pat your dog back at home.
“Life’s too short to name them,” Tucker said, voice sad. You raised your brows, leaned forward to scold the blond and brunette next to him. “Shame on you,” you said. They just laughed harder.
“This seat taken?”
You glanced up and saw Logan. Smiling. At you.
It was the second time he’d startled you tonight. Hopefully, it was the last.
You shook your head slowly. “No, go ahead.”
Logan took the seat next to yours. He couldn’t help but glance at Tucker’s watermelon, about to comment, but you stopped him by touching his arm. His wonderful, muscular arm.
“Don’t,” you whispered, letting your hand linger. “It’s a sensitive topic.”
“Ah,” Logan replied, matching the tone of your voice. He leaned in and smiled his famously wide smile. “Noted.”
You caught yourself holding your breath.
Lights flickered. Dexter appeared on stage. You sighed. He explained Drunk Shakespeare: every time an actor says “line,” everyone drinks a shot.
Last year, Finn got so drunk he finished the show in darkness. Lissandra, then a senior, fell off the stage and broke her arm. Since then, Finn hadn’t been in charge of preparations or allowed near cables.
Your thoughts broke when Dean yelled Logan’s name.
You looked up. Hannah, Garrett, and Logan were on stage. Suddenly, everyone looked at you, the actors and the audience. Dean started clapping, then Beau, Tucker, and the rest soon followed. Tucker pushed you forward. An unfamiliar actor led you to the stage, holding your hand as you leaped up, clutching the veil of your dress.
“Welcome, Helena,” Dexter greeted you as you looked at him with widened eyes. He led you next to Logan, who drummed his fingers against his thigh. You leaned into him, catching the faintest trace of his woody-amber cologne. Your breath hitched just as you were about to ask, “What is happening?”
He laughed and leaned in so close his breath grazed your skin, almost brushing his lips against your ear. Almost. “We’re playing lovers.”
You gulped. His words hit you like an electric shock.
Perfect.
You glanced over at Allie, who noticed and winked at you. She hadn’t forgotten your conversation the morning after karaoke in Malone’s.
You’re going to strangle her.
The show began. It was chaos if you’d ever witnessed it. Bad accents, laughter, and a lot of shots. Allie’s monologue started fine, then shifted. She aired her relationship complaints about Sean, Shakespeare-style, to the whole audience. You clapped a hand over your mouth. “Oh my god,” you chuckled. Hannah stood beside you, mimicking you. “She’s going to call him, isn’t she?” she said.
The show flew by. The shots did too. Midway through the show, you were starting to stumble and slur your words more. Once in a while, you recognized Dean’s voice over the rest of the crowd. Always the first one to drink whenever anyone, on or offstage, called for shots. Who would have thought a Briar U Hawk would love the theatre this much?
If you asked the audience, they would have said the show belonged to you and your friends: you as Helena, Logan as Demetrius, Garrett as Lysander, and Hannah as Hermia. Each of you played one of the lovers tangled up in the Midsummer chaos, which meant you spent most of the play onstage together.
Especially Garrett and Logan. Whenever they shared the spotlight, it felt like watching two toddlers fighting over the same toy. Pure chaos. They also made it their personal mission to get everyone drunk, calling 'line' every few minutes. They got away with it, too, since the cast was too tipsy to care.
During one of your scenes, you tripped over a prop. Logan caught you, steadying you with a hand at your waist. The audience laughed, but you barely registered the sound. Their laughter was subtle, lost amid the hurricane building inside you. Logan removed his hand the moment he was sure you were steady. You sighed and ached for his hand to linger.
So distracted by your own thoughts, you didn’t notice the way his eyes traced your smile. Then he shook his head. Still smiling. Still looking. But this time, his eyes were narrowed as if he was trying to figure something out.
There was a moment. A small moment. Logan and you both broke character. He went quiet during one of his lines. Dexter was holding a cardboard with the exact words he needed to say, shaking the board vigorously, trying to get Logan’s attention.
You leaned in, consumed by the liquid you had been drinking throughout the show. “It’s literally spelled out for you,” you said quietly, laughing.
Logan turned towards you. Your faces were inches apart. Then your laughter died. The world faded. Time definitely stood still. Consumed by the moment, it felt as if the lighting crew directed all the lights onto the curly-haired boy standing next to you. Every freckle, line, and dimple suddenly visible. Like a world-class chef just served his best dish on a silver platter.
“Line!” Finn yelled, and the spell immediately broke. The two of you created more distance between you, and Logan disappeared backstage, leaving you to continue your role as Helena.
He found Allie lounging in an armchair. Her legs against the back, feet in the air as she rested her back against the armrest. “Having fun?” she called once she saw Logan heading towards the drink station. She let her head fall, following his movements with her eyes.
He breathed a laugh. “Honestly, I didn’t expect the night to go like this.” He ran a hand through his curls.
Allie pulled herself up when she felt the heat increasing in her skull. She turned towards Logan, “But are you enjoying yourself?” she asked, studying him. Logan looked up at her. Her wings had fallen a little, and their bands were now resting in the inside of her elbows.
Logan shrugged, but his eyes softened. “Yeah,” he said, “I think so.”
The last part of the show was even more unhinged. Everyone had way too many shots. And everyone was drunk, or almost over the tipsy-to-drunk point. You let yourself be led by the chaos. Enjoying every second of it. Hannah and Garrett’s flirtatious banter. Finn and Allie’s fight for the spotlight.
Logan’s hand accidentally found yours during a scene switch. Your fingers brushed, lingering. You quickened your steps to hide behind a corner offstage. He continued the scene, reading out his line from the cardboard. You closed your eyes, leaning against the wall, listening to his voice. You stayed there for the duration of the rest of the show. Not needed anymore for the play's conclusion.
When the final bow came, Hannah, Garrett, Logan, and you were brought back onto the stage. All the other students in the play joined, including Finn, Dexter, and Allie. You all held hands, bowed towards the audience, clapped, and yelled. Coming back up, you stumbled, quickly catching yourself. Logan, standing next to you, hovered his hand over your lowered back and leaned down.
“Easy there.” Logan’s voice was gentle as he steadied you. You met his eyes, warmth spreading through you, and managed a soft, "Thanks."
“Yo rockstars, come here!” Dean yelled, calling out for all of you. Immediately, you turned towards the direction his voice came from, spotting Dean, Tucker, and Beau at the same spot you left them before the show started. With a grin, you led the way to your friends. Garrett and Hannah trailed behind, followed by Finn and Allie. Logan hung back, watching all of you.
You spun into Beau’s arms, laughing as he twirled you. “Who knew little Bambi looked so good as a fairy?” he teased, and you ducked your head, cheeks burning. Logan watched you laugh at Beau’s words, a pang in his chest. He shook his head, forcing a smile, joining the others just in time for Allie to drag you into a photo. She forced her phone into Finn’s hands and asked him to take a picture of her, Hannah, and you.
After Finn snapped two pictures, Beau and Dean joined. Dean towered over Allie. Beau loosely let his arms hang over your shoulders. Logan’s smile faltered, noticing how Beau’s arms were inches away from your breasts. His stomach plummeted as if he had just stepped off the ledge of the stage, faceplanting the ground.
And just like that, his eyes widened. Not exactly, but it felt like they did. As if they were about to bulge out of his sockets at any moment. His heart beat faster. His breathing quickened.
He took a glance at Hannah, standing between you and Allie. She was laughing at Dean’s antics, and he couldn’t help but notice the way she took every opportunity to look at Garrett. Her eyes lit up every time he looked back. Her hand brushed his arm. Logan glanced at the ground. He realized his breathing was steady again. He didn’t feel like throwing up whenever Hannah and his best friend smiled at each other. Relief bloomed in his chest, and Logan learned he was happy for them.
The afterparty exploded into a night of nightlife. Music thumped through the speakers. Sweat and bodies packed tightly together on the madeshift dance floor. Logan found himself searching the crowd for you, throat aching, heart pounding as he’d just sprinted laps at the rink. As if he were deprived of air and you were the oxygen he so desperately sought.
You drifted from group to group until you found yourself beside Beau. He leaned close, his shoulder brushing yours as you both shouted the lyrics above the music. For a while, the party faded around you. You spun during a change of beat, took a half-step back, and caught Logan’s eyes from across the crowd. It was there for a second. Then gone again, like a skipped beat or a ghost. It was so small. So quick you almost forgot it happened. Almost.
Logan sighed. The words from earlier echoed in his head: “Lysander, keep thy Hermia. I will none. If e'er I loved her, all that love is gone. My heart to her but as guest-wise sojourned, And now to Helen is it home returned, There to remain.”
And maybe. Just maybe. Logan found himself in a similar pickle as Demetrius did in tonight’s play. And it was only just the beginning.
Neither of you knew exactly where the script of your story would go next, but something had shifted tonight. The stage was set. If only either of you dared to step into the spotlight.
Behind Closed Doors ~ John Logan x Fem!Reader - (Part One)
Synopsis: Behind closed doors, Logan kisses you like you're the only thing he wants.
The problem is, being private feels a little too much like being hidden.
When you unexpectedly show up at a Briar athlete house party, and Logan suddenly acts like he barely knows you, every insecurity you've tried to ignore comes crashing down at once and Logan is forced to realize your relationship stopped being casual long before either of you admitted it.
Pairing: John Logan x reader
A/N: Was going to write a one-shot but it got long, so it's a two-parter!
PART ONE
The first thing you became aware of was warmth.
Not the blanket, not the weak gray light slipping through the curtains in John Logan’s room.
It was Logan. He was warm everywhere.
His chest pressed against your back, one heavy arm wrapped around your waist beneath your shirt, his face buried against the back of your neck like sometime during the night he’d unconsciously decided breathing you in was necessary for survival.
You smiled before you could stop yourself.
Mornings made it impossible to pretend this was casual in the same way Logan kept insisting it was.
Casual didn’t feel like waking up in a hockey player’s bed with his bare chest against your spine and his lips brushing sleepily across your shoulder before he was even fully awake.
Casual definitely didn’t feel like the quiet little noise he made when you shifted carefully, trying not to wake him up.
His arm tightened immediately. “You can’t leave.”
You laughed softly. “I have class.”
“No, you don’t.”
“I literally do.”
“Drop out.”
You rolled your eyes even as warmth spread through you and turned over to face him. He finally lifted his head enough to look at you, hair a mess, eyes still heavy with sleep. He looked so unfair in the mornings. Soft in a way nobody at Briar ever really got to see.
His gaze dropped to your mouth immediately.
“Come here,” he said, his voice raspy.
Before you could say anything else, he kissed you. Slow, sleepily, and warm. It was the kind of kiss that made you feel like you were being melted into the mattress beneath you.
Your fingers slid into the hair at the back of his neck automatically. He made that quiet, satisfied sound again and deepened the kiss lazily, pulling you fully onto your back beneath him.
It still startled you sometimes how affectionate he was in private. It seemed impossible for him to stop touching you while you were alone.
His thumb rubbed softly against the side of your waist while he kissed you again and again, like he had nowhere to be.
You had dated other men before, but no one had ever kissed you like Logan did. It was like every kiss accidentally turned into five more because he kept forgetting to stop.
The room was quiet, but you could hear distant movement downstairs, probably his teammates waking up. His hand slipped back up under your shirt just for skin contact, his warm palm flattening against your stomach.
Your chest tightened painfully because this was the problem. You were absolutely, hopelessly, falling in love with him. And that was the problem, because Logan still called whatever this was, casual.
A loud yell downstairs broke through the quiet. He groaned dramatically and dropped his forehead against your collarbone.
“They’re ruining my life.”
You laughed, your fingers sliding through his dark brown curls again. “It’s their house, too.”
“They should stop.”
Another voice could be heard downstairs, just a little bit louder now. It had gotten closer.
Reality started to creep back in. You felt the shift in him almost immediately. It was subtle, and tiny, but it was there. Logan lifted his head, glancing toward the bedroom door.
Suddenly, he wasn’t kissing you anymore. He wasn’t curled around you the same way, and his hand disappeared from under your shirt. It was small enough that maybe another girl wouldn’t have noticed it. But, you did. You always noticed him.
He looked back at you quickly, like he knew you’d felt it too.
“You should probably sneak out before they all start barging in here and getting me up for practice.”
There it was. The reminder. Everything was private and hidden.
You forced a smile anyway. “Wow, you really know how to make a girl feel special.”
His expression softened instantly. “Come here.”
Before you could dodge him, he caught your wrist and pulled you back into him, kissing you hard enough to steal the breath from your lungs.
You melted despite yourself. This was the problem, too. Even when he confused you, even when he accidentally hurt your feelings, he kissed you like you were something precious.
When he pulled back, his forehead rested against yours.
“You know I like having you here,” he said, his big brown eyes staring up at you.
Your chest hurt a little at how sincere he sounded.
“I know,” you said softly, as you looked back down at him.
The thing was, you did know. At least, privately. That was never the issue.
--
You ended up being ten minutes late to class because Logan refused to let you leave without another kiss, which turned into three, which then somehow turned into him pinning you against the bedroom door while you laughed breathlessly into his mouth.
“You’re the actual worst,” you told him.
He only grinned, his smile taking over his entire face, as his hands were warm against your waist beneath one of his old generic Briar University hoodies.
“You like me,” he said, knowingly. You swatted at him as he stole another kiss.
By the time you finally escaped his place, your lips were swollen, your hair was more tangled than normal, and Logan’s sleepy grin was still burned into the inside of your skull.
As you walked into your midday lecture, your roommate, Cassie, immediately narrowed her eyes.
“You stayed over again.”
You slid into your seat, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Well, you didn’t come home last night, and you’re wearing his hoodie.”
You looked down. Right.
The giant gray Briar University hoodie that Logan had tugged over your head that morning because you’d complained about being cold.
“I forgot to give it back.”
Cassie snorted, “Sure.”
You tried to focus on class after that, but it was impossible, because every five minutes your phone buzzed.
Logan: thinking about your mouth still
Heat rushed to your face instantly. You glanced around before typing back quickly.
You: I hate you
Three dots appeared immediately.
Logan: liar
Logan: also you left your book here
Her annotated copy of Pride and Prejudice.
The one filled with highlighted passages and sticky notes and embarrassing margin comments.
You: DO NOT TOUCH IT
A picture arrived seconds later. Logan was sprawled across his bed shirtless, her book balanced against his chest.
Your stomach flipped traitorously.
Beneath the image, sat another text.
Logan: too late
Logan: your annotations are intense
This was another thing about him. He quietly noticed everything, like he genuinely paid attention to you. He remembered what coffee you liked, which fantasy series made you cry, that you got easily overwhelmed in crowded places and preferred corners of rooms, and he listened when you rambled about books he’d never read but somehow remembered details weeks later.
Last week, he’d given you a little gold bookmark because “It reminded me of that dragon book you like.”
You had almost died on the spot.
Your phone buzzed again.
Logan: come over tonight?
You bit your lip.
Then another message appeared.
Logan: after practice
This was how it always happened lately. You’d tell yourself that you needed space. That you needed to stop letting this become so relationship-like when he still insisted you were ‘keeping things easy.’
Then, he’d look at you. He’d touch you, and kiss you, and suddenly, you were back in his bed again, pretending that your feelings weren’t becoming catastrophic.
Cassie leaned over to you, “You’re smiling at your phone.”
“I’m not.”
“You’re literally blushing.”
You shoved the phone face down onto the desk. Unfortunately, your roommate only looked more smug.
“So are you finally going to admit you’re basically dating John Logan?”
Your stomach tightened automatically.
“Shhh!” you said as you looked around, “It’s casual.”
Cassie stared at her for a long moment.
Later, walking across campus alone, the words lingered uncomfortably in your head, because privately? Nothing about John Logan felt casual anymore.
--
Practice ended late. You knew because Logan texted you an update when he had a small break.
Logan: coach is trying to kill us. If I die tell Garrett he still owes me twenty bucks
About a half an hour after that, you received another text.
Logan: miss you. Get over here.
This is how you found yourself climbing the stairs at his place just after ten, the tote bag heavy against your shoulder and your stomach still full of nerves that you couldn’t seem to control around him.
The house was quieter than usual for once. He had told you to let yourself in because no one else was home.
You slipped into his room without knocking. He looked up immediately from where he was sprawled across his bed in gray sweatpants, his hair still damp from the shower.
He smiled at you. Not a polite smile, not casual, that smile. It was the one that always hit you in the chest.
“There’s my favorite nerd.”
You rolled your eyes automatically even as warmth flooded through you.
He moved to the edge of the bed and held out a hand immediately. You took it before he even fully closed his fingers.
He tugged you between his knees until you stood directly in front of him, your hoodie-clad body fitting easily between his legs. His hands slid beneath the hem of the hoodie automatically, finding your waist.
“Did you eat?” you asked him.
“Mhmm.”
“You lying?”
A grin appeared on his face.
“Maybe.”
You sighed, “I brought food.”
“See? This is why I keep you around.”
You tried to glare at him, but it would’ve probably worked better if he hadn’t immediately tilted his head up and kissed you. It was slow at first, then deeper when you melted into him.
His grip tightened against your waist, pulling you flush against him until you could feel the warmth of his skin.
This right here is why you kept losing perspective around him. These little moments of when Logan kissed you like someone who genuinely wanted you.
His mouth softened against yours when you made a quiet sound into the kiss, and suddenly, he was smiling against your lips.
“What?” you whispered.
“You make that noise every time I kiss you for more than ten seconds.”
You immediately covered his mouth with your hand. “I hate you.”
He laughed into your palm before pulling it away and kissing the inside of your wrist casually enough to make your stomach flip.
You took out the food you brought him, and the two of you talked for a bit while you ate. After you finished, he handed you the copy of your book before tugging you down onto the bed beside him.
You barely got settled before he stretched out and dropped his head directly onto your lap like it belonged there.
You looked down at him, and you pulled out your book to read it as he closed his eyes, half-dozing against you. One of his hands lazily hooked around your stomach.
Sometimes, he’d open his eyes and interrupt just to ask questions about whatever you were reading, despite insisting romance novels were “overrated”.
Tonight, though, he just looked tired.
Your fingers drifted into his damp hair, playing with his curls. The reaction was immediate, and he practically melted.
A soft exhale left him as he tilted his head more firmly into your touch. Your chest tightened painfully because you became more aware that this was relationship behavior; it was terrifyingly intimate.
Logan acted like this only when you were alone. That’s what scared you the most.
As if sensing a shift if your mood, he opened one eye slightly.
“What’s that face?”
“What face?”
“The thinking-too-much face.”
You looked back down at your book quickly, “I’m literally reading.”
Before he could respond, voices erupted downstairs. They were loud and excited.
Then, you heard Garrett yelling, “Party Friday! Nobody trash the kitchen this time.”
You stilled slightly, and Logan noticed immediately. His hand tightened around your stomach.
“You don’t have to come,” he said.
You looked down at him. “I wasn’t invited.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
She nodded.
You tried not to think about Friday after that, but it was difficult because Logan kept making it impossible to think about anything else.
After the conversation died off, he’d sat up just enough to tug you into his lap, stealing lazy kisses between pages of your book while mumbling complaints about practice into your skin.
And you? You were weak, especially when he was affectionate like this. At one point, he’d gently pulled the book from your hands altogether and dropped it onto the floor beside the bed.
“Logan.”
“You’re not paying attention to me.”
“You’re literally attached to my body right now.”
“Still.”
You laughed softly before he kissed you again, slower this time. The kind of kiss that made you forget what you’d been saying halfway through it.
His hands settled at your waist, thumbs rubbing lazy circles against the skin just above your jeans while he tipped his head slightly to deepen the kiss. Your hands slid across his jaw, which elicited a moan from him, before making your way to his hair and lightly tugging on it.
The smile Logan gave her then was small, real. It was dangerous.
--
Friday came too fast. You spent a stupid amount of time staring at your closet, which was ridiculous.
You never cared this much about parties because you usually avoided them entirely. Cassie had been invited to the party by a football player, Beau, and she’d told him the only way she would go was if she could bring her friend. So, you decided to go so that Cassie could be with Beau.
Cassie appeared in the doorway holding up two tops.
“Wear the black one.”
You looked down at your oversized sweater.
“I was thinking this.”
Cassie blinked slowly. “To a party?”
“I like this sweater.”
“Babe, you look like you’re about to alphabetize a bookshelf.”
“That’s not an insult to me.”
“It is tonight.”
The girls who went to these parties always looked effortless in ways that you never managed to be. Tiny dresses, with loud confidence and perfect hair. They fit naturally into the world orbiting Briar athletes.
You usually felt like you’d wandered into the wrong building by mistake.
And now there was the added problem of secretly sleeping with one of the star hockey players.
Twenty minutes later, you stood in front of the mirror feeling deeply unlike yourself in a black top that showed more skin than you normally preferred.
You tugged awkwardly at the hem. “I look like I’m trying too hard.”
“You’re literally dating John Logan.”
“Cassie, we’re not dating, and no one even knows so you have to be quiet about it.”
“Mhmm.”
--
The boys’ place was already loud when you arrived.
Music was vibrating through the walls, and you could see through the windows as you walked up that the house was packed. You immediately regretted coming.
“You’ll be fine,” Cassie yelled over the music, already dragging you inside.
You barely had time to adjust before you saw him. Logan stood across the living room, talking to Garrett and Dean, a drink in hand, and gray long-sleeves shoved up his forearms.
Your breath caught stupidly. Even now, even after weeks of being with him and sleeping in his bed, looking at him still felt unfair.
As if sensing it, Logan glanced up, and your eyes met instantly.
You watched the exact moment recognition hit his face, followed by immediate surprise, then something else.
It was small, and it was quick, but you recognized that look. It was panic.
Your stomach tightened. Instead of smiling, instead of coming toward you, instead of looking anything like the boy who made you moan his name two nights ago, he just froze.
He gave a small nod.
“Didn’t know you were coming,” he mouthed, as he took a drink.
“Last minute thing,” you mouthed back.
He nodded once, and then turned back to Garrett and Dean.
You stood there for another second longer than you should have, just waiting. You were waiting for him to look back. For him to wave you over. Something.
But he kept talking to Garrett and Dean like nothing happened.
Cassie leaned toward you immediately, “Okay, he’s being weird.”
You forced out a laugh, “He’s just talking to his friends.”
“Babe, he looked like you caught him committing a crime.”
You tried to smile, but discomfort was already crawling slowly up your spine. Logan wasn’t usually weird with you, at least not privately. Privately, he couldn’t stop touching you. But now? Now, he looked almost… careful.
Heat flooded your face as you suddenly felt painfully aware of yourself. The black top you already regretted wearing, the loud music, the girls draped effortlessly across the hockey and football teams like they belonged here naturally. Unlike you.
“You want a drink?” Cassie asked.
“Yes,” you said immediately.
Mostly because it gave you something to do besides stand there, wondering why Logan suddenly looked uncomfortable acknowledging your existence.
You ended up in the kitchen, which somehow felt even worse. It was more crowded, hotter, and there was nowhere to hide.
You leaned against the counter while Cassie asked you if she could go talk to Beau, and you, wanting to be a good friend, told her you’d be fine.
Every few minutes, despite yourself, your eyes drifted back toward the living room. Toward him. You caught him looking at you a few times, and that was the worst part. He kept glancing over at you like he wanted to come talk to you, but every time you were able to meet his eyes, he’d look away first.
Your stomach twisted harder every single time.
A girl slid next to him near the couch. Blonde, a tiny dress. Pretty in the effortless way that you never managed. She leaned close to say something in his ear over the music. Logan answered absently, his gaze drifting toward you again. But, he still didn’t move.
You looked away first this time as humiliation burned hot beneath your skin. It wasn’t long ago that he’d held you against his bedroom door and kissed you goodbye like you were something precious to him. And now? You felt like you were some awkward girl who misunderstood everything.
“Hey.”
You looked up quickly. A guy you vaguely recognized from one of your elective classes stood beside you.
“Cassie said you were abandoned over here.”
You laughed softly, “That obvious?”
“A little. I’m Connor, by the way.”
“Y/N.”
“I know. You answered a question in class once and made the professor look stupid.”
You groaned and covered your face, “Please don’t remind me.”
Connor grinned. “No, it was impressive.”
The conversation was easy after that. It was easy in a way that you desperately needed right now. Connor looked directly at you when you spoke. He seemed genuinely happy you were there.
You found yourself relaxing despite everything. The knot in your chest loosened a little with every passing moment you stayed in the kitchen. For the first time since arriving at the party, you stopped thinking about Logan for almost thirty full seconds.
Then, you made the mistake of looking up. Logan was already looking at you from across the room. It wasn’t casual, either. He was staring.
Your stomach flipped hard enough to make you angry. Now he looked interested. Now he noticed you. Heat crawled up your neck.
Fine. If he wanted to act like you were just another girl at the party, then she could act that way, too.
So, you looked back at Connor.
“What’s your major again?”
“Pre-med,” he said with a dramatic sigh, “Unfortunately.”
You laughed softly. Out of the corner of your eye, you saw Logan shift abruptly and break off from his group.
Your pulse skipped traitorously. Don’t look at him. Don’t.
You forced yourself to keep listening while Connor talked about one of your professors, but suddenly, you could feel Logan somewhere nearby without even seeing him.
“You hiding in the kitchen?”
You turned. There he was.
He still had a drink in his hand, and he was looking unfairly good in the low lighting. However, there was something tight in his expression now.
Connor glanced between them, “You guys know each other?”
You opened your mouth automatically, but then hesitated. You had no idea what Logan wanted you to say.
Logan answered first.
“Yeah,” he said casually, “she hangs around the house sometimes.”
The words hit like a slap. You actually felt your expression falter before you caught it.
She hangs around the house sometimes.
Like you were random, temporary. Just some girl floating around hockey parties instead of someone who’d spent nights in his bed with his mouth against your throat whispering for you to stay.
Connor nodded easily, “Oh, cool.”
You couldn’t breathe suddenly.
Logan’s eyes flickered toward you briefly, like maybe even he heard how wrong it had sounded after it left his mouth. But then someone across the room shouted his name, and he looked away, just for a second.
You stepped back immediately, it was all too much for you.
“I’m gonna get some air,” you said quietly.
Neither of them stopped you. The cold outside hit your skin hard enough to sting.
You wrapped your arms around yourself as the back door shut behind you, muffling the music from inside.
Your chest hurt, which felt ridiculous. Technically, Logan hadn’t done anything wrong. You weren’t official, you weren’t public. You’d agreed to keep things casual.
So, why did you suddenly feel so humiliated? The answer came immediately, cruel, and honest. Because privately, Logan never treated you casually.
Privately, he kissed you like he missed you after one day apart. He fell asleep wrapped around your body. And then the second other people were around? She hangs around the house sometimes.
You laughed under your breath once, miserable. The back door creaked open behind you a minute later, but you didn’t turn around.
“Hey.”
It was Logan.
You stared out into the dark. “Your party misses you.”
There was silence for a second. Then, “What’s wrong?”
That almost made you laugh again, because if he genuinely didn’t know, that somehow hurt worse.
You turned and looked at him suddenly.
“John, you’ve been ignoring me.”
Logan blinked. “What?”
“You saw me walk in and acted like I was interrupting your life.”
“That’s not—”
“And then you introduce me as somebody who hangs around the house sometimes?”
His face changed immediately. You saw the exact moment realization hit him.
“Oh.”
“Yeah,” you said quietly. “Oh.”
“Y/N—”
“No, it’s fine.”
“It’s obviously not fine.”
You swallowed hard. You hated this. You hated feeling needy, and how much power he suddenly had to hurt your feelings without even trying.
“You know what the worst part is?” you asked softly. “Privately, you act like…” you stopped yourself.
Logan stepped closer automatically. “Like what?”
You looked away. “Like I matter.”
The words landed between them heavily.
Logan went still.
“And then we get around other people and suddenly it’s like you don’t know what to do with me anymore.”
“That’s not true.”
“It kind of is, though, John.”
Your throat tightened painfully.
“Do you know how crazy it makes me feel?” you whispered. “Because two nights ago you touched me like you couldn’t stop, and the next morning you practically begged me to stay in your bed longer and then tonight—”
Your voice cracked slightly. You looked down, mortified.
“Tonight, I felt stupid for thinking that any of that actually meant something.”
The words hung between them in the cold air. You hated how vulnerable they sounded out loud. You saw his face fall immediately.
“Y/N.”
Suddenly, you couldn’t do this anymore. You couldn’t stand there letting him look at you with those soft, conflicted eyes while your chest cracked open in real time. You stepped back before he could touch you.
“I should go.”
His brow furrowed instantly, “Wait.”
“It’s fine.”
“It’s obviously not fine.”
You laughed once under your breath. “That’s kind of the problem, Logan. I don’t think you realize how not fine it is.”
You saw him reach for you again, but you stepped back before he could. The hurt that flashed across his face almost made you stop.
Almost.
But if he touched you right now, you’d cave immediately. You knew yourself well enough to know that.
So instead, you shook your head once.
“I can’t keep feeling like your secret until it’s convenient, if ever, for you not to hide me anymore.”
He went still. You swallowed down the lump in your throat.
Then, you turned and walked away before he could say anything else.
You found out pretty soon into your college career that happy hour at Malone’s only ended in two different ways for you.
Outcome one was like everyone else’s—have way too many drinks and spill a few too many secrets all while dancing like no one was watching. Sure, you probably misplaced your purse a while ago and the next morning you’d wake up with a killer hangover, but that was a future-you issue.
Outcome two was more pitiful. You likely had something important to do in the morning, so you decided against drinking, meaning your butt was glued to the booth that you shared with your best friend as he made googly eyes at the waitress.
It was nights like these that made you want to rip your heart out of your chest and stomp on it. That would hurt less than this.
“You know staring at her any harder won’t magically make her a mind reader, right?”
His eyes flickered back over to you with some poor attempt at confusion. “Who?”
“John Logan, do not play stupid with me, your smarts is the only thing you have going for you.”
A laugh escaped the boy, his lips spreading across his cheeks in a way that made your heart flutter. “Gee thanks, tell me what you really think.”
You attempted to mirror his actions, letting a similar smile find you that never truly reached your eyes. “If I told you what I really think, you’d be running for the hills.”
“Give me some credit,” he replied, bumping his shoulder into yours. “If I wanted to run, I would’ve done it ages ago.”
It was like something was tethering you to him wherever he touched you, urging you to seek him out. As he bumped his shoulder into yours, you leaned into it, smiling as the two of you met in the middle.
“I’ll hold you to it,” you smiled.
“Oh, I know you will.”
For that small bit of time as the music continued on and the world spun around the two of you, you were able to forget and play pretend just for a bit. Pretend that the way he leaned into your touch meant something more. Pretend that he also felt something every time your eyes would cross.
You could even imagine a world where you got over yourself and admitted everything that has sat on your chest since what felt like the beginning of time.
“Hey guys, welcome to Malone’s, I’m Hannah. What can I get started for you today.”
And in a flash, the moment would slip away to the nothingness you were dealt with as John sat up in his seat, leaning forward so his eyes were centered on her.
You felt it as that dagger in your chest twisted itself as you watched his eyes light up at the sight of her. Your eyes trailed over him observing the way his smile grew shy and how seemed to be fiddling with his hands as he talked to her.
Flicking your eyes up to Hannah, you could feel the way your heart sank. Some deep, selfish part of you wanted nothing more than to hate the girl. If you hated her, then maybe you’d find some weird twisted vindication for the way it all made you feel.
But you couldn’t bring yourself to hate her.
In turn, all you were left with were these cruel comparisons that lingered in your mind. How she seemed to carry herself with this assurance—like she knew exactly what she was going to do and nothing would get in her way. How she seemed to make people laugh without even trying. Even how she looked so effortlessly beautiful even after working the fifth hour of her nighttime shift.
It made you feel rather dull in comparison.
“And for you?”
You blinked back to attention, realizing both of their eyes were on you. “Oh um…just water please.” Your smile felt weak, reminding you that you’d be happier watching some rom-com back at your dorm instead of putting yourself through this hell.
“Y’sure you don’t want anything else,” John asked, his brow quirking up at you curiously.
You nodded, pulling your arms under the table and squeezing them together as you shoulders pulled in. “Yeah. I’m not all that hungry if I’m being honest.”
“Alright then,” Hannah smiled. “Just let me know if you change your mind, everything should be out shortly.”
Once she left the table, you remained silent. Your eyes swept across the room, seeing the live band playing from the front and the crowd forming around them, but you weren’t really watching them.
You kind of drifted off, staring aimlessly ahead of you as your thoughts and frustrations swirled heavily in your chest.
Then you felt the warmth that wrapped around your hand, threading between your fingers and holding you carefully. “Hey, you okay?”
And like a boulder being pushed back up the hill again, you felt the spiking of your heartbeat as you looked over to see John looking at you with concern. His brows pinched together in a way that made you want to cup his face and smooth over his frown lines.
You tried your best to push out the best ‘yeah!’ and inwardly cringed as it sounded to bright and chipper.
He squeezed your hand, bringing it to the table as he leaned in, tilting his head to you inquisitively. “You’re a terrible liar, y’know?”
You scoffed and smiled lightly. “Says you.”
John let out a drawn out hum. “Well now your deflecting.”
“Nothing gets past you, huh?”
A beat of silence passed over the two of you for just a moment as he his eyes scanned over your face carefully, a small frown taking his lips.
“Talk to me.” His tone was deeper now, softer as he lowered his voice just for you. “You always have.”
You couldn’t bring yourself to say anything at first, just staring back at him with a melancholic admiration. He could always read you. He knew it, his friends knew it, and you knew it all too well.
It swirled all too many feelings in your chest every time you were presented with that fact. Your heart bleeding at the thought that no one on this earth knew you better than him. Then it froze over with fear at the idea that one look too long would send him into the realization that you are hopelessly in love with him. And of course, it all shattered in hurt as you were forced to realize that he didn’t know.
He didn’t know the biggest, all-encompassing secret that kept you up into the long hours of the night and prevented you from being alone and drunk with out of the fear of spilling everything.
It made you wonder how much he truly knew you, and how much you fabricated in your head to cope with the fact that he wasn’t yours and probably never will be.
“I know,” you smiled convincingly enough, squeezing his hand back. “I’m just a little tired. It’s been a long week.”
You felt as his hand untangled itself from yours as he lifted his pinky up to you. “Promise?”
A short moment passed as you blinked at his finger. Swallowing the lump in your throat, you smiled and interlocked your pinky with his. “Promise.”
“Alright, guys. I’ve got two waters, an order of burgers and fries, and an extra fry.”
And just like that his gaze was back on her. “Thank you, Hannah.”
“Of course,” she smiled, throwing her hands up on her hips. “Did you guys want anything else?”
You only shook your head and smiled halfheartedly. “No, that’ll be all.”
“Great! If you need anything else, I’m Hannah!”
At first you watched as she walked away, then you let your eyes drift back to John where he had just the similar thought.
You bit your lip in thought, deeply mulling over the words that you knew you’d come to regret.
“You should talk to her…outside of here I mean.”
He whipped his head around to face you, his brows knitting back down in a form of confusion. “What,” he laughed. “No, I couldn’t.”
“Why not,” you joked, bumping your shoulder into his again. “If you stare at her longingly like that any longer then you’ll just look like a creep.”
His mouth fell open and shut as he searched for his words—or excuses. “I’m not her type—she doesn’t even like hockey guys.”
You nodded skeptically. “And how do you know that?”
He responded with a wince, his face contorting into a cringe as he rubbed the back of his neck. “I may or may not have overheard her telling her friend about it the other day at the counter.”
This time, it was your turn to laugh as your mouth fell open in disbelief. “Oh my god, you are a creep. I take it back, maybe you shouldn’t talk to her.”
“I’m not a creep,” he scoffed, hiding his smile. “It was an accident. I meant to talk to her, I just…froze up I guess.”
You could’ve teased him for it, but you didn’t. Instead you met him with sincerity. “You gotta take your chance at some point. Before someone swoops in and takes that chance before you. Then you’ll sit there regretting every action you didn’t take.”
You looked at him absentmindedly, not meaning it to come off as profound advice, but when you met his eyes again, they were back on you in a way that made your eyes widen a bit.
“Woah,” he commented half jokingly. “Sounds like you’re speaking from experience.”
You rolled your eyes, snagging a fry from his basket. “Wouldn’t you like to know, weather boy.”
John hummed and rolled his eyes. “Can’t go a moment without saying something sarcastic, can you?”
You grinned. “Nope. I’d die without it.”
He smiled again, making your heart sparkle once more.
“Here,” he replied, pushing his extra basket of fries in your direction. “That’s for you.”
“What? I didn’t order any.”
“I know,” he murmured. “But you always say you’re not hungry before eating half my fries. Can’t have you going hungry on me.”
You looked at the basket, hand hovering over it before flitting your eyes back up to him.
“…thank you…”
“Of course. What are friends for?”
[2]
You were 15 when you met John Logan—the guarded yet kind boy that ended up being your partner for the class project. From then on, the two of you were practically attached at the hip.
He was there for you at every bad day and rough moment and you were there whenever his world became too much.
The two of you balanced out the chaotic lives you lived and over those years, you learned a few things about him.
You knew that he had the tendency to bite his tongue, never wanting to step on someone else’s toes unless he pushed to his limit. You knew he was especially hard on himself because no one else was; because if he wasn’t he’d have to face the reality of losing everything he worked hard to build. You also knew that if he didn’t want to be found, he knew just how to make himself sparse.
The past few days had been fine, the both of you focusing on your respective schedules and finding time for each other in between, but then out of nowhere, it was radio silent from him.
You let it go on for a day, giving him the time to breathe because you knew he likely needed it if he was avoiding you, but after that you decided you should find him. And you knew exactly where to find him.
With a zip, you closed up your hoodie as you walked into the doors of the skating rink. Sure enough, he was right where you expected him to be: pushing himself beyond his limit as an excuse to get his mind off is life.
Wordlessly, you sat there and watched him as he paced back and forth on the ice, smacking the pucks aggressively into the goals. You didn’t flinch or react as the sound echoed through the room, only kept your eyes trained on him as he finally slowed to a stop and skated in your direction.
“Hey stranger,” you called once he was close enough. “Y’wanna talk about it?”
His breath was shallow as he looked at you through the metal of his helmet. You could see the sweat dripping off him as he shook his head. “It’s nothing.”
“Okay then,” you replied coolly, nodding before holding up a pair of skates for him to see. “Can I join you?”
He looked at you with a sense of disbelief. “You wanna do drills with me?”
You shrugged. “I don’t wanna play. I wanna skate. It’ll be kinda hard though with a big angry hockey player smacking his shit around on the ice.”
After a beat of contemplation from him, a small victorious smile slipped onto your lips as you saw his shoulders slump in defeat. “For old times sake Johnny.”
The boy lost the helmet and stick by time you slipped your skates onto your feet and made your way on the ice.
You didn’t wait for him as you kicked off, skating a jogging pace around the ice. You didn’t need to look back to know what he was already slowly catching up to you before finding his pace right next to you.
At first, the two of you skated in silence. Only the noise of the blades meeting the ice could be heard. Then he broke the silence.
“Garrett and Hannah got together.”
His words were blunt and spit out—you almost missed them. But when they eventually caught up to your ears, you came to a sudden stop, John stopping and turning around just a few feet ahead of you.
“What?”
He shook his head. “I really don’t wanna repeat it.”
Apart of you wanted to be gleeful. That recurring selfishness that wanted nothing more than to let Hannah be out the picture. But then you saw that hurt and frustration covering his face and it all melted into guilt.
“I–you were right. I should’ve said something when I had my chance. It’s just…pisses me off.”
You skated up to him slowly. “That she’s taken?”
“That it’s Garrett!” His voice rebounded off the walls as it raised slightly. “He—he didn’t even know her name a week ago and I just—,” he cut himself off.
His face was flushed red when you reached him, refusing to even look you in the eye. “Garrett’s great. My best friend or whatever but,” he looked up at you and shook his head, “I know him. He’s gonna be over her in less than a month and she doesn’t deserve that…”
You hated that feeling that rushed over you as you stood before him. Frustration and self-pity welling up in a bile that rested somewhere in your chest, waiting to just engulf you. The only thing worse than the feeling itself had to be shoving it away like your feelings were worth nothing.
Yet with a gentleness reserved for very few, you slipped your hands into his and gave it a squeeze. “John…I’m gonna tell you something. I know you’re not gonna wanna hear it but you need to.”
He didn’t look up at first, just glared at the ice below him.
“John.”
With stubborn defiance, he let his eyes meet yours and behind all that anger you could see the real vulnerability pouring through.
“It’s not your place to decide what’s good for Hannah.”
You could see his jaw clench as you continued, not in anger but when he knew you were right and didn’t want to admit it. “She is a grown woman who can date or hook up with whoever she likes…even Garrett.”
“I know,” he pushed out. “I just feel like he gets all these wins and I’m just…fucked. Like I can’t stop pulling the short end of the stick.”
You nodded, staring at him intently as you kept your grip on his hands. “I know. And unfortunately, that’s life. Sometimes you get shit and sometimes you get gold and most days you can’t control which hand you’re dealt. What you can control is what you do with it. Are you gonna obsess over this girl that isn’t yours, or are you gonna find a way to move past it?”
His breath was even now and his eyes stayed concentrated on you as his anger slowly slipped away. Wordlessly, he nodded and squeezed your hands one last time and let you ground him in this moment.
[INTERLUDE]
John was a man of consistency. Growing up the way he did, he chased that rhythm of knowing exactly was going to happen next in his life; whether that be with his academics, his career, or just sticking to a weekly schedule of class, gym, practice, studying, and sleep (save room for a party or two of course).
Within that schedule was movie night with you every week.
The two of you sat on the couch, lucky to snag the tv before any of the other boys. He sat in the corner of the couch, arm thrown over the back while you cozied into his side.
If he was being honest, he lost the plot of the movie a while ago; it had been a long day and practice was particularly rough so he felt dead. But he enjoyed these smaller moments with you when the world quieted itself just for the two of you.
“You’re not falling asleep on me,” you asked, looking up at him knowingly.
A rumble moved through his chest as he blinked himself awake. “Of course not. I could never miss the fundamentals of Jane Austen adaptations.”
“Don’t act like you don’t force me to watch your movies too,” you shoot back with a laugh while poking him in the side.
But before he could respond, a pain flared from his chest, forcing him to sit up with a groan. “Fuck.”
“Shit,” you murmured. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah,” he grunted, trying to shake it off before you got too worried. “Probably just a bruise.”
But John eventually learned that a world that you weren’t worried about him was a world that simply didn’t exist.
“Let me see.”
He laughed it off at first, looking up at you. “What?”
“You heard me.” Your voice was stern and stubborn, not offering much room for him to argue back. “Lift up your shirt.”
“Jesus, buy me dinner first.”
You frowned at him. “John Logan—,”
“Okay, okay fine,” he ushered, moving his hand that kept his shirt from riding up. “Forget how stubborn you can be.”
You didn’t give him much of a response as you reached for the hem of his shirt and lifted it up to reveal the large scrape running up the side of his abdomen.
“Jesus Christ, you’re bleeding.”
His mouth fell open a moment, looking down at his injury then back up at you. “I’d hardly call it bleeding. I’ve had worse.”
“Doesn’t mean you should be bleeding out on the couch.”
“I’m not bleeding out,” he tried. “The boys just got a little carried away during practice okay? I’ll go patch myself up right now if you’re so worried.”
“No,” you demanded, pushing him lightly back onto the couch as you now knelt above him to stand up. “You stay put, I’ll do it.”
“That’s really not necessary.”
You threw your hands up on your hips and glared at the boy. “How about this, either you let me help you or you let the doctor in the emergency room help you? Your pick.”
Once again, he let his mouth fall open and shut incredulously as a scoff of a laugh left. “Fine, okay. If you insist.”
You eventually returned with this silent concentration that he rarely ever saw in you. Wordlessly, you sat back down on the couch next to him.
He watched as you worked on him and somewhere between you lightly wiping the wet cloth over his wound and tearing open the bandage packet, something changed.
Suddenly he took notice of the way your eyes trained so heavily on him, the way you bit your bottom lip, the way your fingers brushed against his skin so lightly in a way that trailed a flame with every touch.
It was like you set him on fire and he had no clue what to do with it.
[3]
The library was typically where you found the most peace. Most times you were there with John, studying until your eyes hurt and you couldn’t bear to type another paper or jot down another formula. Tonight was meant to be no different.
But your study partner’s mind seemed to be wandering elsewhere.
“Okay I’ll bite,” you huffed out, tossing your pen down to the table. “What’s wrong?”
John’s eyes flickered up to you in confusion. “What do you mean?”
You stared at him. Hard. Your eyes scanned all over his face before leaning back in your chair with a sigh. “I thought you were done with all this Hannah mess.”
“I-,” he stammered. “I was—I am! What are you on about?”
You quirked a brow up at the boy. “You’re making that face you always do. That face when you see Hannah and you want her to look at you. Except now it’s worse because she’s not even here.”
“That’s not—I don’t—,” he cut himself off, rubbing his hand over face. “It’s not Hannah…not anymore.”
You paused, suddenly afraid of moving as he avoided your gaze. You knew the question you wanted to ask—it weighed on your chest, fat, heavy, and waiting to be addressed.
“But there is someone?”
The silence in the air was enough of an answer for you, but his responses that tumbled out only seemed to taunt you more, beating the dagger deeper into your chest.
“Yes? No. Maybe. I don’t know…it’s complicated.”
That silence sat uncomfortably with you, as if the room was closing in. You wanted nothing more than to take down the walls so hellbent on closing in on you.
“Two lovers in a month,” you joked, your smile half-assed. “Quite the Casanova, huh Johnny?”
You didn’t expect him to snap back at you.
“Don’t be like that.” It wasn’t harsh or mean, but you could sense the edge in his voice as he looked back up at you.
“Like what,” you bit back, your voice cautious on the air.
“Like…” he trailed off, searching for the words in his head. “I don’t know.”
You looked at him patiently, rolling the ball of thought in your head before finally speaking up. “Tell me about them?”
He looked up at you and in his eyes you found something new, something strange. You couldn’t quite put your finger on it, either.
“I…I just don’t want to fuck it up. I’m not good at this and you know I’m not but this time…they’re not like Hannah. I’d actually have something to lose if I do anything.”
God it felt like someone was punching you in the gut, watching him go on with this sparkle in his eyes that seemed to intensify from the times he’d go on about Hannah.
But you still did what you did best. You gave him advice.
“Well…I know it’s corny to say but, I think the best thing for you is listen to yourself…I can tell you that you need to man up or that you need to focus on yourself, but at the end of the day, it all comes down to what you’re willing to risk for what you want.”
He didn’t respond at first. Only sat there quietly and you weren’t really sure how he felt about what you had to say.
“I can say this. Ever since I met you, you always carefully picked the people you were friends with. If this person means as much to you as you say then something like this won’t chase them off.”
You leaned forward and let your hands cover his, rubbing your thumb over his knuckles in a way that only felt selfish.
You could only bring yourself to wonder why you kept putting yourself in positions like this with him.
[+1]
Finals season was finally over and you were free. It felt like one of the many weights were lifted off your shoulder and you were finally free to do what you really wanted to do.
Maybe on another night you would’ve stayed in and slept until the next semester, but somehow (with very little convincing) you were at Malone’s once again with your friends.
One thing led to another and suddenly you were settling on one of your two inevitable outcomes that came from Malone’s: enough drinks in your system to want to dance on a table. It was the kind of confidence you weren’t even sure where it came from.
You had already found the chair to help you reach the table before you felt someone tugging you down into their chest.
You whipped your head around suddenly before your shock melted into a dizzy smile as you recognized him.
“Johnny! I missed you. Where have you been?”
“Well,” he started with an amused smile, slowly leading you away from the crowd and towards the door. “One of your friends called and told me you were a bit to drunk to drive home.”
You let out a dramatic gasp, halting in your step before turning around to face him fully. “Was is Mackenzie? Or was it Kris? Traitors…”
John huffed out a laugh as he took you by your hand and continued to pull you toward the exit, guiding you to his car with the looming fear of you suddenly falling over or puking. Or both.
“I’m not supposed to be alone with you when I’m drunk,” you groaned as he began his drive. “Sober-me made drunk-me swear by it.”
He looked at you with a raised eyebrow. “Why’s that?”
“Because,” you hissed. “I have secrets! Big secrets. If I’m drunk then I’ll want to tell you my secrets.”
He could only let himself smile a bit as he tried to brush off your words. “Well then I’ll be sure you don’t spill any secrets to me.”
You only giggled and grinned as you turned to him. “That sounds like a challenge.”
“I thought you didn’t want me to have your secrets,” he laughed.
“That’s sober-me,” you replied with a feigned coolness. “Drunk-me doesn’t associate with them.”
“Talk about self-sabotage,” he chuckled lightly to himself.
His hand rested on the console between the two of you, drumming lightly in a way that caught your attention. Absentmindedly, you reached for it, running your fingers up and down to trace where his veins trailed.
“You have pretty hands, Johnny.”
His eyes flickered to look at you from his peripheral. “Thank you.”
His voice was clipped. Restrained.
“Johnny?”
A beat of silence passed between the two of you before he spoke up. “Yeah?”
“Can I tell you something?”
A small smile spread across his lips again. “Is it a secret?”
You giggled again, looking back at him. “No…it’s a question. I always give you advice, I think it’s about time you give me some earth=shattering advice.”
He couldn’t help but laugh at that before releasing a soft sigh. “Go for it.”
“If I have a this big fat secret that I technically shouldn’t tell, I know that I shouldn’t ever bring it up.”
“That’s typically how secrets work.”
“Okay smart-ass,” you frowned, flicking his hand before sitting back in your seat. “But what if this secret is like huge. Like…it makes me want to throw up, explode, and vomit all at the same time.”
“Aren’t vomiting and throwing up the same thing,” he questioned.
“Oh my god,” you groaned, throwing your head back to stare at the ceiling of the car. “Stop trying to be funny, a piece of me dies every time you try to be funny.”
“Wow,” he muttered, failing to even try to hide his smile. “I think a secret like that should be told to the right person. You should find someone you trust with it if you can’t share it.”
The car finally came to a stop, allowing him a moment to fully look at you as your eyes drooped back down to him. “And if the secret is about the person I trust the most in the world?”
The silence that passed between the two of you was typically short and quick, shoved under the rug before it could even be processed. This silence was not like that.
It laid in the air with heavy existence as John struggled to come up with anything to say. All he could focus on was the way your eyes seemed to glimmer under the lights of the nearby street lights.
And of course, he was always the one to break it. “Look at that, we’re here. C’mon.”
Even drunk, you knew the routine whenever you spent the night at John’s. You’d take the bathroom first, then him and he’d let you take the bed while he took the floor (no matter how hard you fought him over it). You had stayed over so often that he already had your clothes waiting for you in his bottom drawer.
It didn’t take long for the two of you to get ready. You sat on his bed, watching him expectantly as he made his own makeshift bed on the floor beside you.
“You should know my secret,” you blurted out.
“I really don’t think I should,” he replied softly.
“I really think you should.”
“y/n.”
“It’s really important actually—been eating me alive since freshman year.”
“y/n.”
“I’m in love with you John Logan.”
With his back to you, the man froze in his actions. Unable to move as the words fully moved through his head. But you kept going.
“I wanted to tell you immediately actually, but then there was her. Yo—you liked her for so long and y’know it was always Hannah. Always. And a part of me, a really really selfish part of me, wishes it stayed Hannah. Because then…it means less. Hannah is amazing and kind and beautiful, and so so so funny. Hell I’d be in love with Hannah if I wasn’t so in love with you.”
He knew he should stop the words free-falling from your lips, but he couldn’t even gather himself to move much less convince you to stop saying all the things he knew you’d regret in the morning.
“But then you met someone else and then I finally realized it. It was never about me not being like Hannah. It was about me not being right…for you. I’ll never be right for you, will I?”
Not enough words could describe everything John wanted to say in that moment, but it truly didn’t matter. For when he turned around to face you, you were already fast asleep.
[the aftermass]
You weren’t sure exactly what time it was when you eventually woke up, all you knew is that you were drenched in regret as a headache pounded incessantly in your head.
The night came back to you in pieces, like a puzzle waiting to be put back together slowly. You remember your friends inviting you to Malone’s, having a few too many drinks, the dancing, the attempts to climb on the table.
It got fuzzier as you tried to recall. John had shown up, dragging you out the bar, convincing you not to spill—
You sat up suddenly, headache be damned, as your memories slammed itself back into your mind.
And then the voice you dreaded to hear. “Good morning.”
He was seated there on the floor, just like he always was when you woke up. You would exchange your ‘good mornings’, laugh about whatever happened the night before, talk about what you had planned that day.
“You remember much from last night,” he asked, sounding as if he’d been up for hours.
You only nodded.
If you were being honest, you wanted to skip over the entire routine. You swung your feet over the bed, planting your feet on the ground while avoiding his gaze.
“Do you want to talk about it,” he asked.
You shook your head at first. “No.”
You didn’t need to look at him to register how much he was thrown off. “No?”
“No just…not yet.” You began for the door, hand landing on the doorknob. “I need coffee before I can talk about anything.”
You knew he was following and you really wished you didn’t. Knowing he was just a few steps behind you only made the thudding in your heart all the more intense.
It was a huge awkward silence that settled between the two of you as he stood there, waiting for the moment you gave any indication as to wanting to continue the conversation.
“You want some,” you ask, back turned completely to him.
“y/n.”
You let out a sigh as you gripped your now full mug, glaring into the pool of brown liquid before eventually turning around to face him from where he stood at the other side of the island.
“Guess that’s a no,” you attempted to joke, but he didn’t quite return the sentiment. He only seemed to look back at you with that look of conflict he wore so often.
“If you don’t want to talk about it…”
“No,” you blurted out suddenly. “I just…”
You pinched the bridge of your nose before tossing your hand up and letting it fall to the side. “I kinda said everything I needed to say last night. Yes, I’ve liked you or been in love with you since we moved here. Yes, I was jealous of Hannah and I’m jealous of whoever you seem to like right now and no, I had no intention of telling you.
First it was Hannah and then it was your mystery person and I just don’t want to stand in the way of what you have going on and ruin thin—”
“y/n.”
He was beginning to make it a habit of saying your name in that specific tone that made you all dizzy inside.
“Can I have a turn to speak,” he asked softly.
You let out a brisk sigh before motioning for him to speak.
“Do you remember that one night a few weeks ago? When we were watching Pride and Prejudice in the living room?”
Your brows furrowed down in confusion before nodding slowly. “Yeaaah…? What about it?”
He took a step around the island, walking just a bit closer to you while still offering you that space. “Well, when I was sitting there, watching you patch me up, I realized something.”
He took another step. “I realized that you’re stubborn. And you rarely let other people have their way. But I like that about you.”
Another step. “You’re considerate. You always put other’s feelings before your own…even if it means sacrificing something for yourself.”
He took a final step forward, landing barely even a foot away from you. “I also learned that no one else in the world cares for me like you do. And I was blind to miss it for so long.”
Your mouth fell open, looking at him in with a mix of disbelief and skepticism. “I don’t understand. Your…your mystery person.”
With a gentle hand, he reached for your coffee mug and placed it down on the counter before grasping your hand to squeeze it tight, just like every time you did so to ground him.
“You are that person. It’s always been you. And if I’m being honest…ever since that night I have been doing everything in my power to not kiss you on the spot.”
And for a moment, neither of you moved. Neither of you was sure if one should. But then you saw that flicker of doubt in his eyes and the way he slowly leaned back from you.
In a split moment of decision making, you finally let your impulses speak for themselves and you grabbed the fabric of his shirt and pulled him into you, letting your lips collide.
He didn’t react at first, his eyes blowing wide as his senses caught up to him. But when they did, everything seemed to melt in place. With one arm wrapping itself around your waist, he let his other hand find the nape of your neck, cradling you close as you tried to breathe in every inch of him.
Your hand buried itself in his hair, nails scratching gently at his scalp, only making him sigh into the kiss. “Damn,” he mumbled against your lips, his breathing shallow as he pressed his forehead against yours.
You let out a soft laugh, unable to believe everything that’s finally happened. “Took you long enough to catch up, Johnny. You were killing me here.”
A smile blessed his lips as he continued to kiss you, like a vice. “I know. How will I ever make it up to you?”
You grinned devilishly. “I can think of a few different ways.
main masterlist
a/n: this was NOT meant to be this long omg. I just finished this show earlier this week and I'm obsessed with Logan, he's honestly one of my favorites. I hope this gets all the love, please comment and reblog it would mean so much to me!!
Check Engine Light // John Logan x Fem!Reader - [Chapter Five]
Synopsis: What starts as a simple repair turns into late-night diner runs, coffee deliveries to the garage, and a growing attachment neither of you expects. Logan likes that you talk too much when you're nervous. You like that Logan becomes softer when nobody’s watching.
But as pressure mounts with Logan's hockey career and real life starts pulling at you from opposite directions, you begin to wonder if you’re just a temporary stop in Logan’s fast-moving future.
And Logan realizes far too late that somewhere between oil stains and midnight drives, you became the closest thing he’s ever had to home.
That was barely enough time to learn someone’s coffee order, let alone memorize the way his mouth felt against yours or the exact sound he made when you kissed him first.
Yet, there you were, standing in front of your closet on Saturday afternoon, emotionally unraveling over what to wear to his hockey game like you’d been invited to meet his entire family and testify before Congress at the same time.
“This is ridiculous,” you whispered to herself.
“Wear the blue Briar University sweater,” Mel said from her bed, looking at you.
“Why?” you asked.
“Because it looks cute, supportive, and also says, ‘I’m not trying too hard even though I absolutely am.’”
You stared at her. “Okay, accurate.”
Ten minutes later, you were wearing the blue sweater and jeans, and headed over to the Briar University arena.
The second you stepped inside the arena, noise hit you like a wave. Music thundered through the speakers. Students in Briar U colors crowded the concourse. The air smelled like popcorn and pretzels.
You headed inside to find your seat. The arena was big, and dark blue seats surrounded the ice. Banners adorned the ceiling, detailing the team’s accomplishments. You moved down to sit in a section towards the end, and there was an open seat a few rows up.
There were players on the ice for both teams, presumably doing warmups. Some were stretching, some were shooting into the net. As you scanned the players, you saw him.
His helmet was off, his dark hair wet and curling more than usual. His jersey was a dark blue with yellow and red accents, with “22” and “LOGAN” in white lettering on the back. He had his stick tucked beneath one arm as he glided backwards. He looked sharp, confident, and so completely at home on the ice.
Girls were lined up on the glass to watch them, as he skated by another player (who you could assume was Garrett Graham, judging by the jersey), and laughed at something he said.
Logan stopped over by the net and gazed up into the stands. He found you instantly. The shift in him was tiny, but it was unmistakable. His shoulders loosened. His mouth softened into a smile that had nothing to do with the crowd, but seemingly everything to do with you.
He lifted one gloved hand, and you smiled and lightly waved at him.
You could hear a girl behind her. “Logan’s so hot.”
You almost laughed. Or choked. Maybe both.
The game started, and to your surprise, it was fast and violent. You understood maybe half of it, but you liked watching him. He was different on the ice. Faster. Sharper. Almost untouchable.
Every time he got checked into the boards, you flinched. Every time he touched the puck, the arena reacted. When he scored in the third period, the whole place exploded. He and his teammates were mesmerizing.
You jumped to your feet with everyone else when the buzzer went off, and Briar won 5-2. The team came together, crashing into each other, shouting and celebrating. You noticed that he looked up towards the stands and found you again, before they were all ushered off the ice.
The crowd started to disperse quickly after the players disappeared. You could hear snippets of conversations about how dominant the team was, and overheard one girl talking about Logan’s roommate, Dean. You lingered near the tunnel afterward, where you saw a few other people waiting, unsure of what she was supposed to do.
Your phone buzzed.
Logan: in locker room for a few more mins. Don’t disappear.
You smiled down at it.
You: depends on how many intimidating hockey girls talk about you while I wait
Logan: Y/N.
Just your name. Still enough to make you smile.
Fifteen minutes later, he appeared in a Briar hoodie, hair damp from a shower, and a duffel bag over one shoulder.
He looked tired, but he looked happy.
The second he saw you waiting, his expression softened in the way that you were already becoming dangerously attached to.
“You came,” he said, walking over to you .
“I did. You scored!” you said.
His grin tugged at one corner. “I did.”
You laughed, and he stepped closer on instinct, his hand brushing lightly against your back.
Then, people started stopping him. Teammates, fellow students, random fans. Logan answered everyone easily, smiling, nodding, and slipping into the public version of himself that you had seen on the ice.
You drifted a few steps back without meaning to. It wasn’t jealousy, exactly. It was the sudden awareness that Logan belonged to a much bigger world than the one they’d created in garages and diners and his truck.
Once he was able to escape the stream of people, they headed outside. Logan noticed your quiet demeanor. “You okay?”
“I’m good,” you said, smiling at him.
You got to his truck, and he threw his duffel bag in the back. He stepped closer to you, one hand sliding to your waist.
“Can I kiss you now?” you laughed weakly and nodded.
He kissed you beside the truck, soft at first, and then slower when your hands curled into his hoodie. When he pulled back, his forehead brushed yours.
“You hungry?” he asked you.
You laughed. “Sure.”
They sat there for a minute. “How about some takeout at my place?”
You pondered it for a minute. His place? The hockey house?
He sensed your hesitation. “We don’t have to if you don’t want to, I just don’t really want to go get questioned by Rosie tonight.”
You laughed. “That’s fair. Your place is fine.”
They pulled up to a two-story house, adorned with a front porch and stone stairs. The second you opened the door, it was loud. A basketball game blared from the television in the living room. Someone yelled from the kitchen. The place smelled like food, laundry detergent, and men.
You saw a blonde man on the couch, whom you recognized as Dean Di Laurentis. He sat up on the couch as he saw you enter the house, a smirk on his face, showcasing the dimples in his cheeks.
“Oh, this just got good.” He said.
Logan sighed. “Don’t.”
“Dean, Y/N. Y/N, Dean,” Logan gestured between him. He waved at you.
“Hey, Y/N,” you heard, and saw a tall man with dark, curly hair. Garrett. He walked toward the living room and sat on the couch next to Dean.
“Hi,” you said softly.
Another man with longer, curly hair emerged from the kitchen holding a plate of food. “Hi! I’m Tucker.” He said.
You gave a small wave. Logan pulled you toward the kitchen before Garrett, Dean, and Tucker could say anything else to embarrass him.
Logan pulled out a handful of takeout menus from one of the kitchen drawers, and the two of you went through options before settling on pizza. The rest of the boys started filtering upstairs to their rooms, leaving the living room empty.
You and Logan ended up on the couch waiting for your food, the TV low. Your food arrived soon after, and the two of you ate and talked a little about the game.
“Do you want to watch a movie?” Logan asked after you finished eating.
“Sure. Preferences?” you asked.
“I’m good with whatever you want to watch,” he said.
You settled on a Romcom on Netflix, one that was recently adapted from a book.
You sat curled beside him, and he kept finding excuses to touch you. His hand at your knee. His fingers are brushing your hair back. His mouth against your temple. Each touch still made your stomach flip.
“You tired?” he murmured as you tucked yourself more into his side.
“Maybe,” you said.
He looked down at you, tilting your chin up, and kissed you.
It was supposed to be quick, but it wasn’t. You turned toward him, and Logan’s hand slid to your waist, pulling you closer until you were half in his lap. The kiss deepened, slow and warm, the kind of kiss that made everything else fade.
When they broke apart, you were breathless. Logan looked no better.
“You should stay,” he said softly.
You froze. Not because you didn’t want to, but because you did.
The room felt suddenly quiet around you. His hand stayed at your waist, thumb moving gently over the fabric of your sweater.
“You don’t have to,” he added immediately.
There it was again, the carefulness. You looked at him, chest aching.
“I want to,” you admitted.
His expression softened. “But?” he asked.
You swallowed. “But I think if I stay tonight, I won’t want to leave tomorrow.”
The words settled between you. Logan’s face changed slowly, like he understood exactly what you meant. This was moving fast.
Four days ago, he was a well-known college hockey player, fixing your car.
Two days ago, you’d kissed him against his truck.
And now, you were sitting in his house, against him, wanting to stay in his bed, like leaving him would be the harder choice.
Logan nodded once, gentle and serious. “Okay.”
Your chest tightened. “Okay?”
“Yeah,” he said as he brushed your hair back softly. “I’ll drive you home.”
Somehow, that made you want to stay even more.
He drove you back to your dorm through light rain, your hands linked over the center console the whole way. Outside your dorm, neither of you moved at first as the truck idled quietly.
You looked down at your joined hands. “This is a lot.”
Logan’s thumb brushed over your knuckles. “Yeah.”
“That doesn’t scare you?”
He looked at you. “It does.”
Your breath caught slightly.
Then, he said, his voice softer, “But not enough to stop.”
You leaned across the console and kissed him. Slow. Lingering. When you finally pulled away, Logan looked at you like he was trying very hard not to ask you to stay again.
“Text me when you’re inside,” he said.
You smiled faintly. “You’re literally watching the door.”
“Humor me.”
So, you did. You climbed out into the rain, feeling his eyes on you the entire way inside.
Once you reached your room, you texted.
You: inside
His reply came immediately.
Logan: good
Then, another text.
Logan: for the record, I wouldn’t want you to leave tomorrow either
You stared at the message for a long time. You laid on your bed, staring at the ceiling like you were already in far too deep. You were.
Synopsis: Three weeks ago at Hannah's Halloween party, John Logan almost kissed you in a hallway. You panicked. You laughed. You stepped back. Neither of you has talked about it since. Now you're trapped in the hockey house during the worst snowstorm of the year — just you, just him, just twelve hours and nowhere to go.
Word count: ~7k
Content / Warnings: 18+ MINORS DNI. Explicit sexual content. Forced proximity (snowstorm). Slow burn. Best friend's best friend dynamic. Near-kiss flashback (steamy). Heavy emotional tension. Mutual avoidance into mutual confession. Praise kink (light). Pet names ("baby"). Garrett Graham mentioned. Hannah, Allie, Dean, Tucker mentioned. Reader is part of the friend group through Hannah and Allie.
You only stopped by the hockey house to drop off Garrett's stupid jacket.
That's it. That's all. Hannah had texted you an hour ago — babe can you do me the biggest favor in the world he forgot his blue jacket at my place again and he needs it for the away trip tomorrow and I'm already in PJ's i literally cannot — and because you love Hannah and because you live a few blocks away and because you owe her approximately a thousand favors, you said yes.
The drive over is fine. Easy. It's snowing — soft little flakes, the kind that make you feel like you're in a Hallmark movie — but the roads are clear and you've got the radio on and you've been singing, and the snow is the kind of snow you can ignore.
Garrett isn't home. You let yourself in (you've had a key for years, every Graham sibling-adjacent friend does), drop the jacket on the couch with a sticky note that says YOU OWE ME ETERNALLY, and turn to leave.
You don't make it to the door.
"Y/N?"
You freeze.
Because John Logan is standing at the top of the stairs in a hoodie and sweatpants, hair a little messy like he was halfway through doing something when he heard the front door, and your stomach does a stupid traitorous flip that you immediately try to crush.
"Logan."
"Hi."
"Hi."
"I didn't know you were coming over."
"I was just — Hannah asked me to drop off Garrett's jacket—"
"Right."
"Yeah."
"Cool."
He's not coming down the stairs. You're not moving toward the door. The two of you stand there, suspended in the entryway and the staircase, and you have not been in a room alone with him for three weeks and now here you are and the air is doing that thing where there's no oxygen in it—
Both your phones go off at the same time.
The sound is deafening. That alarm-bell emergency-alert buzz, the kind that overrides your ringer settings, the kind that makes everyone in a public space grab their phone at the same time. Both of you flinch. Both of you reach for your pockets.
You stare at your screen.
⚠️ EMERGENCY WEATHER ALERT A severe winter storm warning has been issued for your area. Heavy snow and high winds expected. Travel is strongly discouraged. Stay indoors. Roads will be closed within the hour. ⚠️
"...oh," you say.
"Yeah," Logan says, from the stairs.
You look up. He's already looking at you.
He looks at the window. You follow his gaze.
The world outside has changed.
The snow is no longer Hallmark-movie snow. The snow is a wall. The wind is hitting the porch in solid sheets that hadn't existed twenty minutes ago. The street you drove in on is gone — just white, in every direction. You can't even see your car at the curb. The snow has already buried the bottom of the porch steps. The streetlight at the end of the block is just a fuzzy yellow smudge in a sea of white.
"Oh my god," you whisper.
"Yeah," Logan says again.
Your phone buzzes.
Mom (Hannah, you renamed her this when you were drunk): BABE Mom (Hannah): DON'T DRIVE Mom (Hannah): THE ROADS ARE A NIGHTMARE Mom (Hannah): I JUST SAW IT ON THE NEWS Mom (Hannah): YOU ARE NOT DRIVING HOME I DON'T CARE WHAT YOU SAY
You stare at your phone. You look up at the snow. You look back down at your phone. You look up at Logan.
"Garrett's at Hannah's," Logan says. "Tucker's at his parents'. Dean's been at Allie's all week. It's just me."
"...so it's just you."
"It's just me."
"Cool."
"Cool."
"Cool."
He stares at you. You stare at the floor. The wind hits the window so hard the glass rattles.
"You're stuck here," he says, finally. "Until the storm passes. There's nothing we can do about it."
"Right."
"...so."
"So."
You stare at each other.
The thing about not-talking-about-something for three weeks is that, when you're suddenly in a room together with no one else and a snowstorm raging outside and the lights flickering ominously above your head, the not-talked-about thing fills up all the air in the room. There's no oxygen left. Just the thing.
The thing being: a Halloween party three weeks ago. A hallway. Logan's hand at your jaw. The way he'd leaned in. The way you'd both stopped, half a breath away. The way you'd laughed, and made some stupid joke, and stepped back. The way he'd nodded — yeah, yeah, of course — and walked away. The way neither of you had said anything about it since.
The way you've been deliberately, carefully not being in the same room with him for twenty-one days.
The way that is now physically impossible.
"I'm gonna go get a blanket," you announce, way too loudly. "I'm gonna — go get a blanket. From the couch."
"Okay."
"Cool. Okay."
You bolt.
You spend the first hour of your unwilling sleepover doing an absolutely incredible job of pretending Logan is not in the same house as you.
He's in the kitchen. You're in the living room. He's making something — you can hear pans, smell something garlicky. You're curled up on the couch under the world's softest blanket, scrolling your phone, watching the snow pile up against the bay window. You are fine. You are completely fine. You are an adult woman who is not affected by the proximity of John Logan. You are thriving.
You scroll the same three Instagram stories four times.
The lights flicker. You jump.
"You good?" Logan's voice from the kitchen.
"Fine!"
"You sure?"
"Fine, Logan."
"Cool."
A beat. Then, quieter, from the kitchen doorway: "I made grilled cheese. If you want one."
You look up. He's leaning in the doorway in his hoodie, holding a plate, looking at you like he's not sure if he should come closer. There's a smudge of melted cheese on the side of the plate. He's standing there with a grilled cheese. For you.
Something in your chest goes very soft. Very fast.
You hate it.
"You made me a grilled cheese?"
"I made two grilled cheeses. One of them is for you if you want it."
"You hate cooking."
"I do not hate cooking."
"You literally told me last month that you, quote, do not have the patience to be a person who cooks—"
"Are you going to interrogate me about the grilled cheese or are you going to eat it."
You hold out your hands. He crosses the room slowly — like he's not sure how close he's allowed to get — and hands you the plate. Your fingers brush. You both flinch, just a little. He pretends he didn't.
He sits on the other end of the couch. Not next to you. Not close. A whole cushion of space between you.
You can still feel him there. Vividly.
"Thank you," you say to the grilled cheese.
"Mhm."
You eat. He eats. The wind howls. The TV is off because Logan said earlier we should probably save the power in case it goes out, which felt cinematically ominous and also accurate. The fire in the fireplace — of course the hockey house has a working fireplace, of course tonight is the night Logan apparently knows how to light a fire — crackles softly. The light catches the side of his face.
You look away before you can think about that.
"This is good," you say.
"Thanks."
"Surprisingly good."
"Thanks, Y/N."
"Like — like concerningly good. You should grilled-cheese professionally."
"You're being weird."
"I'm being normal."
"You're being weird."
"You're being weird."
"I'm being quiet. You're being weird."
You stuff the rest of the grilled cheese into your mouth so you don't have to answer.
By hour three, the power has flickered so many times you've stopped jumping at it, and you have both, without saying anything to each other, migrated to closer ends of the couch. Not touching. Just — closer. The middle cushion is no longer between you. Just half of it.
You are aware of this. You are very aware of this. You are pretending you are not.
Logan put on a movie an hour ago. He picked it. You don't know what it is. You are not watching it. You are watching the way the firelight moves across his throat when he swallows.
"What."
"Huh?"
"You're staring."
"I am not."
"You are."
"At the movie, Logan."
"The movie's on the TV, Y/N. I'm not on the TV. You are staring at me."
"I was zoning out."
"On my face."
"In the general direction of your face."
He's smiling now. Small. Faint. He's not looking at you, he's looking at the TV, but the corner of his mouth is doing that thing where it's pretending not to do anything. You watch his mouth. You make yourself stop.
"Logan."
"Mm."
"Can I ask you something."
"You're gonna anyway."
"Why are you being so nice to me."
He goes still.
Like, visibly still. Like the air around him has frozen for a second. He turns his head, slowly, to look at you. The firelight is doing something to his eyes that you do not want to think about right now.
"What?"
"You're being. Nice. Right now."
"...okay."
"You haven't been nice to me for three weeks."
"Y/N."
"You've been polite. You've been polite the way you'd be polite to, like, a postal worker. And now I'm trapped in a snowstorm with you and suddenly you're making grilled cheese and lighting fires and—"
"I have always been nice to you."
"You've been avoiding me."
"You've been avoiding me."
"I haven't—"
"You have, Y/N."
You stop. He stops. You both stare at the TV. The TV is playing some kind of car chase. You don't know what's happening in the car chase. You don't think Logan does either.
The lights flicker.
They don't come back on.
It takes you a second to realize. The TV blinks black. The hum of the fridge in the kitchen cuts out. The whole house drops into a deeper kind of quiet — just the fire, and the wind, and the radiator clicking somewhere down the hall.
"...oh," you say.
"Yep."
"Power's out."
"Power's out."
"How long do you think—"
"No idea."
"Cool."
"Cool."
The fire pops. The room is much darker now. Just the orange glow of the flames on the floor, on the couch, on his hands, on yours.
You are very aware that his hand is six inches from yours.
Just a second. Just to stop looking at his hand. Just to stop counting the inches.
It's a mistake.
Because the second you close your eyes, you're not on the hockey house couch anymore. You're three weeks ago. You're in Hannah's apartment. You're in a black dress with little devil horns clipped into your hair — the cheap kind, from the drugstore, the kind that pinch your scalp by hour two — and the apartment is loud, so loud, music thudding through the floor, somebody's speaker turned up too high, the smell of cheap beer and cinnamon candles.
You'd been in the kitchen for an hour. You'd been avoiding the kitchen for an hour, actually — because Logan had been in the kitchen, leaning against the counter in his stupid flannel, holding a beer he'd barely touched, claiming to be a lumberjack with the energy of a man who'd put zero effort in and somehow still looked—
(You're not thinking about how he looked. You weren't thinking about how he looked. You absolutely were thinking about how he looked.)
Hannah, in her angel costume, had pushed you toward him at one point. Go talk to him, she'd hissed, he's been looking at you all night, go—
You hadn't gone.
You'd done laps around the apartment instead. Living room. Hallway. Bathroom. Living room. Hallway. Bathroom. Avoiding the kitchen. Avoiding the kitchen. Avoiding the—
And then, somewhere around midnight, you'd found yourself in the hallway looking for the bathroom because someone had locked themselves in the one off the living room, and the hallway was darker, quieter, the music muffled through the wall. And the door at the end of the hallway had opened. And Logan had stepped out.
He'd stopped.
You'd stopped.
He was holding a glass of water. You don't know why you remember that specifically. He was holding a glass of water and he was wearing that stupid flannel and his hair was a mess and his eyes had locked on yours and stayed there.
"Hi," he'd said.
"Hi."
"You hiding?"
"Looking for the bathroom."
"It's right behind me."
"...okay."
You hadn't moved.
He hadn't moved either.
The hallway was narrow. You don't know if you remember that accurately or if your brain has been editing it for three weeks, making it smaller, making him closer, but you remember that he was close enough that you could smell his cologne under the cinnamon and the beer, and you remember that the hallway light was that warm orange kind that makes everyone look like they're in a movie, and you remember—
You remember he set the glass of water down on the little side table in the hallway.
You remember he didn't break eye contact when he did it.
You remember thinking oh, in a way that had no follow-up sentence. Just oh.
"Y/N."
"Yeah."
"Can I ask you something."
"Yeah."
"Have you been avoiding me tonight."
You'd swallowed. You don't think you'd meant to swallow audibly. You think you did anyway.
"...maybe."
"Why."
"I don't know."
"You don't know."
"I don't know."
His head had tilted. Just a little. The hallway light catching his cheekbone. You remember his cheekbone specifically, because at the time you'd been having a small private crisis about it.
He'd taken one step closer.
You'd taken a step backward. Your back had hit the hallway wall. You don't think he was advancing on you — you think you'd just moved, automatically, the way your body does when you don't know what else to do with it. He'd seen you move. He'd hesitated.
"I can go back to the party," he'd said, quietly.
"...don't."
He hadn't.
He'd taken another step.
And another.
And by the time he was close enough that you could feel his breath on your face, your hands had found the front of his flannel and you hadn't even realized you'd grabbed it. You remember the texture. You remember it was soft — of course his flannel was soft, of course his stupid lumberjack costume was actually a comfortable shirt he wore all the time, of course of course — and you remember that he'd reached up and brushed his thumb against your jaw and that his hand had been warm, warmer than it had any right to be, and his eyes had dropped to your mouth and lingered there for one full second—
And he'd leaned in.
Slowly.
So slowly that you had a thousand chances to stop him.
And he'd stopped, the way he stopped tonight, a breath away from your mouth, and he'd waited.
You can still feel his breath on your lips. Three weeks later. You can still feel it.
You can still feel the way your chest had cracked open with wanting it.
You'd laughed.
You'd laughed because you panicked. You'd laughed because your brain had short-circuited and the only thing it could do was bail. You'd laughed and said something — you can't even remember what, something stupid, something about him being very into character as a lumberjack, something — and you'd ducked under his arm and gone back to the party and you hadn't looked at him for the rest of the night.
You hadn't looked at him for three weeks.
You hadn't let yourself think about the way he'd nodded — that one small, defeated nod — and stepped back. You hadn't let yourself think about the way the warmth had drained out of his eyes. You hadn't let yourself think about any of it, except you have. You have. You've been thinking about it every single night for twenty-one nights and now you're trapped in a snowstorm with him and his hand is six inches from yours and—
You open your eyes.
The fire is still crackling. The wind is still howling. Logan is still sitting on the other end of the couch, looking at the dead TV like it might still come back on if he stares at it long enough.
His hand is still six inches from yours.
His thumb is doing slow, absent little circles on the couch cushion.
By hour five, you have run out of small things to talk about.
You've covered: the snow. The grilled cheese. Logan's classes. Your job. Hannah and Garrett (an easy subject, beloved). Allie and Dean (also easy). The hockey team's various ailments. A weird podcast Logan listens to. A book you've been reading. Whether or not the dog two doors down is technically a husky or a malamute (Logan says malamute, you say husky, you've agreed to disagree).
You have not covered the Halloween party.
You have not covered any of it.
It is becoming a problem.
You're lying on the couch now — actually lying down, your head on the armrest, your legs tucked up. Logan is sitting at the other end with your feet in his lap. You don't know how this happened. You don't know when this happened. At some point you stretched out and he didn't move and now your feet are tucked under his thigh and his hand is resting absently on your ankle and you have no idea how to address this.
So you don't.
You stare at the ceiling.
"Logan."
"Yeah."
"Can I say something."
"Yeah."
"And can you not — can you not be weird about it."
"...okay."
"Promise."
"Y/N, I'm not gonna be weird, just say it."
You take a breath. You take another breath. You think about all the ways to start this sentence and none of them feel right and then you think fuck it and you just—
"At Hannah's Halloween party."
He goes very still.
His hand on your ankle stops moving. You didn't realize it was moving. It had been, apparently, drawing slow little circles with his thumb. It stops.
"Y/N."
"I just — I just want to say something about it. Just once. And then we don't have to talk about it again."
He's quiet for a long moment.
"Okay."
You stare at the ceiling so you don't have to stare at him.
"I didn't laugh because I didn't want you to," you say.
The silence after is huge.
He doesn't say anything. You can hear him breathing. You can feel his hand on your ankle, not moving, not pulling away. You can hear the fire. You can hear your own pulse in your ears, loud.
"...what?" he says, finally. Quietly.
"I laughed. At the party. When you — when we — I laughed and I made a joke and I made it weird and I want you to know that I didn't laugh because I didn't want you to. I laughed because — because I — "
"Because you what."
"Because I panicked, Logan."
You sit up.
You sit up because you can't keep saying this to the ceiling. You sit up and pull your knees up to your chest and you look at him and he is looking at you with the exact expression he had in that hallway three weeks ago. The same one. Exactly the same one. The one that had made you laugh and step back. The one that has been living in the back of your head, rent-free, for twenty-one days.
"Y/N."
"And I've been thinking about it for three weeks and I've been ignoring you for three weeks because I didn't know what to do with it and now I'm — I'm here, and you're being nice to me with grilled cheese, and the power is out, and you're—"
"Y/N."
"And I just — I needed to say it. I needed you to know."
The fire pops.
He looks at you for a long, long moment.
Then he, very slowly, very deliberately, turns to face you fully. His knee bumps yours. He doesn't move it. And he turns. To face you fully. His knee bumps yours. He doesn't move it.
"You panicked," he says.
"I panicked."
"Because you wanted me to."
"Because I wanted you to."
"At the party."
"At the party."
"And you've been avoiding me for three weeks."
"...yes."
"Y/N."
"What."
"I've been avoiding you for three weeks because I thought I made you uncomfortable."
You stare at him.
He stares at you.
The fire crackles. The wind hits the window. The world outside is white and quiet and very, very far away.
"Logan."
"What."
"You absolute idiot."
"I'm the idiot?"
"You — yes! You're the idiot! I've been losing my mind for three weeks—"
"You laughed! In the hallway! You laughed, Y/N!"
"I PANICKED."
"I DIDN'T KNOW THAT."
"WELL I DIDN'T KNOW THAT YOU DIDN'T KNOW—"
You're both laughing now. You don't know when it started. He's got a hand pressed over his face and you've got both hands over yours and the laughter is the slightly-hysterical kind, the relief kind, the oh my god we are such idiots kind. He pulls his hand down. His eyes find yours.
His eyes are doing the thing. The thing from the hallway. The thing you've been thinking about.
He's not laughing anymore.
Neither are you.
"Y/N."
"Yeah."
"Come here."
You don't say anything. You can't. You just — move. You shift across the couch and his hand comes up to cup your jaw and you can feel him shaking a little, just a little, because he's been waiting three weeks and he doesn't quite trust this is real, and his thumb brushes your cheek and he leans in slowly, slow enough that you could stop him, slow enough that the room narrows down to just this, just him, just—
He stops.
A breath away.
Right where you stopped him last time.
Except this time he's not laughing. This time you're not laughing. This time the fire is the only sound in the room and your nose is brushing his and you can feel his breath on your mouth and his eyes flick down to your lips and back up to your eyes and—
"Tell me to," he whispers.
"What?"
"Tell me to, Y/N."
"You're really gonna make me say it."
“After three weeks? Yeah. I really am going to make you say it.”
You close the half-inch between you.
The first touch of his mouth is soft.
Softer than you expected. Softer than you've been imagining for three weeks. Just his lips brushing yours, tentative, like he's still not sure you won't pull away. Like he's giving you one more chance to laugh, to step back, to run.
You don't run.
You press closer.
And something in him breaks.
His hand slides from your jaw into your hair, fingers threading through it, tilting your head back just slightly, and the kiss deepens. Slow. Deliberate. His mouth moves against yours like he's been thinking about this, like he's memorized exactly how he wanted to do this, and you make a sound — small, involuntary — and you feel him smile against your lips.
"Yeah," he murmurs, so quiet you almost don't hear it. "Yeah, baby."
Your brain short-circuits.
Your hands find the front of his hoodie and you pull him closer, and he comes willingly, his other hand finding your waist, his thumb pressing against your hip through your shirt. The firelight flickers across his face when you open your eyes for half a second — gold on his cheekbone, shadow under his jaw — and then you close them again because you can't think and look at him at the same time.
He kisses you like he's been starving for it.
Slow, then deeper. Then slow again. His tongue brushes your bottom lip and you open for him and the taste of him floods your senses — something warm, something faintly sweet, something that makes you forget there's a world outside this couch. His hand tightens in your hair. Not rough. Just — anchoring. Like he needs to hold onto you. Like he's afraid you'll disappear.
You won't disappear.
You're not going anywhere.
Your fingers twist in his hoodie and you pull, and he makes a sound low in his throat that you feel more than hear, and then his hands are on your hips and he's pulling you into his lap.
You go.
God, you go so easily.
Your knees bracket his thighs and his hands slide up your sides, slow, like he's memorizing the shape of you, and you're kissing him harder now, less tentative, more desperate. Three weeks of wanting this. Three weeks of lying awake at night thinking about the way he'd looked at you in that hallway. Three weeks of convincing yourself it didn't matter.
It matters.
It matters so much you can't breathe.
"Y/N," he says against your mouth, and his voice is wrecked. Absolutely wrecked. "God, I've been waiting for this."
"Me too."
"Yeah?"
"Yeah."
He pulls back just enough to look at you. His eyes are dark in the firelight, pupils blown, and his lips are red and his hair is a mess where your fingers have been in it and he looks — he looks —
You kiss him again before you can finish the thought.
This time it's you who deepens it. You who licks into his mouth. You who makes him groan, low and rough, his hands gripping your hips hard enough that you'll feel it tomorrow. The fire crackles behind you. The wind howls outside. The world is a snowstorm and you are here, in his lap, in his hands, and nothing else exists.
His mouth moves to your jaw. Then your neck. Slow, open-mouthed kisses that make your breath catch, that make your hands tighten in his hair.
"Logan—"
"I know," he murmurs against your throat. "I know, baby."
You don't know what he knows. You don't know what you were going to say. You just know that his mouth is on your skin and his hands are sliding under the hem of your shirt, fingertips brushing the bare skin of your waist, and you are on fire. You are burning. The fireplace has nothing on this.
You pull at his hoodie.
He helps you.
It comes off in one smooth motion and you have half a second to appreciate the fact that he's in a t-shirt underneath — a soft, worn t-shirt that clings to his shoulders — before you're kissing him again. Your hands find the hem of his shirt and slide underneath, palms flat against his stomach, and he sucks in a breath.
"Y/N."
"Yeah?"
"You're killing me."
"Good."
He laughs. It's breathless and a little bit desperate and it makes something in your chest crack wide open. He catches your mouth again, kisses you slower this time, deeper, his hands sliding up your back under your shirt. His palms are warm. Everything about him is warm. The fire is warm and he is warm and you are warm and the cold outside doesn't exist.
Time moves differently here.
You don't know how long you kiss him. It could be minutes. It could be hours. His hands map your spine. Your fingers trace his shoulders. His mouth moves back to your neck and you tilt your head back and his name falls from your lips like a prayer.
"That's it," he murmurs against your collarbone. "Just like that."
Your shirt is rucked up. His is halfway off. You don't remember taking it off. You don't remember him taking yours off. You just know that there's less fabric between you now and his chest is pressed against yours and you can feel his heartbeat, fast and hard, matching yours.
He pulls back.
Just enough to look at you.
His hand comes up to cup your face, thumb brushing your cheek, and his eyes are so soft. So unbearably soft.
"Hi," he says.
You laugh. It comes out shaky. "Hi."
"You okay?"
"I'm—" You don't have words. You shake your head. "Yeah. Yes. I'm—"
"Good." He kisses you again. Soft. Sweet. "Good."
You kiss him back. Slower now. The desperation has ebbed into something gentler, something that aches in a different way. His hands are careful on your waist. Your fingers are gentle in his hair. The fire pops and a log shifts and the orange light flickers across both of you.
When you finally break apart, you're both breathing hard.
His forehead drops to yours.
You close your eyes.
His hand is still in your hair. Your hand is still fisted in his shirt. You're half in his lap, half on the couch, tangled together in a way that should be uncomfortable but isn't. His thumb strokes slow circles against your scalp. Your fingers loosen, smoothing out the wrinkles you've made in his shirt.
Outside, the wind howls.
Inside, the fire glows.
You are here. He is here. You are both here.
"I've got you," he murmurs, so quiet you almost miss it.
You open your eyes.
He's already looking at you.
"Yeah," you whisper. "You do."
His mouth curves. Small. Soft. He kisses your forehead. Then your temple. Then, very gently, your mouth.
I said "I love you". You say nothing back | John Logan
summary: the arrangement was simple: keep it casual, don't catch feelings, don't ask for more than what's on the table. 338 days later, you're starting to think simple was never really an option with john logan.
notes: hii, i'm back!! i was genuinely so overwhelmed by the response to my first one shot. you guys are so kind and it inspired me to keep writing. so here we are, back with more yearning, more angst, and more logan being an idiot about his feelings. my requests are open if you have any ideas or characters you want to see i'd love to hear from you. thank you so much for reading and enjoy ❤️❤️
warnings: swearing, alcohol, light angst, situationships, a puck bunny accusation and a confession in the rain.
word count: 8k
The thing with Logan had started exactly 338 days ago. Almost one year. One full lap around the sun. You knew because you had been counting, the days and the hours and even the minutes since this situationship from hell, as your dear friends had taken to calling it, had installed itself in your life like an antivirus app you hadn't downloaded and couldn't figure out how to delete.
It had started on Halloween, and at the time it hadn't seemed like a bad idea. It was just past eleven and the house off campus that your friends had dragged you to smelled like dry ice and weed, and you were tired and ready to leave, which was an anomaly. You were usually the last one standing, your friends had given you the nickname ending antagonist for a reason. In hindsight, that probably should have been a warning sign. The one night you wanted to go home early was the night everything started.
Though to be fair, things with Logan are not bad. That's the thing people don't understand when they hear situationship from hell. On the contrary, things with Logan are very good. Too good. Too good to look at directly without feeling something inconvenient shift behind your ribs, which is precisely why it's bad. Because he had been so genuinely, almost aggressively nice about the whole thing. He had found you at the edge of that party and sat next to you and talked to you for hours like you were the most interesting thing in the room, and he had made a real effort not to look at your boobs while you were talking, which in that particular environment was either extremely respectful or a sign that he was raised correctly, and either way it had done something to you.
And then you had woken up on his chest the next morning. His warm skin and steady heartbeat, the sort of light that meant it was too early to be awake, and done the awkward post-hookup shuffle of words, and heard: I'm not really looking for anything serious.
A bucket of cold water dropped directly on your head would have been less effective. More merciful, probably.
What else could you have done except agree? For god's sake, he was sitting there in black boxers holding a cup of coffee, extending it toward you like a peace offering, brown eyes looking at you with an expression that was genuinely, unfairly soft for seven in the morning. You took the cup. He readjusted against the headboard and looked at you with those eyes and said, simply: "So?"
So. So what? What were you supposed to say?
"Sure," you heard yourself say. "I'm interested in that too."
Sure. I'm interested in that too. Your internal voice repeated it back to you with the tone of a younger sibling trying to get a rise out of you. That was, objectively, the least true thing you had ever said out loud. You had been raised on Bridget Jones and every famous rom-com ever committed to film. You believed in love, in its inconvenience and its necessity and its complete refusal to be reasoned with. Casual did not cut it for you. It never had.
But god. If Bridget could have seen John Logan in that particular light, with that particular bed head, she would have understood completely.
So you agreed. And after that came the encounters.
At first they were private, almost secretive, you telling your friends you were going for a run and then actually running, just in the wrong direction entirely. Logan telling his that he was going to study somewhere, which was technically true, depending on your definition of anatomy. It gave everything a specific kind of thrill, the pleasant urgency of something that existed slightly outside the normal rules, and for a while that was enough.
But time has a way of dissolving things like that. Gradually, without either of you deciding to, you stopped hiding. And that was when the real problem arrived.
You and Logan became friends.
Not the convenient, surface-level kind, the real kind, the kind that builds without you noticing until one day you look around and realize that this person has become load-bearing in your life. You were always at the house. You knew the full taxonomy of Dean's recent romantic encounters, the specificity of Garrett's current problems, the ongoing narrative of Tucker's various endeavors. You didn't just know about them, you helped. You were involved. You had opinions and history and context, and they knew it, and they came to you with things.
And it went the other way too. Logan had gotten so close to your friends that he would voluntarily drive Marissa to her therapy appointments in Boston without being asked, would send Benny reels about topics they'd talked about the week before, remembered details that even you sometimes forgot. He had threaded himself into the fabric of your life so completely and so quietly that you could no longer locate the seam.
And finally, finally, things had started to feel like they were moving in the right direction. The direction they probably should have been heading since the morning after Halloween. Maybe the casual arrangement had just been a detour — a scenic route to the same destination. All's well that ends well.
And then you and Logan would go to Malone's, and a waitress would glance between you with a smile and say what a nice couple you made, and Logan would laugh in that easy, noncommittal way of his and say: we're just friends.
And there it was. Bucket of cold water. Every time, without fail, like a reset button neither of you had agreed to keep pressing.
Every single time.
Which brings you to now.
You are sitting on Logan's couch, draped over him, legs intertwined, peppering kisses down his neck while he makes a valiant and increasingly unsuccessful effort to tell you about the new episode of some reality show he has gotten inexplicably invested in. Something about traitors in a castle. Who cares. Not you. Not when Logan smelled like that and the house was quiet and his hands were doing that thing where they moved without him seeming to notice.
You sank further into him. The kisses started to linger. His words got sparse.
"Are you even listening to me?" Logan murmured, his voice coming out considerably less steady than he had probably intended.
You hummed against his pulse point by way of answer.
The front door opened.
You both startled, pulling apart with the practiced efficiency of people who had been interrupted before, but the moment you registered it was Dean you settled back into exactly the position you'd been in. Dean didn't care about PDA. He actively encouraged it.
He dropped onto the opposite couch, looked at the ceiling briefly, then at you.
"Okay, I have a question," he said. "Logan, dude, this is for science, please don't be weird about it."
At this point you were sitting upright, Logan's arms still looped around you, his chin finding your shoulder, using you as a very comfortable shield against whatever Dean was about to say.
"Shoot," you said.
Dean took a breath with the energy of someone preparing to say something they had already decided to say regardless of the response. "Do you think I should buy a vibrator for a friend of mine?"
Logan laughed against your neck. You shivered slightly at the warmth of his breath.
"Are you the friend?" you asked. "Are you buying a vibrator for yourself?"
"What? No. I'm a man."
"That doesn't mean anything. Men are allowed to have vibrators."
"I know that. It's not for me."
"I really think you should get one though. For yourself. If you want to be the Samantha of the group you have to commit to the bit."
"I am the Samantha," Dean said, with genuine offense. "And it's not for me."
"Have you even watched Sex and the City?"
"Yes. I'm from New York, for god's sake and you're being such a Carrie right now."
You settled back against Logan's chest, his arms tightening around you automatically, like a reflex, like something he did without thinking about it anymore.
Yes, you thought. And my own Mr. Big is currently holding me on this couch.
Garrett and Hannah came down the stairs in what you assumed were their stay-at-home outfits: sweatpants, hockey jersey, the specific comfort of two people who had stopped performing around each other. The moment they came into view you felt Logan's hand still. Not move away just still. And then he shifted from behind you to sitting beside you, technically still touching but the warmth of it had changed completely. It was less person you are tangled up with and more person you happen to be sitting next to on public transport.
You knew that shift. You had felt it before.
The first time, you had told yourself you were imagining things.
It was a Tuesday, nothing special about it, the kind of evening that had become completely ordinary, you at the house, Logan beside you on the couch, his thumb making absent circles on your knee while Dean argued with Tucker about something that didn't matter. Hannah had stopped by to pick up something she'd left there the week before, and the moment the door opened Logan's hand had stilled. Not moved away. Just stilled. Like an animal that had heard something.
You hadn't said anything. You'd filed it away in the part of your brain reserved for things you weren't ready to look at yet.
The second time was at one of Garrett's games. You had been standing with Logan at the edge of the rink afterward, his jacket half around your shoulders the way it always ended up, and Hannah had appeared through the crowd. Logan had straightened. Subtly, almost imperceptibly, but you felt it the slight shift in his posture, the way his jacket had slipped back off your shoulders without him seeming to notice he'd let it go.
You'd picked it up off the floor and handed it back to him without a word.
The third time you stopped counting.
Malone's on a Friday night had a particular energy loud enough to feel festive, familiar enough to feel like home. Your usual table was in the corner, the big one that fit all of you without anyone having to pull up an extra chair, and the evening had been good. Genuinely good, the kind that reminded you why you had agreed to this arrangement in the first place, Logan's knee against yours under the table, his arm finding the back of your chair sometime around the second round of drinks, the easy warmth of being somewhere you belonged.
You were mid-story , a good one, the kind that had the whole table leaning in and you could feel it landing, the timing was right, and Garrett was already laughing before you got to the punchline and Dean had that look on his face that meant he was going to steal this story and tell it as his own later, and Tucker was—
You glanced at Logan.
He wasn't laughing.
He was looking across the table at Hannah with an expression you recognized because you had spent the better part of a year learning every single detail of his face, and what was on it right now was something soft and slightly helpless the expression of someone watching something they had decided they couldn't have.
The story finished without you. Somewhere far away, the table laughed.
You picked up your drink. Set it down. Picked it up again.
"I'm going to step outside," you said. "Just — smoke a bit."
"You don't even smoke, (Y/N)!" Tucker replied, laughing, and it killed you because all of Logan's friends had come to know you so well.
"You okay?" Garrett asked.
"Fine. Just air."
You were already standing. Already reaching for your jacket. Logan was on his feet before you made it two steps.
"I'll come with you," he said.
The parking lot outside Malone's was cold and poorly lit. You got about twenty feet from the door before you stopped walking. The noise from inside filtered out muffled and distant, everyone still laughing, completely unaware.
Logan stopped beside you. Waited. He had always been good at waiting, which was one of the things you had loved about him and one of the things that had slowly, quietly driven you insane.
"Don't," you said.
"Don't what?"
"Don't do the thing where you stand there and wait for me to calm down." You turned to face him. The cold air hit your face and you were glad for it. "I'm not going to calm down. So just talk to me. Tell me the truth. Please. Don't bullshit me right now, Logan, I am asking you to not bullshit me right now."
"Baby—"
"Don't baby me, Logan. Not right now"
He looked at you with that steady, unhurried patience of his, which tonight felt less like a quality and more like a weapon.
"What do you want me to say?" he asked.
"I want you to tell me if you have a crush on Hannah." The word crush felt absurdly small for the moment but you couldn't bear the weight of the more accurate alternatives.
Something shifted in his face. Not guilt exactly, something deeper than that. The specific expression of someone who had been quietly hoping a question wouldn't arrive and had known, somewhere underneath the hoping, that it always was going to.
"It's not—" he started.
"Logan."
He exhaled. Looked at the ground briefly. Looked back at you.
"It's not serious," he said. "It's nothing. She's with Garrett. It's not like I would ever—"
"Oh my god." The laugh that came out of you had nothing to do with anything being funny. "Oh my god, you actually do. You actually have a crush on her."
"It's not a big deal—"
"You have a crush on your best friend's girlfriend and it's not a big deal." You repeated it back to him slowly. "I have been right here, Logan. For almost a year I have been right here, and you have a crush on Hannah."
"It's just a feeling. It doesn't mean anything." His voice had an edge to it now, something defensive sharpening underneath the calm. "And you don't get to be mad at me for it."
"Excuse me?"
"You don't get to be mad at me for having feelings." The words were coming faster now, the composure cracking in a way you almost never saw from him. "We said casual. That was the agreement. I can't be accountable to you for things I feel when you are not my girlfriend."
The word landed like a slap.
Girlfriend.
"Right," you said. Your voice had gone very quiet. "I'm not your girlfriend."
"That's not what I—"
"No, you're right. I'm not." You looked at him. Really looked at him — this person whose coffee order you knew by heart, whose nightmares you had talked him through at two in the morning, whose hand had reached for yours in his sleep so many times you had stopped counting. "Can I ask you something? And I need you to actually answer me. Not just wait until I stop talking."
He said nothing, which you took as a yes.
"What did you think this was?" Your voice was still quiet. Controlled. "Not what we agreed on in the beginning. What did you think it was last week? Last month? What did you think it was tonight when you had your arm around me at that table? When you picked me up from my house and kissed me in your truck?" You took a breath. "Because I need to understand how you look at what we have been doing and see something casual. I genuinely need you to explain that to me."
"It's complicated—"
"It's not complicated. It's actually very simple. I just need you to say it out loud."
"You knew what this was when we started—"
"I know what it was when we started. I'm asking what it is now." You crossed your arms against the cold. "Because from where I'm standing it looks a lot like a relationship. It looks like you drive my friends places and remember things about them they never told you twice, and I know every single thing about your life, and we spend more nights together than apart, and you reach for me when you're asleep like I'm something you don't want to lose." Your voice cracked slightly and you pushed past it. "So you'll have to forgive me for being confused about the casual part."
"I can't—" He stopped. Started again. "It's not about not wanting to. It's about what I can actually give right now. Hockey takes everything. My family, my mother, I don't have money, I don't have stability, I don't have any of the things that—"
"I'm not asking you for stability. I'm not asking you for money." Something in your chest had cracked open and you were past the point of closing it. "I'm asking you to admit what this already is. That's all."
"I am being honest—"
"Then be more honest." Your voice broke on the last word and you kept going anyway. "Because I'm in love with you."
The parking lot went completely silent.
Logan stared at you. The words sat between you in the cold air like something that had changed the temperature.
"What?" His voice came out barely above a breath.
"I'm in love with you." Steadier the second time. "I have been for a long time. And I know that's not what we agreed on. But I can't stand here and pretend I don't while you tell me it's not a big deal that you have feelings for someone else." You looked at him. "We are already a couple, Logan. In every single way that actually matters, we already are. The only thing missing is you admitting it."
Something moved across his face — something large and unguarded and almost frightened.
"It's not that simple," he said, quieter now, the defensiveness gone out of it.
"I know it's not simple. I know about hockey. I know about your mom. I know all of it, Logan, because you told me, because that's what we do. But none of that changes what I just said." You took a breath. "So just tell me. Do you have feelings for me? Yes or no. That's all I'm asking."
Logan looked at you.
And said nothing.
The silence stretched between you, long and terrible. His jaw was tight. His eyes moved across your face like he was looking for something he either couldn't find or couldn't say, and the longer the silence went on the more clearly you understood that the silence was itself an answer.
"Wow," you said finally. Very quietly. "Okay."
You picked up your bag. Straightened your jacket. Looked at him one more time this person you had spent 338 days loving in whatever form he would accept.
"Don't follow me," you said.
He didn't.
You walked back toward the warm light spilling out of Malone's windows, past your friends still laughing, past the table that an hour ago had felt like home, and you kept walking. Past the door, past the window, down the street, into the cold.
Too angry to cry. Too tired to pretend. Too done to look back.
Behind you, in the parking lot, Logan stood very still and said nothing which was the thing he was best at, and the thing that had finally cost him everything.
It had been a hard couple of days. But the upside of a not-breakup in college was that you didn't get to wallow, no watching rom-coms until the wee hours, no doing the Bella, watching the months pass from your bedroom window. Life was as it had always been, minus the space Logan had occupied in your weekly schedule. Not a metaphysical space, a literal one. When you opened your Google Calendar you found his game days still blocked out in blue, his training days still marked, everything still there like a calendar that hadn't gotten the news yet.
Pathetic, you thought, and deleted them.
Your days now belonged entirely to yourself, which should have felt like freedom and mostly felt like a lot of unscheduled Tuesday afternoons. No more disappearing in the middle of the day, no more make-out sessions in the library during lunch break. Just you and your own company and the slow, unglamorous work of being fine.
You weren't fine. You were something adjacent to fine that required daily maintenance and the careful avoidance of certain songs.
Marissa had noticed, she called it being under the weather, which was such a specific and old-fashioned way of putting it that in the beginning you had found it strange and now found it completely endearing. Your own personal nanna, showing up with iced coffee and terrible ideas at exactly the right moments.
The terrible idea this time was an underground bar in Boston she had found, which was a surprise since Marissa was fundamentally a sports bar person. You had a strong suspicion the entire excursion was engineered entirely for your benefit and the benefit of your appetite for expensive, colorful drinks, and you loved her for it and didn't say so.
The drive took exactly long enough to hype yourself up.
I'm pretty. I'm smart. I'm a catch.
The bar was dimly lit in a way that felt intentional rather than neglected, all low ceilings and good music and the general atmosphere of a place that didn't need to try. You, Marissa and Benny settled into a corner booth and approximately ninety seconds later Benny's elbow was in your ribs.
"Cute guy. Nine o'clock," he said, in what he apparently believed was a whisper.
You glanced toward the bar. Tall, white jacket, the kind of easy posture that meant he wasn't thinking about his posture at all.
"I'm not really looking for anything," you said.
"You're single. He's cute. The bar has drinks. What exactly is the problem?" Benny tilted his head. "Go order our drinks and make some poor decisions. You've earned it."
"I didn't bring my ID."
Benny stared at you. "You came to a bar without your ID?"
"I forgot." You shrugged.
"(Y/N)." His voice had the specific tone of someone choosing their words carefully. "What is wrong with you. Go. Drinks. Now. The ID thing is a you problem, figure it out."
You slid out of the booth before he could say anything else.
The guy at the bar was, up close, even more irritatingly attractive than he had been from across the room. He glanced over when you appeared beside him, and then glanced again in a way that was not subtle and didn't try to be.
"You look like you're deciding something," he said.
"Whether to admit I forgot my ID at a bar."
He looked at you for a moment. Then he smiled easy and genuine. "Hunter," he said, and held out his hand.
"((Y/N))."
"I'll vouch for you," he said. "If you tell me what you're drinking."
You told him. He ordered both without being asked, which was either presumptuous or exactly right, and you decided it was exactly right.
By the time you made it back to the booth with four drinks and Hunter's number in your phone, Benny was looking at you with the expression of someone who had orchestrated something and was very pleased about it.
You didn't tell him he was right. But you didn't have to.
The thing about Hunter Davenport was that he was genuinely, irritatingly likeable.
You had not been thinking about Logan when you said yes to Hunter's suggestion of getting coffee. You had not been thinking about Logan when the coffee turned into a walk, and the walk turned into two hours of easy conversation that asked nothing from you and gave something back.
That was the point.
You had gotten very good at not thinking about Logan in the weeks since Malone's. It was a skill, like any other, it required practice and the occasional forcible redirection of your own brain, but you were nothing if not disciplined when the situation called for it. You had been showing up to things. Laughing at the right moments. Sleeping through the night, mostly.
You were fine. You were getting finer by the day, which was either progress or a very convincing impression of it, and right now you weren't examining the difference too closely.
Hunter was easy. That was the thing about him. He was warm and uncomplicated and he looked at you like you were worth looking at, which was something you had apparently needed more than you realized.
It was nothing serious. You had been very clear about that with yourself. You were not ready for serious. But his hand was warm when it found yours walking back from the coffee place, and you let it stay there.
You were almost believing it.
The team was at the rink for an open practice, one of the informal ones that sometimes drew a small crowd of friends and the generally affiliated. You had come with Marissa, which gave you plausible deniability about why you were there, and you had sat in the third row and watched without watching, which was a skill you had also been practicing.
Hunter had waved at you from the ice. You had waved back.
You had not looked at Logan. You had been extremely disciplined about not looking at Logan, which meant you were also extremely aware of exactly where he was at every moment without technically looking at him, which was its own kind of exhausting.
After practice, Hunter had come off the ice still in half his gear and found you immediately, easy and unhurried, and said something that made you laugh. Your hand had gone to his arm the way hands do when you're laughing at something someone said, and it had stayed there for approximately four seconds.
Four seconds.
You knew it was four seconds because you had counted them, which meant some part of you had been paying attention to something you were pretending not to pay attention to.
The locker room door swung shut behind Logan without him looking back.
You found a quiet corner of the rink lobby while Hunter went to get his bag. You were looking at your phone, not reading anything on it, when you heard footsteps and looked up.
Logan.
He had changed out of his gear. His jaw was doing the thing: the tight, controlled thing that meant something was happening underneath the composure that the composure was working very hard to contain. His eyes moved from your face to the door Hunter had gone through and back.
"Hey," you said carefully.
"You and Hunter," he said. Not a question.
"That's not really your business."
"You're spending a lot of time with him."
"Logan—"
"I'm just making an observation." His voice was very even. The voice he used when he was the least controlled.
"Make it somewhere else."
He laughed short and humorless. "Right. Okay." He looked at the floor. Looked back at you. "I just didn't think you were the type."
You went very still. "The type to?"
"To go after a guy because of who he plays for." Quiet. Measured. Like he had chosen this version of the sentence carefully. "I didn't think that was your thing."
The lobby was very quiet.
You looked at him for a long moment. Long enough to make sure you had heard what you thought you'd heard. Long enough to see something flicker in his expression, the immediate, unmistakable recognition that he had gone too far.
"Say that again," you said softly.
"I didn't mean—"
"No." Your voice was calm in a way that had nothing to do with being calm. "Say it again. I want to make sure I understood you. Are you calling me a puck bunny?"
Logan said nothing. The flicker had become something closer to horror.
"Because that's what you just said." You tilted your head slightly. "After everything. That's what you went with."
"I didn't — that's not what I meant—"
"Then what did you mean?" You took a step toward him. "Because I have been patient, Logan. I have been so patient with you. I said the most honest thing I have ever said to anyone in that parking lot and you said nothing back, which I am trying. I am actively trying to make my peace with. But you do not get to say that to me. You don't get to do that."
"I know." His voice had lost all its evenness. "I shouldn't have—"
"Why did you say it?"
He looked at you.
"Tell me why." Your voice cracked slightly and you kept going. "Because it wasn't an observation. So tell me why."
Something moved across his face the composure fracturing in a way you had only seen once or twice in all the time you had known him.
"Because I can't—" He stopped.
"Can't what?"
"Because I can't watch you with him and not—" He stopped again. Pressed his mouth shut. Looked at the ceiling briefly.
"Not what?" Your voice was barely above a whisper.
He looked at you. Right at you. And for one unguarded, terrible second you could see everything, all of it, the whole enormous weight of everything he hadn't said in the parking lot outside Malone's, sitting right there on his face with nowhere left to hide.
And then he looked away.
"I'm sorry," he said. "It was wrong."
You looked at him for a long moment.
"Yeah," you said. "It was."
You picked up your bag. Hunter had reappeared at the far end of the lobby, jacket on, easy smile, completely unaware of the wreckage he had wandered back into. You walked toward him and did not look back at Logan.
But you heard him the sharp exhale of someone who had just watched something leave that they weren't sure was coming back.
Good, you thought.
And hated that you thought it.
Here was the thing about being called a puck bunny: it wasn't the word itself that got to you.
Puck bunnies weren't the worst thing a person could be.
Men were allowed their types, allowed to prefer blondes or brunettes or redheads, to have spent their teenage years watching anime and grown up to exclusively pursue Asian women, to want someone tall or short or with a specific laugh, or say things like "I have never been with a Brazilian before". They were allowed to say these things out loud, to Tinder-filter by height, and if it was possible they would do by weight too, to have opinions about bodies that they shared freely and without apology.
But god forbid a woman had a type. God forbid a woman found hockey players attractive or musicians, or academics, or anyone with a specific quality she was drawn to. Then she was something to be named and categorized and looked down upon. Then she was a bunny.
You were not offended by the word.
You were offended that Logan, who had been silent while you poured your heart out in a cold parking lot, who had said nothing when you asked him the most direct question you had ever asked another human being , had found his voice again specifically to say that. That of all the things he could have finally said to you, after all the silence, this was the one he chose.
That was what got to you.
Not the word. The timing. The source. The specific, devastating irony of a man who couldn't say I have feelings for you finding it very easy to say something that small.
You didn't tell anyone what he said.
That was the first decision you made, walking out of that rink lobby with Hunter's hand in yours and Logan's exhale still somewhere in your chest. You were not going to tell Dean, who would say something devastatingly accurate about it. You were not going to tell Marissa, who would want to talk about it for three hours. You were not going to tell anyone, because telling someone meant turning it over, examining it, and you were not ready to examine the specific shape of what Logan had said to you and what it meant that he had said it.
You knew what it meant. That was the problem.
You had known the moment you saw his face, that flicker of something before the composure reassembled itself, the way his eyes had moved to Hunter and back to you with an expression that had nothing casual about it. You had spent 338 days learning the map of Logan's face and you knew exactly what that look was. You had just also heard what came out of his mouth immediately afterward, which meant that what Logan felt and what Logan was willing to do about it were, as always, two completely different countries.
You were done trying to travel between them.
The week that followed was quiet and it felt different from the other times you had gone quiet. Before, the silence had always been temporary, a held breath. This felt more like an exhale. Like something had finally, after a very long time, finished.
You went to class. You had coffee with Hunter on Tuesday, which was easy and warm and asked nothing from you. You went to Marissa's on Thursday and watched something forgettable on her laptop and fell asleep on her couch, and she put a blanket over you without waking you up, which was the kindest thing anyone had done for you in recent memory.
You did not go to the house off campus. You did not text Logan. You did not check if he had texted you, which required leaving your phone face-down on your desk for approximately four days straight, which was its own kind of discipline.
You were fine. You were getting finer.
You were also absolutely not fine.
Dean found you on a Wednesday.
Not dramatically, he just appeared at the coffee shop near your building where you went on Wednesday mornings, which you had mentioned to him exactly once four months ago, which meant he had remembered it and filed it away and was now using it, which was such a Dean thing to do that you almost smiled.
He sat down across from you without asking if it was okay and stole a sip of your coffee before saying anything.
"He told me what he said," Dean said, without preamble.
You looked at your coffee. "Okay."
"He feels terrible."
"Good."
"I mean genuinely terrible. Like, I've known Logan for three years and I've never seen him—" Dean stopped. Seemed to decide something. "He's not sleeping. He's barely eating. He showed up to practice yesterday and coach pulled him aside after because his head wasn't in it, which has never happened, not once in three years."
"Dean." You looked up at him. "Why are you telling me this?"
"Because you deserve to know that it cost him something." His voice was straightforward, without manipulation. "I'm not asking you to forgive him. What he said was awful and he knows it. I'm just, you spent a long time showing up for him and I don't want you to think that none of it landed. It all landed. It's landing right now. It's just landing a little late."
You were quiet for a moment.
"A little late," you repeated.
"Okay, very late."
"Dean." You wrapped your hands around your cup. "He called me a puck bunny."
"I know." Dean had the grace to look genuinely pained. "He said it because he was jealous and scared and he handled it in the worst possible way and there is no defense for it. I'm not here to defend it."
"Then what are you here for?"
Dean looked at you across the table, this person who had been in your corner since before you had any idea how much you would need someone in your corner, and his expression was very honest.
"I'm here because he's my best friend and he's falling apart," he said. "And you're also my friend. And I hate watching both of you be miserable when I know exactly why you're miserable." He paused. "I'm not asking you to do anything. I just wanted you to know."
You looked out the window. The street outside was grey and unremarkable, the specific flatness of a Wednesday in November.
"How long has he known?" you asked quietly. "That he has feelings for me. How long has he actually known?"
Dean was quiet for a moment.
"A while," he said carefully.
"How long is a while, Dean."
Another pause. Longer this time.
"Since pretty much the beginning," he said.
You closed your eyes briefly. Opened them.
"Okay," you said.
"(Y/N)—"
"I'm not angry." And you weren't, which was almost surprising. You were something quieter and more tired than angry. "I just needed to know." You picked up your coffee. "Tell him I said he needs to sleep."
Dean looked at you. "That's it?"
"That's it." You met his eyes. "I'm not ready for anything else right now. But tell him to sleep."
Dean nodded slowly. He finished stealing your coffee and stood up and put his jacket on, and then he stopped with his hand on the back of the chair.
"For what it's worth," he said. "The Hannah thing. It was never real. He told me that too. He said he thinks he latched onto it because it was safer than admitting what was actually happening."
You didn't say anything.
"Okay," Dean said. "I'll see you around."
He left. You sat there with your cold coffee and the grey Wednesday street outside and the specific, exhausting weight of loving someone who had known the whole time and chosen, over and over, to say nothing.
Since pretty much the beginning.
338 days. And he had known since pretty much the beginning.
You sat with that for a long time.
It had been raining since noon.
Not the dramatic, cinematic kind of rain that arrived with thunder and purpose, just the steady, grey, unrelenting kind that soaked through your jacket in the first thirty seconds and didn't apologize for it.
You were on your way back from the library, hood up, head down, thinking about nothing in particular, which you had gotten very good at recently. The art of thinking about nothing. Occupying your own brain with the immediate and the logistical the paper due Thursday, the coffee you were going to make when you got home, the question of whether you had remembered to charge your phone.
You had not been thinking about Logan.
You were almost at your building when you heard him.
"(Y/N)."
You stopped walking.
He was standing at the bottom of your building's front steps, which meant he had been waiting in the rain for some amount of time, which was evident from the state of him soaked through, hair flat, jacket dark with water. He looked like someone who had arrived with a plan and abandoned it somewhere on the walk over and was now operating on something more basic and less manageable.
He looked, for the first time in all the time you had known him, completely unguarded.
"Logan." Your voice came out carefully. "What are you doing here?"
"I need to talk to you."
"It's raining."
"I know."
"You're soaked."
"I know." He took a step toward you. "I've been standing here for forty minutes trying to figure out what to say and I still don't know, so I'm just going to say it badly and hope that counts for something."
You looked at him. The rain came down steadily between you.
"You have two minutes," you said.
He exhaled. Ran a hand through his wet hair. Looked at you with the expression of someone stepping off a ledge they had been standing on for a very long time.
"I have been in love with you," he said, "since pretty much the beginning."
The rain was very loud suddenly.
"I knew it when we agreed to casual. I knew it when we stopped hiding. I knew it every time I reached for you in my sleep and every time a stranger called us a couple and I laughed it off, and I knew it in that parking lot outside Malone's when you told me the truth and I stood there and said nothing back." His voice was steady but only barely, the steadiness of someone gripping something very hard. "I said nothing because I was terrified. Not of you. Never of you. Of what it meant. Of what I would owe you if I said it out loud. Hockey takes everything I have and my family situation is a disaster and I don't have money or stability or any of the things that a person is supposed to have before they ask someone to—" He stopped. "But Dean said something to me last week. He said that I was losing you anyway. That all my careful management of the situation had achieved was losing you slowly instead of all at once, and somehow I had convinced myself that was the better outcome."
You said nothing. The rain soaked through your hood and you didn't move.
"And then I said what I said to you at the rink." His jaw tightened. "I have replayed that moment every day since it happened. There is no version of it that I can make okay. I said it because I saw you with Hunter and something in me just broke. Not a good break. Not the kind that leads anywhere useful. Just — I broke, and I said the cruelest thing I could think of, and I aimed it at you, and I have hated myself for it every single day since." He looked at you. "I'm not telling you that to make you feel sorry for me. I'm telling you because you deserve to know that it was never about you. It was never about who you are. It was about me being terrified and handling it in the worst possible way, and I'm sorry. I am so sorry."
The rain fell between you, steady and indifferent.
"You knew since the beginning," you said finally. Your voice came out quieter than you intended.
"Yes."
"A year."
"Yes."
"And you said nothing."
"Yes." He didn't flinch from it. "I said nothing, and I let you carry it alone, and I told myself I was protecting you from the complications of my life, but I think I was just protecting myself. From having to be as brave as you were in that parking lot." Something moved across his face. "You were so brave. You said the true thing and I just stood there. And I have thought about that every day since. About what it cost you to say it and what it cost me to say nothing back."
You looked at him. This person. Soaked through and unguarded and finally, finally saying the thing he had been not saying for 338 days.
"The Hannah thing," you said.
"Wasn't real." Immediate. Certain. "I think I needed it to be real because it was safer than admitting what was actually happening. She has what you and I have, what you and I were and I think I confused wanting that with wanting her. It was never her." He held your gaze. "It was always you. It has only ever been you."
The rain had soaked through your jacket completely now. You were cold in a way that had stopped being uncomfortable and become simply the condition of the moment.
"I'm not asking you to forgive me tonight," Logan said. "I'm not asking you to do anything. I just needed you to know that I heard you in that parking lot. I heard every word. And I should have said this then, and I'm sorry that I didn't, and I'm saying it now because Dean was right, I am losing you anyway, and I would rather lose you having finally told the truth than keep you at a distance by staying silent." He paused. "I love you. I have loved you for a long time. And I'm sorry it took me this long to be brave enough to say it."
The street was very quiet under the rain.
You looked at him for a long moment. Long enough to turn it over. Long enough to feel the full weight of 338 days, of every almost-conversation and loaded silence and reset button and bucket of cold water. Long enough to remember his hand going still when Hannah walked in, and the parking lot, and the rink lobby, and the specific sound of his exhale when you walked away.
Long enough to remember, underneath all of it, a Halloween party and a wall and two people waiting out the night from the edges of it, talking like they had nothing to prove to each other.
The beginning, before it got complicated. Before it got careful.
"You're an idiot," you said.
Something shifted in his expression. Not quite hope. Something more tentative than hope.
"I know," he said.
"You made everything so much harder than it needed to be."
"I know."
"I carried that alone for a very long time, Logan."
"I know." His voice broke slightly on it. "I know you did. I'm sorry."
The rain came down. You looked at him this soaked, unguarded, finally honest person standing at the bottom of your steps and felt something in your chest that had been braced for a very long time slowly, carefully release.
"You should have just said it," you said. "In the beginning. You should have just said it."
"I know." He took a step closer. Close enough that you could see the rain on his face, the wet dark of his hair, the expression underneath all the composure that had finally run out of places to hide. "I know. I'm saying it now."
You looked at him.
"Say it again," you said quietly.
"I love you." No hesitation. No composure. Just Logan, standing in the rain, finally saying the true thing. "I love you. I have loved you since pretty much the beginning and I am done pretending I don't."
The rain fell between you and neither of you moved and the street was quiet and everything was very still.
Then you closed the distance.
You kissed him in the rain, which was cold and slightly impractical and nothing like the careful, managed version of Logan you had spent 338 days trying to navigate. This was different. This was him kissing you back with both hands and no hesitation and none of the holding back, and it felt finally, finally like the true thing. Like the version of this that had been waiting underneath all the other versions the whole time.
When you pulled back you were both soaked and breathing slightly unsteadily and his forehead dropped to yours in the rain.
"I'm still mad at you," you said.
"I know." His arms tightened around you. "I know you are."
"The puck bunny thing is going to take a while."
"I know. Whatever it takes."
"And you have to tell me things." Your voice was muffled against his jacket. "When you're scared, when it gets complicated, when your brain does the thing where it decides silence is the safe option. You have to tell me instead."
"I will." He said it simply, without qualification, which was how you knew he meant it. "I will."
You stood there in the rain outside your building, soaked through and slightly ridiculous, and you thought about Halloween and 338 days and parking lots and rink lobbies and all the long, complicated distance between the beginning and right now.
from an irritated "oh, fuck!" to a confident "fuck it", your entire relationship with John Logan can be mapped out in seven specific exclamations of his favorite four-letter word.
word count : 6.1k (sorry) — enemies to lovers, kind of — logan is moody — SMUT, minors DNI — Enjoy and please tell me what you think !
One — "Oh, fuck!"
The music wasn’t just loud; it was vibrating through the old floorboards and thumping directly against your ribs. You’d only been there for twenty minutes, entirely dragged along by Hannah, who was currently tucked under Garrett’s arm near the doorway. Watching them was sweet—almost nauseatingly so—but it left you feeling like a ghost drifting through a sea of oversized jerseys, loud hockey players, and the thick scent of cheap beer. For the most part, the rest of the boys were incredibly welcoming; even though you'd just met them tonight, they were already loud, inherently kind and easy to be around.
Except for John Logan.
You hadn’t actually been introduced to him yet, but you’d felt his suffocating vibe the moment he walked through the door. He looked like absolute thunder. Briar had dropped a frustrating, tight game that evening, and while Garrett was channeling his nervous energy into playing the charismatic host, Logan was wearing his irritation like armor. Leaning against the kitchen counter with a dark scowl that practically screamed at people to stay away, his knuckles were white around his glass, his eyes scanning the room as if looking for a reason to snap.
Navigating that crowded, chaotic kitchen with a brim-filled, sticky mixed drink was your first mistake. Your second was catching the rubber toe of your sneaker on the lifting edge of a rogue anti-fatigue mat near the sink.
You stumbled forward, your arms flailing wildly in a desperate, ungraceful bid for balance. You didn’t fall, but your cup did a violent, mid-air flip, slipping from your fingers. A torrential wave of sticky, dark rum and cola splashed directly across the pristine gray fabric of Logan’s Henley shirt, soaking through the chest, darkening the material instantly and dripping down the front of his dark jeans.
Logan froze. His head snapped down slowly, looking at the huge, dark stain spreading across his clothes, and then his gaze lifted to yours. His eyes were blazing, a dangerous brown, entirely unamused and dripping with venom. "Oh, fuck!" he snapped, his voice cutting right through the ambient noise like a knife. He pulled the wet, heavy fabric away from his skin with two fingers, a look of pure annoyance twisting his features. "Are you serious right now? Watch where the hell you're going."
The sheer aggression in his tone caught you completely off guard, instantly sparking your own deeply ingrained, stubborn nature. You had been about to apologize profusely, the words of remorse already forming on your tongue, but the bite in his words choked them right out of your throat. You squared your shoulders, refusing to back down under his glare. "It was an accident," you retorted, pulling a few crumpled, napkins from the counter and shoving them toward his chest. "You don't have to be a complete dick about it. It’s just a shirt, I'm pretty sure you'll survive."
"It's a wet, sticky shirt at the end of a terrible, exhausting fucking day," he growled, his voice dropping an octave as he batted your hand away with a harsh flick of his wrist. He didn't take the napkins; they fluttered uselessly to the floor. Instead, he leaned down slightly, giving you a long, icy glare that made you feel about two inches tall, his jaw clenching so hard you could see the muscle tick. "Next time, look up from your feet." Without waiting for a response, he turned on his heel and storming down the hallway toward the stairs, muttering curses under his breath.
You stood there rooted to the spot, your cheeks burning with a toxic mixture of intense embarrassment and sudden, deep-seated dislike. Garrett materialized at your side a split second later, a sympathetic, slightly apologetic grimace on his face as he patted your shoulder gently. "Hey, don't sweat it," Garrett reassured you quietly, glancing warily toward the stairs where Logan had disappeared. "Logan’s just in a brutal mood because of the game, and he hates losing more than anyone. He's usually a great guy, I swear. He’ll have forgotten all about it by tomorrow morning."
You forced a tight, fake smile and nodded, but as you looked down at your empty, sticky hands, a bitter taste lingered in your mouth. Spoiler alert: he wouldn't forget. and neither would you.
Two — "Fuck you"
A few weeks later, the initial friction hadn’t dissolved; it had hardened into a permanent, icy chill. You tried your best to play nice for the sake of Hannah and Allie, but Logan made it incredibly difficult. You saw how he was with the rest of their circle—fiercely loyal, easygoing, and warm. He was the kind of guy who quietly made sure Allie and Hannah got home safe from their late shifts and spent his free afternoons helping Jules with media stuff. He was patient with the entire world. But the exact millisecond you walked into a room, his posture stiffened and his jaw set. You hated being the sole exception to his good nature, so you simply stayed out of his way.
The breaking point came on a gray, rainy Tuesday afternoon. You and Hannah had walked over to the hockey house to help Tucker untangle a massive, soul-crushing history assignment he was drowning in. The three of you were spread across the dining table, surrounded by a chaotic mess of highlighters, laptop cords, and heavy library textbooks.
The back door clicked open, and Logan walked in. He was wearing his Briar athletic gear, a damp towel slung over his shoulders from a post-practice shower, his hair messy and wet. He looked exhausted, his shoulders tense, carrying the unmistakable hangover of a brutal morning practice. Instead of walking past to the kitchen, he paused by the table, leaning over Tucker’s shoulder to scan the open pages. He let out a heavy, deliberate sigh. "You’re using the wrong primary sources for that era, Tuck," Logan said, his voice dropping into that effortless, uninvited authority. "You need the economic logs from the eastern front, not these political manifestos. You’re going to tank your thesis statement with those."
Tucker blinked up, looking miserable. "Wait, really? I thought—"
"We checked those, Logan," you interrupted, keeping your voice level and calm as you kept your eyes on your notebook. "We've got it handled," you smiled, trying to remain polite.
Logan didn't move. His eyes slid slowly down to the side of your face, unamused. "Right. Because you're an expert on 20th-century economic trade?"
"No," you said, your pen pausing on the page. "But I can read a syllabus. If you're so worried about Tucker's academic results, you could have sat down and helped him yourself already."
Logan’s jaw tightened, a sharp spike of tension instantly replacing his usual easygoing demeanor. He took his hands out of his pockets and leaned forward, bracing his palms on the edge of the table, firmly invading your space. Tucker shot Hannah a wide-eyed, panicked look across the textbooks, both of them suddenly bracing for impact.
"I gave him my old notes weeks ago," Logan shot back, his voice dropping into something smaller, tighter. "But sure, ignore the guy who actually passed the class because you're too stubborn to take a note from me."
"I'm not being stubborn, you're just being a patronizing prick," you retorted, leaning back in your chair. "You’ve been hovering over this table for five minutes just looking for a problem because you had a bad day and want to take it out on someone."
Logan let out a harsh, dry laugh, though there was a flicker of genuine frustration in his eyes—the look of a good guy who couldn't understand why he kept letting you bait him. "Take it out on someone? Trust me, if I wanted to take anything out on someone, I wouldn't waste my time on you. I'm trying to keep my friend from bombing a midterm because he made the mistake of letting you organize his thoughts."
"My thoughts are perfectly fine, Logan," Tucker muttered quietly under his breath, his eyes glued to his laptop screen, desperately trying to dissolve into the background.
"They're fine when you're left alone, Tuck," Logan said, keeping his eyes locked onto yours, completely ignoring his teammate's plea. "Not when you're letting someone drag their own contrarian agenda into your coursework."
"A contrarian agenda?" You stood up, your chair scraping loudly against the hardwood floor. Hannah flinched at the sharp noise, withdrawing her hands from the table and motioning for Tucker to leave the potential future crime scene. They both complied quickly, knowing you both well enough to understand that trying to reason with you in that moment would be pointless. "Are you actually insane? I'm sorry that anyone else having a brain in this house threatens your need to micromanage every single thing that happens under this roof."
"It doesn't threaten me at all," Logan said, standing up straight and towering over you, using his height to crowd your space until his shadow completely blocked out the light from the window. The sheer, uncharacteristic anger rolling off him was suffocating; Tucker actually slid his chair back a few inches, completely done with trying to intervene at this point. "It annoys me. You annoy me, actually. I'm not going to walk on eggshells in my own dining room because you can't handle a basic correction."
"I can handle a correction if it's respectful," you shot back, your heart hammering against your ribs, but you refused to take a step away from him. "You don't want to help Tucker. You just want to feel like the smartest guy in the room and that is annoying."
"I dont—," Logan started, a nervous scoff escaping his lips. "You don't know anything about me. Please let's keep it this way, since you clearly can't stand me anyway."
"You're the one who treats me like an absolute inconvenience the second I breathe in your direction!" you yelled, the weeks of being ignored, brushed off, and glared at finally boiling over into raw, unadulterated anger. "If you hate me being here so much, just say it. But stop acting like I'm the one bringing the venom into this house when you're the one dripping it."
The air between you turned completely volatile, thick enough to choke on. A strange, angry electricity snapped between you, the argument completely detached from history or homework now, exposed and raw. Logan stared down at you, his breathing heavy and uneven as he tried to swallow down the sheer frustration rolling off him in waves. He leaned down slightly, bringing his face inches from yours, his jaw clenching so hard a muscle violently ticked in his cheek.
"Fuck you," he whispered.
The words hit with a cold, deliberate weight that vibrated in the dead-silent room. Before you could fire back, Tucker's voice boomed from the kitchen archway, stern and completely done with both of you. "Enough! Both of you, cut it the hell out."
But the damage was done. The look in Logan's eyes made something tight and painful twist in your chest. You refused to sit there and breathe the same air as him for another second. Blindly turning around, you grabbed your laptop and notebook, shoving them into your backpack with rigid, uncooperative hands.
"I'm leaving," you muttered, keeping your eyes glued firmly to the floor as you pushed past Hannah’s reaching hand on the way out. You grabbed your jacket from the hook and left through the front door, slamming it hard enough to rattle the frame, stepping out into the pouring, cold rain with the echo of his voice looping in your head like a curse.
Three — "Fuck off"
For the next month, you became an absolute expert at avoiding John Logan. You turned it into an art form. If he was at a crowded house party, you stayed firmly in the kitchen or on the opposite porch. If the entire group gathered at Malone's, you ensured you sat on the exact opposite end of the long table, hidden behind Dean's loud gestures.
Because of this, you never saw the way his eyes silently followed you when you entered a room, or the almost guilty look that crossed his face whenever your name came up in conversation. He knew he'd crossed a line by cursing at you like that—but your unbreakable silence gave him absolutely no room to apologize, and his own stubborn pride kept him from forcing the issue.
There were small signs of his guilt, though. One random Thursday afternoon, he showed up at the place you shared with Hannah and Allie, claiming he was just dropping off a spare hockey hoodie Garrett had left in his truck. You had stayed in your room with the door cracked just an inch, watching through the tiny gap as he lingered by the entrance, his eyes constantly drifting toward your door, silently checking to see if you'd come out. You hadn't moved an inch, holding your breath until he finally left.
Eventually, Hannah and Allie staged a full-blown intervention. A brand-new club had opened downtown, and they absolutely refused to let you stay home and rot in your room, even though they openly admitted the boys were all coming along. You finally relented, numbing your spiking anxiety by pouring yourself two heavy pre-game vodka crans before leaving the house.
The club was a massive sensory overload—flashing neon lights, artificial fog, and heavy, chest-thumping bass that made communication impossible. By midnight, everyone was comfortably, heavily drunk. You were leaning your back against the sticky mahogany bar, sipping a gin and tonic, when you finally caught sight of him through the pulsing crowd.
Logan was laughing at something Beau said, a dark red bandana tied tightly around his messy hair, looking effortlessly, devastatingly handsome in a black fitted t-shirt. As if sensing the weight of your gaze, his head turned. His dark eyes locked directly onto yours across the smoky crowded room. He didn’t look away. He held your stare for a second, then two, then three — a strange, intense, unreadable heat settling over his features before a group of dancers blocked your view.
A few minutes later, a guy from one of the campus fraternities slithered up next to you on the edge of the dance floor. He was loud, sweaty, and smelled entirely too much like cheap cologne and whiskey — but a little bit of dancing could help taking your mind off of a certain hockey player, you thought. You enjoyed it at first, moving along, focusing on the music, the stranger getting closer and closer as the playlist progressed. But then, just as you started to feel good - just the right amount of alcohol in your veins to feel lighter and relaxed - he tried to grind his hips against yours. You tried to step back, laughing it off politely at first, pushing his hands away, but he didn't take the hint. His hands came down on your waist, his fingers digging into your hips, pulling you flush against him with a grip that was far too tight and aggressive.
Before you could even raise your hands to shove his chest, a massive shadow loomed over both of you.
A now familiar hand gripped the frat guy’s shoulder, spinning him around with enough force to make his sneakers squeak on the floor.
"Fuck off," Logan snarled, his voice a low, lethal vibration that cut right through the heavy bass of the music. He leaned in until he was nose-to-nose with the guy. "Get your fucking hands off her and fuck off right now."
The guy looked at Logan and wisely raised his hands in surrender, backing away rapidly into the foggy crowd without throwing a single punch.
Logan’s breathing was heavy, his chest heaving, his fists still clenched tightly at his sides as his eyes scanned the immediate area like a wild animal looking for another threat. He looked ready to tear the entire club apart with his bare hands. Anxious that he might actually chase the guy down for a fight, you stepped directly into his line of sight, capturing his attention.
"Logan," you breathed, your voice soft and entirely stripped of its usual sarcasm. Without thinking about the consequences, you reached out, your bare fingers wrapping around his forearm.
The exact millisecond your skin met the warm, rock-hard muscle of his arm, Logan froze entirely. It was the first time the two of you had ever willingly, gently touched, and the effect was instantaneous. The blinding anger seemed to drain out of him in a single breath, replaced by a sudden, sharp intake of air. He looked down at your small hand resting on his arm, his skin tingling where you touched him, and then he slowly, deliberately lifted his gaze to your eyes.
The noisy club, the flashing strobe lights, the roaring bass, the alcohol—it all faded into irrelevant background noise. You stood face-to-face on the crowded dance floor, completely motionless, just looking into each other's eyes. Your heart was hammering a frantic rhythm against your ribs, not from fear of the frat guy, but from a sudden, dizzying, terrifying realization. Looking into his wide, intensely focused eyes, you realized you didn't hate him. Not even close. And from the soft, almost vulnerable parting of his lips, he didn't hate you either. You weren't close to being friends yet, but the ice had officially shattered into a million pieces.
Four — "What the fuck"
The shift between you was subtle, but it was absolutely undeniable. The sharp hostility was gone, completely replaced by a quiet, lingering, heavy awareness that neither of you knew quite what to do with.
A week later, you were sitting in a sunlit corner booth at Malone’s. You were completely, entirely absorbed in a brutal, multi-chapter study session for your finals, a pair of heavy over-ear headphones clamped securely over your ears. The sweet, nostalgic melody of American Pie was playing through the speakers, and without even realizing it, you were softly humming along to the chorus, tapping the cap of your yellow highlighter rhythmically against the open pages of your textbook.
You were so deeply focused on your notes that you didn't hear the diner's front door chime, nor did you see Logan walk in. He was there to finalize the last-minute details for the upcoming Hockey Fundraiser with Hannah and Della. But the exact moment his eyes scanned the room and spotted you sitting alone in the corner booth, he stopped dead in his tracks.
He didn’t approach right away. He just stood near the counter, watching you. A soft, genuine smile tugged at the corners of his mouth as he listened to your faint, slightly off-key humming.
Prickled by the sudden, distinct sensation of eyes on you, you blinked and lifted your head from your textbook. Logan instantly wiped the smile from his face, clearing his throat roughly and pretending to read a missing cat flyer on the bulletin board.
You pulled your headphones down, a small smirk playing on your lips. "You know, if you stare any harder, you're going to burn a hole right through my skull, Logan."
Instead of snapping back with a sarcastic, biting retort like he used to, Logan let out a soft chuckle. He walked over to your booth and, to your surprise, slid into the bench by your side, his knee almost touching yours.
"Just making sure you weren't torturing the rest of the innocent customers with your singing," he teased gently, his shoulder brushing against yours in the tight space.
You rolled your eyes, but there was no spite left in your expression. "I happen to have the voice of a literal angel, thank you very much. You're just jealous."
The playful banter slowly subsided into a comfortable silence. Logan looked at you, his expression turning a little more serious, his eyes softening as his voice dropped to a much quieter register. "Hey… are you doing okay?" Since what happened the other night, obviously implied by the way he looked at you right now, concern written all over his face.
You felt a warm flush creep up your neck and settle into your cheeks. "I'm okay, thank you" you smiled and he nodded, both silently agreeing not to discuss this unpleasant event anymore. You paused, looking down at his large hands resting on the table before forcing yourself to look back up. "How are you doing ? With the fundraiser and everything, I mean. You look like you haven't slept in a week."
He seemed genuinely surprised that you were asking about him. Really, truly asking. He leaned back against the vinyl booth, a soft sigh escaping his lips as he completely opened up to you. He talked about the immense stress of managing the team's high expectations, his constant worries about Jules’ upcoming exams, and the suffocating pressure of the NHL scouts attending the next three games. You listened intently, never interrupting, offering gentle encouragement and a few dry, sarcastic jokes that had him laughing quietly into his palms. For a full hour, the two most stubborn, argumentative people at Briar University just… talked.
"Well," you finally said, checking the diner clock and reluctantly packing your laptop into your bag. "I have to get to my shift at the library. Don't let Della bully you into paying extra for the tableware."
"I won't," Logan said, his eyes tracking your every movement, lingering on your face. "See you around?"
"See you around." You gave him a small, genuine smile—the first real one he'd ever received from you—and walked out into the crisp afternoon air, your heart feeling lighter than it had in weeks.
Inside the booth, Logan sat completely still for a long, agonizing moment. He watched your retreating figure through the glass window until you turned the corner and disappeared from view. Slowly, he let out a shaky exhale, burying his face entirely in his hands. He rubbed his palms over his eyes, his heart hammering a frantic rhythm against his ribs.
"What the fuck," he whispered into the empty diner booth, his voice laced with a mixture of absolute awe and sheer, unadulterated panic. He was screwed. He was completely, utterly, hopelessly screwed, and he knew there was no turning back.
Five — "Well, fuck"
The night of the Briar Hockey Fundraiser at Malone’s was a chaotic, high-energy, glittering success. The entire diner had been completely transformed for the evening—the regular tables had been pushed to the far perimeter to create a makeshift dance floor, strings of warm fairy lights hung across the ceiling, and a massive turnout of wealthy alumni, boosters, and students kept the bar utterly slammed.
You had dressed up significantly for the occasion, wearing a form-fitting, emerald green silk dress that Allie let you borrow from her closet - of course. You spent the first half of the night talking to Hannah near the punch bowl, but your eyes kept unconsciously tracking a certain someone across the room.
Logan was entirely in his element—charming the older donors, laughing easily with his teammates, and looking entirely too edible for your own good.
Around midnight, the formal event finally dissolved into a proper, rowdy college party. The DJ cranked up a heavy, slow, rhythmic pop song, the bass echoing through the floor, and the dance floor filled up with couples. You were navigating the edge of the sweaty crowd, trying to find Allie when a sudden, firm, yet gentle pull on your wrist guided you backward.
You spun around on your heels, your chest bumping right into Logan’s broad torso. "You've been actively dodging me all night," he murmured, his deep voice vibrating right against your skin as his large hand settled naturally around yours. The casual, unhesitating intimacy of the gesture sent a fierce, blinding jolt of electricity straight down your spine.
"I wasn't dodging you, I was letting you do your official host duties," you shot back, a wicked, playful smile spreading across your lips. The alcohol gave you a surge of confidence, and you looped your arms slowly around his neck, stepping closer into his personal space until there was absolutely no air left between you. "Besides, I didn't think you could actually handle me dancing with you."
Logan’s dark eyes lit up instantly, a dangerous, competitive challenge flaring in his pupils. He pulled you a fraction of an inch closer. "Oh, really? Try me, sweetheart."
You didn't hesitate. As the heavy beat of the music dropped, you shifted your weight, rolling your hips slowly, deliberately, and sinfully against his. You leaned in close, your lips brushing the warm shell of his ear as you whispered, "You're all talk, John Logan. Let's see if you can actually keep up with me."
You pulled back just enough to look at him, your hands sliding down his chest to grip the crisp fabric of his shirt, tugging him rhythmically, tightly against your body. The friction was immediate, heavy, and intoxicating. Logan’s breath hitched audibly in his throat. A dark, intense flush crept up his neck, coloring his sharp cheekbones as his hands settled on your waist, his fingers digging firmly into your skin through the thin fabric of your dress. He swallowed hard, his eyes dropping helplessly to your parted lips, entirely overwhelmed and undone by the sudden confidence of your movements. He could feel exactly how much you were affecting him, his body reacting instantly to the touch of your hips.
A breathless, desperate laugh escaped him. He jerked his head back for a split second, fighting a losing battle for self-control. "Well, fuck," he muttered, his voice raw, completely devoid of its usual composure.
"Did I break the big, tough hockey player already?" you cooed, tilting your chin up tauntingly, your noses almost touching as you continued to sway against him.
"You wish," he groaned, his thumbs stroking the bare skin of your lower back where your dress dipped low. He didn't pull away. Instead, he pulled you even tighter against his lower body, matching your sinful rhythm perfectly, his dark eyes locked onto yours with a burning intensity that made it very clear the playful teasing was rapidly turning into something much more dangerous and inevitable. When the night finally forced you apart, it didn't feel like a goodbye — it was a promise.
Six — "Fuck"
Some things are bound to reach a breaking point, and the agonizing tension building between you for months was no exception. Three nights later, Briar won a massive game and the ensuing after-party at the boys' house was pure chaotic madness. The house was packed to maximum capacity, a sweaty, pulsing mass of drunken celebration, loud music, and screaming students.
But you and Logan weren't paying any attention to the party. For the past two hours, you had been moving around the house like two high-powered magnets — constantly drawing closer, stealing long, heated glances across the crowded rooms, the unspoken, heavy weight of the fundraiser hanging between you.
Seeking a brief moment of quiet to cool down your flushed skin, you headed down the dark back hallway toward the upstairs bathroom. Just as you reached out for the brass doorknob, the door swung open from the inside.
Logan stepped out.
You nearly crashed straight into his chest, cutting your breath short as you ground to a halt mere inches from him. The hallway was swallowed by shadows, save for the frantic strobe lights bleeding in from the living room. Logan stared down at you, wide-eyed, his chest rising and falling in sync with the thick, suffocating heat pulsing through the house.
Neither of you said a single word. The months of toxic banter, the vicious, screaming arguments, the desperate avoidance, and the agonizing teasing all converged into a single, breathless, breaking second.
Logan reached out with lightning speed, his large hand wrapping around your waist, and shoved you backward into the bathroom, slamming the heavy wooden door shut behind you and twisting the lock with a sharp, echoing click.
Before the sound of the lock could even fade, his mouth crashed onto yours.
It was an absolute explosion. The kiss was passionate, borderline feral, a violent release of pure, pent-up, crazy frustration. You let out a muffled gasp against his lips, your hands flying up to rip into his dark hair, pulling him down toward you out of sheer desperation. He groaned deep in his throat, a sound of pure hunger, pinning your body flat against the heavy wooden door, his thick thighs crowding tightly between yours. His hands were absolutely everywhere—clutching your face, tracing the line of your throat, gripping your hips with a bruising, desperate force that felt incredibly, entirely right.
"Logan," you whimpered against his mouth as he tore his lips away to kiss your jawline, your neck - his hands sliding down to frantically bunch up the silk fabric of your dress.
With a sudden burst of strengh, he hooked his large hands under your thighs and lifted you effortlessly into the air. You wrapped your legs tightly around his waist as he deposited you onto the cold marble edge of the bathroom sink counter. He didn't waste a single second. His hands slid all the way up the bare, warm skin of your thighs, finding the edge of your underwear. His fingers quickly found your slick, burning, over-sensitized core, rubbing against you through the damp fabric with a rhythm that made your head tilt back and earned a large grin from him.
You arched your back off the counter, a loud sob escaping your lips, your fingers digging deep into his shoulders.
"You like that?" Logan growled against your neck, his voice dripping with lust. His fingers moved faster, driving you up a steep, agonizing cliff. "Tell me you want it."
"Logan," you breathed out, "please," you cried out, your head tossing back against the large bathroom mirror. Your hands flew down to his waist, frantically, blindly fumbling with the button of his jeans. You shoved the denim down his hips until his length snapped free—thick, heavy, and pulsing with heat. The moment your fingers wrapped tightly around him, moving in a fast, desperate stroke, Logan’s eyes rolled back.
His jaw clenched so hard a muscle ticked violently in his neck. He couldn't endure the exquisite torture for long, his quiet moans matching your own, before his large hand clamped over yours, freezing your movement. "Stop, stop," he panted, his chest wild, his forehead pressing against yours. "I'm going to come right now if you keep doing that. I need to feel you, right now."
With trembling, frantic hands, he reached into the small drawer next to the sink—Dean’s emergency stash—and ripped open a foil condom wrapper, spitting the plastic away and rolling it onto himself in one fluid, desperate motion.
Then he stepped back between your open thighs. His hands gripped your hips with an iron hold, dragging you to the very edge of the marble counter. He aligned himself against you, waiting just long enough for your frantic nod of approval. With one heavy, unyielding, possessive thrust, he buried himself completely inside you.
The sheer, overwhelming pleasure of that sudden fullness hit you both at once, fracturing the quiet of the bathroom with a sharp, mutual gasp. Instead of slowing down, the friction only stoked the fire, drawing a long, ragged, shattered exhale from deep in Logan's chest. His pupils were completely dilated, dark and wild with pure lust as his forehead dropped heavily against your shoulder.
"Fuck," he groaned into the crook of your neck, his voice a raw, visceral prayer vibrating against your collarbone.
His hands tightened on your hips, his fingers digging into your skin like an anchor as he immediately established a rhythm. The restraint dissolved into pure instinct. He pulled you flush against him, his thrusts becoming powerful, deep, and utterly relentless from the very start. Every heavy drive forced a breathless cry from your lips, the sound echoing off the tiled walls. You rocked together on the cold edge of the marble sink, your bodies generating a feverish heat that defied the chilly stone beneath you.
The bass from the after-party still thudded through the floorboards, a distant, muffled reminder of the chaotic world outside, but within the locked walls of the bathroom, that world was entirely forgotten. There was only the slick, friction-heavy slide of skin against skin, the frantic tangle of your fingers in his hair, and the hot, primal rhythm consuming you both.
The friction was dizzying, driving you both toward a precipice that neither of you could fight anymore. Logan’s pace turned frantic, his breath coming in harsh, ragged stabs against your ear as his hips slammed against yours with an undoing, desperate urgency. Every stroke sent a white-hot wave of pleasure straight to your core, tightening the coil inside you until it was agonizing.
You choked out a breathless, broken sound, your hands clamping onto his biceps as your head thrashed back against the mirror once more.
He didn't need words to know you were right there. He buried his face in your hair, his teeth grazing your shoulder as he delivered three more devastatingly deep, relentless thrusts.
That was the final breaking point. Your walls clamped down around him tight and pulsing, fracturing your breath into a loud, ruined cry as your entire body shattered into a blinding, head-to-toe release.
Hearing you break completely ruined him. Logan let out a guttural, unhinged groan that vibrated deep in his chest. His jaw locked, his body rigid and trembling as he gave one last, deeply possessive shove, throwing his weight into you as he came violently inside the condom. He held himself deep within you, his hips shuddering against yours as he rode out the waves of his own release, the two of you panting heavily in the quiet aftermath, entirely spent.
Seven — "Fuck it"
Roughly thirty minutes later, the two of you finally emerged from the bathroom. You had tried your absolute best to fix your chaotic appearance in the mirror—re-applying a bit of smudge-proof lip gloss, smoothing down the wrinkled fabric of your dress, and trying to tame your wildly tangled hair with your fingers—but the physical evidence of what had just occurred was written all over your faces. Your skin was flushed a deep unmistakable pink, your lips were incredibly swollen and red, and Logan was walking with a loose, stupidly contented, proud stride, his hair completely disheveled and sticking up in directions where your fingers had repeatedly torn through it.
The exact moment you stepped back onto the floor of the crowded living room, a loud, piercing whistle cut through the air.
Dean was leaning against the back of the sofa, a beer dangling from his fingers and a knowing smirk plastered across his face. His eyes darted from you to Logan, zeroing in instantly on the faint trace of your lip gloss smeared along Logan’s jawline.
"Well, well, well," he said, loud enough to be heard over the music. "Must have been a pretty intense plumbing emergency in there. Either that, or you two just went ten rounds with a blender. You might want to wipe your face, Logan."
Your cheeks instantly burned. You took a step back. "Dean, shut up, we were just—"
But Logan didn't let you finish the lie. He looked down at you, catching the slight panic in your eyes, and then looked over at Dean, who was practically vibrating with smug satisfaction.
Instead of getting defensive, Logan just let out a short, quiet laugh. The stubbornness, the secrecy, the remnants of your old feud—it all suddenly felt completely irrelevant. He was tired of hiding it.
"You know what? Fuck it," Logan muttered.
Before you could process the words, his hand slid around the back of your neck, his thumb resting against your jaw as he pulled you flush against his chest. Right there by the sofa, he leaned down and kissed you.
Dean threw his arms up in a dramatic, sweeping gesture. "About damn fucking time! Graham, you owe me twenty bucks!"
When Logan finally pulled back, his eyes were bright, a relaxed, genuinely happy smile playing on his lips as his thumb brushed your cheek. You looked up at him, the noise of the party fading into the background, finally realizing that the long, argumentative journey of seven dirty words had brought you exactly where you were supposed to be.
Check Engine Light // John Logan x Fem!Reader - [Chapter Two]
Synopsis: What starts as a simple repair turns into late-night diner runs, coffee deliveries to the garage, and a growing attachment neither of you expects. Logan likes that you talk too much when you're nervous. You like that Logan becomes softer when nobody’s watching.
But as pressure mounts with Logan's hockey career and real life starts pulling at you from opposite directions, you begin to wonder if you’re just a temporary stop in Logan’s fast-moving future.
And Logan realizes far too late that somewhere between oil stains and midnight drives, you became the closest thing he’s ever had to home.
Pairings: John Logan x Fem!Reader, Garrett Graham x Hannah Wells, Dean Di Laurentis x Allie Hayes
Tag list: @thecraziestcrayon @ooopssssu @parker-barnes-af @luvlux2326 @woderfulkawaii @maagicalliopleurodon @kmc1989
CHAPTER TWO
For a minute, neither of you spoke, but it wasn’t awkward. Logan drove one-handed, relaxed against the seat despite looking tired. Streetlights flashed briefly across his face as they drove.
You took a second to really look at him. He had a sharp jaw, slight stubble shadowing his chin. He still had the hat on backwards, but his curls were damp and peeking out of the bottom. You looked away before you could be caught.
The vents blasted heat, fogging the edges of the windshield. You curled your cold fingers into the sleeves of the hoodie and leaned back against the seat.
You realized immediately that you should probably stop noticing how comfortable the quiet felt. That seemed dangerous.
“You know,” you said carefully, “You don’t really look like yourself in the garage.”
Logan snorted softly. “That doesn’t make sense.”
“It does in my head.”
You looked over at him again. You’d seen him before, from afar. Or on posters on campus. Instagram photos that girls reposted like public service announcements. But that version of him always looked untouchable.
The version sitting beside you now felt entirely different. His hat was on backwards, his hoodie had grease marks near one of the cuffs of his sleeve, and he looked exhausted in a very real, human way.
And weirdly? You liked this version better.
“I just mean,” you said, “you seem different there.”
Logan drove quietly for a second, the rain tapping steadily overhead.
“How?”
You considered the question.
“You seem…” you hesitated. “Normal.”
The second the word left your mouth, you saw it. A shift. It was tiny, but it was immediate. Something guarded slid briefly into his expression, and you regretted the phrasing instantly.
“Not that you aren’t normal normally,” you corrected quickly. “Wow. That sounded awful.”
One corner of Logan’s mouth lifted faintly.
“Impressive recovery.”
“I’m spiraling, leave me alone.”
“You’re doing great.”
“You’re lying.”
“A little.”
You groaned softly and covered your face for a second as Logan laughed quietly beside you.
God, that laugh was going to become a problem.
“I just meant,” you tried again, lowering your hands, “everyone on campus talks about you like…” you gestured vaguely. “I don’t know, like you’re some celebrity.”
“That sounds dramatic,” he said.
“You literally have posters hanging in the student center.”
“They’re for the team.”
“There’s still a six-foot photo of your face involved.”
“That’s unfortunate for everyone.”
You laughed. Logan glanced over briefly at the sound, and something in his expression softened again. Every time you laughed, he looked slightly surprised by it, like he enjoyed making you do it more than he expected.
You looked back out of the windshield before you could think too hard about that.
“But at the garage,” you continued more quietly, “you just seemed…”
Real.
You didn’t say it out loud.
Logan’s fingers tapped lightly against the steering wheel. “That’s kinda the point,” he admitted eventually.
“What do you mean?” you said as you turned toward him slightly.
Another shrug, but this one felt less dismissive. “At the garage, no one really cares who I am.”
You blinked once. “You’re telling me Jeff doesn’t have framed photos of you somewhere?”
Logan barked out a laugh. “He probably has some with me in it because he’s my brother. But, Jeff would sell me to the NHL tomorrow for free wings and playoff tickets.”
You smiled.
Then, quietly, you said, “You really don’t like the attention?”
Logan was silent enough that you thought he might not answer. Finally, he said, “I like hockey.”
Not the same answer. You noticed immediately.
“I didn’t ask that.”
His jaw shifted slightly like he was considering how honest to be. “I don’t know,” he admitted. “Sometimes it gets… loud.”
The word settled somewhere deep in your chest, because you understood it instantly.
Too many expectations. Too many people needing things from you. Too much pressure to be constantly impressive.
You looked down at your hands. “Yeah,” you said quietly, “I get that.”
You grew quiet again. This time it felt different, softer, like something had shifted.
Logan adjusted the heat higher.
“You cold?”
You realized that you’d been rubbing your hands together.
“A little.”
Without a word, Logan reached into the back and grabbed a dark gray blanket before handing it over.
“You just keep emergency blankets in your truck?”
“I play hockey, and we’re in New England. There’s often a need for it.”
You took it slowly. It smelled exactly like the truck: pine, laundry detergent, and something distinctly Logan beneath both.
“Thank you,” you murmured.
“Mhmm.”
Outside, the rain started up again as Logan turned on the windshield wipers.
“So,” he said after a minute, “the presentation.”
You groaned immediately. “No.”
“You brought it up.”
“I regret bringing it up.”
“How bad was it?”
You dragged both hands down her face dramatically.
“I completely just forgot how to speak.”
“That seems inconvenient.”
“It was horrifying.”
Logan glanced over briefly. “You don’t seem like someone who gets nervous talking.”
You snorted softly. “That’s because I never shut up when I’m anxious.”
He smirked. Before you could reply, a bright neon pink sign appeared through the rain ahead.
ROSIE’S DINER.
Logan turned into the parking lot casually. The diner itself looked straight out of another decade: fogged windows, chrome trim, neon signs flickering in the rain.
You realized how hungry you actually were, and your stomach did as well when it betrayed you with an audible growl.
Logan heard it, and the bastard smiled.
“Not a word,” you warned.
He held his hands up, “I didn’t say anything.”
You shoved his shoulder lightly as you both exited the truck and climbed out into the rain.
As you headed inside, a bell jingled overhead as Logan held the door open for you. The diner wasn’t crowded: a few couples in the back corner, an older woman at the counter by herself. Music was humming low from an old jukebox in the corner.
A waitress behind the counter looked up immediately. She was older, with dark red hair and small wrinkles at the corners of her eyes.
“Well,” she said slowly, “this is new.”
You looked between them.
“Hi, Rosie,” Logan said.
Rosie grinned broadly.
“Well, don’t just stand there, come in and find a place to sit.”
You followed Logan toward a booth in the back left corner, which was empty.
Rosie appeared beside the booth almost instantly with a menu that she handed to you.
Logan looked offended. “Wow.”
“You already know what you’re getting,” Rosie smiled.
“That’s fair,” he said.
Rosie turned toward you warmly. “Honey, if he talks you into the chili fries, don’t trust him. They’ll ruin your life.”
“They’re incredible,” Logan argued.
“They’re heartburn on a plate, but people love them, so we keep them on the menu.”
You looked between them seriously. “I’m willing to take that risk.”
Rosie pointed approvingly. “I like her.”
Then she walked away.
“This happens often?” you asked.
“Unfortunately. I’ve been coming here for a long time.”
Logan shrugged out of his hoodie and took off his hat, running a hand through his dark brown curls.
You quickly looked back down at the menu. Without the hoodie on, his shirt stretched across his broad shoulders, which felt deeply unfair to stare at. His forearms rested loosely against the table.
Rosie appeared beside the table with two glasses of water. She took out her pad and turned towards Logan.
“Same thing as usual?” she asked him.
“Please.”
“Okay,” Rosie said. “What are you getting, sweetheart?”
“What would you recommend?”
Rosie pointed immediately. “Turkey melt. Fries. Pie if your life’s been hard.”
You looked at Logan. “What does he get?”
“Burger, chili fries, coffee.”
You smiled down at the menu. “You know what? I’ll trust the turkey melt.”
“Smart girl,” Rosie said, walking away toward the kitchen.
The second she disappeared, you looked across the booth.
“She definitely interrogates every girl you bring here.”
Logan immediately looked up from his water. “You think there are girls?”
You lifted an eyebrow. “You’re John Logan.”
“That didn’t answer the question.”
You took a sip of water carefully.
“You’re avoiding the question,” you pointed out.
“No,” Logan said calmly. “I’m asking one.”
You leaned slightly back against the booth. Logan glanced toward the table with the faintest trace of a smile.
“Rosie likes dramatic gossip,” he said finally.
“That means yes.”
“That means she’d interrogate literally anybody.”
The conversation flowed strangely easily after that. It felt natural, not forced. You found yourself relaxing further into the booth with every passing minute. Maybe it was exhaustion. Maybe it was the rain outside making the diner feel separate from the rest of the world. Or maybe it was Logan himself.
Rosie arrived with Logan’s coffee, sliding the mug in front of him before setting down their food.
“You two need anything else?” she asked.
“We’re good,” Logan said.
Rosie ignored him and looked directly at you.
“You?”
You smiled automatically. “I’m good, thank you.”
Rosie nodded once as she approved of the answer before walking away again.
You watched her go.
“She definitely thinks we’re dating.”
Logan automatically reached for a fry. “She thinks everyone’s dating.”
“That’s not true.”
“She tried to convince Charlie, a family friend, and a customer, that they were soulmates last month.”
You laughed. Logan offered you a chili fry. You took it from him, your fingers brushing against his. Warmth flickered unexpectedly up your arm. You tried to shake it off as you popped the fry in your mouth.
Logan stared at you as he waited for your reaction to the chili fry. “It’s really good,” You relented. Logan got a wide smile on his face.
You smiled, looking outside and seeing the rain intensify. Drops hit the windows, making soft thuds.
Logan caught you staring out the window.
“What’s up?” he asked, noticing you were lost in your thoughts.
“Nothing,” You said.
“I doubt that’s true.”
You smiled faintly. “I was just thinking this is probably the nicest part of my day.”
The words slipped out before you fully thought them through. Logan went still for half a second.
You realized how honest the statement sounded as heat crept lightly onto your face.
“I mean,” you added quickly, “the bar was low.”
That made him laugh softly. “Good save.”
You took a bite of your turkey melt, which looked incredible.
“Oh my God,” you said. “I could cry.”
Logan laughed as he watched you and took a bite of his own burger.
The conversation continued to flow. You found yourself talking a lot about school, about pressure, about how exhausting it was to try and keep up with everything.
Logan listened intently, sharing his own stories.
As you continued talking, you realized more and more how all of this was affecting you. Up until now, you’d mostly been operating under the awareness that John Logan was a hockey star, and of course, attractive. Annoyingly attractive.
But this felt different. This felt like a glimpse at something underneath all of it. Suddenly, you realized why the garage version of him felt so dangerous. Getting to know him more was dangerous to you.
Logan reached for his coffee, wrapping both hands around it.
“You’re staring again,” he said, without looking up.
You blinked. “I am not.”
“You got quiet, which means you were staring again.”
“You notice everything,” you said.
He shrugged. “Occupational hazard, people lie constantly about cars.”
“You think people intentionally lie to mechanics?”
“Not intentionally,” he smiled faintly, “More like they just pretend they haven’t ignored problems for six months.”
“I ignored one warning light.”
He laughed. “You ignored a mechanical cry for help.”
“It was orange, not red.”
“That’s your defense?”
You laughed quietly. God, this was easy. That was the problem. Not the attraction, not the flirting, the ease. You were usually good at reading people. And usually, especially with attractive guys, there was a point where conversations started feeling performative. Like, both people were trying to shape themselves into something slightly more impressive. But Logan didn’t seem to do that. If anything, he seemed calmer the longer they sat there. More himself. It made you wonder what version of him everyone else got.
The hockey version, obviously. The campus version? The loud stories and party rumors version? You had heard all of them; every girl at Briar had.
John Logan had hooked up with half of the student body. He could charm literally anybody. He once got into a fight at an away game because someone insulted Hannah, Garrett Graham (and Logan’s best friend)’s girlfriend. John Logan was probably headed to the NHL.
But, this version, right in front of you, you had never heard of. The version that carefully listened before answering questions. Who spoke quietly when he wasn’t performing for anyone. Who worked at his family’s shop late at night.
“You’re thinking hard again.”
You blinked back toward him.
“You make me sound concerning.”
“You kind of are.”
“That’s hurtful.”
“It’s observant.”
You smiled slightly before stealing another chili fry from him. He smiled, and his eyes flicked briefly to your fingers before returning to your face.
“You two need refills?” Rosie asked, coming back to the table.
Logan lifted his mug slightly as you shook your head. Rosie topped off his coffee before glancing between the two of you and heading back toward the kitchen.
Eventually, the diner began thinning out around them. The groups in the other corner filtered slowly into the rain one by one, pulling coats over their heads while laughing loudly. Rain continued to pour, thunder now mixed in.
But inside the booth, time felt strangely suspended.
You couldn’t remember the last time you’d sat somewhere for this long without checking your phone every thirty seconds or thinking about everything waiting for you afterward.
With Logan, conversation kept unfolding naturally. Even the silent pauses were never awkward or uncomfortable.
As the night wore on, Rosie passed by again to top off Logan’s coffee and gave you a subtle look that absolutely communicated “I’m rooting for whatever this is.”
You avoided eye contact immediately.
Across from you, Logan looked exhausted.
“Okay,” you said, “I have a question.”
“Go for it.”
“How are you even functioning right now?”
Logan blinked once. “That’s vague.”
“You work late at the garage, play hockey and train, go to parties, and somehow still go to class?”
“Allegedly.”
You ignored him. “And you’re apparently at Rosie’s enough to have a regular order. When do you sleep?”
A smile tugged faintly at his mouth. “I don’t, mostly.”
“That feels medically concerning.”
“It’s temporary.”
Something about the answer made you tilt your head slightly. You knew it was his senior year, his last season at Briar. The realization settled quickly in your chest.
“Do you want to go pro?” you asked carefully.
The question changed the air slightly. Logan leaned back against the booth.
“Yeah,” he admitted softly.
You nodded slowly. “You’re good enough.”
“I know.” It wasn’t arrogant, it was certain. There was a difference. Most guys at Briar would’ve wrapped the answer in fake humility. Logan just looked you in the eyes and told the truth.
“You say that so casually,” you said softly.
He shrugged slightly. “I’ve worked for it a long time.”
You traced one fingertip absently through the condensation on your water glass.
“Does it scare you?” you asked.
He looked at you for a second longer than usual.
“Which part?”
“All of it,” you gestured vaguely. “The NHL. Leaving school. The expectations.”
For the first time all night, Logan didn’t answer immediately. Finally, he exhaled softly. “Sometimes. There’s a lot at stake.”
“I’m scared hockey’s the only thing I’m good at,” he admitted.
You frowned slightly. “That’s ridiculous.”
A tiny smile touched his mouth. “You say that with a lot of confidence for someone who met me like two hours ago.”
“You looked at my car in the rain and then profiled me over fries. You clearly have range.”
That got a real laugh out of him. Not the quiet, almost-laughs from earlier. This one was fuller, warmer. You felt weirdly proud of yourself for causing it.
Logan rubbed a hand briefly over his jaw afterward, still smiling faintly.
“You always talk this much?”
“There it is,” you sighed dramatically. “The bullying.”
“It’s not bullying.”
“You make me sound exhausting.”
“You are exhausting.”
You gasped slowly in mock offense. Then, you pointed at him. “But you keep talking to me.”
His eyes met yours immediately, and the teasing atmosphere shifted slightly.
Then, Rosie yelled from behind the counter. “Logan, stop staring at the poor girl and let her finish eating.”
The moment shattered instantly, and you laughed.
Rosie eventually dropped the check onto the table despite Logan insisting he was paying before she even walked away.
You immediately reached for it, but so did Logan. Your hands collided lightly in the middle of the table. Logan looked down at your hands for half a second before looking back up at you.
“I’ve got it,” Logan said quietly, as he took the check.
“You already diagnosed my financial collapse earlier. I can at least pay for my own fries.”
“You can buy next time.”
The words slipped out casually. Your heartbeat stumbled once. Logan looked equally aware of what he’d said. You smiled, softly.
“Okay,” you said.
Something shifted in his expression then. Relief, maybe.
Rosie collected the check as Logan paid.
“You ready to leave?” he asked. You nodded. He pulled his hoodie back on, and the bell jingled overhead when Logan pulled the door open for you.
Cold air hit you immediately, and rain sprayed you both as it was still storming. You instinctively stepped closer to him. Logan noticed too.
“Ready to make a run for it?” he asked. You stepped closer again, and the two of you set off into the parking lot toward the truck as fast as you could, getting soaked in the process.
You both threw the doors open and hopped in. The truck warmed up around you as Logan started the truck and put the heat on as both of you tried to get warm again.
Neither of you spoke right away, but the air felt charged now. The diner had changed something, and you had the feeling you both knew it.
The windshield wipers moved steadily back and forth as Logan pulled out of the diner parking lot and towards campus.
Rain blurred the roads into smeared reflections. You stared out the passenger window as he drove.
“Which dorm am I going to?”
“Oh. Uh, Haverly.”
He nodded.
“You have practice tomorrow?” you asked.
“Six a.m.”
You physically recoiled.
“That’s… awful.”
“It’s not that bad,” he said.
“No, actually, I think I’d die.”
Logan laughed quietly again.
It had only been hours, but you were starting to recognize the different versions of his laugh already. The softer one when he was amused. The surprised one when something genuinely caught him off guard. And, the fuller one when he forgot himself for a second.
The closer they got to campus, the more you felt reality slowly creeping back in.
Homework, your dorm, the disaster of your day, was waiting patiently for your return. And underneath all of that, the growing awareness that tonight had shifted something. Now you knew this version of Logan existed.
“You live with the hockey guys, right?” you asked.
“Unfortunately.”
You smiled. “Garrett and Dean?”
“And Tucker.”
“Is that complete chaos?”
“Yeah, sometimes,” he laughed.
“I feel like Dean specifically can be exhausting,” you said.
He smiled widely. “That’s an accurate statement.”
“You agreed too fast.”
“He once microwaved fish at two in the morning. You should have seen Tucker’s reaction.”
You covered your mouth and laughed.
The conversation drifted easily after that on the way to your dorm. Stories about the hockey house, Tucker sleepwalking into the backyard, Garrett and Hannah’s fake dating scheme.
“You laugh a lot,” Logan said.
The observation settled strangely between them. It wasn’t teasing; it was gentler than that.
“I didn’t earlier today,” you said. The words slipped out before you fully thought about them.
“You wanna know something weird?” you asked quietly.
“What?”
“I almost didn’t stop at the garage.”
Logan glanced over at you.
“Why?”
“I don’t know,” you shrugged. “I was tired. Stressed. Figure I’d just deal with it later.”
“Your car was actively dying.”
“I see that’s what it was trying to tell me now.”
Logan shook his head slowly. “Good thing you stopped.”
You looked at him, but his eyes stayed on the road. The truck slowed as they turned onto the street that your dorm building was on.
Suddenly, you felt something tight pull low in your chest because you were almost there, and you didn’t want to be.
Your dorm building appeared ahead through the rain. The lights in the building were glowing. You suddenly wanted another twenty minutes in the truck. Another hour, maybe.
Logan pulled carefully in front of the building and shifted the truck into park. The engine hummed quietly beneath the storm outside.
Neither of you moved, of course you didn’t.
“You survived,” Logan said eventually.
You smiled faintly without looking at him.
“Barely.”
“You’ll recover.”
“That’s debatable.”
A soft laugh escaped him. You finally looked back over at him.
That was a big mistake, because Logan was already looking at you. You had become overwhelmingly aware of how warm the truck felt, how close he was, andyou’re your heartbeat was now hammering hard against your ribs.
Logan glanced briefly toward your stained sweater sleeve peeking out beneath the hoodie.
“The coffee thing,” he said quietly.
You blinked. “What?”
“You never explained how you spilled it.”
Relief flickered through you instantly at the normal conversation. “It was catastrophic.” Suddenly, you launched into the entire story about spilling the coffee and having to hurry into class with a giant stain on the front of your shirt.
Logan laughed, and the sound filled the truck.
Once his laughter died down and you sat there, you looked down. You should leave. It was really late, you had class tomorrow, and had to figure out your car. He had practice early.
Every instinct in your body resisted moving, and apparently, Logan wasn’t in much of a hurry either because he made absolutely no move to unlock the doors or end the conversation.
“I should probably go,” you said after a bit.
The second the words left your mouth, disappointment flickered briefly across his face before he smoothed it away.
The fact that you noticed at all made your pulse jump harder.
“Yeah,” he said quietly.
You finally pushed the door open, and right before you were going to step out into the rain, he leaned slightly across the center console toward you.
“Y/N.”
You turned back immediately.
“What?”
“Put your number in. I’ll call you tomorrow after we check the car,” he said, handing his phone over to you.
You put your name and number in the contacts. “Okay.”
You handed the phone back to him and stepped out of the truck and onto the sidewalk. You lifted one hand in a small wave before turning toward the building. Somehow, you could still feel his eyes on you the entire walk inside.
