summary: when the days are quiet you have to take advantage of it. alexandria is peaceful for once- kids laughing, swimming in the lake, bonfires started with no worries about attracting walkers. and daryl dixon- who cant seem to keep his eyes off of you. what will you find when you go looking for him? based on the request from @daryldixonswifeeeeeeee
warnings/tags: smut, best friends to lovers, so much sex, like an excessive amount, oral ( m & f receiving), unprotected sex, creampie, over stimulation, multiple orgasms, squirting, hair pulling, dom daryl, you are basically a puddle at the end
masterlist
The sun sat high over Alexandria’s big lake, turning the water into a sheet of bright, shifting light. For once the fences held, the walkers stayed distant, and nobody had to run for weapons or shout warnings. Kids splashed and shrieked near the shallows. Judith’s laughter carried farther than the others. Someone had dragged out old lawn chairs and a couple of patched-up coolers. The air smelled like lake water, cut grass, and the faint smoke from the small fire Connie had started earlier for no real reason other than it felt good to have one.
You stood at the edge of the dock in the swimsuit you’d almost talked yourself out of wearing. The fabric was thin from too many washes, the cut higher on the hips and lower across the chest than anything you’d worn in years. It was hot. The kids wanted to swim. That was the whole argument, and it had been enough.
You felt the weight of eyes more than once.
Daryl sat a little apart from the group, crossbow resting against the side of his chair like it was just another piece of him. He’d taken his vest off hours ago. The black shirt underneath clung in places from the heat. He kept looking. Not constantly. Just enough that every time you turned or stretched or bent to help RJ with a floating stick, you caught the edge of that blue stare before it slid away again. He never said a word about it. Just watched, then looked off toward the treeline like the trees had suddenly become real interesting.
Carol noticed.
Of course she did.
She was in the chair next to him, legs stretched out, a half-empty bottle of something lukewarm in her hand. She followed his gaze once, then twice, and the corner of her mouth curled.
“You should take a picture,” she said, voice low and dry. “It’ll last longer.”
Daryl’s jaw flexed. He didn’t look at her. Just gave that short, irritated huff through his nose and shifted in the chair like the wood had suddenly gotten uncomfortable under him. One boot scuffed against the dirt.
Carol’s smile widened a fraction. She didn’t push it further. She didn’t need to.
You waded back into the water up to your waist, letting the cool soak ease the heat from your skin. Judith paddled over and clung to your arm for a second, grinning up at you with lake water dripping from her hair. You spun her gently, listening to her laugh, and when you glanced toward the shore again Daryl’s eyes were already moving away. The muscles in his forearm stood out where his hand rested on the arm of the chair.
The afternoon stretched long and lazy. People drifted in and out of the water. Someone passed around leftover hard candy from the last run. Ezekiel told a story that made the kids go wide-eyed. Through all of it Daryl stayed mostly quiet, answering in short grunts when someone spoke directly to him, but every so often that same look came back. Heavy. Unreadable. Like he was cataloguing something he didn’t plan on mentioning out loud.
You climbed out eventually, water running down your legs, and walked past the chairs to grab the towel you’d left draped over a cooler. Carol said something mild about the temperature dropping later. Daryl still didn’t speak. His gaze flicked once more—quick, almost unwilling—then fixed on the far side of the lake where the trees grew thicker.
The day kept going the way rare good days did in Alexandria. Slow. Almost normal. No alarms. No blood. Just the sound of kids playing and the soft lap of water against the dock.
The sun had gone down hours ago, but the heat still clung to Alexandria like a second skin. Most of the lights in the houses were out. The only sounds left were the soft creak of the wind through the trees and the distant, occasional bark of a dog.
You couldn’t stop thinking about it.
Carol’s voice— loud enough that you had heard without meaning to— kept looping in your head. Take a picture, it’ll last longer—and the way Daryl’s jaw had tightened, the way he’d looked at you all afternoon like he was trying not to and failing. Every time you’d turned, those eyes had been there and then gone again. You kept replaying the moments: the stretch of your arms when you helped Judith float, the water running down your stomach when you climbed out, the thin fabric of the swimsuit clinging in places it shouldn’t have. Had he liked what he saw? Was that what that look meant? Or was it just Daryl being Daryl— stubborn and impossible to read.
You’d always thought there was something between him and Connie. The way they moved around each other sometimes, the soft looks she gave him. And he was your best friend. The one who was always there when things went to shit, who never asked too many questions, who sat next to you on the porch in silence like it was the most natural thing in the world. You weren’t supposed to be thinking about him like this. But the thoughts wouldn’t shut up. They kept spinning until your chest felt tight and your feet were already carrying you across the dark street toward his house.
You knocked once. Waited. Nothing.
Knocked again, a little harder.
Still nothing.
You tried the handle. Unlocked, the way it almost always was. You pushed the door open and stepped inside, voice low.
“Daryl? You awake?”
Silence. Then a quiet, rhythmic sound from upstairs—creaking. Your pulse kicked hard under your skin. You hesitated at the bottom of the stairs, then started up anyway, each step careful, the wood warm under your bare feet.
The door to his room was cracked open. The noise was clearer now. Breathing—rough, controlled, a little strained. The soft, slick sound of skin moving over skin.
You pushed the door the rest of the way open.
Daryl was on the bed, shirtless, jeans shoved down just far enough. One arm was bent behind his head. The other was wrapped around his cock, fist moving in long, tight strokes. The head was flushed and shiny with spit or precome, and every upstroke made the muscles in his forearm jump. His eyes were half-lidded, fixed on the ceiling, jaw clenched so hard a muscle jumped in his cheek. A low sound slipped out of him—half groan, half curse—when his thumb swiped over the tip.
He didn’t see you at first.
Then the floorboard under your foot gave the softest protest.
His head snapped toward the door. Those blue eyes went wide for half a second, pupils blown, before something darker and sharper settled in them. His hand froze mid-stroke, cock still hard and thick in his grip, glistening in the low light from the window.
Neither of you moved.
His voice came out rough, scraped raw.
“…the fuck’re ya doin’ in here?”
You stood frozen in the doorway, heart slamming against your ribs, the image of him burned into the backs of your eyes—the tense line of his stomach, the way his cock twitched once in his fist like it hadn’t gotten the message to stop yet, the flush high on his cheekbones.
He didn’t scramble to cover himself. Didn’t look away. Just stared at you, breathing hard through his nose, waiting.
You swallowed, throat dry.
“I… I wanted to talk to you about something.”
Daryl’s eyes stayed locked on yours. His hand still rested around his cock, not stroking, just holding it like he couldn’t quite make himself let go. The head was still flushed dark and wet, twitching once against his palm when your gaze flicked down for half a second before you forced it back up.
“Talk,” he said. One word, low and rough, like he’d scraped it out of his chest.
Your face felt hot. Standing there with him half-naked, dick still hard and shiny in the dim light, made the words tangle on your tongue. You shifted your weight, suddenly very aware of how close the bed was, how the air in the room smelled like sweat and heat.
He watched the flush climb your neck and something in his expression shifted—less startled, more resigned, like he’d already decided how this was going to go.
“Been thinkin’ 'bout ya,” he said before you could force the question out. Voice quieter now, almost careful. “Couldn’t stop starin’ at y' today. That little swimsuit… shit. Kept lookin’ every time y' moved. Wanted to put my hands on ya so fuckin’ bad.” His throat worked. “Want y'. Been wantin’ ya. But you’re my… best friend. Ain’t tryin’ to fuck that up.”
The honesty landed heavy between you. No deflection. No joke. Just Daryl, raw and still hard, laying it out like it cost him something.
You stepped closer.
One slow step, then another, until your knees nearly brushed the edge of the mattress. His breath hitched—sharp, audible—when you stopped right in front of him. Close enough to feel the heat coming off his bare chest. Close enough to see the way his pupils blew wider, the way his fingers tightened once around his cock like the proximity hurt.
He tilted his head back just enough to keep your eyes, waiting, the muscle in his jaw ticking.
You didn’t give him time to say anything else.
You leaned in and kissed him—hungry, desperate, no hesitation left. Your mouth found his open and already breathing hard. He made a low, startled sound against your lips, then his free hand shot up and fisted in the front of your shirt, yanking you closer. The kiss turned messy fast, all teeth and tongue and the rough scrape of his stubble. He tasted like the beer he’d had earlier. When you nipped at his bottom lip he groaned into your mouth, the sound vibrating through both of you, and the hand still wrapped around his cock gave one involuntary stroke like his body had decided it was done waiting.
You pulled back just enough to breathe against his mouth, lips still wet from the kiss.
“You want help with that?”
Daryl’s eyes were dark, almost black in the low light. His throat worked once. He couldn’t get the words out—just gave a sharp, desperate nod, the hand still wrapped around his cock tightening until the head leaked another bead of precome.
You didn’t make him wait.
You dropped to your knees between his spread thighs, the floorboards cool under you. His cock was thick and heavy when you wrapped your fingers around the base, the skin hot and slick. He hissed through his teeth at the first touch of your tongue—slow, flat, dragging from the root all the way up to the flushed head. The taste of him hit you immediately. You sealed your lips around the tip and sucked, slow and wet, and the sound that tore out of him was pure wreckage.
“Fuck—”
His hand shot into your hair, just holding on like he needed the anchor. You took him deeper, cheeks hollowing, tongue working the underside in long strokes. Every time you pulled back with a wet drag he cursed under his breath, hips twitching up like he couldn’t help it. Spit ran down the shaft and over your fingers. You stroked what you couldn’t fit, tight and twisted, and the muscles in his stomach jumped hard.
He was already falling apart.
“Shit… look at ya,” he rasped, voice cracking. “Takin’ it so fuckin’ good. Mouth’s so fuckin’ hot—goddamn—”
You hummed around him and his head dropped back against the pillow, a broken groan spilling out. His thighs tensed on either side of your shoulders. Precome leaked steady now, coating your tongue, and you swallowed it down like you were starving for it. The wet sounds filled the room—obscene, rhythmic—every time you bobbed lower, taking him until the head nudged the back of your throat. His free hand fisted the sheet so hard the fabric strained.
“Gonna come,” he warned, voice wrecked, hips starting to rock up into your mouth in short, desperate thrusts. “Gonna fuckin’—don’t stop, don’t you fuckin’ stop—”
You didn’t.
You sucked harder, faster, hand twisting at the base, and when he finally broke it was with a raw, punched-out sound. His cock pulsed hard against your tongue, thick ropes of come flooding your mouth. You stayed on him, swallowing every drop, throat working around him until he was shaking and oversensitive. Only then did you pull off slow, lips shiny, a thin string of spit and come still connecting you for a second before it broke.
Daryl stared down at you like he’d never seen you before—pupils blown, chest heaving, mouth open. Something darker and hungrier had already taken over his face. The second your tongue flicked out to catch the last taste of him from the corner of your mouth, he moved.
One second you were on your knees. The next his hands were under your arms, hauling you up and onto the bed like you weighed nothing. He rolled you onto your back and pinned you there, wrists caught in one rough hand above your head, his still-hard cock dragging wet against your thigh. His other hand shoved your shirt up, palm dragging hot over your stomach, and the look in his eyes was pure animal need.
“My turn,” he growled against your mouth, voice wrecked and filthy. “Been thinkin’ about this all fuckin’ day. Gonna take my time with you now.”
He shoved your shirt the rest of the way up and off, then yanked your shorts and underwear down in one rough motion, tossing them somewhere behind him. The cool air hit your bare skin for half a second before his hands were on your thighs, spreading them wide. He stared down at you—open, already wet, glistening in the low light—and the look on his face was pure hunger.
“Fuckin’ soaked,” he muttered, almost to himself. “Knew y' would be.”
He dropped down between your legs without another word. The first drag of his tongue was slow and deliberate, flat against your cunt from bottom to top, collecting the slick that was already dripping out of you. You jerked at the contact, a sharp sound catching in your throat, but his hands clamped harder on your thighs, pinning them open. He did it again, slower, like he was tasting every drop, then sealed his mouth over your clit and sucked.
Your back arched off the mattress.
He didn’t give you a rhythm. He edged you on purpose—long, filthy licks that had you panting, then sudden hard sucks that made your hips try to chase his mouth, only for him to pull back the second your thighs started to shake. His tongue circled your clit in tight little flicks, then dragged lower, pushing inside you just enough to feel it before he retreated again. Every time you got close he backed off, breathing hot against your soaked skin, watching your face with those dark eyes.
“Not yet,” he rasped when you whimpered. “Wanna feel you lose it.”
Two of his fingers pushed into you without warning—thick, rough, curling immediately. He fucked them into you in slow, deep strokes while his mouth stayed lazy on your clit, tongue barely moving, just enough pressure to keep you right on the edge. The wet sounds were obscene. Your cunt clenched around his fingers every time he crooked them against that spot inside you, and each time he felt you start to tighten he slowed down even more, almost toying with you.
“Listen to that,” he growled against your pussy, voice low and filthy. “So fuckin’ wet for me. Been thinkin’ about eatin’ this all day. Watchin’ y' in that little swimsuit, wonderin’ how hard I could make ya come.”
He added a third finger, stretching you, and the stretch made your eyes roll back. His tongue finally pressed harder, circling your clit in tight, relentless strokes while his fingers kept working that same perfect angle. You were shaking, thighs trembling under his grip, every breath a broken sound. He kept you there for what felt like forever—building, backing off, building again—until your whole body was wound so tight it hurt.
Then he stopped playing.
He sealed his mouth over your clit and sucked hard, fingers slamming into you in deep, wet thrusts. The orgasm ripped through you so violently your vision went white. Your cunt clamped down on his fingers and you came with a broken cry, squirting hard—hot, messy pulses that soaked his mouth and chin and the sheets under you. Daryl groaned like he’d been waiting for it, mouth open, drinking every drop greedily. His tongue kept working, licking through the mess, swallowing what you gave him while his fingers stayed buried deep, riding out every pulse.
He didn’t stop until you were twitching and oversensitive, thighs trying to close around his head. Only then did he pull back, lips and chin shiny, eyes almost black with need. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and climbed back up your body, still hard, cock dragging wet against your thigh.
“Fuckin’ beautiful,” he rasped against your mouth, voice wrecked. “Gonna ruin ya for anybody else.”
Daryl didn’t give you a second to come down.
The second your body stopped shaking he was already moving—hands rough on your hips, flipping you onto your stomach like you weighed nothing. Your face pressed into the pillow, still breathing hard, when he yanked your ass up and back until you were on your knees, chest down. He shoved your thighs wider with one boot, and the head of his cock—already rock hard again— dragged through the mess between your legs.
“So fuckin’ wet,” he growled, voice low and ruined. “Didn’t even need to get myself ready. Y' did that for me.”
He pushed in without warning.
One long, deep thrust that forced the air out of your lungs. The stretch burned in the best way—thick, relentless, filling you until his hips slammed flush against your ass. He stayed buried for a second, breathing hard through his nose, then pulled almost all the way out and drove back in harder. The wet sound of it filled the room, filthy and loud, every stroke pushing more of your release down your thighs.
His hands clamped on your hips hard enough to bruise. He set a brutal pace right away—deep, punishing thrusts that made the bed frame knock against the wall. Every time he bottomed out he ground against you, making sure you felt every inch, then dragged back and did it again.
“Fuck—look at this,” he rasped, one hand sliding up your spine to fist in your hair and pull your head back. “Takin’ my cock so goddamn good. This what y' wanted when ya walked in here? Wanted me to bend ya over and fuck ya stupid?”
You could only moan into the pillow, the angle making every thrust drag perfectly against that spot inside you. He felt it—the way your cunt fluttered around him—and laughed, low and dark, never slowing.
“Yeah. Feel that. Yer gonna come on me again. Gonna make a mess all over my dick.”
He leaned over your back, chest hot against your skin, and reached around to rub tight circles over your clit with two rough fingers. The dual sensation was almost too much. His thrusts turned shorter, harder, the slap of skin on skin echoing through the room. Precome and your own slick made everything wetter, louder. He kept talking, voice breaking every few words, filthy and raw.
“Been thinkin’ about this—fuck—every time I looked at ya today. Wanted to drag ya behind the trees and put y' on your knees. Wanted to ruin this pretty little cunt until y' couldn’t walk straight.”
His grip on your hair tightened. The other hand stayed working your clit, relentless. You were already close again, body still oversensitive from the first orgasm, and he knew it. He fucked you through the building pressure without mercy, hips snapping harder, until the second orgasm ripped through you so hard your arms gave out. Your cunt clamped down around him in tight, pulsing waves.
He didn’t stop.
He just growled against the back of your neck and kept pounding into you through it, the wet, filthy sounds getting louder as your release soaked his cock and the sheets underneath. Your body tried to collapse but he held your hips up with one arm, fucking you through every aftershock until the overstimulation edged into something sharper again.
“That’s two,” he rasped, never slowing. “Ain’t done with you yet.”
He shifted the angle, hips snapping deeper, and the new pressure dragged another broken sound out of you. His fingers stayed on your clit, rubbing in tight, merciless circles while he drove into you over and over. The third orgasm hit faster than the second—sudden and violent—your walls fluttering and squeezing around him as another gush of slick spilled out around his cock. He cursed low and filthy, hips stuttering for half a second before he forced himself to keep going, pounding you into the mattress like he was trying to carve himself into you permanently.
“Fuck—listen to y'. So fuckin’ loud. Keep comin’ for me. Wanna feel it every time.”
Your arms were shaking. Your thighs burned. He didn’t care. He shoved a pillow under your hips to keep you raised and just kept going—long, deep strokes that never let the pressure ease. Every time your body started to calm he changed something: a harder grind, a sharper slap of his hips, two fingers pushing into your mouth so you could taste yourself on them while he fucked you. The fourth orgasm tore through you weaker but no less intense, your voice cracking into a broken cry against the sheets. He groaned at the way you clenched around him, still so hard it almost hurt, and leaned down to bite the back of your shoulder.
“One more,” he ordered, voice wrecked. “Gimme one more and maybe I’ll let you rest.”
He didn’t mean it. You could hear it in the way he said it—already planning to keep going until you were nothing but a shaking, overstimulated mess beneath him. His hand slid back between your legs, fingers finding your clit again, and he started fucking you in short, brutal thrusts that forced the air out of your lungs with every impact. The wet slap of skin on skin filled the room. Your cunt was so sensitive every stroke felt electric, and when the fifth orgasm finally crashed over you it left you sobbing into the pillow, body locking up around his cock as another rush of slick soaked the sheets.
Daryl still hadn’t come.
He just held you there, buried deep, breathing hard against your neck, and gave one slow, deliberate grind that made your oversensitive walls flutter weakly around him.
“Not done,” he muttered, almost to himself, voice dark with promise. “Not even close.”
Daryl pulled out only long enough to flip you onto your back.
Your body was limp, thighs trembling, the sheets under you soaked and cold in places. He didn’t give you time to catch your breath. He shoved your knees up and open, lined himself up, and drove back into you in one deep, relentless thrust that punched a broken sound out of your throat. The new angle made everything feel sharper—fuller—every ridge of his cock dragging against walls that were already oversensitive and swollen.
He braced himself over you on one forearm and dropped his mouth to your neck.
The first kiss was almost careful. Then he felt the way you shivered, the way your cunt fluttered hard around him when his lips brushed just under your ear. Something dark and pleased flickered across his face. He did it again, slower, then opened his mouth and sucked hard enough to leave a mark. Your back arched. A helpless sound tore out of you.
“There it is,” he rasped against your skin, voice wrecked. “Fuckin’ sensitive right here, ain’t you?”
He bit down—not hard enough to break skin, but enough to make your whole body jolt—and fucked into you deeper at the same time. His hips never stopped moving. Long, grinding strokes that forced the air out of your lungs every time he bottomed out. He kept his mouth busy on your neck the whole time: sucking dark bruises into the side of your throat, scraping his teeth over the pulse point, licking the marks he’d already left like he was claiming every inch of skin he could reach.
“Knew you’d feel good,” he muttered between bites, breath hot and ragged. “But this—fuck—this is better. You keep squeezin’ me every time I touch your neck. Like your body’s tryin’ to pull me deeper.”
He shifted his weight, one hand sliding under your ass to tilt your hips higher, and the new angle made stars burst behind your eyes. He pounded into you without mercy, the wet, filthy slap of skin on skin filling the room again. Every thrust forced another broken sound out of you. Your nails dug into his shoulders. Your legs wrapped around his waist like you were trying to keep him buried.
He felt the next orgasm building—the way your cunt started to tighten in short, desperate pulses—and he leaned down to suck hard on the most sensitive spot just beneath your jaw while he fucked you through it. The climax hit like a wave, tearing a raw cry from your throat as your walls clamped down around him. Slick spilled out around his cock, soaking both of you all over again.
Daryl groaned like it hurt.
He kept thrusting through it, shorter and harder now, chasing his own edge. His mouth never left your neck. He bit down one last time—rough, possessive—and the sound that tore out of him was almost animal. His hips slammed flush against yours and stayed there as he finally let go, cock pulsing deep inside you in thick, hot ropes. He ground against you through every spurt, burying himself as deep as he could get, filling you until it leaked out around him and down your thighs.
He collapsed forward when it was over, forehead pressed to the pillow beside your head, still buried inside you, still twitching. His breath came in harsh, uneven pulls against your marked-up neck. One of his hands stayed tangled in your hair, the other gripping your hip hard enough that you knew you’d feel the bruises tomorrow.
Neither of you spoke for a long moment. Just the sound of his heartbeat against your chest and the wet, filthy mess he’d made between your legs.
You lay there for a while, chests rising and falling too fast, the room thick with the smell of sex and sweat. Neither of you moved much. Daryl eventually pulled out with a low, reluctant sound and rolled onto his back beside you, one arm thrown over his eyes. Your body felt used in the best way—sore, marked, still twitching with little aftershocks every time the air shifted over sensitive skin.
After a few minutes he sat up without a word, padded downstairs bare-ass naked, and came back with two half-full bottles of water. He handed one over, then dropped back onto the mattress, leaning against the headboard. You both drank in silence for a bit. The cool water felt almost shocking after everything.
He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and glanced at you sideways.
“So,” he said, voice still rough. “This ruin the friendship?”
You looked at him—hair a mess, bite marks already darkening on his shoulder from your nails, that same quiet intensity in his eyes even now—and answered without missing a beat.
“Yeah. Completely. Because now I’m gonna expect this a lot more often.”
For a second he just stared. Then a short, surprised laugh cracked out of him—real and low and a little rusty, like he hadn’t used it in a while. He shook his head, the corner of his mouth still curved.
“Jesus Christ.” He took another drink, then set the bottle on the nightstand. “You’re somethin’ else.”
The quiet that settled after felt different than before. Easier. You shifted closer until your shoulder brushed his. He didn’t pull away. One of his hands found the back of your thigh, thumb stroking absently over the skin there while you both just breathed.
“Been wantin’ this longer than I should’ve,” he admitted after a minute, staring at the far wall. “Kept tellin’ myself it was a bad idea. You’re… important. Didn’t wanna fuck that up.”
“You didn’t,” you said simply.
He looked at you again, something softer and hungrier mixing in his expression. His hand slid higher on your thigh, fingers spreading, possessive without even trying. You could already feel him getting hard again against your hip—slow, inevitable.
“Good,” he muttered. “Cause I ain’t done with you.”
He leaned in and kissed you, slower this time but no less deep. His tongue slid against yours, tasting like water and the leftover salt of earlier. The hand on your thigh tightened, guiding your leg over his lap until you were straddling him. His cock was fully hard again, thick and hot against your still-slick cunt. He rocked up once, dragging the length of himself through the mess he’d left inside you earlier, and a low sound rumbled in his chest.
“Ride me,” he said against your mouth, voice already dropping back into that rough, filthy register. “Wanna watch you take it this time. Wanna see your face when you come on me again.”
His hands gripped your hips, lifting you just enough so the head of his cock caught at your entrance. He held you there for a second, eyes locked on yours, waiting.
Summary: The letters become shorter. The distance becomes greater. Neither of you ever truly lets go.
Warnings: This chapter includes a military injury, amputation, acute distress after limb loss, and a prolonged emotional breakup scene. Please read with care. Angst, mutual pining, emotional miscommunication, military enlistment and deployment, long-distance separation, letters, Reader dating someone else, discussion of marriage and children, serious relationship breakup, military injury, amputation, hospital setting, pain medication, disorientation, panic attack, grief over limb loss, crying, emotional breakdown, trauma recovery, rehabilitation, no use of Y/N.
Author's Note: The final flashback chapter is here. Featuring crossed-out declarations, years of mutual miscommunication, one genuinely good boyfriend, Jack calling for Reader from a hospital bed, and Carter eventually giving them a new way to belong to each other. Please be kind to Ryan.
Your first letter reached Jack nine days after he left.
Nine days was not long. It had only felt that way.
Every hour since stepping onto the bus had belonged to someone else. Someone else decided when Jack woke, when he ate, where he stood, and how quickly he moved from one place to the next. By the end of each day, he was too exhausted to think much beyond taking off his boots and getting whatever sleep he was allowed.
That should have made it easier. Instead, he found you everywhere.
He thought of you whenever he climbed into a bunk that felt nothing like the porch futon. Every Jeep brought back your bare feet propped against the dashboard, even when it was the wrong color. When sweat gathered beneath the collar of his uniform, he thought of the lake and wished he could dive beneath the water until the heat could no longer reach him.
Mostly, Jack thought about the last morning.
Your fingers tangled in the front of his shirt. Your face wet with tears. Your hand lifted toward the window as the bus began to move.
He had told you to keep writing.
Jack had not let himself expect that you would.
Mail arrived near the end of another day that had begun before sunrise.
The room filled with restless movement as names were called. Men pushed away from their bunks, hoping for news from home or pretending they did not care whether anything had come for them.
Jack remained seated. His elbows rested against his knees while he worked at a loose thread near the cuff of his uniform. Robby might send something eventually, but anything from you would take longer.
You had school. A life. An entire world that had continued after the bus turned out of the parking lot.
“Abbot,” a voice called from across the room.
Jack’s head lifted.
A man near the doorway held up a white envelope. Jack was on his feet before he could stop himself. Someone beside him laughed quietly.
“Must be a good one,” the man observed.
Jack ignored him and crossed the room. The envelope had bent at one corner during its journey. A gray smear marked the bottom edge, and the stamp sat slightly crooked.
His name was written across the front in your handwriting.
Jack Abbot
No unnecessary decoration. Just the letters he had watched you scribble on napkins, grocery lists, and the little notes you hid around the cabin.
Jack ran his thumb beneath his name.
The exhaustion in his body receded beneath something warmer. He carried the envelope back to his bunk and sat with it resting against his palm.
For several seconds, he only looked at it.
Then Jack slipped one finger beneath the sealed edge and opened it carefully enough that the paper would not tear. Three folded pages slid into his hand. He unfolded them and found your handwriting covering nearly every available line.
Dear Jack,
I said I would write every week, but it's only been three days, and Robby is already tired of hearing me ask whether you’ve had enough time to miss us yet.
Jack’s mouth curved. He lowered his head and continued reading.
The cabin is closed. Robby checked the front door three times because he apparently does not trust himself to operate a lock. He says I’m not allowed to tell anyone that, so naturally you are the first person I’m telling.
The bear made it back to school with me. My roommate thinks he is horrifying. I told her he has sentimental value, which only made her ask more questions.
Jack could picture the bear sitting on your dorm-room bed, one lopsided ear leaning farther than the other. He had wasted too much money winning the ugly thing. It had been worth every penny.
I haven’t told her about you yet.
Jack’s smile faded. The next sentence had been written more carefully than the others.
I don’t know how to explain an entire summer without making it sound like more than we said it was.
He read the line again.
Around him, someone opened a package with enough food inside to draw half the room toward his bunk. Paper tore. Men laughed. A voice from the hall ordered someone to move faster.
Jack heard all of it from somewhere far away. His thumb moved over the edge of your letter. More than we said it was. He knew what you meant. Jack didn’t know what you wanted him to do with it from here. He lowered his gaze to the next paragraph.
Classes start Monday. I already hate one of my professors, and I haven’t met him yet. Robby says that’s unfair. Robby is wrong.
My roommate has a boyfriend who keeps sitting on my desk chair. I don’t know why this bothers me as much as it does. Maybe because I have nowhere to write when he’s here. Maybe because he chews too loudly. I’ll keep investigating.
I miss the lake.
Something had been written beneath the sentence and scratched out.
Jack tilted the paper toward the light.
The ink was too dark to read clearly. Jack could not prove what you had written. He knew what he hoped it said.
I miss you.
The thought settled heavily beneath his ribs.
Jack continued.
I hope you’re eating enough. I know that sounds like something Robby would say, but I’m choosing not to examine what that means for me.
Write when you can. I remember what you said about replies taking a while. I’m not keeping score.
I hope you’re safe.
The letter ended there.
Almost.
A word beneath the final sentence had been crossed out so heavily that the paper had softened beneath the ink. Jack brought the page closer. The first mark might have been an L. The last curve looked like an e.
He could not make out anything between them.
He could not prove the word had been Love.
Jack read it that way anyway.
Beneath the blackened word, you had written another closing.
Yours,
Robinavitch
Jack stared at it until the letters blurred slightly.
Yours.
It could have meant nothing.
A joke. A safer replacement. Something you had chosen because signing your full name would be impossible in a letter where no name existed for you beyond the one Robby had given you both.
Jack still pressed his thumb over the word.
He reread the entire letter. Then he read it a third time, slowing down whenever he reached the sentences you had tried to hide. By the time lights-out approached, Jack had memorized most of the first page. He folded the sheets carefully along their original creases and returned them to the envelope. He tucked it beneath the thin mattress near the head of his bunk, somewhere no one else would touch it.
Then Jack found a sheet of lined paper and sat with his back against the wall. He wrote the date first. His pen hovered beneath it while he considered how to begin.
Dear Robinavitch,
Jack looked at the words. Too formal. He drew one line through them and tried again.
Hey, Robinavitch,
That was better.
It sounded like the Jeep. The porch. Your eyes narrowing whenever he said something only to make you argue with him.
Jack continued.
Your roommate is right about the bear. It’s ugly. I won it for you anyway, so you’re legally required to keep it forever.
His mouth lifted faintly.
I’ve had enough time to miss you. You can tell Robby to stop worrying about it.
Jack stopped writing.
The sentence looked too honest sitting on the page. He considered crossing it out. Instead, he left it there. For once, he let you have the truth. Jack lowered his pen to the page again.
Everything here is loud. I didn’t know that many people could make that much noise before sunrise. There’s a guy three bunks down who snores like he’s trying to start a lawn mower. I’m considering reporting him as a threat to national security.
He paused, listening to that same man arguing with someone across the room. Jack added another line.
I keep waking up before they tell us to. For a second, I think I’m back on the porch.
The words felt more vulnerable once they were written. He left them anyway.
I miss driving you to work.
I miss your coffee sitting in the cup holder.
Jack hesitated before writing the next sentence.
I miss the skirt, but you probably already knew that.
A quiet laugh escaped him. The man on the next bunk glanced over.
“Girlfriend?” the man asked.
Jack folded one arm over the page.
“Not exactly,” Jack replied.
The man gave him a knowing look.
“That sounds healthy,” he observed.
Jack returned his attention to the letter.
“Mind your business,” he said.
The man laughed beneath his breath and leaned back against the wall. Jack lowered his pen to the page again.
Tell Robby I’m eating. Tell him I know how to use a lock. Tell him I’ll believe the professor is terrible after you’ve met him.
He stopped at the bottom of the page.
There were still things he wanted to say.
He wanted to tell you he had considered getting off the bus before it left the parking lot. He wanted to tell you that every night felt wrong without your weight curled against him. He wanted to ask whether you had meant the word beneath all that ink. Instead, Jack wrote:
Keep writing.
His pen remained pressed to the paper. Then he added:
Even when it takes me a while to answer.
Jack considered the closing. He wrote the first word before he could stop himself.
Love,
The sight of it tightened something in his chest. Jack stared at the word. It was true. That did not make it fair to send.
He drew a line through it, dark enough to obscure the middle but not enough to erase the shape completely. Beneath it, he signed his name.
Jack
He folded the page before he could change his mind.
His reply reached you eleven days later.
You found the envelope waiting in the narrow metal box downstairs after your final class of the afternoon.
The moment you saw his handwriting, the hallway around you disappeared. Your roommate was sitting cross-legged on her bed when you entered the room. She looked up from her textbook as you closed the door behind you.
“You got something,” she observed.
You held the envelope against your chest.
“I did,” you replied.
Her gaze dropped toward Jack’s name in the return address.
“Is that the sentimental-value bear guy?” she asked.
You crossed the room and sat beside the bear.
“He has a name,” you said.
Your roommate closed her textbook around one finger.
“That isn’t a no,” she pointed out.
You tried to open the envelope carefully. Your fingers tore the corner anyway. Your roommate watched your face as you unfolded the page.
She opened her textbook again.
“You’re smiling,” she noted.
You raised the page high enough to hide your face.
“Read your book,” you instructed.
The first line made your chest ache.
Hey, Robinavitch,
You could hear his voice in it.
By the time you reached the sentence about having enough time to miss you, your eyes had filled. You pressed your lips together and continued. The joke about his bunkmate made you laugh. The line about waking on the porch made you stop. You read that one twice.
Then you reached the skirt.
A startled sound escaped you. Your roommate looked over again.
“What did bear guy say?” she asked.
You folded the page partially closed.
“Nothing you need to know,” you replied.
Her eyebrows lifted.
“That sounds worse than what I imagined,” she said.
You ignored her and returned to the letter.
At the bottom of the page, one word had been crossed out. You brought the paper closer. Jack had drawn a single heavy line through it, but the first letter still curved above the ink. An L.
The last letter might have been an e. Your thumb traced the edge of the paper.
You could not prove that he had written Love.
You read it that way anyway.
The next Sunday, you wrote back. Then the Sunday after that. And the one after that.
At first, the letters came often enough that waiting for them felt almost sweet.
You told Jack about classes, your roommate, and the professor you had correctly predicted you would hate. He told you about the men in his unit, early mornings, and food he claimed had been designed as punishment. You sent him a photograph of the bear sitting at your desk with one of your textbooks open in front of it.
In his next letter, Jack wrote:
He still looks stupid.
I miss him a little. Don’t tell him.
You pressed the letter against your mouth to keep from smiling too widely in the library. You sent Jack a pressed red leaf when the trees began changing. His next letter arrived with pieces of it caught inside the fold.
Hey, Robinavitch,
Your leaf exploded. I’m assuming that wasn’t the intended effect.
You wrote back that he lacked appreciation for romance. Jack answered that dead foliage was not romantic. You wrote that he had kissed you beneath a carnival sign shaped like a giant hot dog and therefore had no authority on the subject. His reply took nearly two weeks.
When it came, the greeting had changed.
Hey you,
You stopped there.
The rest of the page waited beneath your thumb, but you read those two words again. Then once more. Jack had never written them before. It should not have felt different from your last name. It did.
I’ll have you know the hot dog sign added to the romantic atmosphere.
You laughed quietly and kept reading.
Saw a Jeep yesterday. Wrong color. Looked anyway.
Your smile faded.
You carried that letter in your bag until the edges softened.
The weather turned colder before either of you acknowledged that the letters had become something you depended on. You wrote about the first snow. Jack wrote that he remembered how cold your feet got on the porch. You accused him of complaining. He reminded you that he had warmed them every time. One envelope contained only half a page.
Hey you,
Bad week. I’m fine. Just tired. Write me something stupid.
You filled four pages with the story of your roommate accidentally walking into the wrong lecture hall and staying for twenty minutes because she was too embarrassed to leave.
Jack’s reply arrived faster than the previous one.
That helped.
You slept with those two words beneath your pillow. The letters still felt like a promise then. Neither of you had realized that promises could weaken without ever being broken.
By November, Jack’s replies began arriving farther apart.
By December, you had started rereading the old ones while you waited.
You reminded yourself that he had warned you.
His days were not his own. He could not sit down every Sunday with a cup of coffee and three uninterrupted hours at a desk. He wrote when someone gave him the time, the paper, and enough energy to keep his eyes open.
You knew that.
Knowing did not stop you from checking the mail every afternoon.
Sometimes two weeks passed between letters. Once, nearly four. Jack always apologized when one finally arrived.
Hey you,
Sorry this took so long. We’ve been busy. I’m okay. Tired, but okay.
The rest of the page contained a few stories he had chosen because they would make you laugh. A man in his unit had fallen asleep sitting upright. Someone had misplaced a boot and accused everyone else of stealing it. Jack had consumed coffee so bad that he briefly considered it an act of war. He never told you what had kept him from writing.
You began to understand that ‘busy’ could mean almost anything.
Your replies changed too.
At first, you had written everything.
You told Jack when you were lonely. You told him when you dreamed about the porch. You described memories of him in enough detail that your face warmed as you wrote them. Then one of your longer letters received a reply barely half a page long. Jack answered your story about class. He teased you about the bear. He told you he was proud of the grade you had earned. He said nothing about the paragraph where you admitted you still sometimes woke expecting to find him beside you.
You told yourself he had been interrupted. You told yourself the paragraph had made him uncomfortable. Eventually, you told yourself it had not meant enough to require an answer.
The following Sunday, you left those things out.
Your letters became easier to read in crowded rooms. You wrote about school and Robby. You told Jack when it snowed and when your roommate’s boyfriend finally stopped sitting at your desk. You asked questions about his days that he rarely answered directly.
Jack noticed the difference.
He sat on the edge of his bunk one night with your latest letter open in his hands. It was four pages long. You had filled every page. There was not a single sentence about missing him. Jack read it again, searching for one. He found a story about Robby burning dinner. A complaint about an upcoming exam. A description of the snow outside your dorm window. At the bottom, you had written:
I hope you’re doing okay. Write when you can.
No crossed-out word appeared beneath it.
No Yours.
You had signed only your last name.
Jack folded the letter and unfolded it again. The man in the next bunk glanced over from unlacing his boots.
“Bad news?” the man asked.
Jack kept his eyes on the page.
“No,” Jack replied. “She’s doing good.”
The man studied him for a moment.
“You don’t look happy about it,” he observed.
Jack folded the letter along its creases.
“I am,” Jack said.
The man pulled off one boot and let it drop beside his bunk.
“That still doesn’t sound healthy,” he remarked.
Jack slid your letter back into its envelope.
“Still not your business,” Jack replied.
He kept the envelope beneath his mattress with the others.
By then, the stack had grown thick enough that he had wrapped a rubber band around it. He did not write that night. He wanted to ask why you had stopped saying you missed him. Jack could not ask without first admitting how badly he needed you to say it. He wrote three days later.
Hey Robinavitch,
The return to your last name was deliberate.
Jack told himself it was familiar. Safer. He did not let himself consider how "Hey you," had begun to sound like something he no longer had the right to call you.
You went home with Robby for winter break.
The crooked bear sat in the passenger seat on the drive because your suitcase had taken up most of the trunk space. Robby looked at it every few miles with increasing irritation. You rested your head against the cold window. Jack’s latest letter sat folded inside your coat pocket.
Hey Robinavitch,
You had noticed the change immediately. You hated that you had noticed. Robby drove another mile before looking at you.
“Have you heard from him?” Robby asked.
Your fingers closed around the edge of the letter through your pocket.
“Yesterday,” you answered.
Robby waited for more. You watched bare trees pass beyond the glass.
“He’s fine,” you added.
Robby’s hands shifted on the steering wheel.
“That’s all he said?” Robby asked.
“He said other things,” you replied.
Robby glanced toward you.
“You don’t sound convinced,” he observed.
You pulled the letter from your pocket and smoothed the fold across your knee. Jack had written about the weather. He had told you about a man who could fall asleep anywhere. He had asked about your exams. He had signed only his name.
“He’s busy,” you said.
Robby released a slow breath through his nose.
“You both do that,” Robby muttered.
You turned toward him.
“Do what?” you asked.
Robby kept his gaze on the road.
“Act like everything’s fine because neither of you wants to say what’s actually wrong,” he replied.
Your fingers tightened around the letter.
“Nothing’s wrong,” you said.
Robby glanced at you.
“Right,” he said.
Your eyes narrowed.
“What is that supposed to mean?” you asked.
Robby adjusted the heat.
“It means I’m driving,” he replied.
“You can drive and explain yourself,” you said.
Robby looked toward the bear strapped into the seat beside you.
“I’m already trapped in a car with you and that thing,” Robby said. “I’m not getting dragged into whatever you and Jack are doing.”
You shoved the bear toward him. Robby caught it with one hand before it struck the gearshift.
“Violence proves my point,” he said.
The argument distracted you until you reached home.
It did not distract you that night.
You lay beneath the blankets in your old bedroom with Jack’s letters spread across the mattress. The earliest ones were soft at the edges from being handled so often.
I’ve had enough time to miss you.
I keep waking up before they tell us to because for a second, I think I’m back on the porch.
Saw a Jeep yesterday. Wrong color. Looked anyway.
The newer letters were shorter.
Jack still asked about you.
He still remembered the names of your professors and the dates of your exams. He still made you laugh. He still told you to keep writing.
But the space around those things had changed.
Or perhaps you had.
You pulled a blank sheet of paper from your desk.
For nearly an hour, you wrote about winter break.
You told Jack that Robby had insulted the bear for most of the drive. You described the frozen edge of the lake and how strange the cabin looked beneath snow. You complained that Robby had already asked about your grades six times.
Then you stopped pretending. Your pen rested against the paper. You began a new paragraph.
Sometimes I wonder if we made a mistake deciding everything before you left.
You stared at the sentence. Your heart beat hard enough to make your hand tremble. You kept writing.
I know we said it was just the summer. I don’t know if either of us believed that by the end.
You paused. The room seemed too quiet. Another sentence followed before fear could stop you.
I don’t know what I’m asking. I think I just need to know whether I imagined what it became.
You read the paragraph until every word felt dangerous. Then you folded the letter before you could remove it.
Jack received it after the new year.
He recognized something was different before he reached the second page. Your stories were there. Your jokes. Robby’s continued campaign against the bear.
Then Jack found the paragraph.
He read it once. His body went still. He read it again.
I think I just need to know whether I imagined what it became.
Jack lowered the letter to his knee.
Around him, the room carried on without noticing that everything had changed. You had given him an opening. More than an opening. You had reached across every mile between you and asked him to tell the truth. Jack found paper that night.
Hey you,
He stopped. Then he wrote:
You didn’t imagine it.
Jack’s pen moved faster.
I didn’t believe it was only the summer either. I wanted to ask you to wait for me. I almost did at the bus.
He stared at the sentences.
He pictured you back at school, arranging your days around envelopes that might take weeks to arrive. He imagined asking you to spend years waiting, with no certainty to offer you. No clear date. No home. No promise that the Army would leave him the same person who had boarded that bus.
You were nineteen.
Your life was beginning.
Jack loved you too much to ask you to build it around his absence.
His hand tightened around the pen.
He drew a line through the paragraph.
The ink did not hide the words well enough.
Jack tore the page in half.
He started again.
Hey Robinavitch,
Sorry this took a while. Things have been busy here.
Jack paused after the sentence.
It sounded cruel.
He did not know how to make it kinder without asking you for something he believed he had no right to ask.
I’m glad the semester went well. I knew you’d do great.
His jaw tightened.
Jack added one final line.
I’m proud of you.
He signed his name.
The letter sat beside his bunk for two days before he mailed it.
You knew his answer before you finished the first paragraph.
Jack had read what you wrote.
You could tell because he had mentioned everything surrounding it. Your grades. Robby. The weather. He had stepped carefully around the only question you had actually asked.
You read the letter once.
Then you folded it and placed it inside the box beneath your bed.
Your roommate glanced up from her desk.
“Everything okay?” she asked.
You pushed the box farther beneath the frame with your foot.
“Yeah,” you replied.
Your roommate watched you stand.
“You sure?” she asked.
You picked up your coat from the back of the chair.
“He’s busy,” you said.
The explanation had become so familiar that it barely sounded like language anymore.
Your roommate’s expression softened.
She did not ask again.
You left the dorm and crossed campus without deciding where you were going.
Snow had begun falling in thin, dry flakes. Students hurried between buildings with their heads lowered against the wind.
You reached the library before the cold forced you inside.
Every table near the entrance was occupied.
You climbed to the second floor, removed your gloves, and searched for an empty seat.
A man from your morning lecture lifted his backpack from the chair beside him.
“You can sit here,” he offered.
You stopped beside the table.
You recognized him after a moment. His name was Ryan.
He had lent you a pen the week before and remembered to ask for it back only after you had carried it through two additional classes.
Ryan nodded toward the chair.
“I promise not to talk,” he said. “You looked ready to kill someone when the guy behind us kept tapping his foot this morning.”
A reluctant laugh escaped you.
Ryan smiled.
It was easy. Warm. Present.
You pulled out the chair.
“Thank you,” you said as you sat.
Ryan returned his attention to his textbook.
For the next hour, Ryan remained quietly beside you.
By the time you packed your books, you realized you had gone nearly sixty minutes without thinking about when Jack might write again.
The realization felt like a betrayal.
You wrote to Jack that Sunday anyway.
His reply arrived three weeks later.
Hey Robinavitch,
Sorry. Busy again. Good luck on your exam. Not that you need it.
Jack
Nothing in the letter was unkind.
That almost made it worse.
Jack still remembered your exams. He still asked about Robby. He still wrote as though the two of you belonged to the same life.
He simply would not tell you what you were to him.
Ryan continued saving you a seat.
He remembered how you took your coffee. He walked beside you after class without demanding conversation. The first time he asked you out, you declined.
Ryan accepted the answer without asking you to explain it.
Jack’s next letter arrived almost a month later.
Hey Robinavitch,
My assignment is changing. I might not be able to write as much for a while.
Keep doing what you’re doing. You’re going to be great.
Jack
You read the final line twice.
It sounded like something someone said before stepping out of the way.
Two days later, Ryan waited outside the library with two cups of coffee.
“The place across the street is still there,” Ryan said as he offered one to you.
You accepted the cup.
“That’s reassuring,” you replied.
Ryan smiled.
“Would you like to go with me this time?” he asked.
Jack’s letter sat folded inside your bag. You thought about the question you had asked him. You thought about the answer he had chosen not to give. Then you looked at Ryan. He was here. He was kind. He was asking plainly.
“Okay,” you said.
Ryan’s eyebrows lifted. “Okay?” he repeated.
You nodded.
“I’ll have coffee with you,” you clarified.
His smile widened.
“Great,” Ryan said. “I was running out of dignified ways to ask.”
You laughed as he opened the door for you.
That night, Jack’s letters remained inside the box beneath your bed.
Ryan gradually became part of your life.
There was no single moment when coffee after class became dinner on Friday nights or when walking you back to the dorm became waiting until you were safely inside. He simply kept showing up until his presence felt familiar.
Jack’s letters continued arriving. They grew shorter.
Sometimes weeks passed between them. Sometimes months.
You still wrote, but not every Sunday. You told yourself that was because school had become busier.
Jack told himself the same thing whenever your handwriting did not appear with the mail.
By the time Ryan reached for your hand without hesitation, there was no honest way to call him only a friend.
You sat at your desk that night with a blank page in front of you.
Ryan’s name looked strange in the middle of a letter meant for Jack. You nearly removed it. Instead, you kept writing.
Dear Jack,
I’ve been spending time with someone from school. His name is Ryan. He’s good to me. I don’t know exactly what it is yet, but I didn’t want you to hear about him from Robby.
You stopped there.
There were a hundred ways to ask Jack whether the news bothered him. You chose none of them. The letter ended with an update about classes and a complaint about the cafeteria.
You signed only your last name.
Jack’s answer took nearly a month.
He read your letter alone, long after the room around him had gone quiet.
Ryan.
Jack went back to the beginning and read the name again.
He had known this would happen.
That was what he had wanted for you.
A life that did not depend upon a mailbox. Someone who could sit beside you instead of sending paper across hundreds of miles. Someone who could ask for what Jack had been too afraid to request.
The knowledge did nothing to ease the pressure beneath his ribs.
Jack started three replies. He destroyed the first two. The third contained the only response he believed he had the right to send.
Hey Robinavitch,
You don’t owe me an explanation.
Jack paused before adding the next line.
I’m glad he’s good to you.
His pen remained against the page.
He wanted to write that kindness was the minimum Ryan owed you.
He wanted to ask whether Ryan made you laugh.
He wanted to know whether Ryan had kissed you and whether you had thought of Jack afterward.
Instead, Jack wrote:
You deserve that.
He signed his name and mailed the letter before he could become selfish.
You cried when it arrived.
Not because Jack had been cruel.
Because he had been kind enough to let you go without a fight.
Ryan found you sitting on the floor beside your bed with the letter open across your knees.
He stopped in the doorway.
“Do you want me to leave?” Ryan asked.
You wiped at your face.
“No,” you replied.
Ryan entered slowly and sat beside you.
His gaze dropped toward the page, but he did not try to read it.
“Is that from him?” Ryan asked.
You nodded. Ryan rested his arms across his knees.
“You don’t have to tell me,” he said.
You folded the letter along its creases.
“He said he’s glad you’re good to me,” you answered.
Ryan looked down.
“That’s a strange thing to hear from someone you’ve never met,” he said.
A wet laugh escaped you.
“It sounds like Jack,” you replied.
Ryan glanced toward you.
“He’s always going to matter to you,” Ryan said.
The words were gentle. You looked down at the letter in your hands.
“Yes,” you admitted.
Ryan accepted the answer more easily than you did.
He reached for your hand and waited until you allowed him to take it.
“I’m not asking you to pretend he doesn’t,” Ryan said.
You tightened your fingers around his.
Ryan stayed beside you until the tears stopped.
That was the kind of man he was.
Years passed.
Ryan remained.
Over time, you told him enough about the cabin, the letters, and the bus to explain why Jack would always matter, though never enough to make the story feel finished.
Jack deployed to the Middle East.
His letters became rarer, but they never disappeared entirely.
They arrived from places he could not name and carried details too ordinary to be frightening.
Hey Robinavitch,
It’s hot. The coffee is terrible. You’d hate both.
Another came months later.
Tell Robby I got his package. He packed enough socks to outfit the entire unit.
You wrote back that Robby had always confused excessive preparation with affection.
Jack replied that the two were probably the same thing.
The letters no longer belonged beneath your pillow.
You kept them in the box under your bed.
You answered them from the kitchen table in the apartment you eventually shared with Ryan.
Jack came home on leave when he could.
You saw him at Robby’s.
The first time, you stood in the doorway and stared at him long enough that Robby cleared his throat.
Jack looked older.
Not dramatically. Only in the places around his eyes and in the way he held himself.
You crossed the room and wrapped your arms around him.
Jack held you tightly.
For one dangerous second, neither of you let go.
Then Ryan entered behind you.
Jack released you first.
Ryan extended his hand.
“You must be Jack,” Ryan said.
Jack accepted it.
“You must be Ryan,” Jack replied.
Robby watched the exchange from the kitchen.
No one acknowledged how much history had entered the room with them.
Ryan was easy with Jack.
That almost made it harder.
He listened to Jack’s stories. He laughed at the right places. He never treated Jack as a threat he needed to defeat.
Jack liked him despite himself.
When Jack returned overseas, Ryan drove you home from Robby’s.
You watched the road through the passenger window.
Ryan kept one hand on the steering wheel.
“He seems like a good man,” Ryan said.
You turned toward him.
“He is,” you replied.
Ryan nodded once. He did not ask anything else.
The years settled into a careful rhythm.
Jack deployed. Jack returned. Ryan graduated. You graduated.
Robby moved forward with his own life.
You and Jack saw each other at holidays, birthdays, and the occasional dinner whenever timing allowed.
You learned how to ask about his work without asking whether he was afraid.
Jack learned how to ask about Ryan without letting his voice change.
Neither of you wrote Love again.
Then Robby called in the middle of the night.
You woke to the phone ringing beside the bed. Ryan shifted beside you as you reached for it.
“Hello?” you answered, your voice rough with sleep.
For several seconds, Robby said nothing. You sat upright.
“Michael?” you asked.
Ryan opened his eyes. Robby drew a breath on the other end of the line.
“It’s Jack,” Robby said.
Every trace of sleep left your body.
“What happened?” you asked.
Robby’s voice broke slightly before he steadied it.
“He was injured overseas,” Robby said. “They had to amputate his leg.”
The room went silent around you. You gripped the phone hard enough that your fingers hurt.
“Is he alive?” you asked.
Ryan pushed himself upright beside you.
“He’s alive,” Robby answered quickly. “He’s stable. They’re transferring him stateside as soon as they can.”
You closed your eyes. The breath leaving you sounded broken. Ryan placed one hand between your shoulder blades.
“Where?” you asked.
Robby told you which military hospital was expected to receive him. You were already pushing the blankets away.
“When?” you asked.
“They expect him tomorrow,” Robby replied. “Maybe later, depending on the flight.”
You stood and reached blindly for the clothes draped over the chair.
Robby’s voice softened.
“Pack a bag,” he said. “I’m coming to get you.”
“I’ll be ready,” you replied.
You ended the call.
For one moment, you stood beside the bed holding the phone against your chest.
Ryan got up without asking whether you planned to go.
He crossed to the closet and pulled down your overnight bag.
“I’ll help you pack,” Ryan said.
Your face crumpled.
Ryan placed the bag on the bed and came to you. You pressed both hands against his chest.
“They took his leg,” you whispered.
Ryan wrapped his arms around you.
“I know,” he said quietly.
You clung to him while the first sob broke free.
Ryan held you through it.
Then Ryan helped you pack to leave for the hospital.
The hospital room felt too bright.
Robby entered first.
You followed him through the doorway and stopped.
Jack lay asleep beneath the white blankets.
For one stunned second, you could not make the man in the bed fit over the Jack you knew.
His skin looked pale beneath the fluorescent lights. A dark bruise spread along one side of his face, and a healing cut marked the edge of his brow. His hair lay damp and disordered against the pillow.
Machines surrounded him.
Lines disappeared beneath the blanket.
You did not let yourself look any lower than his chest.
Robby moved toward the bed.
You stayed near the door with your overnight bag still hanging from your shoulder.
Your body had carried you through hours of travel, the waiting room, and every corridor between there and Jack.
Now it refused to move another step.
A nurse adjusted the line connected to his arm before looking toward both of you.
“He’s stable,” she explained quietly. “He’s exhausted from the transport, and the medication will keep him pretty groggy. He may wake confused or frightened.”
Robby nodded.
“Can he hear us?” Robby asked.
“He may be able to,” the nurse answered. “Familiar voices can help.”
The nurse checked the monitor once more. Then she left the room. The door closed behind her.
Silence settled around the soft rhythm of the machines.
Robby reached the bedside. He rested one hand carefully against Jack’s shoulder.
“Hey, man,” Robby said. “You made it.”
Jack did not stir. Robby swallowed.
“You’re stateside,” he continued. “You’re safe.”
Your fingers tightened around the strap of your bag.
Robby looked back at you.
His eyes were red from lack of sleep and everything neither of you had been able to say since the call.
“He made it,” Robby said softly.
You nodded. The movement felt disconnected from the rest of you.
“I know,” you replied.
Robby turned back toward Jack.
“You scared the hell out of us,” he said.
Jack’s face tightened. Robby leaned closer.
“Easy,” Robby murmured. “You don’t have to wake up.”
Jack shifted faintly against the pillow.
A pained sound caught low in his throat. The monitor beside him changed rhythm. Your bag slipped from your shoulder and landed near the door.
Jack’s brow furrowed.
His head moved restlessly across the pillow.
Robby placed his hand more firmly against Jack’s shoulder.
“You’re okay,” Robby said. “You’re in the hospital.”
Jack’s lips moved.
The first sound was too quiet to understand.
Robby bent closer.
“What is it?” Robby asked.
Jack tried again.
Your name left him in a rough, broken whisper.
Everything inside you stopped.
Robby looked over his shoulder.
Jack said your name again.
You crossed the room before you realized you had moved.
“I’m here,” you said.
Your voice broke on the final word.
Jack’s hand shifted weakly across the blanket.
You reached for it with both of yours.
His fingers closed around you the moment you touched him.
A sob rose into your throat.
You pulled the chair closer and sat beside the bed without letting go.
“I’m here,” you repeated.
Jack’s eyes remained closed.
His face tightened as another wave of pain or confusion moved through him.
You lifted one shaking hand and brushed his hair away from his forehead.
“You’re safe,” you whispered. “You’re here. Robby’s here.”
Jack turned faintly toward your touch.
A tear slipped from the corner of his closed eye.
Your own tears spilled over.
You caught his tear with your thumb before it reached his temple. Another followed.
“I’m right here, Jack,” you said.
His grip tightened around your hand. Jack’s mouth moved.
“You came,” he whispered.
Your face crumpled.
“Of course I came,” you answered.
The words broke apart around a sob.
You smoothed your fingers through his hair again.
Jack’s lashes fluttered, but his eyes did not fully open. Tears continued slipping from beneath them.
You brushed each one away as carefully as you could.
You kept smoothing his hair back while his breathing fought to settle.
Jack’s breathing remained uneven.
His fingers held yours with what little strength he had.
“Thought you weren’t,” he murmured.
A broken sound escaped you.
You brought his hand against your cheek.
“I’m here now,” you said.
Jack’s thumb moved weakly against your skin.
His face tightened as another tear escaped.
You leaned closer and kept brushing his hair back from his forehead.
“You’re not alone,” you whispered. “Robby’s right here. I’m right here.”
Across the bed, Robby stood motionless.
His eyes shone as he watched Jack turn toward your voice.
You did not look away from Jack.
You kept one hand wrapped around his.
You used the other to wipe the tears from his face.
Slowly, his breathing began to settle.
The tension eased from his brow.
Jack drifted deeper beneath the medication with his fingers still tangled through yours.
You remained bent over him, crying quietly.
Your thumb moved across his knuckles.
Your other hand stayed in his hair.
Only after several minutes did your gaze fall toward the blanket.
The shape beneath it ended too soon on one side.
Your hand stilled.
A sob tore out of you before you could contain it.
Robby moved around the bed and placed a hand between your shoulders.
You closed your eyes.
Jack was alive.
You forced yourself to hold onto that.
Jack shifted faintly toward your touch.
You looked back at him immediately.
Then you resumed smoothing his hair away from his forehead.
“I’m here,” you whispered once more.
You kept your hand in his hair until your own breathing steadied.
You stayed beside Jack until morning.
Robby eventually convinced you to move from the edge of the chair, but you refused to release Jack’s hand. You rested your head against the mattress instead, your cheek near his wrist while exhaustion dragged at your body.
Sometime before dawn, Robby draped his jacket across your shoulders.
You barely noticed.
Jack’s fingers shifted inside yours.
You woke immediately.
Your head lifted from the edge of the mattress, Robby’s jacket sliding from one shoulder.
Jack’s eyes were open.
For a moment, they moved around the room without finding anything. His brow tightened beneath the healing cut near his temple, and his breathing came shallow beneath the hospital gown. You pushed upright.
“Jack?” you asked.
His gaze found you. Recognition moved slowly across his face.
“You’re here,” Jack murmured.
Your eyes filled before you could stop them.
“I’m here,” you confirmed.
Robby stirred in the chair near the window and stood. He crossed the room as Jack looked toward him.
“How do you feel?” Robby asked.
Jack swallowed. “Like hell,” he replied.
Robby released a strained breath that almost became a laugh.
“That sounds more like you,” Robby said.
Jack’s gaze drifted downward. It stopped at the blanket. His entire body went still. You felt the change in his hand before you saw the fear enter his face. His fingers closed painfully around yours.
“My leg,” Jack said.
Robby moved closer.
“Jack,” Robby began.
Jack stared at the shape beneath the blanket. His breathing sharpened.
“My leg,” Jack repeated.
You stood from the chair.
“Jack, look at me,” you said softly.
He did not. His eyes stayed fixed on the place where the blanket fell too flat.
“They took my leg,” Jack said.
His voice cracked through the final word.
The monitor beside him quickened. Robby pressed the call button. Jack tried to push himself upright. Pain tore across his face.
“Easy,” you said as you leaned over him. “Don’t move.”
Jack shook his head.
“No,” he said. “No, it’s—”
His breath caught. Then his eyes lifted to yours. The panic in them stole the air from your lungs.
“It’s gone,” Jack said.
Tears spilled down his face. “My leg is gone.”
Your own face crumpled.
“I know,” you whispered.
You reached for him.
Jack reached for you at the same time.
His arm wrapped tightly around your waist. His hand caught in the back of your shirt and pulled you toward him with enough force to make the bed rail rattle.
You lowered the rail and sat carefully on the edge of the mattress.
Jack gathered you against him. He held on with everything he had. His face pressed into your chest, and a broken sob tore out of him.
“It’s gone,” Jack said against you. “My leg is gone.”
You wrapped one arm around his shoulders and cradled the back of his head with the other.
“I know,” you cried. “I know, Jack. I’m so sorry.”
His fingers twisted harder into your shirt. You felt every ragged breath against your body.
“I’ve got you,” you whispered.
Jack shook in your arms. You smoothed your hand through his hair and pressed your cheek against the top of his head.
“You’re safe,” you told him. “Robby’s here. I’m here.”
Jack’s grip tightened.
“It’s gone,” he repeated.
“I know,” you said through your tears.
You brushed your fingers through his hair again. “I’m here.”
Jack lifted his face only far enough to look at you. Tears clung to his lashes and tracked down both cheeks. You cupped his face. Your thumbs brushed them away, but more followed.
“Don’t go,” Jack said.
Your breath broke.
“I’m not going anywhere,” you promised.
Jack pulled you back against him. You held him tighter. Robby stood beside the bed with one hand resting firmly on Jack’s shoulder. His own eyes shone, but he did not look away.
His breathing still caught. His body still shook. Grief continued moving through him in hard, uneven waves. But he stopped trying to rise from the bed. He stopped staring at the blanket.
He let you hold him.
Each time panic tightened his grip again, you answered.
“I know,” you whispered.
His hand tightened in your shirt.
“I’m here,” you repeated.
Jack buried his face against you.
You kept one hand in his hair and the other around his shoulders. You stayed there while he cried. And when the nurse finally entered, she found Jack clinging to you, Robby beside him, and your voice still moving softly through the room.
“You’re safe,” you whispered.
Jack held on tighter.
“I’m here,” you said again.
The first weeks of Jack’s recovery passed in pieces.
Pain medication blurred some of them.
Others remained too sharp.
You stayed through the first week, sleeping only when Robby made you. After you returned home, you came back whenever work and distance allowed.
You sat through doctor visits you were not sure you had the right to attend. You learned which silences meant Jack was tired and which meant he was trying not to fall apart. You brought coffee he barely drank and books he pretended to read.
Ryan called every evening.
He never asked when you were coming home. He asked whether Jack had eaten. He asked whether Robby was sleeping. He reminded you to change your clothes and drink water. When you apologized for being gone, Ryan stopped you.
“You’re where you need to be,” Ryan said.
The kindness of it made you cry after the call ended. Jack noticed Ryan’s name lighting up your phone. He noticed the way your voice softened when you answered. He never asked you to stay longer than you already had. As the medication lessened, Jack remembered more. He remembered calling for you. He remembered your arms around him. He remembered begging you not to leave.
The clearer his mind became, the more carefully he held himself around you.
He still let you sit beside him. He still accepted your hand during the worst nights. But he stopped reaching first.
Physical therapy began.
Jack hated it.
He hated being watched while he struggled. He hated needing help to move. He hated the empty space his body continued insisting should not be empty. Robby endured his anger. You endured his silence.
Some days, Jack made progress.
On others, he threw whatever was closest and immediately apologized. You visited less often once he transferred into rehabilitation. Not because you wanted to. Because Ryan was waiting, work was waiting, and Jack had begun answering every offer with the same words.
“I’m okay,” Jack said.
You both knew he was not.
You both understood the lie. You let him have it anyway.
Before you left after one visit, Jack caught your wrist.
You turned back toward him. His hand loosened immediately.
“Thank you,” Jack said.
You looked at him.
“For what?” you asked.
Jack’s gaze dropped between you.
“For coming,” he replied.
Your throat tightened.
“Of course I came,” you said.
Jack nodded once. He released your wrist.
That became the shape of the years that followed.
Jack recovered.
Not all at once.
He learned to stand again. Then walk. Then move through the world without looking for the part of himself that was gone. He returned to school. Then medical school. Then residency. Medicine gave him somewhere to put everything he had survived.
Ryan remained beside you.
You moved into an apartment together and learned each other’s routines.
Jack remained in your life through Robby.
At holidays, he took the chair across from you. At dinners, he asked about your work. You asked about his. Sometimes your eyes met across a room and held for one second too long.
Then one of you looked away.
Years passed.
Ryan became the man who knew how you took your coffee, which side of the bed you slept on, and how to talk you down when anxiety turned your thoughts against you.
He loved you steadily.
You loved him too.
That was why the end hurt as much as it did.
Ryan sat across from you at the kitchen table.
The tea between you had gone cold. Neither of you had touched it in nearly twenty minutes. Ryan rested both hands around his mug anyway. His thumbs moved slowly along the ceramic, tracing the same path again and again.
You watched him do it.
The apartment felt too quiet. The refrigerator hummed behind you. A car passed outside. Somewhere upstairs, someone dropped something heavy enough to shake the ceiling. Ryan did not look up.
“I want to marry you,” he said.
Your chest tightened. He lifted his gaze then. Ryan watched the fear move across your face before you could hide it. His expression softened. That made it worse. You reached across the table.
“Ryan,” you began.
He turned one hand beneath yours and held on.
“I know you love me,” Ryan said.
Tears burned behind your eyes.
“I do,” you told him.
Ryan nodded once.
“I know,” he replied.
His fingers tightened around yours.
“That’s what makes this so hard,” he added.
You looked down at your joined hands. Ryan had held yours through exams, graduations, new apartments, bad jobs, family dinners, and every moment when anxiety convinced you that the ground beneath you was about to disappear. He had never once made love feel like something you had to earn.
“What are you saying?” you whispered.
Ryan released a breath. “I think you know,” he said gently.
Your eyes lifted to his. Ryan looked tired. Not angry. Not accusing. Only tired in a way that made guilt press painfully beneath your ribs.
“I want a wife,” Ryan said. “I want children. I want a home that feels permanent.”
Your throat tightened. “I know,” you replied.
Ryan studied your face.
“I want those things with you,” he continued.
A tear slipped down your cheek. You wiped it away quickly. Ryan’s gaze followed the movement.
“But every time I talk about them,” he said, “you look terrified.”
“I’m not terrified of you,” you said.
“I know,” Ryan replied.
He rubbed his thumb over your knuckles.
“That isn’t what I said,” he added.
You looked away. The ring of condensation beneath your untouched mug had begun spreading across the table.
“I just need more time,” you said.
Ryan’s face tightened. “You’ve been saying that for three years.”
The words were not cruel. They still hurt. You pulled in a shaky breath.
“I’m trying,” you said.
Ryan closed his eyes briefly. “I know you are,” he replied.
He opened them again.
“That’s the problem,” he continued. “You shouldn’t have to try this hard to want a life with me.”
Your grip tightened around his hand.
“I do want a life with you,” you insisted.
Ryan held your gaze.
“Then why does marrying me feel like losing something?” he asked.
The question struck so cleanly that you could not answer. Ryan saw it. His face folded for one brief second before he regained control. You shook your head.
“It doesn’t,” you said.
Ryan’s eyes filled.
“You looked like you couldn’t breathe when I said it,” he replied.
Your mouth opened. Nothing came out. Ryan looked down at your hands again. For several seconds, neither of you spoke. Then he released a slow breath.
“I’ve spent a long time telling myself this has nothing to do with Jack,” Ryan said.
Your entire body went still. Ryan’s thumb stopped moving. He did not release your hand.
“I’m not waiting for Jack,” you said.
“I know,” Ryan replied.
The certainty in his voice surprised you. Ryan looked at you again.
“I don’t think you’ve spent all these years secretly hoping he’d come back and take you away,” he said. “I don’t think you’ve been comparing every day with me to one summer with him.”
A tear slid down your cheek. Ryan watched it fall.
“But I do think part of you is still waiting for an answer,” he continued.
Your breath caught. Ryan’s voice remained gentle.
“I think part of you is still standing beside that bus,” he said. “Waiting to find out what might have happened if one of you had asked.”
You lowered your head. A sob caught behind your lips. Ryan held your hand through it.
“I’m sorry,” you whispered.
He shook his head immediately. “I don’t want an apology,” Ryan said.
You looked up at him. Tears had gathered along his lashes now.
“I want you to be certain,” he continued. “Not because I waited long enough. Not because I’m good to you. Not because you’re afraid of hurting me.”
Your face crumpled.
“You are good to me,” you said.
“I know,” Ryan replied with a broken laugh.
The sound made another tear fall.
“I’ve worked very hard at it,” he added.
You laughed through your tears. Ryan smiled for half a second. Then the smile disappeared.
“I love you,” he said.
“I love you too,” you answered.
Ryan nodded. “I believe you,” he replied.
His voice broke on the final word.
You pushed your chair back and moved around the table. Ryan stood before you reached him. You wrapped your arms around him. He held you tightly. The force of it pushed the air from your lungs. You buried your face against his chest and cried. Ryan pressed his cheek to the top of your head. For a long time, neither of you tried to speak. His hand moved slowly across your back.
You clung harder.
“I don’t want to lose you,” you whispered.
Ryan’s breath shook against your hair.
“I don’t want to lose you either,” he said.
You pulled back far enough to see his face.
“Then don’t go,” you pleaded.
Pain crossed his expression. Ryan cupped your face with both hands.
“I can’t keep waiting for you to want the life I already want,” he said.
Your eyes closed. His thumbs caught the tears beneath them.
“That isn’t fair to either of us,” he continued.
You covered one of his hands with yours.
“I thought we were happy,” you said.
“We were,” Ryan replied.
The answer came immediately. Ryan rested his forehead against yours.
“We were really happy,” he added.
Your breath broke. “Wasn’t that enough?”
Ryan closed his eyes.
“For a long time,” he said. “Yes.”
He opened them again. “It isn’t anymore,” he admitted.
You nodded even though every part of you wanted to refuse. Ryan kissed your forehead.
Then he kissed each wet cheek. The tenderness of it nearly broke you all over again.
“You deserve to figure out what you want without feeling like love is a deadline,” he said.
You gripped the front of his shirt.
“And you deserve someone who can say yes,” you whispered.
Ryan’s face crumpled. He pulled you against him again. This time, both of you cried without trying to hide it. The tea remained cold on the table. The apartment continued humming around you. Nothing dramatic shattered. No one raised their voice. There was only the slow, unbearable understanding that love had not been enough to make the two of you want the same future.
Later, Ryan packed enough for the night.
You sat on the edge of the bed while he folded a few shirts into a bag. At the bedroom door, Ryan stopped. You stood.
For one second, you looked at each other like strangers who knew far too much. Ryan set the bag down and crossed back to you. He held your face in both hands.
“I need you to know something,” he said.
You covered his wrists.
“What?” you asked.
Ryan looked directly into your eyes.
“You loved me well,” he said.
A sob escaped you. Ryan’s own eyes filled again.
“You did,” he insisted. “This doesn’t erase that.”
You nodded through the tears.
“You loved me well too,” you replied.
Ryan bent and kissed your forehead one final time. Then he picked up the bag and followed you to the front door. His hand rested against the knob. Neither of you moved.
“I hope you find the answer,” Ryan said quietly.
Your throat closed. Ryan looked back at you.
“Not for him,” he clarified. “For you.”
You pressed one hand over your mouth.
Ryan opened the door. He stepped into the hallway. You watched him walk away until he reached the stairs. He did not look back.
You closed the door after he disappeared.
Then you sank to the floor with your back against it and cried for the man you had loved, the future you could not choose, and the question you had carried for far too many years.
You did not call Jack. Not that night. Not the next morning.
You called Robby.
He came over and sat with you on the floor until the apartment stopped feeling quite so empty.
Ryan deserved more than to become the space you crossed on your way back to someone else.
Years passed.
You and Jack remained in each other’s lives through Robby.
Holidays. Birthdays. Dinners that ran late enough for the two of you to fall into old arguments and older rhythms.
Then Carter was born.
Jack arrived at the hospital carrying two coffees and a slightly crooked stuffed animal.
You showed him how to support Carter’s head.
Jack insisted he already knew.
His terrified expression suggested otherwise.
Carter changed the shape of things.
He gave you and Jack reasons to call that had nothing to do with the past.
Birthday presents. Emergency babysitting. Photographs of Carter asleep against Robby’s chest. Questions about fevers, school projects, and whether a four-year-old could survive eating only crackers. Calls about Carter became calls that did not always need an excuse. Somewhere between first birthdays and family movie nights, you and Jack became friends again.
Real friends.
Not the careful kind who spoke only at holidays. Carter grew up finding Jack beside you.
Jack brought your coffee without asking. You kept pain patches in your purse for the days he insisted his leg was fine. Carter wedged himself between you on couches and held both your hands when crossing parking lots.
He knew you and Jack had known each other for a long time.
He simply did not know what the two of you had once been.
Summary: You promised to write. Jack promised to answer. Neither of you asked the other to stay.
Warnings: Angst, heartbreak, emotional goodbye, mutual pining, secret relationship becoming less secret, young Jack Abbot, Reader is Robby’s sister, late-night swimming, semi-public make-outs, implied sexual content, tender sex, protected sex implied from the previous chapter’s established relationship, crying during intimacy, military enlistment, Army departure, discussion of letter writing, separation, Jack crying, Reader having an emotional breakdown, sibling comfort, no use of Y/N.
Author's Note: Lovelies, I am so sorry. We knew August was coming. Robby knew. Jack knew. Reader knew. Apparently, I still thought writing it would hurt less than it did. This chapter holds the rest of their summer: Robby reluctantly accepting that he now lives with two people who cannot stop touching each other, late-night swims, long drives in the Jeep, and all the little moments that made just the summer impossible to believe. And then Jack has to leave. The most painful part of this chapter is not that they do not love each other. It is that they love each other enough to believe asking for more would be selfish. Please hold my hand through this one.
You had gone back to your bedroom after Robby disappeared down the hallway.
Jack had watched the door close behind you, then stretched out alone on the futon.
He had not slept much.
Just after seven, he stepped into the kitchen.
Robby sat at the table with a mug of coffee in front of him.
He looked tired. He also looked like he had been waiting.
Jack stopped near the doorway.
“Is she still asleep?” Jack asked.
Robby glanced toward the hallway.
“Yeah,” he answered.
Jack nodded once.
Robby gestured toward the chair across from him.
“Sit down,” he said.
Jack pulled out the chair and sat.
For a moment, neither of them spoke.
The cabin was quiet around them. Morning light stretched across the kitchen floor, and the coffee pot clicked softly on the counter.
Robby rubbed one hand over his face.
“I’m not mad that you two are together,” he said.
Jack raised his eyebrows.
“Could’ve fooled me,” he replied.
Robby looked at him over the rim of his mug.
“I came home drunk and found my sister wrapped around you,” he said. “Give me a break.”
Jack looked down at the table.
“Fair,” he admitted.
Robby set the mug down.
“I just want to know what you’re doing,” he said.
Jack’s jaw tightened slightly.
“We talked about it,” he replied.
Robby waited. Jack glanced toward the hallway before looking back at him.
“It’s just for the summer,” he said.
Robby stared at him.
“Bullshit, man,” he replied.
Jack’s expression hardened.
“We both agreed,” he said.
“I don’t care what you agreed,” Robby replied.
Jack leaned back in the chair.
“Then why ask?” he said.
Robby exhaled and looked down into his coffee.
“Because I see you two,” he answered. “That’s not what this is.”
Jack looked away.
“I’m leaving either way,” he said.
“I know,” Robby replied.
The kitchen went quiet again.
Robby tapped one finger against the side of his mug.
“I’m not saying don’t be with her,” he continued. “I’m saying don’t act like this isn’t going to hurt.”
Jack looked toward the hallway.
“She knows I’m leaving,” he said.
Robby shook his head.
“That’s not what I said,” he replied.
Jack met his eyes. Robby shifted in his chair.
“You look at her like you’re already going to miss her,” he said.
Jack went still. Robby shrugged one shoulder.
“And she looks at you the same way,” he added.
Jack lowered his gaze to his hands.
“What do you want me to do?” he asked.
Robby picked up his coffee.
“I don’t know,” he admitted. “Just be honest with her.”
Jack sat quietly.
“We are being honest,” he said.
Robby took a drink.
“Sure,” he replied.
Jack looked up. Robby held his gaze.
“You’re both going to be miserable,” he said. “That’s all I’m saying.”
Jack’s mouth tightened.
“Helpful,” he muttered.
Robby shrugged again.
“I’m not trying to be helpful,” he replied. “I’m trying to make sure you know what you’re doing.”
Jack looked toward the hallway one last time.
“I know,” he said quietly.
Robby watched him.
“Yeah,” he replied. “I think that’s the problem.”
A floorboard creaked down the hall.
Both men looked toward the doorway.
You appeared a moment later, still sleepy and wearing the same shirt you had pulled on the night before.
Your gaze moved between them.
“Why does it feel weird in here?” you asked.
Robby lifted his mug.
“Because it’s seven in the morning,” he answered.
You narrowed your eyes at him.
“That isn’t why,” you said.
Jack stood and reached for the empty mug beside the coffee pot.
“Coffee?” he asked.
You looked toward him. Some of the tension left your face.
“Yes, please,” you answered.
Jack filled the mug while you crossed the kitchen. His hand touched the small of your back as you passed him. The contact lasted only a second.
Robby watched it happen. Then he closed his eyes and took another drink.
You accepted the coffee from Jack.
“Thank you,” you said.
Jack’s fingers brushed yours around the mug.
“You’re welcome,” he replied.
Robby opened his eyes again.
“Are you two going to do that all summer now?” he asked.
You looked toward him.
“Do what?” you asked.
Robby gestured vaguely between you and Jack.
“That,” he answered.
Jack leaned one hip against the counter.
“That was specific,” he said.
Robby pointed at him.
“Don’t start,” he warned.
You took a drink of coffee to hide your smile.
Jack looked toward you. The corner of his mouth lifted. Robby noticed. He pushed himself up from the table.
“I’m going back to bed,” he announced.
“You were already awake,” you pointed out.
“I’ve changed my mind,” he replied.
He started toward the hallway, then stopped beside you. Robby looked at Jack first. Then he looked at you.
“I’m not mad,” he said.
Your expression softened. “Okay,” you replied.
Robby glanced between the two of you once more.
“I reserve the right to be annoyed,” he added.
You nodded solemnly.
“That seems fair,” you said.
Jack folded his arms.
“Very generous,” he replied.
Robby looked at him.
“I can still be mad at you specifically,” he said.
Jack nodded once.
“Also fair,” he replied.
Robby disappeared down the hallway. His bedroom door closed behind him. You waited until the latch clicked.
Then you looked toward Jack.
“What did he say?” you asked.
Jack reached for you.
“Mostly that he wasn’t mad,” he answered.
You stepped between his arms.
“That does not sound like mostly,” you said.
Jack’s hands settled at your waist.
“It was a long conversation,” he admitted.
You searched his face.
“Are we okay?” you asked.
Jack looked at you for a moment.
Then he leaned down and kissed you softly.
“We’re okay,” he said against your mouth.
You rested your hands against his chest.
Behind you, Robby’s bedroom door opened.
“Can you at least wait until I’m unconscious?” Robby called from the hallway.
You pulled back from Jack.
“You said you were going back to bed,” you reminded him.
“I forgot my coffee,” Robby replied.
Jack released you reluctantly. Robby crossed the kitchen, picked up his mug, and looked at both of you.
“This is going to be a long summer,” he muttered.
He disappeared down the hallway again.
You looked up at Jack. Jack’s mouth curved.
Then he kissed you once more before Robby could come back.
After that morning, Robby stopped pretending not to notice.
You and Jack stopped trying quite so hard to hide.
Not completely.
There were still kisses stolen behind closed doors and hands that disappeared beneath tables when Robby looked away.
But Jack no longer stepped back every time your brother entered the room.
You no longer pretended you had wandered onto the porch by accident.
The rest of the summer settled into something softer. Something easier. Something neither of you called anything at all.
Jack began kissing you goodbye before work.
Sometimes it was quick.
Sometimes it made you both late.
One morning, Robby walked into the kitchen and found Jack pressing you against the counter, one hand at your waist and the other buried in your hair.
Robby stopped in the doorway.
You pulled away just enough to look at him.
“Morning,” you said.
Robby stared at both of you.
Jack kept one arm around your waist.
“Morning,” he replied.
Robby opened the refrigerator.
“I’ve accepted that I live with this now,” he muttered.
Jack kissed your temple. Robby closed his eyes.
“Not that much,” he corrected.
You smiled against Jack’s shoulder.
At the club, nothing changed.
And everything did.
Jack still left notes in your beverage cart. You still slipped them into the pocket of his work shirt whenever you passed close enough. The messages became less careful.
Dock after dinner.
Jeep. Five minutes.
Meet me behind the maintenance shed.
Then, eventually—
I miss you.
You found that one beneath your travel mug halfway through a shift.
You had seen Jack that morning.
He had driven you to work.
He had kissed you beside the Jeep before either of you walked inside.
You still folded the note carefully and tucked it into your skirt pocket.
Ten minutes later, you parked the beverage cart beside the maintenance shed.
Jack was already waiting.
He stepped toward you before you had fully climbed out.
“You saw me an hour ago,” you said.
Jack’s hands settled at your waist.
“I know,” he replied.
You looked up at him.
“You still missed me?” you asked.
Jack’s expression softened.
“Yeah,” he admitted.
You kissed him before he could say anything else.
The late-night swims began during the hottest week of July.
Robby went to bed early after a double shift.
You waited until his bedroom door closed before meeting Jack at the dock.
The lake was black beneath the moonlight.
Jack stood at the end of the boards in a pair of swim trunks, looking over his shoulder as you approached.
“You’re late,” he said.
You stopped beside him. “By two minutes,” you replied.
Jack looked toward the cabin.
“I was starting to think you changed your mind,” he admitted.
You pulled your shirt over your head. Jack forgot whatever he had been about to say. You smiled.
“Still worried?” you asked.
Jack stepped closer.
“Not anymore,” he replied.
You shoved both hands against his chest.
Jack hit the water with a loud splash.
He surfaced a second later, wiping water from his face. You stood at the end of the dock laughing.
“You think that’s funny?” he called.
You backed away from the edge. “A little,” you admitted.
Jack reached for the ladder.
You jumped before he could climb out.
The cold water closed over your head.
When you surfaced, Jack was already moving toward you. You splashed him directly in the face. Jack stopped. Water ran from his curls.
“That was a mistake,” he said.
You laughed and splashed him again. Jack lunged. You twisted away and started swimming toward deeper water.
“You have to catch me first,” you called over your shoulder.
Jack followed. You heard him gaining on you and kicked harder, laughing when his hand brushed your ankle.
“No,” you shouted.
Jack caught you around the waist.
You squealed as he pulled you back against him.
“Jack!” you cried.
His laughter sounded against your ear.
“Caught you,” he said.
You turned in his arms and splashed him again at close range. Jack tightened his hold.
“You’re making this worse for yourself,” he warned.
“I’m not scared of you,” you replied.
Jack dragged you closer until your chest met his. Your laughter softened. His hands settled around your waist beneath the water. You looped your arms around his neck.
Jack kissed you.
The kiss stayed light at first, both of you still smiling into it.
Then you heard the porch door open.
“Keep it down,” Robby called from the cabin.
You pulled away from Jack and looked toward the shore.
“We’re swimming,” you called back.
Robby stood in the doorway with one hand braced against the frame.
“You’re screaming,” he replied.
Jack buried his face against your shoulder. His body shook with laughter. You held him closer.
“Go back to bed,” you called.
Robby shook his head.
“I hate this summer,” he muttered.
The porch door closed again. You looked at Jack. Jack lifted his head.
“Quietly?” he asked.
You smiled.
“No promises,” you replied.
Then you splashed him again.
The Jeep became its own kind of hiding place.
Jack drove with the windows down and one hand resting on the wheel.
Your feet stayed on the dashboard.
His other hand stayed on your thigh.
Sometimes you drove nowhere.
Jack turned onto roads neither of you needed and took the long way back to the cabin.
You stopped beside the lake.
At empty overlooks.
Behind the closed bait shop after midnight.
Once, Jack parked beneath a line of trees and kissed you until the windows fogged.
You ended up half across the center console, one knee pressed beside his hip. Jack’s hand slid beneath the back of your shirt. Your fingers tangled in his hair. The horn sounded when your elbow hit the steering wheel.
Both of you froze.
A light flicked on in the house across the road. Jack stared at you. You pressed your lips together.
“Drive,” you whispered.
Jack started the engine.
You both dissolved into laughter before he had finished backing onto the road.
The cabin offered fewer places to hide.
That did not stop either of you.
You kissed in the basement while the washer shook loudly beside you.
Jack backed you against the pantry wall while Robby sat ten feet away reading the newspaper.
You slipped into your bedroom together after midnight and spent twenty minutes trying not to make the mattress creak.
The effort failed almost immediately.
A knock sounded against the wall.
You and Jack went still.
Robby’s voice carried from the other side.
“I hate both of you,” he called.
You buried your face against Jack’s shoulder. Jack rested his forehead against yours.
“We should stop,” he whispered.
You nodded. Neither of you moved. Another knock hit the wall.
“I mean it,” Robby called.
Jack pressed his lips together. You covered his mouth before he could laugh.
Some nights, you fell asleep on the porch futon. Some mornings, you woke in your own bed with Jack’s shirt still wrapped around you.
Robby complained about the shirts.
He complained about Jack’s boots beside your bedroom door. He complained when you sat in Jack’s lap on the dock. He complained when Jack kissed you in the kitchen. He complained when you stole food from Jack’s plate even though the same food sat untouched on your own.
Then one evening, you fell asleep against Jack on the couch.
Your head rested on his shoulder. Jack’s arm stayed wrapped around you. Robby entered the room carrying a blanket. Jack looked toward him. Robby stopped.
For a moment, neither man spoke.
Then Robby unfolded the blanket and draped it over both of you.
Jack glanced down at the fabric.
“Thanks,” he said quietly.
Robby looked toward your sleeping face.
“Don’t make it weird,” he replied.
Jack’s hand moved once along your arm.
“I won’t,” he promised.
Robby studied him for a second longer. Then he turned off the lamp and left the room.
The days kept passing.
The notes continued. The drives grew longer. The kisses became harder to end.
By the beginning of August, Jack’s duffel bag sat open beside the porch futon.
At first, only a few things appeared inside it.
A folded shirt. An extra pair of socks. The papers from the recruitment office.
Then more.
His work clothes disappeared from the chair. His books were stacked together. His boots stayed by the door less often.
You tried not to look at the bag.
Jack tried not to notice you avoiding it.
At the club, the three of you worked your final shifts. Robby closed the bar for the last time. You parked the beverage cart beside the clubhouse and handed over the keys. Jack returned his tools to the maintenance shed.
The grounds manager shook his hand.
You watched from across the path.
Jack found you afterward near the employee entrance.
His work shirt was damp with sweat. A streak of dirt crossed his jaw.
You stepped toward him.
“Done?” you asked.
Jack nodded.
“Done,” he replied.
You looked at the maintenance building behind him.
“So that’s it,” you said.
Jack followed your gaze. “Yeah,” he answered.
Neither of you moved.
Then Jack reached for you. You wrapped your arms around his neck. He held you tightly against him. The employee door opened behind you. Robby stepped outside carrying a cardboard box. He took one look at both of you.
“I’m going to the car,” he said.
You lifted your head from Jack’s shoulder.
“We’ll be there in a minute,” you replied.
Robby adjusted the box in his arms.
“I know,” he said.
He walked away without another comment.
That night, the three of you ate dinner on the porch.
The cabin was already beginning to look emptier.
Boxes sat beside the wall. Robby’s books had been packed. Your suitcase rested open on the bedroom floor. Jack’s duffel bag was nearly full. No one mentioned it.
You sat beside Jack on the futon with your legs stretched across his lap.
His hand rested on your ankle.
Robby sat in the chair opposite you, peeling the label from his beer bottle.
“You leave Tuesday?” he asked.
Jack looked toward him.
“Tuesday morning,” he answered.
Robby nodded once.
You kept your eyes on the lake.
Jack’s thumb moved slowly over your skin.
The silence stretched.
Robby cleared his throat.
“I’m going to bed,” he announced.
You watched him cross the living room. Robby paused near the hallway. He looked back at Jack. Then at you.
“Goodnight,” he said.
Your expression softened. “Goodnight,” you replied.
Jack nodded toward him. “Night,” he said.
Robby disappeared down the hall. His bedroom door closed. The porch became quiet.
Jack kept one hand around your ankle. You stared at the lake.
“We have four days,” you said.
Jack’s hand stopped. You looked toward him. He was already watching you.
“I know,” he replied.
You pulled your legs from his lap and moved closer. Jack opened his arms. You settled against his chest.
For a while, neither of you said anything.
The summer night moved around you. The lake shifted beyond the screens.
Jack rested his cheek against your hair.
You closed your eyes and held him tighter.
He had not left yet.
Your heart was already breaking.
The final four days passed too quickly.
You helped Robby begin cleaning the cabin. Jack finished packing the things he would need. Boxes appeared beside the front door, and the rooms slowly lost the evidence that the three of you had spent an entire summer inside them.
The stack of books disappeared from Robby’s bedroom.
Your swimsuit and towel vanished from the hooks beside the bathroom.
Jack’s spare work shirts no longer hung over the back of the porch chair.
His duffel bag remained beside the futon.
You tried not to look at it.
Jack tried not to notice you avoiding it.
The two of you still found each other whenever you could.
You kissed beside the Jeep before running errands with Robby.
Jack pulled you into the pantry while you were supposed to be packing canned food into a box.
You followed him into the laundry room when he went to retrieve the final load of towels.
The washer had already stopped.
Neither of you cared.
Jack backed you against the dryer and kissed you until Robby knocked against the closed door.
“You know the towels don’t take that long,” Robby called from the hallway.
You pulled your mouth from Jack’s.
“They were still damp,” you called back.
Jack lowered his face into the curve of your neck. His shoulders shook beneath your hands. Robby remained outside the door.
“The dryer isn’t running,” he replied.
You looked toward the silent machine. Jack pressed his lips together.
“Go away, Michael,” you called.
Robby sighed loudly.
“I’m running to the club to pick up my last paycheck,” he announced. “Try not to make the clean towels need to be washed again.”
His footsteps retreated down the hall.
You looked back at Jack. Jack’s mouth curved.
“He’s adjusting well,” he said.
You wrapped your arms around his neck.
“He’s shown remarkable growth,” you agreed.
Jack kissed you again.
You did not mention that each interruption now felt like time being taken from you.
You did not mention that every kiss had started carrying the weight of a last one.
By Monday afternoon, the cabin was nearly ready to close.
Robby stacked the final boxes in his car while you swept the kitchen. Jack checked the windows, tested the locks, and carried bags of trash to the bins near the road.
The three of you moved around one another quietly.
There was nothing left to distract you from what morning would bring.
After dinner, Robby carried his plate into the kitchen and glanced toward the porch.
You sat beside Jack on the futon with your legs stretched across his lap. His thumb moved slowly over the inside of your ankle.
The zipped duffel bag waited near his feet.
Robby placed his plate in the sink.
“I’m going into town,” he announced.
You looked toward him.
“For what?” you asked.
Robby reached for his keys on the counter.
“We need trash bags,” he answered.
Your gaze moved toward the unopened box of trash bags beside the refrigerator. Robby followed it.
“We need better ones,” he clarified.
Jack looked down, but not before you caught the movement of his mouth.
You turned back toward your brother.
“Michael,” you said softly.
Robby stopped near the door. The excuse disappeared from his expression.
“I’ll be gone a while,” he said.
Your throat tightened.
“Okay,” you replied.
Robby looked toward Jack.
“We leave at seven,” he reminded him.
Jack’s hand stilled around your ankle.
“I know,” he answered.
Robby held his gaze for another moment. Something passed silently between them. Then Robby opened the door.
“I’ll see you later,” he said.
You gave him a small smile.
“Drive safe,” you replied.
Robby stepped outside and allowed the screen door to close behind him.
A few moments later, his car started in the drive. You listened until the engine faded between the trees. The cabin became painfully quiet.
Jack’s hand remained around your ankle. You stared at the duffel bag.
“You packed everything,” you said.
Jack followed your gaze.
“Most of it,” he replied.
You drew your legs from his lap and turned toward him.
“What’s left?” you asked.
Jack looked at you.
“Tomorrow,” he answered.
Your eyes began to burn.
You looked away before he could see. Jack reached for your hand. His fingers threaded through yours.
“Come here,” he said quietly.
You moved into his arms.
Jack pulled you across his lap and held you against his chest. You pressed your face into the side of his neck.
His hand moved slowly along your back.
“I don’t want tonight to end,” you whispered.
Jack’s hold tightened.
“I know,” he replied.
You closed your eyes.
“You keep saying that,” you said.
Jack rested his cheek against your hair.
“Because I do,” he answered.
The quiet stretched around you.
Beyond the screens, the lake moved against the shore. The last of the daylight had faded, leaving only the small porch lamp and the pale reflection of the moon across the water. You lifted your head.
“Are you scared?” you asked.
Jack’s fingers paused against your back. He looked toward the lake.
“A little,” he admitted.
You studied his face.
“You never say that,” you said.
Jack looked back at you.
“I’ve never left you before,” he replied.
Your breath caught.
Jack seemed to realize what he had said only after the words were already between you.
Neither of you looked away.
You touched the side of his face.
“You’ll write?” you asked.
Jack leaned into your palm.
“Whenever I can,” he promised.
“Even if it takes a while?” you asked.
Jack covered your hand with his.
“Even then,” he answered.
You nodded, though your throat had tightened too much to speak. Jack’s thumb moved over your knuckles.
“You’ll write too?” he asked.
“Every week,” you promised.
Jack’s mouth curved faintly. “That’s a lot of letters,” he said.
“You’ll survive,” you replied.
Jack’s smile disappeared almost as quickly as it came.
“Yeah,” he said quietly.
The word settled heavily between you.
You kissed him before either of you could sit with it.
Jack’s hand moved into your hair. His other arm tightened around your waist as he lowered you carefully against the futon.
There was no hurry this time.
No laughter muffled against each other’s mouths. No listening for Robby’s footsteps. No stolen minutes already running out.
Jack kissed you slowly.
He took his time removing every piece of clothing, his hands lingering as though he needed to remember where each curve belonged beneath them.
You did the same.
Your fingertips traced his shoulders, his chest, the line of his stomach. You touched him with a concentration that made Jack’s breathing turn uneven.
He watched your face the entire time.
When he settled over you, one hand remained cupped around your cheek.
Jack looked into your eyes as he moved inside you.
He did not look away.
Not when your breath caught.
Not when your fingers tightened against his shoulders.
Not when the pleasure softened the grief neither of you knew how to name.
His thumb brushed beneath your eye.
You had not realized you were crying.
“Hey,” Jack whispered.
You shook your head and pulled him closer.
“Don’t stop,” you said.
Pain moved through his expression.
Jack kissed you.
He kept his forehead against yours after that, his hand still holding your face while your bodies moved together.
You held his gaze until the pleasure became too much and your eyes fell closed.
Jack kissed your eyelids.
Your cheek.
The tears slipping toward your temples.
When you opened your eyes again, he was still watching you.
His face held everything he would not say.
You wondered whether yours looked the same.
Neither of you said goodbye.
Neither of you said love.
You held each other like both words were already there.
Afterward, Jack held you against his chest beneath the thin porch blanket.
His fingers moved through your hair.
You traced the shape of his collarbone in the dark, trying to commit it to memory.
Neither of you spoke for a long time.
The porch slowly cooled around you.
Jack pressed his lips to your forehead.
“Don’t go,” you whispered.
Jack went still beneath you.
His hand stopped at the back of your neck.
You closed your eyes.
“I mean—” Your voice caught. “I wish you didn’t have to go.”
Jack’s arms tightened around you.
“So do I,” he said quietly.
You pressed your face into his chest.
You had not asked him to stay.
He had not asked you to wait.
Both of you pretended the correction had changed what you meant.
Jack’s fingers continued moving through your hair.
“You should sleep,” he murmured.
You pressed your cheek more firmly against his chest.
“So should you,” you replied.
Jack looked toward the duffel bag waiting beside the futon.
“I don’t think I can,” he admitted.
You understood.
Neither of you slept.
By six-thirty, the porch had filled with morning light.
Jack sat on the edge of the futon and laced his boots.
You stood near the screened window wearing yesterday’s clothes, watching the lake because watching him was harder.
Behind you, the zipper of his duffel bag shifted beneath his hand.
Then the futon creaked as Jack stood.
You closed your eyes.
His footsteps crossed the porch.
Jack stopped behind you.
His arms wrapped around your waist.
You covered his hands with yours.
Neither of you spoke.
The cabin door opened behind you.
Robby stood in the doorway.
“We should go,” he said quietly.
Jack’s arms tightened once around you.
Then he let you go.
The loss of his warmth felt immediate.
You turned as Jack bent to lift the duffel bag from beside the futon. He pulled the strap over one shoulder and adjusted it against his chest.
Robby stepped onto the porch and reached for the envelope resting beneath the lamp.
“You almost forgot this,” he said.
Jack looked toward the recruitment papers in his hand.
“Thanks,” he replied.
Robby held the envelope out. Jack took it and tucked it beneath one arm.
For a moment, none of you moved.
You looked toward the futon.
It had already been folded upright against the wall.
His book was gone.
The empty space where he had slept all summer felt too large.
Jack followed your gaze.
“You ready?” he asked softly.
You looked at him.
“No,” you answered.
Jack’s expression tightened.
“Me neither,” he admitted.
Robby looked away and stepped back toward the door.
“I’ll grab the last box,” he said.
Then he disappeared into the cabin. The screen door closed behind him.
You and Jack remained on the porch.
Jack shifted the duffel higher on his shoulder. His fingers found yours.
“We still have the drive,” he reminded you.
You nodded. “Okay,” you whispered.
Jack leaned down and kissed you.
The kiss was brief. Too brief.
You caught the front of his shirt before he could pull away and kissed him again.
Jack’s free hand found your waist.
He pulled you closer.
For several seconds, neither of you seemed capable of remembering that Robby was waiting. The screen door opened again. Robby stepped onto the porch carrying a cardboard box. He stopped when he saw you.
“I can go back inside,” he offered.
You pulled away just enough to look at him.
“No,” you said quietly. “We’re coming.”
Robby studied your face for a moment. Then he nodded. He carried the box down the steps.
Jack pressed one last kiss to your forehead.
You loosened your grip on his shirt.
His hand remained at your waist for another second. Then it fell away.
Jack took your hand.
Together, you followed Robby through the cabin.
The rooms looked wrong in the morning light. Too clean. Too empty. Robby’s books were gone from the table. Your suitcase waited beside the front door. The last bag of groceries sat on the counter.
Jack slowed near the kitchen.
His gaze moved through the cabin once.
You wondered whether he was memorizing it too.
Robby pushed open the front door with his shoulder.
Jack looked toward you.
“You have everything?” he asked.
You glanced toward your suitcase.
“Everything I need right now,” you answered.
Jack held your gaze.
Neither of you said what the answer really meant.
Outside, Robby placed the box in the trunk of his car.
Then he shut it and walked toward the Jeep.
Jack carried his duffel to the back and set it inside. Robby opened the rear door and climbed in. You stood beside the passenger side. Jack looked toward you over the roof.
For a second, neither of you moved.
Robby leaned forward between the seats.
“We do have to leave eventually,” he said.
You opened the passenger door.
“You’re ruining the moment,” you told him.
Robby settled back.
“There have been enough moments,” he replied.
Jack’s mouth curved faintly.
He walked around the front of the Jeep and climbed behind the wheel.
You slid into the passenger seat.
Jack started the engine.
The radio stayed off.
He rested one hand on the wheel.
The other found yours across the console.
You threaded your fingers through his.
From the back seat, Robby turned toward the window and pretended not to notice.
Jack backed away from the cabin slowly. You looked through the windshield. The porch came into view. The futon sat behind the screens. The dock stretched into the lake beyond it. The cabin grew smaller as the Jeep moved down the drive.
Then the trees closed around the road.
It disappeared.
You faced forward again.
Jack’s hand tightened around yours.
For the final time, the three of you left the cabin together.
The recruitment office appeared at the end of the block.
A charter bus waited along the curb.
Several young men stood near the entrance with duffel bags at their feet. Parents and girlfriends clustered around them, holding on too tightly and speaking too quietly.
Your stomach dropped.
Jack slowed the Jeep.
His hand remained wrapped around yours.
Robby shifted in the back seat.
No one spoke.
Jack pulled into an open space near the building and turned off the engine.
The sudden silence felt enormous.
You stared through the windshield at the bus.
Jack’s thumb moved once over your knuckles.
“We’re here,” he said quietly.
You looked toward him.
“I know,” you replied.
Neither of you reached for the door.
Behind you, Robby released his seat belt.
“I’ll get the bag,” he said.
Jack glanced toward him. “I can get it,” he replied.
Robby opened the rear door.
“I know,” he said. “Let me.”
He climbed out before Jack could argue.
You watched Robby move around the Jeep and lift the duffel from the back.
Jack remained beside you. His hand was still holding yours.
A man near the building called for everyone to begin checking in.
Several families started moving toward the entrance.
Jack released a slow breath.
You tightened your fingers around his. He looked down at your joined hands. Then he lifted them and pressed his mouth against your knuckles.
Your eyes burned.
Jack lowered your hands but did not let go.
“We should go inside,” he said.
You nodded.
“Okay,” you whispered.
Jack opened his door.
You forced yourself to do the same.
The morning air felt cooler outside the Jeep.
Robby stood near the back holding Jack’s duffel by the strap. Jack walked toward him. Robby handed it over.
For a moment, the two men only looked at each other.
Then Robby held out his hand.
“Don’t do anything stupid,” he said.
Jack looked down at the offered hand.
“That’s your advice?” he asked.
Robby’s mouth tightened.
“It’s the only kind you listen to,” he replied.
Jack took his hand.
Robby pulled him forward before either of them could pretend a handshake was enough.
Jack wrapped one arm around him.
The embrace was brief and hard.
Robby’s hand closed against the back of Jack’s shirt.
“Come back,” he said quietly.
Jack went still.
Then his grip tightened.
“I will,” he promised.
Robby stepped back first.
His eyes were bright, but he looked away before either of you could acknowledge it.
He adjusted the strap of Jack’s duffel unnecessarily.
“You better,” he muttered.
Jack’s mouth curved faintly.
Then Robby looked toward you. His expression changed. He placed one hand against Jack’s shoulder.
“I’ll give you a minute,” he said.
Jack nodded.
Robby walked back toward the Jeep.
You watched him lean against the hood and fold his arms, facing away from both of you.
Jack turned toward you.
The space between you suddenly felt impossible.
You stepped into him.
Jack dropped the duffel at his feet and caught you around the waist.
Your arms wrapped around his neck.
He kissed you before either of you could speak.
The kiss was fierce.
Desperate.
Jack’s hand slid into your hair as he pulled you tighter against him. You clung to the back of his shirt, pressing closer as though there might still be some way to keep him there if you held on hard enough.
His mouth moved over yours with none of the patience from the night before.
There was no time left for patience.
You kissed him until your lungs burned.
Until the voices around you disappeared.
Until someone near the bus called Jack’s name.
He pulled back only far enough to breathe.
Your fingers remained tangled in his shirt.
Jack rested his forehead against yours.
Neither of you let go.
“I don’t want you to go,” you whispered.
Pain moved openly across his face.
Jack’s thumb brushed beneath your eye.
You had started crying.
“I know,” he said.
Another tear slipped down your cheek.
Jack caught that one too.
“I’m sorry,” you whispered.
His brow tightened.
“For what?” he asked.
You shook your head.
“I don’t know,” you admitted.
Jack cupped your face with both hands.
“Don’t be sorry,” he said.
You looked at him through the tears.
Jack’s own eyes had gone bright.
“You’ll write?” you asked.
“Whenever I can,” he promised.
Your hands tightened in his shirt.
“Even if I write too much?” you asked.
Jack’s mouth pulled into a broken smile.
“Especially then,” he replied.
Jack closed his eyes for one second.
When he opened them, a single tear had slipped free.
You stared at it.
Your hand lifted toward his face, but Jack brushed it away before you could reach him.
You had already seen.
“Don’t stop writing if my replies are slow,” he said. “It might take me a while to answer sometimes.”
“I won’t,” you promised.
Jack searched your face as though he needed to be certain.
“You mean it?” he asked.
You nodded quickly.
“I mean it,” you answered.
His thumb moved over your cheek.
The words crowded behind your teeth.
Stay.
I’ll wait for you.
I love you.
None of them came out.
Jack leaned forward and kissed you again.
Softer this time.
His lips lingered against yours.
When he pulled away, you followed without meaning to.
Jack’s face crumpled for one brief second.
Then he kissed your forehead.
Your temple.
The corner of your mouth.
He lowered his hands from your face slowly.
You caught one of them before it could fall away.
Jack looked down at your joined hands.
Then back at you.
“I have to go,” he said quietly.
You shook your head before you could stop yourself.
Jack’s fingers tightened around yours.
“I know,” you whispered.
He bent and lifted the duffel from the pavement.
You still did not let go.
Jack took one step backward.
Your hands stretched between you.
Then his fingers slipped from yours.
The loss felt physical.
Jack stopped.
For one terrible second, you thought he might come back.
His chest rose sharply.
Then Robby stepped beside you.
His hand settled against your shoulder.
Jack looked at him.
Robby nodded once.
Jack looked back at you.
“I’ll write,” he promised.
You pressed your lips together and nodded.
Jack turned toward the bus.
He made it three steps before looking back.
You lifted one hand.
Jack did the same.
Then he forced himself to keep walking.
You watched him check in near the entrance.
Watched another man take his name.
Watched Jack hand over a paper from the envelope Robby had reminded him to bring.
He looked over his shoulder twice.
Both times, his eyes found you immediately.
Robby’s arm moved around your shoulders.
You leaned into him without looking away.
Jack climbed the bus steps.
He disappeared inside.
Your breath broke.
“No,” you whispered.
Robby pulled you closer.
“I know,” he said quietly.
A moment later, Jack appeared behind one of the windows.
He slid into the seat and turned immediately toward the glass.
His gaze searched the parking lot until he found you.
You lifted your hand again.
Jack pressed his palm against the window.
Your face crumpled.
You raised your own hand as though the glass were the only thing separating you.
The bus engine started.
Jack did not move his hand.
Neither did you.
The bus pulled away from the curb.
You walked after it without realizing you had moved.
Robby stayed beside you, one hand still holding your shoulder.
Jack twisted in his seat to keep you in view.
You watched him through the window.
He watched you back.
The bus reached the end of the block.
Jack’s face became harder to see behind the reflection of the morning sky.
Then the bus turned.
For one last second, his hand remained visible against the glass.
Then he was gone.
You stood in the parking lot staring at the empty road.
Robby’s arm tightened around you.
The first sob tore out before you could stop it.
You folded against him.
Robby caught you.
He held the back of your head against his shoulder while your hands clutched at his shirt.
“I know,” he whispered.
You shook your head against him.
“He’s gone,” you cried.
Robby closed his eyes.
“Yeah,” he said quietly.
He held you tighter.
For several minutes, neither of you moved.
The parking lot gradually emptied around you. Car doors closed. Engines started. Families pulled away from the curb.
The space where the bus had been remained empty.
Robby kept one arm around your shoulders as he guided you back toward the Jeep.
You did not remember crossing the pavement.
You only remembered looking toward the passenger side and realizing Jack would not be there when the door opened.
Robby noticed you stop.
He followed your gaze.
Then he walked around the Jeep and opened the passenger door for you.
“Come on,” he said softly.
You climbed inside.
Jack’s seat still held the shape of him in your mind.
His hand on the wheel.
His knee beside yours.
The way he had lifted your joined hands and kissed your knuckles only an hour earlier.
Robby closed the door gently.
He climbed behind the wheel and adjusted the seat.
His hands settled on the steering wheel.
For one second, he stared straight ahead.
Then he started the engine.
The radio remained off.
Robby pulled away from the recruitment office.
You turned toward the window.
The road blurred behind the tears that would not stop coming.
Robby did not tell you to calm down.
He did not tell you Jack would be fine.
He simply drove.
Every so often, his hand left the wheel and rested briefly against your shoulder.
The Jeep felt wrong beneath him.
Too quiet.
Too empty.
When the road curved toward the country club, you looked away.
You could not bear to see the employee entrance.
Or the path beside the maintenance shed.
Or any place where Jack had once been waiting for you.
Robby noticed.
He kept his eyes on the road.
“We can take the other way,” he said.
You wiped at your face.
“It doesn’t matter,” you whispered.
Robby turned at the next intersection anyway.
The longer road added fifteen minutes to the drive.
Neither of you mentioned it.
When the cabin finally appeared between the trees, your stomach tightened.
Robby parked the Jeep beside his car and shut off the engine.
You stared through the windshield.
The porch screens reflected the morning light.
The dock stood empty.
The cabin looked exactly as it had when you left.
That somehow made it worse.
Robby released his seat belt.
“We don’t have to finish everything right now,” he said.
You shook your head.
“We should,” you replied.
Robby watched you.
“You don’t have to prove anything,” he said.
“I’m not,” you answered.
Your voice sounded thin even to you.
Robby did not argue.
He climbed out of the Jeep.
You followed.
The cabin was silent when you stepped inside.
No boots waited beside the door.
No medical textbook rested on the table.
No voice came from the porch.
You stopped in the middle of the living room.
Robby moved around you and carried one of the remaining boxes toward the car.
You picked up the stack of folded kitchen towels.
Your hands shook.
You carried them toward the box on the counter.
One slipped from the top.
You bent to retrieve it.
Then another fell.
You stared at both towels on the floor.
Robby returned through the front door and found you still standing there.
He crossed the room without speaking.
He picked up the towels and placed them in the box.
“Why don’t you do your room?” he suggested gently.
You nodded.
“Okay,” you whispered.
The hallway seemed longer than it had that morning.
You opened your bedroom door.
Your suitcase rested on the floor beside the bed.
The sheets had already been stripped.
The room looked nearly empty.
Except for the crooked bear sitting against the pillow.
You stopped.
One uneven eye pointed toward the ceiling.
Its lopsided mouth remained caught in the same ridiculous expression Jack had laughed at when he handed it to you.
You crossed the room slowly.
Your fingers closed around the bear’s worn fabric.
Then your gaze dropped to the bedside drawer.
You opened it.
The notes lay inside.
Folded napkins.
Torn corners of work orders.
Old receipts covered in Jack’s handwriting.
Behind the maintenance shed. Ten minutes.
Tool shed. Five minutes.
The skirt isn’t fair either.
I miss you.
You lifted the stack with shaking hands.
The first sob came so quickly that it stole your breath.
You sank onto the edge of the bed.
The bear pressed against your chest.
The notes crumpled in your fist before you caught yourself and loosened your grip.
You tried to breathe.
It did not help.
Jack was gone.
Somehow, the truth of it reached you more completely here than it had in the parking lot.
He would not come through the porch door.
He would not leave another note in your cart.
He would not be waiting beside the Jeep.
You folded forward over the bear.
A sound tore from your throat.
Footsteps rushed down the hallway.
Robby appeared in the doorway.
He stopped when he saw you.
His face changed.
“Oh, kid,” he said quietly.
You shook your head.
Robby crossed the room and sat beside you.
He wrapped both arms around you.
You turned into him immediately.
The notes remained clutched in one hand between you.
Robby held the back of your head against his shoulder while your body shook.
“I can’t do this,” you cried.
Robby tightened his arms.
“You don’t have to do anything right now,” he said.
“He’s gone,” you sobbed.
“I know,” Robby replied.
You shook your head. “I already miss him.”
“I know,” Robby said again.
You pressed the bear harder against your chest.
The notes shifted in your hand.
Robby looked down at them.
He did not ask what they were.
His hand moved slowly along your back.
“I love him,” you whispered.
Robby closed his eyes.
His cheek rested against the top of your head.
“Yeah,” he said quietly.
Your fingers tightened around his shirt. “I didn’t tell him.”
Robby held you closer.
“I think he loved you too,” he said.
You pulled back just enough to look at him.
“You do?” you asked.
Robby nodded.
“The way he looked at you?” he said. “Yeah.”
Your face crumpled again.
Robby let you cry.
He did not tell you that Jack would come back.
He did not promise that everything would work out.
He simply stayed.
The cabin remained half-packed around you.
The bear rested between your bodies.
Jack’s notes were still clutched in your hand.
Outside, the lake moved against the shore as though the summer had not ended at all.
Summary - Recovery isn't quick, but she's finally awake. Between quiet moments, terrible hospital jokes, and Jack refusing to leave her side, healing finally begins.
Word Count - 10.8k
Readers POV
For a while, there was only sleep. Not good sleep. Not real sleep. Hospital sleep.
The kind that broke apart around blood pressure cuffs, penlights, careful hands, medication, pain, and people saying things you could not quite hear. You floated in and out of it.
Sometimes the room was dim. Sometimes it was too bright. Sometimes Robby stood near the bed holding a marker board, his handwriting large and terrible. Sometimes Lena appeared at the foot of the bed with her arms crossed, looking angry enough to keep you alive through professional disappointment alone.
Sometimes Princess put lip balm in your hand like she was making an offering. Sometimes someone checked your pupils. Sometimes someone touched your wrist. Sometimes you woke with the ringing still screaming in your skull and forgot, for one terrible second, that the blast was over.
Every time, Jack was there. Not always right beside you. Sometimes across the room, talking to McKay with his arms folded and his face set into medical stone. Sometimes near the door, letting another nurse change your fluids because someone had clearly threatened him with consequences if he blocked care again. Sometimes in the chair beside your bed, head tipped back against the wall, eyes closed, looking less asleep than temporarily shut down.
But there.
Always there. A shape you learned before sound came back properly. Bare left hand. Dark sleeves pushed to his forearms.
Bruise along one knuckle. A healing scrape near his jaw. The tired line of his shoulders.
Jack.
You woke properly sometime after the room had gone blue-grey with early morning. At least, you thought it was morning. Hospital rooms did not tell the truth about time. They kept it under fluorescent lights and let monitors decide whether the day had changed.
The first thing you noticed was your body.
Unhelpful.
Everything hurt. Your head throbbed in a heavy, dull rhythm. Your right arm ached from shoulder to fingertips, wrapped and splinted enough that it felt less like an arm and more like a badly attached warning. Your ribs complained when you breathed too deeply. Your back felt bruised in the shape of impact. There was a tightness in your cheek where someone had cleaned and dressed a cut.
The second thing you noticed was sound. Not silence. Not the awful underwater nothing from before.
Sound.
Thin.
Muffled.
Uneven.
But there.
A monitor beeped beside you. Soft, like it was happening through a wall. Air moved through the oxygen tubing beneath your nose. A chair creaked.
Your eyes opened. Jack was in the chair beside your bed. He was not asleep. Of course he wasn't.
He was leaning forward, elbows on his knees, looking at his hands like he had been trying to solve something written into the lines of his palms. His left hand was bare.
Still.
You stared at it first. You didn't mean to. Maybe you did. It was easier than looking at his face.
The absence of the ring looked less shocking now and more real. Like your brain had finally had enough time to stop treating it as a symptom of the blast and start filing it under things that had happened before everything went wrong. Jack's fingers flexed once.
Then stilled. "You're awake." His voice reached you like light through fog.
Low.
Rough.
Distant around the edges.
But his.
Your breath caught. Jack's head lifted immediately. His eyes found yours. Everything in him changed.
Not dramatically. Jack did not do dramatic when he could do controlled and devastate everyone anyway. But the hard line of waiting cracked. He moved closer slowly, like you were still in Trauma One and every inch mattered.
"Hey," he said. You heard that. Not cleanly.
Not fully.
But enough. Your eyes filled before you could stop them. Jack stopped with one hand on the bed rail. "Can you hear me?"
You watched his mouth. He was speaking slowly.
Carefully.
Not too loud. Jack had always known how to talk in a room without wasting air. "A little," you whispered. Or tried to whisper.
Your own voice sounded strange inside your head. Too loud and too dull at the same time. Jack went completely still. Then he shut his eyes. Just for a second.
When he opened them again, they were wet.
Barely.
Enough.
"A little?" he asked. You nodded and immediately regretted it when pain pulsed behind your eyes. Jack's hand lifted. "Don't move your head."
You caught don't. Caught head. Caught him. Your mouth tried to smile.
It failed halfway.
"Bossy."
The word came out scratchy. Jack stared at you. Then a laugh broke out of him.
Not big.
Not happy exactly. More like relief had nowhere else to go and chose the worst possible exit. He looked down, one hand briefly covering his mouth. When he looked back up, he was almost smiling.
Almost.
"There you are," he said. You heard pieces.
There.
You.
The rest you read from his face. Your left hand shifted on the blanket.
Weak.
Searching before you could be embarrassed about it. Jack noticed instantly. Of course he did. He placed his hand palm-up beside yours.
A choice, like before. You slid your fingers into his. His hand closed around them carefully.
Warm.
Solid.
Real.
For a few seconds, neither of you spoke. The monitor beeped. A cart rolled somewhere outside your room. Voices passed in the hall, muffled but present.
The world was no longer silent. Jack's thumb brushed once over your knuckles. You looked at him. Really looked.
He looked terrible. Not injured exactly, though there were marks on him too. Soot had been washed away, but exhaustion stayed in the hollows beneath his eyes. His jaw was rough with stubble. His scrub top was clean now, but it did not look like he had rested long enough to deserve clean clothes.
"You look awful," you whispered. His eyebrows lifted. "You wake up after sleeping for almost two days and start with that?" You caught enough of it to understand.
Your mouth moved faintly. "Accurate." His face softened in that way that almost hurt to see. "Yeah," he said. "You're awake."
Like that explained everything. Maybe it did. Your throat tightened. "Two days?"
"Almost," he said. "On and off. Mostly sleeping." You took that in slowly. The blast felt both seconds ago and very far away. Trauma One.
Vale.
The component in your hand. Jack's mouth behind the radio. White light.
Nothing.
Your fingers tightened around his. Jack saw the memory before it could take you under. "Not now," he said gently. You looked at him.
He leaned closer, making sure you could see his mouth.
"Later."
The word should have annoyed you.
It did.
A little.
But it also steadied you, because later had become a rope thrown across every terrible room. Vale had given it to you first. Jack was holding the other end now. You swallowed.
"You keep saying that."
"I know."
"You hate later."
"I do."
"Hypocrite." That almost got him. His mouth twitched. Almost a smile.
Almost normal. Then his eyes dropped to your hand in his. The bare ring finger was right there.
Visible.
A question neither of you was ready to unwrap while your head still felt full of static. You brushed your thumb weakly near the empty place anyway. Not asking. Just noticing.
Jack's breath changed. He looked at your thumb. Then at you. "Later," he said again.
Your eyes narrowed. He looked mildly defensive. "You're concussed." "You're evasive."
"I am medically responsible." "You're hiding behind medicine." "I often do." That made something small and warm flicker in your chest.
Not happiness. Not exactly. Something alive. Jack's expression softened as if he saw it.
He leaned closer. "You scared me." You heard that clearly enough that your eyes filled. You did not need him to repeat it.
There was no accusation in his face.
No blame.
Just truth. "I scared me too," you whispered. His hand tightened. Not enough to hurt.
Enough to answer. You watched his mouth.
Waited.
He seemed to know what you needed before you did. "I love you," he said.
Quiet.
Steady.
Not a confession dropped into disaster. Not a thing dragged out by fear. Just truth in a room where no one was shouting and nothing was exploding. You heard part of it.
The low shape of his voice. The love more vibration than sound. Your chest cracked open anyway. "Again," you whispered.
Jack's face changed. The word hit him hard. Not because he was surprised. Because this time you could hear him.
Because this time no radio stood between you. Because this time he was close enough for the sound to reach what the blast had not taken. He leaned in, slow and careful. "I love you."
You closed your eyes. Just for a second. This time, there was no white light behind them. Only his voice.
Muffled.
Imperfect.
His.
When you opened your eyes, he was still there. Bare hand wrapped around yours. Face close.
Waiting.
"I heard that," you whispered. Jack looked away. Only for a second. Long enough to gather himself.
When he looked back, his eyes were bright. "I'll say it as many times as you want." Your mouth trembled. "That's dangerous."
"I'll risk it." "Very brave." "I have moments." You almost laughed.
Pain warned you not to. Jack saw and gave you a look.
"Don't."
"Stop being funny then." "I'm not funny." "You're accidentally funny."
"Worse."
The rhythm was softer than before.
Slower.
Bruised.
But it was still there. The two of you, talking around the thing because sometimes talking directly at it was too much. Your eyelids grew heavier. You fought it.
Jack noticed immediately.
"Sleep."
"No."
"You need to."
"No."
He gave you the attending look. It had absolutely no effect. Probably because he was holding your hand like letting go might undo him. "You're going to sit there and tell me to sleep while looking like you haven't slept in a week?"
"It's been less than a week."
"Jack."
His face shifted at the sound of his name. You heard it too. Your own voice. His name in it.
Still rough. Still wrong.
But there.
His thumb moved over your knuckles once. "I slept," he said. You stared at him.
He sighed.
"Poorly."
"Chair?"
"Sometimes."
"Jack."
"Bed once," he said, like a confession under interrogation. You narrowed your eyes faintly. He added, "Robby threatened me."
"Good."
His mouth twitched.
"Traitor."
You wanted to say more. You wanted to ask about Vale. About Mercer. About the ring.
About the way he had called you baby when he found you, because the memory was hazy but there, tucked under smoke and oxygen and his hands at your face. But your body was dragging you under again, rude and heavy and impossible to argue with.
Jack saw the fight in your eyes. His face gentled. "Rest," he said. You heard it.
Rest.
You hated how much you needed to. "Don't leave."
"I won't."
"Say it."
He leaned closer. "I won't leave." You listened. Caught enough.
"Again."
His eyes softened. "I won't leave." Your fingers loosened slightly in his. Not because you wanted to let go.
Because sleep was taking the strength out of you. Jack kept hold anyway. "Still here?" you whispered. His answer came immediately.
"Still here." You heard that too. Clearer than the rest. Maybe because you already believed it.
Your eyes drifted closed. Just before sleep took you, his lips brushed your knuckles. You felt the words more than heard them. "I love you."
This time, you did not need to ask him to say it again. You knew he would. The next time you woke, the room felt less like the inside of an emergency and more like the aftermath of one.
Not peaceful. Not exactly. Hospitals were never peaceful if you knew how to listen to them. Even muffled, even through the strange gauzy layer still sitting over your hearing, there was always something happening. A cart rolling past. A monitor chirping in another room. Shoes against linoleum. A distant voice calling for someone who was probably already answering from somewhere else.
But it was quieter than before. No alarms screaming. No red lights flashing against smoke. No people running.
No one telling you not to move because the smallest mistake could become the last thing you ever did. Just the steady beep of your monitor. The low hum of air. The soft scrape of a chair beside your bed.
Jack.
You turned your eyes toward him before anything else. He was in the chair again, close enough that his knee nearly touched the bed frame. One hand wrapped around a paper cup he clearly had not drunk from, the other resting near your blanket like he had set it there on purpose and then pretended he hadn't.
He was watching the door. Not staring into space.
Watching.
Guarding.
Like the room needed a perimeter and he had appointed himself the last line of defence. Your mouth felt dry. "That door do something to you?" Jack's head turned so fast you almost smiled.
Almost.
His face changed the moment he saw you properly awake. The hard, alert line of him softened, just for a second, before he leaned closer.
"What?"
You heard the word a little better this time. Still muffled. Still wrong at the edges. But better.
You swallowed. "The door," you whispered. "You're glaring at it." Jack looked briefly toward the door, then back at you. "I'm monitoring access."
"That's not a thing." "It is now." Your mouth twitched. His eyes dropped to it, caught the almost-smile, and something in his own face loosened with visible relief.
"You hearing me?" You watched his mouth as much as you listened.
"Some."
"Some is good." "You sound like you're underwater."
"Rude."
"You asked."
"I did."
He shifted closer, elbows on his knees now, giving you his full face so you didn't have to work as hard to read him. "How's the pain?" You considered lying. Jack's eyebrows lifted a fraction.
Right.
Pointless.
"Annoying." "That's not a number." "It's a very clear number." "It is not."
"Seven," you admitted. His jaw tightened, but he only nodded and reached for the chart tablet near the bed. "You're due soon." "Don't drug me before visitors."
That made him look back at you. "Who said anything about visitors?" You stared at him. Jack stared back.
Then, from the hallway, Lena's voice carried faintly through the door. "Abbott, if you tell her we're not here, I'm writing you up for obstruction." You blinked. Jack closed his eyes.
For the first time since you woke, you genuinely almost laughed. It hurt before it even happened, so you stopped. Jack opened his eyes immediately. "Don't laugh."
"You're in trouble." "I'm never in trouble." The door opened before you could answer. Lena appeared in the doorway with a whiteboard under one arm, a marker tucked behind her ear, and the expression of a woman who had absolutely been waiting for the right moment to overrule him.
Behind her, Robby hovered with two coffees and absolutely no ability to look casual. Jack looked at both of them.
"No."
Lena stopped halfway through the doorway. "Good afternoon to you too." You heard some of that.
Enough.
Your eyes moved to Jack. He sighed and translated, slower, facing you. "Lena says good afternoon." Lena gave him a flat look. "That is not all I said."
"She's concussed. I'm editing for relevance." Robby stepped in behind Lena. "He's been doing that to everyone." Jack didn't look back. "Because everyone keeps talking too much."
Lena came to the side of your bed and held up the whiteboard. YOU AWAKE ENOUGH FOR VISITORS? Under it, in smaller writing: BLINK ONCE FOR YES. TWICE FOR KICK THEM OUT.
You stared at it. Then blinked twice. Lena's eyebrows lifted. Jack looked deeply satisfied.
Robby set the coffees down. "That feels targeted." You blinked once quickly after, because the look on Robby's face was too soft to punish for long. Lena smirked and wiped the board with her sleeve.
"Generous of you." You caught the shape of it more than the sound. Jack leaned closer. "She says you're being generous." You looked at him.
"Lena did not say that." Jack's mouth twitched. "No. She did not." Lena gave the board to Robby and moved closer, her snark fading around the edges. She was trying not to show it. That was almost worse.
There was a healing cut across her cheek now, thin and red beneath a strip of adhesive. Her hair was pulled back more severely than usual. Her arms were crossed, but when she looked at you, the look in her eyes was not sharp at all. "You scared the hell out of us," she said.
You heard enough.
Scared.
Us.
Your mouth pulled at one side.
"Sorry."
Jack's hand shifted instantly on the blanket beside yours. "No," he said. Lena pointed at him without looking away from you. "For once, he's right." Robby wrote on the board and turned it toward you.
NO APOLOGIZING FOR SURVIVING. You read it. Then looked at Jack. His face was set.
You wondered how many times he had said that while you were asleep. You wondered if he had said it to himself. Lena touched the blanket near your shin. Not your hand. Not anywhere injured. Just a small point of contact, practical and certain.
"You did good," she said. Jack repeated it slowly for you. "She says you did good." Lena looked at him. "I can talk to her myself."
"Then face her when you do." "I am facing her." "You were at a thirty-degree angle." Lena stared at him.
Robby quietly wrote something on the board. ABBOTT HAS BECOME A MENACE. You read it and smiled. Jack took the board from him and turned it face down on the side table.
"Unhelpful." Robby looked at you. "See? Menace." You heard menace clearly enough and smiled a little more. The room eased.
Not all the way. There was still a monitor by your bed, oxygen tubing under your nose, your right arm wrapped and aching, bruises under your skin, and grief waiting at the edge of the room like someone who had politely taken a seat until acknowledged.
But for a moment, The Pitt came back in pieces. Lena's dry authority. Robby's terrible handwriting. Jack pretending he was not being unbearable because he was terrified.
You breathed around it.
Slowly.
Carefully.
Lena uncapped the marker and took the board back. UPDATES, BECAUSE YOU WILL ASK. You looked at Jack. He looked at Lena.
"Careful," he said. Lena's expression softened, very slightly. "I know." She wrote beneath it: MR. MERCER SURVIVED SURGERY. CRITICAL BUT ALIVE.
The words blurred. You blinked hard. Mr. Mercer.
Alive.
Critical, but alive. Your hand had been inside his flank. Your fingers had held the thing that might have killed all of you. You had pulled it free. You had handed it to Vale.
You looked down at your right hand.
Bandaged.
Still.
Empty.
Jack followed your gaze. His fingers brushed the edge of the blanket near your left hand, bringing you back without crowding you. Lena waited. She did not rush you.
When you looked up, she added: GARCIA SAYS HE MADE IT TO OR BECAUSE OF YOU. Your eyes filled. Jack leaned in before the tears could become panic.
"Breathe," he said softly. You heard it.
Breathe.
You did.
Robby's face had gone quiet. He was watching you with that same expression he used on frightened patients, except worse because he wasn't hiding the fact that this one mattered. You swallowed.
"Garcia okay?" Your voice was rough, uneven, too loud to your own ears. Robby nodded and wrote: GARCIA IS SCARY AND FUNCTIONING. SO YES.
You nearly laughed. Jack gave Robby a murderous look. Robby capped the marker with dignity. "She asked."
Lena crossed her arms. "Garcia also said if you ever want to assist on a trauma again, she's going to require you to do it without explosives." Jack's eyes flicked to you as he translated.
"Garcia says no more explosives." "That's not what I said." "It was implied." You let your head sink back into the pillow.
"No more explosives." Jack's face tightened for half a second. Then he said, "Good." There was too much underneath the word.
You did not pull at it.
Not yet.
The door opened again, carefully this time, only a crack. Princess peered in. Behind her, Perlah hovered with a paper bag and a blanket folded over both arms. Lena turned. "I said one at a time."
Princess pointed at Perlah. "We count as a nursing unit." Perlah nodded solemnly. "Clinically indivisible." Jack closed his eyes. Robby looked delighted.
You felt warmth rise beneath the ache. Lena sighed. "Two minutes." Princess stepped in immediately. "That means five." "It means two."
"Your clock is wrong." Perlah came around to the side where you could see her clearly. She placed the folded blanket at the foot of the bed like it was sacred. Then she held up a small sign she had clearly made herself on a torn sheet from the printer.
GOOD BLANKET. NOT STOLEN. LIBERATED. You stared at it. Then at Princess. Princess lifted her hands. "We did what we had to do."
Jack muttered, "There are systems for blanket distribution." Princess looked at him. "There are systems for you going home, and yet here you are." Robby made a sound into his coffee.
Jack gave him a look that should have done damage.
It didn't.
Perlah set the paper bag on the side table. "Lip balm. Soft socks. Hair ties. The good lotion, because hospital lotion is basically a hate crime." You heard maybe half. Jack leaned closer to translate, but you lifted your eyes to Perlah and caught enough from her face.
"Thank you." Perlah's face crumpled for one dangerous second. Princess saw it and immediately took over. "You are banned from making us all watch you almost die again," she said.
Jack faced you, translating slower and softer. "Princess says you're banned from almost dying." You blinked at Princess. "Official?"
Princess pointed at herself. "Nursing policy." Perlah nodded. "Unanimous." Lena said, "I signed it." Robby took the board and wrote:
BANNED.
Then, after a second: ABBOTT ALSO BANNED. You looked at Jack.
He sighed.
"I have committed no bomb-related offences." Every person in the room looked at him.
Even you.
Especially you. Jack looked annoyed. "I ran after the explosion. That's different." Lena's eyebrows lifted. "Is it?"
Jack turned to you as if looking for support. You gave him none. "Traitor," he said. You smiled.
A real one this time. Small, tired, but real. The room reacted like you had done something medically significant. Princess looked at the ceiling.
Perlah blinked very fast. Robby stared into his coffee. Lena's jaw shifted. Jack just looked at you.
Everything in his face went soft and exposed for one unguarded second. Then he looked down like he needed somewhere safer to put the feeling. Princess cleared her throat. "Anyway. We brought the blanket. We're leaving before Abbott starts radiating territorial attending energy again."
"I am not territorial." Robby, Lena, Princess, and Perlah all looked at him. Jack said nothing. You wished you had the energy to laugh properly.
Princess leaned into your line of sight, her face gentler now. "You're really okay?" she asked. You heard really.
Okay.
The answer was complicated.
No.
Yes.
Alive.
Hurting.
Quiet.
Here.
You let your fingers curl weakly against the blanket, then looked back at Princess. "Getting there." Princess nodded like that was acceptable. Perlah touched the bed rail lightly. "Good."
They left with reluctant backward glances and one final look at Jack that seemed to say we are watching you, which was probably fair. Robby lingered. Of course he did. Lena lingered too.
Of course she did. Jack noticed. "Why are you both still here?" Lena crossed her arms. "Because you have been awake for too long."
"I'm fine." "You look like a haunted coat rack." You caught haunted and looked at Jack. He looked offended.
Robby added, "She's not wrong." Jack ignored him. Lena's gaze moved to you, then softened again. "He needs to eat," she said.
Jack started, "I—" Lena pointed at him. "Do not finish that sentence unless the next words are 'am going to eat something with protein.'" Robby held up a paper bag from somewhere.
"I brought a sandwich." Jack looked betrayed. "You planned this." "Obviously."
You watched them, the three of them moving around each other with the practiced irritation of people who had survived too many shifts together to pretend care was polite. Jack was still sitting beside you, close enough that if you needed him, you would not have to reach far.
But his face had gone stubborn in the way that meant he was about to refuse basic human maintenance out of principle and fear. You shifted your left hand weakly on the blanket.
He looked at you instantly.
"What?"
You held his gaze.
"Eat."
His mouth tightened. "I'm not leaving." You heard enough of that. You rolled your eyes.
It hurt slightly, but it was worth it. "Chair," you whispered. He frowned. You looked at the chair beside your bed.
Then the sandwich.
Then him.
"Eat. Chair. Stay." Robby's mouth curved. Lena looked openly satisfied. Jack stared at you for a long second.
Then sighed like every person in the room had personally betrayed him. "You're all enjoying this." "Yes," Lena said. "Deeply," Robby added.
You smiled faintly. Jack sat back down in the chair. Robby handed him the sandwich. Jack accepted it like it had offended him. "Happy?" he asked you. You considered.
Then whispered, "Protein." Lena made a triumphant sound and left before Jack could argue. Robby stayed another second. He looked at you, then at Jack, then back to you.
His expression shifted.
Soft.
Tired.
Fond.
"You scared me too," he said. You caught enough. Your face softened.
"Sorry."
Jack and Robby both said, "No," at the same time. The force of it startled you. Then almost made you laugh. Robby shook his head and picked up the board.
NO APOLOGIZING. ALSO I AM GLAD YOU'RE HERE. Your eyes stung. "Me too," you whispered. Robby smiled.
Then, because apparently sentiment had a short half-life in this hospital, he added beneath it: MAKE HIM EAT THE WHOLE SANDWICH. Jack looked up. "I can read." Robby patted his shoulder.
"I know."
Then he left too. The door clicked softly behind him. For the first time since you woke, the room was quiet with only the two of you. Not silent.
The monitor beeped. The hallway murmured. Jack unwrapped the sandwich with the expression of a man enduring medical treatment. You watched him struggle for ten full seconds.
"Need help?"
"No."
"You do."
"I'm a surgeon-adjacent emergency physician." "That means nothing." He shot you a look. You smiled.
He looked at your mouth. Then at your eyes. The sandwich wrapper finally gave way with an undignified crinkle. "Victory," he said.
You heard it. Actually heard it.
Soft.
Muffled.
But there.
Your smile faded into something more fragile. Jack noticed immediately.
"What?"
"Say it again." His face changed. Not confused.
He knew.
Of course he knew. He set the sandwich down without taking a bite. You looked pointedly at it. He gave you a look back.
Then leaned closer. "Victory," he said. You listened. The word came through the ringing imperfectly, but it came through.
His voice.
Low.
Rough with exhaustion.
Alive.
You closed your eyes. Jack's hand shifted closer to yours.
"Hey."
You opened them. "I'm okay," you whispered. He didn't believe you. That was fair.
You weren't. But you were here. You could hear some of him. He was eating a sandwich very badly in a chair beside your bed because you had told him to.
That had to count for something. Jack picked up the sandwich again, took one small bite under your supervision, and chewed like a man enduring a punishment from hospital administration.
"Good?" you asked.
"No."
You smiled. He swallowed. Then looked at you in that quiet, direct way that made the room feel smaller. "You're getting your hearing back."
You nodded. "A little." "It may keep improving."
"I know."
"We'll have ENT follow. Audiology. Rest. No loud environments for a while." "The Pitt is a loud environment." "You're not going back to work for a while." You stared at him.
He looked back calmly. "Don't start," he said. "I didn't say anything." "You looked it."
You narrowed your eyes. "Sensitive."
"Deeply."
The humour softened. A quieter thing settled. You looked toward the door where everyone had been. "They're okay?"
Jack followed your gaze. "The crew?" You nodded. He angled himself so you could see his mouth.
"Princess and Perlah have started a blanket cartel." You smiled faintly.
"Robby?"
Jack looked down at the sandwich. Then back at you. "Hovering." You gave him a look.
Jack sighed. "Fine. Helping."
"Good."
A pause.
Then you asked, softer, "You?" Jack stilled. The sandwich remained in his hand, forgotten. You watched his face close by instinct.
Then open again because maybe he had promised himself not to do that anymore. "I'm here," he said. "That's not what I asked." His mouth tightened.
"No."
You waited. Hospital sleep pulled at you again, but you fought it this time. Not hard. Just enough. Jack set the sandwich down. His hand settled carefully over yours on the blanket.
"I'm not okay," he said finally. You heard the shape. Read the rest. Your throat tightened.
"I know."
His eyes lifted to yours. There was something cracked open in him now. Not dramatic. Not falling apart. Just honest. "I will be," he said.
You watched him carefully. He took a breath. "If you keep breathing." Your eyes filled.
"That's manipulative."
"Yes."
"Rude."
"Alive."
Your mouth trembled. "That was Vale's line." Jack's face changed. The room shifted around the name.
Grief came back to the edge of the bed and sat down quietly. Jack did not look away.
"I know."
You swallowed. The sound of the monitor seemed louder. Or maybe your hearing was clearer. Or maybe grief made everything sharp.
"We need to talk about him," you whispered. Jack's hand tightened around yours. Not stopping you.
Holding.
"We will."
"Later?"
His mouth moved faintly. Not a smile. Something sadder. "Soon," he said.
You looked at him. He looked back. Soon was different than later. Soon had a door.
Soon meant he was not hiding it from you. You nodded carefully with your eyes.
"Okay."
Jack lifted your hand and pressed his lips to your knuckles. This time, you felt the words before you heard them. "I love you." The sound came through.
Muffled.
Imperfect.
His.
You closed your eyes. Not from fear this time. From exhaustion. From warmth.
From the strange, fragile relief of being alive in a room where people were still making terrible jokes and Jack Abbott was eating a sandwich because you told him to. His thumb moved once.
One.
Then again.
Two.
Then a third time.
Three.
You smiled faintly without opening your eyes. "Everything on three now?" Jack's voice came low and close. "Apparently."
You drifted, still feeling his hand over yours. The last thing you heard before sleep took you was the paper wrapper crinkling again. Jack finishing the sandwich. Obediently.
For once.
Soon came quieter than you expected. Not easier. Just quieter. The visitors thinned eventually. Lena left after pretending she had not been hovering. Robby left after making Jack promise, in writing on the whiteboard, that he would eat something else "before becoming legally classified as hospital furniture." Princess and Perlah had already smuggled in the good blanket and left with matching expressions that said they would deny crying in a court of law.
Then the room settled. The monitor kept its steady rhythm beside you. The hallway murmured beyond the door. Jack sat in the chair beside your bed, close enough that his knee brushed the bed frame, close enough that his hand rested near yours on the blanket without quite taking it.
Waiting.
He had gotten very good at waiting. You hated that for him. You watched him for a while. His face was turned slightly toward the door, but his attention was still on you. You knew that now. Jack could look like he was watching one thing and still notice the exact second your breathing changed.
"You're doing it again," you whispered. His eyes moved to yours immediately.
"What?"
You could hear him better now. Still muffled. Still underwater around the edges. But better. "Guarding the door." His mouth twitched faintly. "I'm monitoring access."
"You said that before." "And it remains true." "It remains weird." "It can be both."
You almost smiled.
Almost.
Then the almost disappeared, because there was too much sitting behind it. Jack saw that too. His face softened, but he did not push. The room held still around you.
You stared at your bandaged right arm, propped carefully on a pillow. Your fingers looked like yours and didn't. Pale. Swollen in places. Clean now, but you could still feel blood that wasn't there. The memory of it sat under your skin. Your hand inside Mr. Mercer's flank.
The hard edge beneath your palm. Vale's voice. Your fear is allowed. Your hand is not. Your throat tightened.
Jack's hand moved the smallest amount across the blanket.
An offer.
This time, you took it. Your left fingers slid into his. He closed his hand around yours gently.
Warm.
Steady.
Real.
"I keep seeing him walk out," you said. Jack went very still. You kept your eyes on your right hand because looking at him felt too hard. "He had the case. He told me not to move. He told me medical would come when the route was clear."
Jack's thumb moved once over your knuckles.
"I know."
"I keep thinking..." Your voice cracked. "If I'd moved faster, maybe he would have had more time." Jack leaned forward immediately.
"No."
You looked at him. The word had come through clearly. Sharp enough to cut. He must have seen you flinch, because he closed his eyes for half a second, forced himself softer, then faced you fully so you could read him.
"No," he said again, quieter. "That is not yours." Your eyes burned. "He was holding it, Jack."
"I know."
"He was holding it because I handed it to him." "He was holding it because that was his job." The answer hurt. Maybe because it was true.
Maybe because truth did not make grief any kinder. You swallowed. "He died with it in his hands." Jack's jaw tightened.
For a second, he looked away. Not from you. From the image. From the knowledge.
From whatever version of it he had already built in his head and could not stop replaying. When he looked back, his face was tired in a way that had nothing to do with sleep.
"Yes," he said. No softening it. No pretending.
Yes.
Vale died carrying the device away from you. The tears came again, silent and hot. "I don't know what to do with that." Jack's hand tightened around yours.
"Neither do I." That surprised you. You looked at him. He held your gaze.
No attending voice. No tidy answer. No neat reassurance he didn't believe.
Just Jack.
"I want to tell you it wasn't your fault," he said slowly, making sure you could catch every word. "Because it wasn't. But I also know guilt doesn't listen to that right away." Your mouth trembled.
"You sound like you've had practice." His expression shifted. A shadow passing through.
"Yes."
The single word sat between you, heavy and old. You did not ask for the story.
Not yet.
Maybe someday. Maybe later, when the word did not feel like another live thing in the room. Jack looked down at your joined hands. "I know what it looks like when someone puts their body between a blast and everyone else," he said. "And I know saying thank you never feels big enough."
Your chest ached. "Does anything?"
"No."
You appreciated that he did not lie. The monitor beeped. The hall murmured. Your hearing wavered in and out, his voice softening at the edges, then returning. You held onto his mouth when sound blurred.
"He was mean," you whispered. Jack blinked. Then his mouth curved faintly.
"Vale?"
You nodded carefully. "Useful mean," you said. "That's the worst kind." "He made me breathe."
"Good."
"He made me talk." Jack's thumb paused. "About what?" You looked at him.
You could have told him everything again. The pen. His hand on your wrist. The confession you had given Vale because you thought you might not get another chance. But the confession was already between you now.
Known.
Said.
He had said it back. You did not need to keep proving it happened. So you gave him the part that mattered differently.
"You."
Jack's eyes softened. "He noticed I was calmer when I thought about you." For a moment, Jack looked like he did not know what to do with that. Then he exhaled, rough and quiet.
"Smart man." "He was smug about it." "I'm less fond of him now." You huffed.
It hurt a little, but not as much as before. Jack noticed anyway.
"Careful."
"You're also smug." "I'm accurate." "You're impossible." "I've been told."
Something gentle moved through the room. Not enough to erase Vale. Nothing could. But enough to let grief sit beside warmth without swallowing it whole.
You looked at Jack's face. The dark smudges beneath his eyes. The scrape near his jaw. The tension he kept locked in his shoulders like if he relaxed too much, the world would remember it had unfinished business. "You ran in."
His expression closed slightly.
Not shut.
Just braced.
"Yes."
"Robby tried to stop you?"
"Yes."
"Lena?"
"Yes."
"Garcia?"
"She yelled something medically reasonable." You almost smiled. "Did you listen?"
"No."
"Of course not." "I was busy." "Running into a possibly unsafe blast zone?" His eyes held yours.
"Getting to you." The words hit harder because he did not dress them up. Your throat tightened. "You shouldn't have."
"No."
You stared at him. Jack's face remained steady. "I'm not going to pretend that was the safest thing I've ever done," he said. "It wasn't."
"Jack—"
"But I'm also not going to sit here and tell you I regret it." Your fingers tightened around his. His gaze dropped to the movement, then came back to your face. "I heard nothing after the blast," he said. "No Vale. No you. Nothing. And then there was smoke coming from the corridor."
His mouth tightened. "I was not staying at that line." You imagined it. Jack at command.
The radio going dead.
Smoke.
Robby's hands on him. Lena's voice. Jack breaking through all of it. A shiver moved through you.
He noticed instantly.
"Cold?"
"No."
"Pain?"
"Always."
His jaw tightened. You squeezed his hand before he could reach for the call button. "Not bad enough." "That is not comforting."
"It wasn't meant to be. It was information." He gave you a look. "That's my line." "I'm injured. I'm allowed to steal."
"You steal pens too." "Redistribute." "Criminal." Your mouth twitched.
Then you looked toward the empty side of the bed. The bed was narrow. Hospital narrow. Ridiculous. Full of wires and blankets and raised rails and practical obstacles. But suddenly the thought of Jack in the chair felt unbearable.
Too far.
Too upright. Too ready to spring toward danger. You wanted him closer. Not hovering.
Not guarding. Not braced like a man waiting for the second explosion.
Close.
Your fingers tightened around his.
"Jack."
His eyes sharpened.
"What?"
"Can you..." You swallowed, embarrassed before you finished. "Can you lie here?" He stared at you. Not because he didn't understand. Because he did.
His eyes flicked to the bed.
The rails.
The monitor leads. Your bandaged arm. The oxygen tubing. Every practical reason to say no.
"Beside me," you added, voice smaller. His face changed. Softened first. Then tightened with concern.
"I don't want to hurt you." "You won't." "You have bruised ribs."
"I know."
"And a concussion."
"I know."
"And—"
"Jack."
He stopped. You looked at him. "I don't want the chair." The words came out quieter than you meant them to.
But he heard. He always heard the parts that mattered. For a second, he did not move. Then he stood.
Carefully.
No sudden shift. No teasing. No argument. He lowered the bed rail on the left side and checked your lines with the kind of precision that would have been annoying if it didn't make your chest ache.
"Don't move your right arm," he said. "I wasn't planning on doing jazz hands." His mouth twitched. "Don't make me laugh either."
"I thought I wasn't funny." "You're occasionally dangerous." He eased onto the mattress like the bed might object. It probably did. Hospital beds were not built for complicated feelings and emotionally compromised attendings.
He stayed on his side, fully clothed, one arm carefully above your pillow, his body angled so he did not press against your ribs or bandaged arm. There was barely enough room, but he made himself fit without crowding you. Of course he did.
Jack Abbott, rearranging himself around damage. For a moment, neither of you spoke. The closeness changed the room. His shoulder near yours.
His breath warm near your temple. The familiar clean-hospital-and-coffee scent of him under the sharper smell of antiseptic. Your body, which had been holding itself tight for days, seemed to understand before your mind did.
You exhaled.
Slow.
Shaky.
Jack's eyes moved over your face.
"Okay?"
You nodded with your eyes.
"Better?"
You swallowed.
"Yes."
His expression broke a little. Not enough for anyone else. Enough for you. He lifted his hand and brushed his fingers carefully along the edge of the blanket near your left shoulder, asking without asking.
You shifted the tiniest amount toward him. Permission. He settled his arm around you with impossible care.
Not tight.
Not heavy.
Just enough to hold the shape of you. You closed your eyes. No white light came.
No blast.
No command voice telling you to stay standing.
Just Jack.
His chest moved beside you.
Slow.
Deliberate. He was breathing for you again, you realized. Counting without saying count. You matched him.
In.
Out.
In.
Out.
Your hearing caught small things from here. The soft catch of his breath. The fabric of his shirt moving when he shifted. The low murmur of his voice when he said, "I've got you."
You heard it.
Faintly.
Enough.
Your eyes opened. "Say that again." His face turned toward yours. "I've got you."
The words were muffled.
Imperfect.
But close enough to feel against your hair. You pressed your face carefully against his shoulder, avoiding everything that hurt as much as possible. "You sound less underwater from here."
His hand stilled on your back. Then moved again, slow and soothing. "Then I'll stay here." "Hospital policy?"
"Highly against it."
"Lena?"
"Will pretend not to see for five minutes."
"Robby?"
"Will absolutely see." You felt his mouth brush lightly against your hair. Maybe not quite a kiss. Maybe exactly one.
"I don't care," he said. You closed your eyes again. This time, not to sleep. Just to rest there.
Awake.
Held.
Listening to him breathe. After a while, you whispered, "He got it far enough." Jack did not ask who. Vale was still there.
In the room. In the space between breaths. In the fact that Jack could fit himself beside you now because there was still a beside to fit into. "Yes," Jack said.
You felt the word more than heard it. "He got it far enough." Your fingers found the front of Jack's shirt and held on weakly. Jack's arm tightened by a careful fraction.
Not enough to hurt. Enough to answer. The monitor kept beeping. The hallway kept moving.
The Pitt kept living around you. And for the first time since the blast, you did not feel like you were floating somewhere outside your own body, waiting for the world to go white again.
You were in a hospital bed. Jack was beside you. Vale was gone. You were alive.
All of those things were true at once. You did not know how to carry them yet. But Jack's hand moved slowly over your shoulder, steady and warm, and for now, he helped you hold the weight.
A few weeks later...
By the time Vale's funeral came, your hearing had come back in pieces. Not perfectly. Not all at once. Some sounds still arrived with dull edges. Loud noises still made your whole body tense before your brain could tell it not to. Too many voices in one room blurred together until words lost their centres and became only pressure and motion.
But Jack's voice was easier now. Maybe because you knew it. Maybe because he had learned how to speak to you after the blast — facing you, slower when he needed to, lower when the world got too sharp. Maybe because you had spent the last three weeks falling asleep beside the sound of him breathing and waking to his voice asking if you wanted water, pain meds, the blinds closed, the room quieter.
He had not moved in. Not officially. There had been no conversation about that. No bags carried through the door with ceremony. No drawer cleared for him. But his spare shirt was on the chair in your bedroom. His toothbrush was beside yours in the bathroom. His black pen was on your kitchen counter because you had stolen it from his jacket and he had pretended not to notice. There was a pair of his socks in your laundry basket and a bottle of the coffee he liked badly hidden behind your tea.
He had been staying since you were discharged. Sleeping in your bed. Careful, always. Too careful sometimes.
At first he had slept on top of the covers, one hand around yours, like he had decided proximity was allowed but comfort might injure you. Then, after three nights of you waking from the same white-flash nightmare with your pulse hammering and your right hand clawing at the sheets, you had tugged him closer with a patience neither of you had possessed. "Jack," you had whispered.
He had gone still immediately. "Pain?"
"No."
"Head?"
"No."
"Hearing?"
You had stared at him in the dark. "I am trying to cuddle you."
Silence.
Then, very carefully, "Oh." It had almost made you laugh. It had made you cry instead. After that, he slept under the covers.
Still careful. Still watching where your healing ribs were, where your right arm rested, where the bruises had not finished fading. But there. Warm at your back or facing you in the dark, close enough that when the ringing came back in your bad ear, you could put your hand on his chest and feel the reassurance your hearing could not always give you. Nothing else had happened.
Not really. A kiss in the hospital room before discharge, soft enough to count as a question. Another in your hallway the first night home, when he had put your bag down and you had looked at him under the yellow light and realised neither of you knew how to stand in a normal room anymore.
A third in the kitchen, two mornings later, when he had burned toast because he was watching you refill the kettle with your left hand and pretending not to. But mostly it had been sleeping.
Breathing.
Healing.
Jack in your space without taking it over. Jack learning which mug you liked. Jack changing your bandage with hands that never shook but sometimes paused. Jack waking before you did whenever your breath changed.
Jack being there. Later, finally, made ordinary. He was supposed to be off work. For once, no one had even tried to argue him back in.
The Pitt had been closed since the explosion — not the whole hospital, but enough of the ED that everyone still called it closed anyway. Trauma corridor destroyed. Trauma One unusable. Adjacent bays smoke-damaged. Glass replaced. Walls opened. Electrical checked and rechecked. Police and fire reports. Bomb squad reports. Hospital administration using words like assessment period and structural review as if language could make a blast less violent. The media had found the story before the dust had fully settled.
Homemade explosive device detonates inside Pittsburgh emergency department. Nurse injured saving patient. Bomb squad sergeant killed. The headlines changed by the hour. Some were respectful. Some were not. All of them made Jack's mouth go flat in a way that usually preceded him turning off the television without asking.
Staff had been given paid time off while repairs and investigations continued. Officially, it was for safety, trauma recovery, and operational reassignment planning. Unofficially, everyone knew the department had seen too much, lost too much, and been watched too closely to simply reopen the doors and pretend the fluorescent lights could cover it. Some of the crew had picked up shifts elsewhere in the hospital because they did not know what to do with stillness.
Some had gone home and stayed there. Jack had taken the time. No caveats. No "I'll just check the board." No "Robby can call if something happens." No showing up because the place might fall apart without him.
Robby had apparently threatened him. Lena had apparently threatened him more effectively. You had not asked what either threat involved. You only knew Jack was there every morning when you woke, making coffee too strong and toast too dark and pretending he had not checked your breathing twice before sunrise.
The morning of the funeral, he stood behind you in your bedroom mirror, tying his tie with the grim focus of a man performing a procedure he resented. You sat on the edge of the bed in a black dress you had bought online because none of your old funeral clothes felt right. Too tight at the ribs. Too formal at the shoulders. Too much like someone else's grief.
Your right arm was still bandaged near the elbow, though smaller now. The bruises along your forearm had gone from purple to yellow-green. The cuts on your cheek had faded into thin pink lines under makeup you had applied badly with your left hand. Jack had said nothing about the makeup.
He had only taken the concealer from you when your fingers got tired and dabbed it gently near your temple like he was afraid of erasing more than a bruise. Now you watched him in the mirror.
Black suit. White shirt.
Dark tie.
Bare left hand. Still bare. You noticed it less like a shock now and more like weather. Something that had changed and remained changed. Jack caught you looking.
His hands stilled on the tie.
"What?"
You met his eyes in the mirror. "You look uncomfortable." "I am wearing a tie." "That's not what I mean."
His mouth tightened slightly. No almost-smile today. Today was too heavy for almost-smiles. He looked down at the knot in his tie, adjusted it once, then stopped pretending.
"I hate funerals." You turned carefully on the bed, keeping your ribs from pulling. "Most people do." "Not like this."
The room went quiet. Outside your bedroom window, morning traffic moved faintly beyond the glass. A dog barked somewhere down the street. The heating clicked. Small, normal sounds.
Jack's gaze stayed on his tie. You knew what he meant. Military funerals. Hospital funerals. The rituals of surviving people who had not. Vale's funeral would not be the first one Jack had attended for someone who died because they stepped toward danger while everyone else stepped back.
Maybe that was why he had barely slept. Maybe that was why he had been awake when you opened your eyes at four that morning, staring at the ceiling, one hand resting over yours like he had been making sure you were still there.
You stood slowly. Jack looked up immediately.
"Careful."
"I am careful." "You are occasionally careful." You crossed the space between you. He did not move to meet you, but his body shifted toward you anyway. It always did now. Some instinct neither of you commented on.
You reached for his tie. His eyes dropped to your hands. "I can do it," he said.
"I know."
You straightened the knot anyway. Not because it needed fixing. Because he did. His breath caught slightly when your fingers brushed his collar.
You pretended not to notice. He pretended to believe you. The two of you had become very good at pretending badly. "There," you said. "Less tragic."
"I'm going to a funeral." "Your tie was a separate tragedy." His mouth moved.
Small.
Grateful.
Gone.
Then his eyes lowered to your face, and the grief came back into the room. "Are you sure you want to go?" You had known he would ask one more time. He had asked carefully all week. Not pushing. Not forbidding. Just checking the edges of your decision like a wound.
"Yes."
"You don't owe anyone this."
"I know."
"Vale's family won't expect—"
"I know."
"Your hearing is still sensitive. Crowds are loud. The service may be—"
"Jack."
He stopped. You looked up at him. "I need to go." His jaw worked once.
Then he nodded. No argument. Not because he liked it. Because he understood.
You smoothed the front of his tie again, slower this time. "I keep seeing him walking out." Jack's eyes softened painfully.
"I know."
"He was holding it."
"Yes."
"And I was standing there."
"Yes."
"I need to see where people remember him as more than that." Jack closed his eyes for one second. When he opened them, they were bright. "All right," he said.
You leaned into him carefully. He took you in immediately, one arm around your back, the other hovering for a second before settling near your waist, away from the sore places.
Always careful. You pressed your cheek to his chest and listened. His heartbeat came through his shirt. Clearer than most things.
Steady.
You breathed with it. Jack's mouth touched the top of your head. A kiss, barely. "You tell me if it gets too much," he said.
You nodded against him. "I mean it."
"I know."
"If the sound is too much, if people are too much, if standing is too much—" You tipped your head back to look at him. "You are hovering aggressively again." "I hover at a medically appropriate level."
"You do not." "No," he admitted. "Probably not." Your hand rested against his chest. For a second, you let yourself look at him.
Really look. He had changed in your apartment. Not softened exactly. Jack was still Jack. Still blunt. Still dry. Still capable of turning making tea into an argument with physics.
But something had come undone in him. Or maybe something had stopped holding itself so painfully tight. He touched you more easily now. A hand at your back when you stood. Fingers brushing yours when he passed you medication. His mouth against your temple before he left the room, even if he was only going to the kitchen.
Like he had spent too long rationing tenderness and had finally realised no one was asking him to pay it back. "You okay?" he asked. You watched his mouth. He still faced you when he spoke.
Even alone.
"Yes."
His eyes narrowed. "Mostly," you amended.
"Better."
"You?"
He looked like he might lie. Then didn't.
"Mostly."
You nodded.
"Better."
That earned you the smallest breath of amusement. Then his face sobered. "There's something I should say before we go." Your chest tightened.
Jack saw it and immediately shook his head.
"Not bad."
"You say that with your bad-news face." "I have one face." "You have at least four." "That seems excessive."
"Jack."
He exhaled. Then he lifted his left hand slightly between you.
Bare.
No ring.
The conversation you had both been walking around for weeks finally stood in the room. Your fingers brushed his. Not the empty place, not yet. Just his fingertips.
He looked down at the contact. "I took it off before the Code Black," he said.
"I know."
His eyes lifted. You shrugged carefully. "I noticed." "Of course you did." "I'm a nurse."
"You were concussed and half-deaf." "Still a nurse." Something like pride crossed his face. Then grief.
Then both.
"I didn't take it off because I stopped loving her."
"I know."
The words came out immediately. Jack stared at you. You held his gaze. "I never thought that."
His throat moved. "I need you to know that."
"I do."
"I loved her."
"I know."
"I still do, in some way I don't always have language for." Your heart ached. Not with jealousy. With tenderness.
With the strange intimacy of being trusted with someone's grief without being asked to compete with it. You held his hand more fully.
"Jack."
He looked at you. "I don't want a version of you that had to stop loving someone to love me." His face changed completely. Like he had been braced for pain and instead found a place to sit down.
You stepped closer. Careful of your ribs. Careless of everything else. "I just wanted to know there was room."
His eyes burned. "There is." You heard that clearly.
There is.
A small sentence.
Huge.
His thumb moved over your knuckles. "I think the ring helped me survive for a long time," he said. "And then at some point, I started using it to keep living small." You stayed quiet.
He looked toward the window, then back to you. "And then you were there. Stealing my pen. Arguing with me about discharge paperwork. Looking at me like you could see the part of me I kept trying to make professionally unavailable."
Your mouth trembled. "Professionally unavailable?" "I'm workshopping it." "It's terrible."
"I know."
The faint humour disappeared, but the warmth stayed. "I took it off because I realised I wasn't wearing it for her anymore," he said. "Not only for her. I was wearing it because it gave me an answer before anyone could ask a question."
You swallowed. "And I was tired of lying." Your fingers tightened around his.
"To me?"
"To myself first," he said. "Then to you." The room blurred. You blinked hard. "I was scared you'd feel guilty."
"I did."
His mouth tightened.
"Jack."
"I did," he repeated. "But not because of you. Because grief is a bastard and I am apparently not immune." That almost got a laugh out of you.
Almost.
He lifted your hand and pressed his mouth to your knuckles. "I love you," he said against your skin. You heard it. Muffled still, but clearer than before.
You closed your eyes. Not because you needed to read his mouth. Because this time you wanted only the sound.
His voice.
Low.
A little rough.
Alive.
"I love you," he said again, like he knew. You opened your eyes. "I heard you." His face softened.
"I know."
"You like saying it now." His expression shifted into something almost embarrassed. "I'm making up for lost time." "Efficient."
"Occasionally." You smiled.
Small.
Real.
His eyes dropped to your mouth.
He waited.
Always waiting now, like your body was a language he was determined not to misread. You rose carefully onto your toes. He met you halfway. The kiss was gentle.
It had to be. Your ribs still hurt. Your mouth still had a healing cut near one corner. Your body still treated sudden movement like a threat. But Jack kissed you like gentle was not a limitation.
Like it was a promise. His free hand came up to cradle the side of your face, thumb resting just beneath the faded bruise at your cheekbone. You felt him breathe out against you, slow and unsteady, and for one suspended second the day waiting outside the room did not disappear, but it loosened its grip.
When he pulled back, his forehead rested against yours. "You okay?" You nodded very carefully.
"Yes."
"Pain?"
"Manageable."
"Hearing?"
"Better when you're close." His eyes softened. "Then I'll stay close." "You already do."
"Good."
You kissed him again because you could. Because Vale had been right. You had survived to tell him. Because Jack had taken off the ring before the blast, before your confession, before the world forced either of you to stop hiding.
Because later had finally become now. A car horn sounded outside, distant but sharp enough to make you flinch. Jack's arms steadied you immediately. Your breath caught.
For one awful second, your body was back in the white light. Then Jack's voice reached you.
"Hey."
You looked at him. He faced you fully. "Just a horn." You breathed.
"Just a horn," you repeated. He waited until your shoulders lowered. Then he touched your cheek with the back of his fingers. "We can stay home."
"No."
"You sure?" "No," you said honestly. "But I'm going." Jack nodded. "Then we go."
The funeral was colder than you expected. Bright, too. A clear Pittsburgh afternoon with pale sun striking off polished cars and dress shoes and the brass fittings on the casket. It felt rude, somehow, for the sky to be that blue.
Bomb squad officers stood in uniform near the front, faces set into the kind of stillness that was not calm at all. Police. Fire. Hospital staff. People you did not know and people you did, all gathered around a man who had been alive in Trauma One and then gone before anyone could give him back to the world. Jack walked beside you with his hand at your back.
Not guiding. Not pushing. Just there. Robby stood on your other side, quiet in a dark suit, his face drawn with exhaustion and grief. Lena was beside him, black coat buttoned high, eyes forward. Princess and Perlah stood together a few feet away, both unusually silent. Garcia had come straight from the hospital, or looked like it, with her hair pulled back severely and her mouth pressed into a line that dared anyone to ask if she was okay.
No one did. You appreciated that. There were more of them there than there would have been if The Pitt were open. That thought hit you somewhere between grief and guilt.
On a normal day, normal for whatever The Pitt considered normal, half of them would have been working. Someone would have been at the board. Someone would have been arguing with radiology. Someone would have been moving a patient to CT, chasing labs, calling family, stealing blankets, making coffee, pretending not to need lunch. But The Pitt was still closed.
Or paused.
Or wounded. Whatever word people wanted to use for a place that had been built to receive disasters and then became one. So they were here. Lena in black, looking furious at grief itself. Robby standing with his hands in his coat pockets, unusually quiet. Princess and Perlah side by side, eyes red and mouths shut. Garcia looking like she had come directly from another hard conversation and was only still upright because she had not been given permission to fall apart.
Paid time off, administration had called it. Jack had called it the least they could do. Lena had called it the first sensible decision admin had made in a decade. None of it felt like time off.
It felt like the whole department had been holding its breath for weeks. The service moved in fragments. Some words reached you.
Duty.
Service.
Courage.
Sacrifice.
Beloved son.
Brother.
Friend.
Other words blurred when the wind shifted or when someone turned away from you while speaking. Jack noticed every time. His hand would press lightly at your back, not asking if you were all right, just reminding you that you did not have to chase every sound. Vale's mother spoke.
That part you heard almost nothing of. Not because of your ears. Because grief had a way of making language too large to process. She was a small woman with silver hair and a black scarf, standing at the podium with a folded piece of paper in both hands. A man stood beside her, maybe Vale's brother, maybe a cousin, close enough to catch her if her knees went.
Her mouth moved. Her face held. Then didn't. You looked down.
Jack's fingers found yours between your bodies.
Hidden.
Careful.
He squeezed once.
One.
Then again.
Two.
Then a third time.
Three.
The count did not break you this time. It held you together. When the honours came, the sound was too much. Not loud the way explosions were loud.
Different.
Ceremonial.
Final.
The sharp command voices. The movement of officers. The formal precision of grief made public. Your hearing distorted around it, the ringing swelling back at the edges. Your body tensed.
Jack turned toward you instantly. "Look at me."
You did.
He stood between you and the worst of the movement without making a scene. His mouth shaped the words slowly. Small breaths. You breathed.
In.
Out.
In.
Out.
His hand stayed in yours. You kept your eyes on him until the ringing eased. When you looked back, the casket was being moved. Your chest tightened.
There was no blood here. No trauma lights. No containment case. No white blast.
Just a flag, dark uniforms, and people who loved him. That was worse in a different way. After the service, people gathered in careful clusters, speaking softly. You stayed near Jack because the world was too full of mouths and not enough clear sound.
Robby spoke quietly with one of the hospital administrators. Lena hugged someone from bomb squad with the awkward stiffness of a woman who hated public emotion and did it anyway. Garcia stood alone for a moment, then Princess slipped beside her without saying anything. Jack leaned toward you.
"We can go." You shook your head.
"Not yet."
His eyes followed yours. Vale's mother stood near the casket, accepting condolences with a face that had probably forgotten how to be a face. Jack understood before you said anything.
"You want to speak to her." "I don't know if I can." "You don't have to."
"I know."
He waited.
You took one breath. Then another. "I want to." Jack nodded.
"Then I'm right beside you." You walked together.
Slowly.
Your right arm ached in the cold. Your ribs pulled with every careful breath. Your hearing blurred as people shifted around you, but Jack stayed close enough that his shoulder brushed yours. Vale's mother turned as you approached.
For one second, you did not know what to say. No words felt big enough. No words felt clean enough. Jack's hand settled at your back.
Not speaking for you. Never that. Just there. "I'm sorry," you said.
Your voice shook. Vale's mother looked at you. Really looked. Something changed in her face.
Recognition, maybe. Someone must have told her who you were. The nurse. The woman in the trauma room. The one Vale walked away from carrying the device. Her hand lifted to cover her mouth.
You almost broke then. "I was with him," you said. The words came out uneven, and you could not tell how loud they were. Jack stayed still beside you.
You kept going. "In the room. Before he..." Your voice cracked. "Before he carried it out." Vale's mother's eyes filled. "He was calm," you said. "He was bossy."
A tiny, wounded laugh escaped her. You clung to it. "He was very bossy," you whispered. "And he kept me alive. He kept telling me what to do, and I listened because he made the room feel like it still had rules."
Jack's hand pressed gently at your back. You swallowed. "He wasn't alone before he walked out. I need you to know that. He was helping me. He was talking to me. He made me believe there would be later."
Vale's mother started crying silently. So did you. "I'm alive because of him," you said. "A lot of us are." For a moment, neither of you moved.
Then Vale's mother reached for your hand. You gave her your left. She held it with both of hers. Her palms were cold.
"Thank you," she said. You heard that.
Clear.
Painfully clear. You shook your head.
"No. I—"
Jack's hand at your back steadied you. Not stopping you. Reminding you. No apologizing for surviving.
You breathed. "I'll remember him," you said instead. Vale's mother squeezed your hand. Then she looked at Jack.
Something passed between them — grief recognising grief, maybe. Loss seeing the shape of itself in another person. Jack bowed his head slightly. "I'm sorry for your loss," he said.
His voice was low.
Rough.
Formal because anything else would have broken. Vale's mother nodded, then released your hand. You stepped back before your legs could decide they were finished holding you upright.
Jack's arm came around you immediately. This time, you let yourself lean. Robby found you near the edge of the crowd ten minutes later. "You okay?"
You gave him a look.
He sighed.
"Right. Terrible question."
"Yes."
"Want a worse one?"
"No."
"Do you need to sit down?" Jack answered at the same time you did.
"Yes."
"No."
Robby looked between you. "I'm siding with the trauma patient's ribs." "I'm fine," you said. Jack looked at you.
You held his gaze for half a second. Then admitted, "I could sit." Robby smiled faintly. "Miracles happen." Jack guided you to a bench beneath a bare-limbed tree near the edge of the cemetery. The grass was damp. The air smelled like cold earth and flowers.
The Pitt crew gathered loosely nearby. Not crowding.
Just near.
Lena stood with her hands in her coat pockets. Princess and Perlah leaned together, quiet. Garcia sat on the low stone wall opposite you and stared at the ground. Robby stayed standing near Jack, shoulder almost brushing his. For a while, no one said much.
That felt right. Then Princess cleared her throat. "I still think the blanket was the right call." Perlah nodded solemnly. "Essential intervention."
Lena closed her eyes. "We are not discussing blanket crimes at a funeral." "Not crimes," Princess said. "Liberations." Robby looked at Jack. "Your influence." Jack frowned. "I have never stolen a blanket."
Everyone looked at him. You looked too. Jack sighed. "One blanket."
Lena pointed at him. "Ha." "It was medically indicated." Princess nodded toward you. "So was ours." You smiled.
Small.
But real.
The crew noticed. No one made a big thing of it. You loved them for that. Garcia looked up after a moment.
"Mercer woke up." Your breath caught. Jack's hand tightened around yours. Garcia's eyes stayed on you.
"Still critical. Still a long road. But he woke up. Asked about his brother first." You swallowed. "Does he know?" "Some," Garcia said. "Enough for now."
Enough for now. That seemed to be how everyone survived things. Not all the truth at once. Enough for now.
"Tell him..." You stopped. Garcia waited. You didn't know what to tell him.
Sorry.
I'm glad you're alive. I held the thing that hurt you. None of it fit. Garcia's face softened a fraction.
"I'll tell him you got him to surgery," she said. You nodded. "Thank you." A quiet settled again.
This one was less sharp. The afternoon moved around you. People began to leave. Cars started. Doors closed softly. Vale's family remained near the graveside, held together by hands on shoulders and the terrible choreography of loss.
Jack sat beside you on the bench. Still close. Still warm. Still there.
After a while, Robby nodded toward the cars. "We'll give you two a minute." Lena looked like she might object, then didn't. Princess touched your shoulder carefully as she passed.
Perlah squeezed Jack's arm once, which surprised him enough that he had no response prepared. Garcia gave you a small nod. Then they drifted toward the parking area, leaving you and Jack under the bare tree with the cold air and the quiet.
You leaned your shoulder carefully against his. He adjusted immediately, taking more of your weight without making it obvious. "You okay?" he asked. You gave him a look.
"I know," he said. "Bad question." "I'm not okay." His face turned toward yours. You looked out across the cemetery.
"But I'm here." Jack was quiet for a moment. Then he said, "Yeah." The word was soft.
You heard it. The wind moved through the branches overhead. Your hearing blurred at the edges, then settled. "I told her he wasn't alone."
Jack nodded. "I'm glad." "Was that enough?"
"No."
You looked at him. His eyes were on the graveside. "It was something," he said.
Something.
Yes.
Maybe that was all anyone got. You reached for his left hand. He gave it to you without hesitation.
Bare.
Warm.
Yours to hold, though not yours in a way that erased anything before. You traced your thumb over the place where the ring had been. This time, he did not say later. He only watched.
"I meant what I said," you told him.
"At home?"
"Yes."
"That you don't need me to stop loving her?"
"Yes."
His fingers curled gently around yours.
"I know."
"And I meant that I wanted there to be room." "There is." You looked at him. He faced you fully, because he still did that now.
Because he knew hearing him mattered. Because being seen while spoken to had become another kind of care. "There is," he said again. You heard it better the second time.
Your eyes stung. "I love you," you said. Jack's face softened. Not shocked.
Not undone like the first time. Still moved. Always moved.
"I know."
You narrowed your eyes. "That was not the expected response." His mouth twitched. "I love you too."
"Better."
"Demanding." "Concussed." "Still using that?" "As long as possible."
He huffed quietly. Then he leaned in. Slow enough that you could stop him. You didn't.
The kiss was gentle, cold air between you, his hand warm in yours. It tasted like grief and coffee and the mint he had started carrying because hospital breath had offended you once and he had apparently taken it personally. When he pulled back, his forehead rested lightly against yours.
"I called you baby," he said. You smiled faintly.
"You did."
"I was under duress." "You keep saying that." "It remains true." "You said it again after."
"I did."
"Say it now." His breath caught. You felt it. Then his mouth brushed yours once more, not quite a kiss, almost a promise.
"Baby," he said softly. You heard it. Clear enough.
His voice.
His word.
Now.
Your eyes closed. For once, the darkness behind them was only darkness. No white flash.
No blast.
No trauma lights. Just Jack's hand in yours and his forehead against yours and the cold afternoon around you. When you opened your eyes, he was watching you. "I heard you," you whispered.
His face changed in that quiet, devastating way you were starting to recognise as happiness trying to survive grief.
"Good."
You leaned into him again. Around you, the world kept moving. Cars pulling away. Voices softening.
Flowers shifting in the wind. The Pitt crew waiting near the lot, pretending they were not watching the two of you with unbearable affection. Vale's grave behind you. The life he had saved ahead of you.
None of it cancelled anything else. Grief did not cancel love. Love did not cancel grief. You were beginning to understand that.
Jack's hand tightened around yours once.
One.
Then again.
Two.
Then a third time.
Three.
You smiled faintly. "Everything on three?" "Apparently." You rested your head carefully against his shoulder.
"Take me home?" Jack pressed a kiss to your hair. "Yeah," he said. "I'll take you home." "Your place or mine?" you asked, because suddenly you wanted to hear the answer.
Jack looked down at you. There had been a time, before the blast, when that question would have made both of you look away. Now he only squeezed your hand. "Yours," he said. "My bag's already there."
You looked up at him. "That sounds official." "It sounds practical."
"Jack."
His mouth moved faintly. "Home," he said, softer. "If that's all right." Your chest warmed and hurt at the same time. "Yeah," you whispered. "That's all right."
And this time, when he stood, he did not let go of your hand. Not in the cemetery. Not when the others turned toward you. Not when Robby's face softened and Lena pretended to look at the sky.
Not when the cold air caught around you and your hearing blurred again at the edges. Jack stayed beside you. Close enough to hear. Close enough to hold.
Bare hand in yours. Later, finally, walking with you into whatever came next.
Summary - After the blast, there are no big declarations. Just shaking hands, silent promises, and Jack staying exactly where he said he would.
Word Count - 9.7k
Jack's POV
The radio became the centre of the hospital. Not officially.
Officially, the command point was the centre. Lena's roster. McKay's board. Police at the perimeter. Security holding the east hall. Garcia with the OR team on the phone. Anesthesia with airway equipment ready. Robby standing at Jack's shoulder like a human restraint with a medical degree. But Jack knew better.
The radio was the centre. Ugly black plastic on the rolling cart. One scuffed corner. Dust caught in the speaker grille. A red light that blinked whenever someone on the other end pressed to talk.
That little red light had become his entire world. Vale's voice came through cleanly. "Vale to command."
Lena picked up immediately. "Command." "I have preliminary stabilization," Vale said. "Preparing controlled extraction and handoff. Medical standby."
Jack went still. Extraction. Handoff.
Beside him, Robby's breathing changed. Garcia lowered her phone from her ear. McKay turned from the whiteboard.
The command point quieted in one terrible ripple. Then Vale continued.
"Nurse remains alert. Hand position unchanged. I am going to guide pressure release and angle. Due to position, she will have to draw the component out and hand it to me. Patient will need immediate medical entry once I call safe enough for movement." The words were clinical.
Clean. Controlled. They hit Jack like a body blow.
She had to pull it out. Not Vale. Her.
Her hand. Her fingers. Her fear. Her body fighting every instinct to flinch, to jerk away, to survive. Jack's hand moved toward the radio before he decided to reach for it.
Lena saw. So did Robby. Neither stopped him.
Maybe they knew he would not survive the next part without saying something. Maybe they knew she wouldn't either.
Jack pressed the button. "Abbott." His own voice sounded wrong.
Too flat. Too calm. Like a man trying to pass for himself.
Vale answered, "Dr. Abbott, I need you to listen. Do not interrupt unless I ask for medical input." Every instinct in Jack rejected that.
He forced himself to answer anyway. "Understood." The word tasted like blood.
Vale said, "Nurse remains alert. Hand position unchanged. I am going to guide pressure release and angle. Due to position, she will draw the component out and hand it to me. Patient will need immediate medical entry once I call safe enough for movement." Garcia stepped closer, eyes sharp. "Tell him we're ready."
Jack pressed the button. "Garcia and anesthesia are ready." "Good," Vale said. Then silence.
Short. Not empty. Jack stared at the radio.
He should stop. He knew that.
He should let Vale have her. Let Vale keep the room narrow. Let Vale's voice be the only thing inside her head because she had already told Jack the truth. I can't think about you. I have to think about my hand.
He knew. He knew. Still, his thumb stayed near the button.
"Can she hear me?" There was the smallest pause. Then Vale said, "Yes."
The command point seemed to vanish. No patients. No police.
No command board. No Robby. No Lena.
Only the radio. Only the idea of her on the other side of it, standing in Trauma One with her hand inside a wound and a bomb component under her palm.
Jack pressed the button again. "Don't listen to me right now," he said. His voice nearly broke.
He caught it. Barely. "Listen to Vale. That's your job."
Robby's hand closed briefly around his shoulder. Jack kept his eyes on the radio. He could see her too clearly.
Protective glasses. Blood on her glove. Her mouth trembling. Her eyes trying not to search for him. "You can do this," Jack said.
Then he let go. Not because there was nothing else. Because there was too much.
Because her name was behind his teeth. Because I love you was behind that.
Because if he gave her either one, he was afraid she would turn toward it. Toward him.
Toward the thing she had told him she could not think about. So he let go of the button. And the radio went quiet.
No one moved. At the command point, the entire department seemed to wait with him.
The ED had been pushed out and held in pockets around the hospital, but it still breathed. Jack heard an oxygen tank hiss somewhere in the east hall. A child murmured something to Princess. Perlah's pen scratched once against the roster, then stopped. Someone's phone buzzed and was silenced immediately. The waiting was obscene.
Medicine hated waiting. Medicine did things. Cut. Pushed blood. Bagged air into lungs. Started lines. Called labs. Compressed chests. Ran toward noise.
This was nothing. This was standing outside the blast radius while she pulled a device out of a man's body one impossible fraction at a time.
Jack's hands gripped the edge of the cart. He imagined the count. Couldn't stop.
One. Two. Three.
Pressure release. Stop. Hold.
No shift. Again. One.
Two. Three.
He knew what Vale would be doing. Guiding her in pieces. Keeping her from anticipating. Keeping her body from turning fear into movement. He knew what she would be doing.
Obeying. Crying, maybe. Making some impossible dry comment because she was terrified and stubborn and still herself.
He shut his eyes. Bad idea. In the dark, memory opened its mouth.
Dust. A flash. A corridor that used to be there.
The sound after. Not the explosion itself. The sound after was worse.
He opened his eyes. Robby was watching him. "Stay here," Robby said quietly.
Jack's mouth twisted. "I'm not moving." "You're somewhere else." Jack looked back at the radio. "Not enough."
Robby did not answer. Smart. The radio crackled.
Everyone in the command point snapped toward it. A bomb squad voice. Not Vale. "Secondary to Vale. Confirm status."
Silence. Jack's grip tightened. Lena reached for the radio, but did not speak yet.
Static. Then again. "Vale, confirm."
No answer. Garcia whispered, "He may have his hands full." Jack knew that.
That was exactly why the silence was wrong. If Vale had both hands full, that meant the object was out. Or almost out.
Or in the handoff. Or— No.
He stopped the thought before it could finish. The radio hissed.
Then Lena pressed the button. "Command to Trauma One. Status?" Nothing. Jack's chest tightened.
"Trauma One, status?" Lena repeated. Static. Jack could hear his own pulse now.
Robby moved closer. Not touching him. Ready.
Jack hated that he noticed. Another voice came through, low and urgent in the background. "Vale, confirm."
Still nothing. Jack reached for the radio. Lena's hand moved as if to stop him.
Then didn't. He took it. "Vale," Jack said.
Static. "Vale, respond." Nothing.
His voice sharpened. "Is she clear?" Robby inhaled beside him. No answer.
The silence after the question was worse than any answer could have been. Jack's thumb pressed harder against the radio.
He almost said her name. Almost. It sat behind his teeth with everything else he could not give her right now.
Her name. I love you. Come back.
All of it too big for the static, too dangerous for a room where Vale had told her not to think about him. So he swallowed it.
His voice came through rough instead. "Is she clear?" No answer.
Then, faintly, through the open channel, he heard Vale's voice. Not to command. Not to them.
Farther away. "Stay where you are." Jack stopped breathing.
She answered. He heard it. Barely.
Small and distorted. "Vale—" Jack's heart split.
Vale's voice again. "Do not follow me. Do not move toward the door. Medical will come when the route is clear."
Jack's eyes lifted from the radio to the blocked corridor. Vale was moving. He had it.
He was carrying it out. That was why he wasn't answering. The command point understood at the same time Jack did.
Lena's face went pale. Garcia's hand tightened around the strap of the trauma bag. Robby stepped closer.
"Jack," he said. Jack didn't look at him. The radio murmured again, voices overlapping.
Only static. Then the world went white. The blast hit before the sound did.
A hard, invisible shove rolled through the evacuated ED, punching the air from the command point. The floor kicked beneath Jack's feet. Lights flashed white-hot, then red under the fire alarm strobes. The rolling cart slammed sideways. The radio screamed with feedback and cut out. Clipboards flew. The whiteboard hit the floor with a crack. Sound arrived wrong.
Huge and delayed. A pressure-wave roar that rattled through Jack's teeth and into bone. Someone shouted.
Someone fell. An oxygen tank clanged against the wall. Jack was already moving.
He did not decide. One second he was at the command cart. The next, he was running toward the trauma corridor.
Robby caught him from the side before he made it more than three steps. They crashed into the edge of a portable monitor cart, hard enough to send leads and tubing skidding across the floor.
"Get off me," Jack snarled. "No." Robby held him with both arms now, not pretending it was gentle.
Jack shoved against him. "Move." "No." "She's in there."
"I know." "Robby, move." "No!"
The word cracked through the command point. For half a second, Jack froze. Not because Robby was stronger.
Because Robby sounded scared. Really scared. Then smoke rolled faintly from the direction of Trauma One.
Grey under the red strobe lights. A thin, ugly line of it curling down the corridor. Jack saw it.
Everything inside him went quiet. Not calm. Quiet.
The way the world went quiet right before a body chose violence. Robby must have felt the change because his grip tightened. "Jack."
Jack looked at him. Robby's face changed. "Don't," Robby said.
Jack's voice was low and empty. "Let go." "No." "She is in there."
"I know." "No," Jack said. "You don't." Then he wrenched hard.
Robby tried to hold him. He really did.
But Jack had leverage, panic, and the kind of strength that came from a place bodies were not supposed to access unless something was burning. He twisted out of Robby's grip, shoulder slamming into the side of the cart, barely feeling it.
Lena stepped in front of him. "Jack!" He sidestepped her.
She grabbed for his sleeve and caught fabric for half a second before he pulled free. "Abbott!" Garcia shouted. "We don't know if there's a secondary!"
Jack did not stop. Could not. Would not.
There was nothing between him and Trauma One now except distance, smoke, alarms, and people yelling his name like that had ever been enough to bring him back from a room he needed to reach. A police officer moved into the corridor with one hand up.
"Sir, you can't—" Jack shoved past him. Not hard enough to put him down.
Hard enough to get through. The officer shouted something behind him. Robby shouted too.
Then footsteps followed. Jack didn't look back. The trauma corridor was a different world.
Smoke hung low, thickening near the floor. Sprinklers spat unevenly from one section of ceiling but not another. The lights strobed red and white through dust. Glass glittered across the tile in tiny, vicious pieces. A ceiling panel had dropped near the medication room, wires dangling like torn veins. Jack ran anyway.
His prosthetic hit debris and adjusted badly for half a step. He caught himself against the wall, palm skidding over soot and plaster, and kept going.
Pain snapped through his hip. He ignored it. The air smelled wrong.
Burned metal. Dust. Blood.
Electrical fire. Memory tried to open. He slammed it shut.
Not now. Not her. Not her.
Farther down the corridor, figures moved around the blast point. Bomb squad. Police. Someone on the floor near the wall. Vale.
Jack saw dark gear, a shield angled low, someone kneeling beside the containment case. He did not stop. Could not stop.
Vale had taken the component out. Vale had carried it away from Trauma One. Vale had bought her distance.
Not enough. Maybe enough. Jack grabbed that thought like a pulse.
Maybe enough. The trauma bay door hung crooked in its frame. Half-open.
Blown inward. The glass beside it had spiderwebbed and shattered in places, leaving jagged teeth around the window frame. Smoke drifted from inside Trauma One in slow grey sheets.
Jack hit the door with his shoulder and forced it open. "Hey!"
The word tore out of him, rough and useless against the alarms. Then he saw her.
Thrown back from the bed, half on her side near the base of the wall, protective blanket twisted around one leg, vest shifted crooked across her torso. Her glasses were cracked. Her hair was dusted with plaster and tiny shards of safety glass. Blood marked her cheek, her temple, her arm. Still.
Too still. Jack crossed the room in two strides and dropped to his knees beside her hard enough that pain shot up his leg.
He did not feel it properly. "Baby." The word came out before he could stop it.
Not nurse. Not colleague. Not careful.
Baby. Raw. Terrified.
Already too late to take back. His hand hovered near her face for half a second before training dragged it where it needed to go.
"Hey, baby," he said, voice wrecked and low now. "Stay with me." She did not answer. His hands went where they had to.
Airway first. Always airway.
He checked her mouth, her breathing, her neck position with hands that wanted to shake and did not dare. Breathing.
She was breathing. Shallow. Ragged.
But breathing. "Breathing," he said, because he needed the room to know. Because he needed himself to know.
"Unconscious, breathing." Footsteps hit the doorway behind him. Robby.
Of course Robby. "Jack!" "She's breathing," Jack snapped. "Get suction. I need a collar, monitor, trauma bag, now."
Robby didn't argue. Thank God. He moved.
Garcia appeared behind him with anesthesia and Shen, all of them crossing the threshold now because Jack had already broken the seal and no one was going to pretend command still mattered more than bodies on the floor. Garcia went straight to Mr. Mercer.
"Patient still has a pulse," she called. "Airway compromised." Anesthesia moved to the head of the bed. "I've got him."
Shen grabbed the portable monitor from the doorway. Robby dropped beside Jack with the trauma bag. "Talk to me."
Jack's fingers went to her pulse. Carotid. Present.
Too fast. "Pulse present. Respirations shallow. Blast exposure. Possible head injury. Possible barotrauma. Lacerations. Right arm exposed. Need C-spine. Need oxygen. Check pupils."
Robby already had the penlight out. Jack almost laughed. Hysterical.
Wrong. No. Not now.
Robby leaned over her, careful and quick. "Pupils equal. Sluggish but equal." Jack exhaled once. Not relief.
Not yet. "Collar." Robby handed it to him.
Jack fitted it with hands that were too controlled to belong to someone who loved her. Her face was pale beneath dust and blood.
Too pale. He leaned close enough that only she could hear him, if anything in her could hear him at all.
"You do not get to do this," he said. His voice nearly broke on the last word. Robby's eyes flicked up.
Jack ignored him. "You hear me?" Jack said, low and furious and terrified. "You do not get to make me leave, pull a bomb out of a man's body, and then check out before I can yell at you."
She did not move. The fire alarm strobed across her face. Red.
White. Red. White.
Jack pressed oxygen over her mouth and nose. "Come on," he said. "Breathe." She did.
Barely. Enough. He looked at Robby. "Get her out."
Princess appeared at the door with a stretcher, face streaked with tears and soot, jaw locked like she had decided crying could happen while working or not at all. "Where?" she asked.
Jack's voice snapped into place. "Here. Lock it. Slow roll. Watch the glass." She moved instantly.
Lena appeared behind her, breathing hard, face pale with rage and fear. Her eyes found Jack on the floor beside the woman he had just called baby in front of half the department. For half a second, she looked like she might tear him apart.
Then she looked down. And everything else waited. "Tell me what you need," Lena said.
Jack swallowed. The answer was too big. Too much.
He wanted time. He wanted the blast undone. He wanted the corridor back.
He wanted her eyes open. Instead he said, "Oxygen. Monitor. Trauma bay outside the perimeter. CT when stable. ENT later if hearing deficit. Burns check. Full trauma workup."
Lena nodded once. Done. No argument.
Robby's hand touched Jack's shoulder briefly. "We need to move her." Jack looked down.
Her right hand was still curled against the floor. Empty. Free.
Shaking faintly now, though maybe that was his imagination. He reached for it before he could stop himself. Not to hold.
Not exactly. Just to check. Pulse.
Perfusion. Movement.
Anything clinical enough to excuse the fact that his fingers closed around hers for one second too long. Her skin was cold through the glove.
But her pulse was there. There. There.
There. Jack bowed his head over her hand for half a breath. Then he let go.
"On my count," he said. Robby moved to her shoulders. Princess took the stretcher position.
Lena cleared debris with her shoe. Jack slid one hand beneath her arm, careful of the lacerations, careful of everything, careful in the way he had not been careful with himself since the blast.
"One," he said. His voice held. "Two."
Robby looked at him. Jack did not look back. "Three."
They lifted her. They got her onto the stretcher. That should have been simple.
It wasn't. Nothing was simple in a room after a blast.
There was glass everywhere. Under the stretcher wheels. In the folds of the protective blanket. Glittering across the floor like the trauma bay had broken into pieces too small to matter and too sharp to ignore. Smoke drifted in low, stubborn layers, catching in the red-white flash of the alarms. Somewhere overhead, the sprinklers sputtered uselessly against a section of ceiling that wasn't burning. Jack kept one hand at her shoulder and the other at the oxygen mask.
"Slow," he said. Princess locked the stretcher into position. Her hands were steady. Her face wasn't.
Robby took the head. "I've got C-spine." "I have airway," Jack said. "I know."
"Then don't shift her." "I'm not shifting her." "Her neck—"
"I know, Jack." The edge in Robby's voice got through. Barely.
Jack looked at him. Robby's face was pale beneath the soot, his jaw clenched so hard a muscle jumped near his ear. He wasn't fighting Jack now. He wasn't trying to hold him back. He was in the room, hands on her, doing the work.
Jack forced himself to nod once. "On three," Robby said. Jack hated not being the one to count.
He hated that he noticed. "One. Two. Three." They transferred her.
Carefully. Too carefully.
Her body moved as one unit between them, collar in place, oxygen pressed to her face, blood and dust and glass and protective gear all tangled around her. Her right hand slipped toward the side of the stretcher as they settled her. Jack caught it before it dropped.
Not because he needed to. Because he couldn't not.
Her glove was slick with Mr. Mercer's blood. The fingers curled weakly, not with intention. Reflex, maybe. Residual tension. Shock. Her hand had held a bomb inside a man's body and then come out empty. Free.
He had seen that first. He would probably see it first for the rest of his life. "Jack," Robby said quietly.
Jack let go of her hand. Immediately. Too immediately.
He tucked the blanket around her right arm instead, clinical enough. Useful enough. An excuse with a shape. "Monitor," Jack said.
Shen was already attaching leads, his expression locked down in the particular way doctors looked when they were scared and had decided professionalism was cheaper than falling apart. "Leads going on," Shen said. "Pulse ox next."
"Careful with the right arm," Jack said. "I heard you the first time." "I didn't say it the first time."
"You thought it loudly." Under any other circumstances, Jack might have answered. He didn't.
The monitor crackled to life on the portable screen. Heart rate fast. Too fast.
Oxygen saturation climbing with supplemental oxygen but not where he wanted it. Blood pressure low-normal, maybe from shock, maybe pain, maybe blast, maybe blood loss from lacerations he had not fully assessed yet.
Alive. Alive. Alive.
Not stable. But alive.
"Pulse one-twenty-eight," Shen said. "Sat ninety-four on oxygen. Pressure ninety-eight over sixty." Jack's breath left him through his nose.
Not relief. Data. He could use data.
"GCS?" Robby asked. Jack leaned over her. "Hey. Can you hear me?" Nothing.
Her lashes didn't move. The oxygen mask fogged faintly with each shallow breath. Jack's throat tightened.
He pushed it down. "Pain response?" Robby's eyes flicked to him. "Jack."
"I need a GCS." "I know." "Then assess."
Robby held his gaze for one second too long. Then he nodded and applied a careful trapezius pinch. Her face tightened.
Not much. Enough. Jack's heart kicked.
"She's responding to pain," Robby said. "Localizing?" "Withdraws. Not localizing."
"GCS eight-ish," Shen said quietly. Jack's jaw clenched. Robby said, "We need CT."
"We need to secure airway if she doesn't wake up." "She's protecting enough for now." "For now is not a plan."
"No," Robby said. "It's a status." Garcia's voice cut across the room from the bed. "Mercer needs to move."
Jack looked up for the first time since they lifted her. Mr. Mercer was still on the trauma bed, surrounded by Garcia, anesthesia, and two nurses who had come in after the blast like the world had remembered it was a hospital. His airway tubing had been corrected. Blood was running again. The bed sheet was soaked around his flank now that her hand was no longer there to hold the bleeding back.
Garcia had one hand pressed hard into his side, using pressure and packing and fury to buy her own version of time. "OR route?" Jack asked.
Lena answered from the doorway. "Cleared as of thirty seconds ago. Bomb squad says no secondary in trauma corridor." Jack's eyes flicked toward the hall.
He saw movement through the wrecked doorway. Bomb squad gear. A shield on the floor. Someone kneeling. Someone else standing too still beside the blast mark. The containment case was twisted open near the far wall.
Vale was on the floor beside it. Jack knew before anyone said it.
There was a stillness to some bodies after disaster that medicine could not argue with. Not really. Not without lying to itself. He had seen it before.
Too many times. His throat tightened once. Then locked.
"Status on Vale?" he asked anyway. Lena's face changed. Not much.
Enough. "Jack." He looked at her.
She swallowed. "Vale's gone." The words moved through the room differently than the alarms.
For half a second, nobody spoke. Even Garcia's hands seemed to pause against Mr. Mercer's wound.
Vale had carried the component out. Vale had taken it farther from the room. Farther from her.
Not far enough for himself. Enough for everyone else. Jack looked toward the corridor again.
At the blast mark. At the place where Sergeant Vale had made the last useful choice of his life.
Something cold and heavy settled behind Jack's ribs. There was no room for it. Not now.
Not while she was on the stretcher. Not while Mr. Mercer was bleeding.
Not while Vale's last order was still working its way through the room. Medical will come when the route is clear.
The route was clear because Vale had made it clear. Jack forced air into his lungs. One breath.
Then another. "Okay," he said. Robby looked at him sharply.
Jack did not look back. If he looked at Robby, he would lose a second he did not have.
"Mercer goes to OR," Jack said, voice flat with effort. "She goes to resus outside perimeter. Full blast workup. CT when stable. ENT after. We move now." Lena held his gaze for one second.
Then nodded. No sympathy. No speech.
Just the kind of respect that understood grief could wait because bodies could not. Garcia's voice came, lower now. "Mercer goes first?"
It was not really a question. Jack looked down at the woman on the stretcher. Unconscious.
Breathing. His entire body rejected the idea of not moving her first.
His brain answered before his grief could interfere. "Mercer is actively hemorrhaging and has a surgical source," Jack said. "He goes to OR. She goes to resus outside perimeter, then CT when airway is secure and vitals permit."
Robby watched him. Jack felt it. "Say something," Jack snapped.
Robby shook his head. "No. That was right." That should have helped. It didn't.
Garcia nodded. "Taking him." Anesthesia moved with her, bagging Mr. Mercer as they unlocked the bed. "OR now."
Princess looked torn for half a second, eyes darting between the bed and the stretcher. Jack saw.
"Go with Garcia," he said. Princess's mouth parted. "She'll need hands," Jack said. "We have enough here."
Princess swallowed. Then nodded and moved with the bed. Garcia looked back once from the doorway. "Abbott."
Jack lifted his eyes. "She got him there," Garcia said. The words hit in a place he could not afford.
Mr. Mercer's bed rolled out. Garcia followed. Anesthesia followed.
Princess followed. Blood dripped from the side of the mattress onto the trauma bay floor as they disappeared into the wrecked corridor.
Jack looked back down. She got him there. Yes.
She had. And now she was on a stretcher under his hands, unconscious, face pale beneath soot and blood.
"Move," Lena said. Jack looked up.
She had cleared a path through the debris, one shoe covered in dust, her face still bleeding from the thin cut across her cheek. Behind her, McKay had commandeered the outer resus bay beyond the perimeter. Staff waited there with oxygen, suction, a monitor, blankets, IV supplies, and the particular silent horror of people watching one of their own come through broken. Jack nodded.
"Slow roll," he said. "Watch the right side." Robby took the head. Shen took the monitor.
Jack stayed at her left, one hand on the stretcher rail, one hand near the oxygen mask. Lena led them out.
The hallway was worse than the room. The blast had made the trauma corridor unfamiliar. The walls were blackened in a rough bloom near the detonation point. Ceiling tiles hung at strange angles. Water and dust made paste underfoot. Glass crunched beneath stretcher wheels no matter how carefully anyone had tried to clear a route.
Jack saw Vale as they passed. He didn't mean to. He couldn't not.
Sergeant Vale lay near the blast point, one arm thrown out beside the broken containment case, dark gear torn open by force and fire. His helmet had rolled several feet away. Two members of his team were crouched near him, but neither of them was moving with urgency anymore. That was how Jack knew.
No compressions. No airway. No shouted orders.
Just one bomb squad tech kneeling beside him with a hand pressed to his own helmet, head bowed like he had forgotten the department was still burning around them. Vale had been alive when he told her to stay standing.
Alive when he carried the case out. Alive when he put distance between the device and the woman Jack loved.
And then he wasn't. Jack's steps faltered. Only for half a second.
Robby noticed immediately. "Keep moving." Jack did. But his eyes stayed on Vale until the smoke swallowed him.
There would be time later to feel the shape of that debt. Maybe. For now, there was her breathing under the oxygen mask.
There was her pulse. There was the stretcher. There was work.
So Jack kept moving. At the inner line, staff parted. No one spoke.
That was worse. The night shift crew, the evacuated patients' nurses, police, security, command — all of them watched the stretcher pass with the same expression, like the building had exhaled one of its own and no one knew how badly she was hurt yet.
Jack hated their eyes on her. He wanted to cover her. He wanted to tell them to look away.
He wanted to tell them she had done what none of them could have done and deserved more than their fear. Instead he said, "Move."
People moved. The outer resus bay had been made out of an ordinary treatment area by force of will and panic. Supplies stacked on every surface. Portable suction. Monitor. Airway cart. Warm blankets. Two nurses waiting with IV kits. McKay at the foot of the bed, sleeves pushed up, eyes sharp.
"Transfer on your count," McKay said. Jack nodded. Robby looked at him. "You want me to—"
"I've got it." Robby didn't argue. Smart.
Jack leaned over her. "Hey," he said, low. "We're moving you again." She did not answer.
He pretended that didn't hurt. "One. Two. Three." They moved her from the stretcher to the resus bed.
Her head stayed aligned. Her airway stayed open. Her oxygen stayed on.
Her body stayed too still. Jack straightened and immediately started cutting away the protective vest where it was safe to remove. His scissors slid through straps, fabric, tape. The gear had protected some of her. Not all. Her right sleeve was dark with blood that was not only Mr. Mercer's. Small cuts peppered her forearm. A deeper laceration crossed near her elbow, sluggishly bleeding.
"Right arm lac," Jack said. "Control bleeding. Check distal pulse." One of the nurses moved in.
Jack's hand almost stopped her. Almost. He let her work.
Barely. "Radial pulse present," she said. "Weak but present." "Sensation impossible to assess," Shen said.
"Motor impossible until she wakes," Robby added. Jack hated both statements for being true.
McKay shone a light again. "Pupils still equal. Sluggish." "Head CT," Jack said.
"Once airway decision is made," Robby said. Jack looked at him.
Robby held up both hands slightly. "I'm agreeing with you. Badly, apparently." Jack looked back down. "She needs trauma scan. Head, C-spine, chest, abdomen. Blast exposure. Possible lung contusion, tympanic injury, concussion, internal injury from impact."
"Portable chest now," McKay said. "CT when stable." "FAST?" Shen asked. "Do it," Jack said.
A probe appeared. Gel. Hands.
Too many hands. Necessary hands.
Jack stepped back half a foot because if he didn't, he would block care. The move felt like tearing skin from bone. Robby noticed.
Of course he noticed. "Good," Robby said quietly. Jack shot him a look. "Do not praise me like a dog."
"Then stop looking like one who wants to bite the ultrasound tech." The tech froze.
Jack exhaled sharply. "Keep scanning." The tech kept scanning.
Lena appeared at the doorway. "Mercer is in OR. East hall patients are stable. No deaths reported from evacuation." No deaths.
The words moved through the room. Lena's eyes went to the woman on the bed. Then, for half a second, beyond the room.
Toward the corridor. Toward the blast mark. Toward Vale.
"No patient deaths," she amended quietly. Jack looked at her. She didn't flinch.
Good. He needed people who wouldn't flinch. The ultrasound tech said, "FAST negative."
"Good," Robby said. "Chest?" McKay asked. "Breath sounds," Jack said.
Robby was already listening on the left. McKay took the right. "Present bilaterally," Robby said. "Diminished at bases but present."
"No tension signs," McKay added. "Oxygen?" Jack asked. "Ninety-six now," Shen said. "Respiratory rate twenty-eight."
Jack watched the rise and fall of her chest. Too fast. But there.
There. There. Her eyelids fluttered.
The room paused. Jack saw it first. Of course he did.
"Hey," he said, moving back in before anyone could stop him. "Can you hear me?" Her eyes did not open fully.
Just a flicker. A struggle under the weight of blast and pain and whatever darkness she had been thrown into.
"Hey," Jack said again, softer. "You're in resus. You're safe." The word safe felt obscene after what had happened.
He said it anyway because she needed a word and that was the one he wanted to make true. Her lips parted.
No sound came out. Robby leaned closer. "Don't try to talk." She tried anyway.
Of course she did. Jack's hand found the bed rail. White knuckles.
Her eyes opened a fraction. Unfocused. Glassier than they should have been.
They moved past McKay. Past Robby. Past the ceiling lights.
Trying to orient. Trying to find. Jack stepped into her line of sight.
"I'm here," he said. Her gaze caught on him. Barely.
But it caught. Her mouth moved again. He leaned in.
"What?" Her brows drew together. She looked frightened.
Not confused-frightened. Wrong-frightened. Her eyes moved to his mouth as he spoke.
Not his eyes. His mouth. Jack's stomach dropped.
"Can you hear me?" he asked. Her eyes stayed on his lips. No answer.
He said it again, louder. "Can you hear me?" Nothing.
Not recognition of the sound. Not flinch. Not even the tiny wince people gave when a room got too loud.
The monitor kept beeping. The fire alarm still flashed somewhere beyond the doors. Staff were speaking around her.
She did not react to any of it. Only to his face. Only to the shape of his mouth.
Robby saw it at the same time Jack did. "Jack," he said quietly. Jack ignored him.
He leaned closer, careful not to crowd her, careful not to shake. He mouthed the words more clearly. Can you hear me?
Her breathing quickened. Her eyes filled with tears. Then she gave the smallest shake of her head.
Barely. Too much. Jack's hand lifted automatically toward her face.
Stopped. C-spine. Injuries.
Boundaries. Everything.
His hand hovered uselessly for half a second before he lowered it to the mattress beside her shoulder. Not touching.
Close enough that she could see. Her eyes followed it. Then found his again.
Jack swallowed. His own voice was useless now.
He spoke anyway because Robby and McKay and everyone else needed to hear the plan. "Acute hearing loss post-blast," he said, and the words tried to cut him open from the inside. "Likely temporary threshold shift or tympanic injury. ENT after stabilization. Keep communication visual. Speak facing her. Slow. No crowding."
Her tears slipped sideways into her hairline. She still couldn't hear him. But she could see his face.
So Jack made it behave. Barely. He leaned into her line of sight again and shaped the words carefully.
You're alive. Her eyes searched his mouth. He repeated it.
You're alive. She blinked. A tear fell.
Then her left hand shifted weakly against the sheet. Not the right. The left.
Looking. Searching. Jack did not make her work for it.
He placed his hand where she could reach. Palm up. A choice.
Her fingers found his. Cold. Weak.
There. He closed his hand around hers gently. Robby looked away.
McKay didn't. Lena stood in the doorway with one hand over her mouth. Jack didn't care.
Let them see. Let the whole damned hospital see. Her fingers tightened by the smallest amount.
Jack leaned closer. His mouth formed the words before he could second-guess them. I'm here.
She stared at him. Then, after a second, her eyes dropped. To his left hand.
To the hand holding hers. Bare. No ring.
Even through shock, even through blast, even through the terrifying quiet she had been trapped inside, she noticed. Of course she noticed.
Her eyes lifted back to his. Jack's chest broke open. Not enough to spill.
Enough to ache. He mouthed the words again. I'm here.
Her face crumpled. Silently. That was the worst part.
The silent crying. No sobs. No broken sounds.
Just tears and shaking breath and her fingers clinging weakly to his because the world had gone muffled and wrong and Jack was the only thing she could read. Robby touched his shoulder.
Gentle. A warning. A reminder.
"CT," Robby said. Jack nodded without looking away from her. He squeezed her hand once.
Then shaped the words carefully, slowly. We have to move you. Her grip tightened.
Panic flashed across her face. Jack shook his head once, small enough not to startle her. I'm coming.
She stared at him. He repeated it. I'm coming with you.
Only then did her hand loosen enough for them to prepare the transfer. Not let go. Not really.
Jack didn't make her.
Readers POV
The world had gone wrong. Not dark anymore. Not entirely.
There were lights above you. White ceiling panels sliding past. Red flashes somewhere beyond them. Shapes moving in and out of your vision. Faces appearing over you, mouths moving, eyes too wide. But the world had gone wrong because it had gone quiet.
Not silent. Not completely. There was a sound, but it wasn't sound the way you knew it.
It was pressure. A high, thin ringing stretched through your skull, endless and sharp, like someone had pressed a tuning fork against bone and forgotten to take it away. Beneath it, everything else arrived muffled and far away.
The stretcher wheels. The monitor. Voices.
Alarms. All of it blurred beneath the ringing. You tried to turn your head.
A hand stopped you. Gentle. Firm.
Jack. You knew it was him before your eyes found him.
He was walking beside the stretcher, one hand braced near your shoulder, the other holding yours. His face stayed in your line of sight like he had decided the rest of the hospital could move around him if it wanted to. His mouth moved.
You watched it carefully. Too carefully. You caught nothing.
Panic rose so fast it almost took the oxygen from your lungs. Jack saw. Of course he saw.
He leaned closer, not enough to crowd you, just enough that you could see his lips clearly. Slowly, he shaped the words.
I'm here. Your fingers tightened around his. The ring in your ears screamed.
You could not hear him. But you could read that. You could hold that.
I'm here. You blinked hard. Tears slid sideways into your hair.
Jack's face changed. Pain first. Then control.
Then the version of him that made things smaller. He mouthed it again. I'm here.
You tried to answer. Your throat worked. Nothing came out except a rough breath that you felt more than heard.
Jack's hand closed more securely around yours. Not tight. Never tight.
Just there. Your anchor. Your proof that the blast had not taken everything.
Robby appeared on your other side, walking backward for two steps so you could see his face. He was talking too. You knew because his mouth moved, because his eyebrows lifted with that careful Robby expression that meant he was trying very hard not to scare a patient while being absolutely scared himself. You couldn't hear him either.
Your chest started to hitch. Jack's head turned sharply toward Robby. His mouth moved in profile.
You couldn't make out the words, but you knew the tone. An order.
Robby nodded and stepped slightly out of your direct line of sight. Jack came back in.
He tapped two fingers gently against the mattress beside your shoulder. Your eyes dropped. His left hand.
Bare. No ring. The thought surfaced through the pain and ringing and confusion with strange clarity.
Jack's ring was gone. Not just now. Not because of gloves.
Not because of trauma. His hand looked like it had looked in resus when you first noticed. Bare in a way that felt deliberate. Bare in a way that made something inside your chest ache harder than the rest of you.
Your eyes lifted to his. Jack saw where you had looked. Of course he saw.
For a second, all the doctor left his face. Not enough for the others to catch, maybe. Enough for you.
His thumb moved once over your knuckles. Small. Careful.
Then his mouth formed two words. Not now. You blinked.
He shook his head, barely. Later. There it was again.
Later. Vale's word. Jack's word now.
A place to put everything that would break you if you tried to hold it in this hallway. You swallowed. It hurt.
Everything hurt, actually, but in layers. Your head throbbed dully beneath the ringing. Your right arm burned from shoulder to wrist, a hot, electric ache that made your fingers twitch. Your ribs complained when you breathed too deeply. Your back felt bruised in the shape of the floor. Your cheek stung. Your mouth tasted like smoke and plastic oxygen.
And still, beneath all of it, your hand was free. You remembered that suddenly. Your right hand.
You tried to lift it. Jack caught the movement before it became movement. His eyes sharpened.
He mouthed, Don't. You stared at him. Then down at your right arm.
It was wrapped now. Not fully. Not fixed. Just bandaged enough to control bleeding for transport. Blood had darkened through at the edge near your elbow. Your glove was gone. Your fingers looked pale and wrong against the blanket. But they were there.
Empty. Free. A sob tried to climb out of you.
It turned into a cough. Pain sparked through your ribs. Jack's face tightened.
His mouth moved faster now, too fast for you to catch. He stopped himself. Breathed.
Then shaped the words again. Small breaths. You obeyed because it was Jack.
Because even without sound, his face still worked like an anchor. Small breath. Another.
Your chest hurt less. Not enough. But less.
Jack watched every breath like he had personally negotiated for it. His fingers shifted around yours, thumb pressing once.
Not a squeeze. A count. One.
Then again. Two. Then a third time.
Three. You understood. Of course everything was on three now.
A soundless, broken laugh tried to form behind the oxygen mask. Jack saw the flicker of it. His mouth almost moved.
Almost a smile. Not quite. But enough.
Enough that for one second, through pain and smoke and the screaming silence in your head, you remembered him standing by the nurses' station before all of this. His hand under your bruised wrist. His mouth nearly smiling because neither of you had known how to say what the room was already full of. Your fingers tightened.
Jack leaned closer. There you are. You read it.
Barely. You stared at him. He repeated it, slower.
There you are. Your face crumpled. Because you were there.
You were still there. You had not disappeared inside the blast. You had not stayed in Trauma One. You had not vanished when the world went white.
Jack could see you. That made it real. You moved your lips.
You didn't know what came out. Maybe nothing. Maybe a sound.
Maybe his name. Jack's eyes dropped to your mouth. Then back to your face.
He mouthed, Don't talk. You tried again anyway. He gave you a look.
Even now. Even with blood on his jaw and soot on his scrub collar and his eyes cracked wide open with fear, Jack Abbott still managed to look disapproving.
It was so him that another tear slid into your hair. His face softened instantly. Don't scare me, he mouthed.
You stared at him. The words landed too deep. Too close to the thing you had given Vale before the count.
Make sure Jack knows I love him. Your heart lurched. You wondered if Vale had told him.
No. Vale had said you would. Vale had promised later.
Your breathing changed. Jack saw it. His grip steadied around yours.
What? You swallowed. Your throat hurt.
Your eyes flicked around, searching. Faces. Robby.
McKay. Shen. A nurse you couldn't place.
No Vale. Your stomach dropped. You looked back at Jack.
Your mouth formed the name, or tried to. "Vale." You couldn't hear yourself.
Jack's face changed. That was answer enough. Your chest tightened so violently the monitor reacted.
Jack looked toward it, then back at you. He leaned close, mouth forming careful words. Look at me.
No. You tried to shake your head. The collar stopped you.
Pain flashed up your neck. Jack's hand came up, hovering near your cheek, not touching. Don't move.
Your eyes filled. Vale. Vale, who had told you to stay standing.
Vale, who had made you talk about Jack because your breathing changed when you did. Vale, who had refused to deliver your message.
Vale, who had walked out with the bomb in his hands. Jack watched the realization move through you and looked like it hurt him physically not to be able to hide it from you.
His mouth formed the words slowly. He saved you. No.
Your eyes burned. No. Jack held your gaze.
He saved you. That wasn't an answer. It was worse than one.
Your left hand tightened around his so sharply his jaw shifted. Not in pain. In grief.
In understanding. You tried to speak again. Vale's name.
A question. An apology. A denial.
Nothing worked. The ringing swallowed everything you might have said. Jack's face blurred through your tears.
Then he did the thing he had been doing all night, in different rooms, under different lights. He made the world smaller.
He lifted his free hand, held up one finger. Then pointed to you. You.
A second finger. His own chest. Me.
A third finger. The hallway ahead. CT.
You blinked through tears. He repeated it. You. Me. CT.
Then he lowered his hand and mouthed slowly: Vale later. Your breath hitched.
Jack's face tightened like the words cost him. He mouthed them again. Vale later.
Not forgotten. Not ignored. Not gone without witness.
Later. Because if you thought about Vale now, you would drown.
Because if Jack thought about Vale now, maybe he would too. You squeezed his hand once. Weak.
Jack's thumb answered. One. Two.
Three. Small breath. Another.
The lights changed above you. The hallway narrowed. CT.
You knew it from the ceiling, from the cold air, from the way people's bodies arranged themselves around equipment. Hospital geography still existed, even if sound didn't.
That almost helped. Someone touched the stretcher brake. A jolt went through you.
Your body jerked despite yourself. Jack's hand came up immediately, hovering near your face without touching.
His mouth moved. You're okay. No.
No, you were not. Your eyes filled again. Jack read that too.
His jaw tightened. Then, slowly, he mouthed something different. You're safe with me.
That one broke you. Not loudly. Nothing was loud anymore.
But your face crumpled and your fingers dug weakly into his hand, and for one second you were back in Trauma One telling Vale that Jack made you feel safe even with a bomb under your palm. Jack saw it.
Not the memory. The effect of it. His face shifted.
His eyes lowered briefly to your joined hands. Then back. He mouthed, I've got you.
You wanted his voice. The thought was sudden and brutal. You wanted to hear the words.
Not read them. Not guess them. Not catch them off his mouth like scraps.
You wanted Jack's actual voice. The low one that cut through trauma bays. The dry one that corrected your charting jokes. The soft one you had only heard in fragments when no one else was close enough to matter. You wanted it so badly your chest hurt.
Maybe he saw that too. Maybe it was all over your face. Jack leaned closer.
Careful. So careful. His lips touched your forehead.
Not long. Barely a second. A kiss so light it might have been a check for fever if either of you wanted to lie.
But neither of you did. Not now. His mouth moved against your skin.
You couldn't hear the words. But you felt them. A vibration more than sound.
Low. Broken. Real.
You didn't know what he said. Maybe your name. Maybe I'm here.
Maybe something he wasn't ready to let anyone hear. But you felt the shape of it through bone. Your eyes closed.
For one second, the ringing was still there. The pain was still there. The grief was still there.
But Jack's mouth was against your forehead, and his hand was around yours, and the world had narrowed to one point of contact. Then Robby touched Jack's shoulder.
Jack lifted his head. Reluctantly. Furiously.
His eyes never left yours. Robby moved into view again, holding a marker board someone must have grabbed from CT or a nurses' station. His handwriting was fast and ugly.
We need CT pictures. Jack is staying. Don't move. Your eyes flicked over the words. Jack is staying.
You looked back at Jack. He gave the smallest nod. I'm staying.
You believed that. Even with the ringing. Even with Vale gone.
Even with your body feeling like it had been thrown out of itself and then badly reassembled. You believed Jack would stay because he had already run through a blast corridor once and nobody in the world was going to drag him away now.
A CT tech appeared near your feet. Her mouth moved, and Robby immediately shook his head, pointing to the board. She looked stricken.
Then she nodded and wrote beneath his words. We're moving you onto the CT table. It will feel cold. We'll keep your neck still.
You read it twice. Cold. Neck still.
Jack staying. Okay. Maybe okay.
No. Not okay. But possible.
Jack squeezed your hand once. Then mouthed, We have to move you. You tightened your grip.
Panic flashed through you so fast it made the room tilt. He shook his head. I'm right here.
You looked at the CT table. Hard. White.
Narrow. Too much like another place where you would have to be still while something dangerous happened around you. No.
You tried to pull your hand closer. Jack did not let you move far. Not forceful.
Enough to keep the line. His mouth shaped your next instruction. Eyes on me.
Your tears came harder. You were so tired of being brave.
You were so tired of eyes on someone else, hand still, don't move, breathe small, follow the count. Jack seemed to understand that too, because his face broke for half a second.
Then he shifted closer, bringing your joined hands to the edge of the oxygen mask. Not moving it. Not interfering. Just close enough that you could feel him.
He mouthed: Last one. You blinked.
He held your gaze. Last count. A terrible little laugh caught in your throat.
Of course. Everything on three. Jack's mouth almost smiled.
This time, it got closer. Then I'm right there. You stared at him.
He nodded once. Promise. Your eyes dropped again to his left hand.
Bare. No ring. You lifted your fingers weakly and brushed the place where it used to be.
Jack went still. Completely. The hospital moved around you.
Robby. McKay. CT staff.
But Jack stopped. You touched the bare skin with the side of your thumb, the smallest question you could ask without sound.
His breath caught. You saw it. His mouth formed your answer carefully.
Later. You looked at him. No.
Not enough. Jack's eyes shone. He bent closer so there was no chance you would miss the words.
I took it off. Your chest went tight. You knew.
You had known. But seeing him say it, seeing his mouth shape the truth while his hand stayed open in yours, was something else entirely.
Your fingers trembled against his. He swallowed. Then mouthed:
For me. A beat. Then, with his face cracking in a way he couldn't hide from you:
And for you. The room blurred. Your eyes filled so fast you lost him for a second.
Jack's hand tightened. Not enough to hurt. Enough to bring you back.
Later, he mouthed again. All of it. Later. All of it. Your confession sitting in Vale's hands before the blast.
His bare ring finger. The thing between you that had finally outgrown silence. Later.
You nodded internally. Not with your head. Never with your head.
Jack counted with his fingers where you could see. One. Two.
Three. They moved you. The pain hit hard enough to white out the edges of your vision.
Your back. Your ribs. Your arm.
Your head. You made a sound you couldn't hear.
Jack's hand stayed in yours until the last possible second, then slipped away because the CT table demanded space and positioning and all the cruel logistics of saving a life. Your fingers opened on air.
Panic surged. Jack stepped immediately into your line of sight on the other side of the table. There.
Still there. He lifted his hand, palm toward you. Bare.
Steady. I'm here. You stared at him while they positioned you.
While the collar kept your head still. While the table felt cold beneath you. While someone adjusted your oxygen.
While Robby wrote something else on the board and held it where you could see. Scan first. Then back to Jack.
Back to Jack. You held onto that. The CT tech moved everyone back.
Jack did not want to go. You could see it in his shoulders, in the set of his jaw, in the way Robby put a hand on his chest before he even took a step.
Protocol. Radiation. Lines.
Distance. Always distance. Jack leaned into your line of sight one more time.
I'm right outside. Your chest tightened. No.
Your eyes said it because your mouth couldn't. No more outside. No more glass.
No more perimeter. Jack's face tightened. Then he mouthed, slower:
Door stays open. You blinked. He pointed to himself.
Then to the control room window. You'll see me. That was not enough.
It was what there was. You forced your fingers to uncurl from the sheet. Jack waited until he saw you understand.
Then he stepped back. Not far. Never far.
The CT table began to move. You slid into the scanner with the ringing still screaming in your head and Jack visible through the glass.
Not trauma bay glass. Not a perimeter. Just CT glass.
Still too much. But he was there. Bare left hand pressed flat to the window.
You could see it until the machine swallowed your view. The last thing you saw before the scan began was Jack's mouth forming the same words again.
I'm here.
Jacks POV
The scans did not show everything. Jack hated that.
CT was supposed to make things visible. Blood where it shouldn't be. Air where it shouldn't be. Fracture lines. Swelling. Collapse. Damage with a name, a measurement, a plan. But trauma had a way of leaving the worst parts off imaging.
No intracranial bleed. No cervical fracture. No pneumothorax.
No solid organ injury. No obvious spinal injury. Words that should have felt like grace.
Jack listened to McKay read them out from the workstation and felt nothing clean enough to be relief. "Head CT is clear," McKay said. "C-spine clear. Chest, abdomen, pelvis without acute traumatic injury. Contusions, soft tissue trauma, lacerations. Possible mild concussion, definitely blast exposure."
"Definitely," Robby said quietly. Jack stood with his arms crossed, one shoulder braced against the wall outside CT, eyes on the glass where she lay too still on the table. The scan was done. The machine had stopped. Staff were moving around her again, careful and gentle, preparing to bring her back out.
Her eyes were open. Fixed toward the control room. Toward him.
Every time he shifted, her gaze followed. He had become a vital sign. He did not know what to do with that.
"ENT?" Jack asked. "On the way," McKay said. "But unless there's obvious rupture, it's going to be monitoring, audiology when she's stable, steroids if they think it's indicated, outpatient follow-up depending on recovery."
Jack's jaw tightened. Depending on recovery. He hated that too.
Robby leaned beside him, lower voice. "She's alive." Jack did not answer. "Jack."
"I heard you." "Did you?" Jack looked at him.
Robby held his gaze, tired and soot-streaked and still there because apparently friendship meant refusing to leave even when the person beside you had become mostly sharp edges. "She's alive," Robby repeated. "That matters."
Jack looked back through the glass. She was watching him.
Her face was pale against the collar and the pillow, oxygen still in place, hair dusted with debris no one had cleaned out yet because there had been more important things. Her right arm was wrapped from wrist to elbow. Her left hand lay open on the sheet like she had only let go because the scanner had demanded it. Jack lifted his bare left hand and pressed it to the glass.
Her eyes dropped to it. Then back to his face. Even from this distance, he saw her swallow.
"Yeah," Jack said, voice rough. "It matters." The CT tech opened the door. "We're bringing her out."
Jack moved before anyone finished speaking. Robby caught his sleeve. Not to stop him.
Just once. A warning. "Slow," Robby said.
Jack looked down at the hand on his sleeve. Then at Robby. "I know."
"Do you?" "No." Robby's mouth twitched without humour. "Appreciate the honesty."
Jack stepped into the room as they unlocked the CT table and transferred her back to the stretcher. Her eyes found him immediately.
Panic flared before he even reached her. He lifted his hand. Palm open.
I'm here. Her breathing hitched, then eased by a fraction.
He moved into her line of sight, keeping his mouth clear, his face steady, his body between her and the busy room without blocking anyone working. "You did good," he said automatically.
Then he remembered. Sound was useless. He swallowed and shaped the words instead.
You did good. Her eyes searched his mouth. A tear slipped sideways.
She tried to speak. Jack shook his head. Don't.
Her brows drew together. Stubborn.
Even concussed, bruised, half-deaf, and held together with bandages, she still managed to look annoyed at being told not to talk. Something in his chest cracked so sharply he almost smiled.
Almost. "There she is," Robby murmured behind him. Jack didn't look back.
He mouthed, Don't argue. Her eyes narrowed faintly. Robby let out one quiet breath that was almost a laugh.
Jack felt it more than heard it. Good. Fine.
Let them have one terrible scrap of normal. They moved her from CT back toward the temporary resus space, but the speed changed now. No running. No shouted countdown. No blast corridor. No glass under the wheels.
Just movement. Controlled. Careful.
Alive. The hospital was still wrong around them. The ED remained partially evacuated. The trauma corridor was sealed. Police and bomb squad still occupied too much space. Staff spoke in lowered voices. The fire alarms had finally stopped screaming, leaving behind a silence that felt bruised.
But there was a path now. A path away from the blast. Jack walked beside her the whole way.
He kept his hand where she could see it. When they reached the observation bay McKay had cleared, the lights had been dimmed as much as possible. Someone had found warm blankets. Someone else had taped a handwritten note to the wall above the bed:
FACE HER WHEN SPEAKING. SHE CAN'T HEAR WELL. WRITE IF NEEDED. Lena, probably. Or Robby.
Or all of them. The thought hit him harder than it should have. They transferred her again.
One. Two. Three.
She winced. He saw it and hated every person involved, including himself, even though they were doing it right.
Once she was settled, McKay removed the cervical collar after confirming clearance, slow and careful. Her neck stayed stiff anyway, like her body didn't trust freedom yet. Jack understood that.
He was still standing like the blast might happen twice. "Neuro checks q fifteen for now," McKay said. "Keep oxygen. Pain control, but not too sedating until she's more awake. ENT when they arrive. Lac repair once she's stable enough."
"I know," Jack said. McKay gave him a look. "I'm not telling you because you don't know. I'm saying it so the room knows."
Jack exhaled once. "Right." Robby stood near the foot of the bed, marker board in hand. "I'll update the board."
Lena hovered at the curtain, not hovering, because Lena would have threatened anyone who used that word. "Mercer's in OR," she said. "Garcia says he made it upstairs alive."
The woman in the bed blinked. Her eyes moved to Jack. She had seen Lena's mouth move.
Not heard. Not understood. Jack leaned closer.
Slow. Clear. Mercer is alive.
Her eyes widened. He repeated it. Mercer is alive.
Her face crumpled. Her left hand lifted off the blanket. Weak.
Searching. Jack gave her his hand immediately. She gripped it like the words had knocked something loose inside her.
A sound came out of her. Small. Broken.
She couldn't hear it. Jack could. It nearly undid him.
"He's in surgery," Jack mouthed. "Garcia has him." She stared at his mouth. He slowed down.
Garcia has him. Her eyes closed. Tears slipped out.
Relief, maybe. Grief. Shock.
All of it. Then her eyes opened again and moved past him. Toward the curtain.
Toward the hallway. Toward the absence she had not stopped feeling. Vale.
Jack knew before her mouth shaped the name. She tried anyway. "Vale?"
It was barely audible. Hoarse. Bent wrong.
Robby looked away. Lena's face tightened. Jack squeezed her hand once.
He had known this was coming. He had not figured out how to survive it.
He moved closer, close enough that his face filled her world, because if she was going to read the truth off anyone, it needed to be him. Slowly, carefully, he mouthed:
Vale died. Her face went blank. Not because she didn't understand.
Because she did. He saw the exact moment the words reached her. Her hand went slack in his.
Then tightened so hard it must have hurt her injured arm to move. "No," she said.
The sound was too loud because she could not hear herself. Robby closed his eyes. Lena looked at the floor.
Jack did not look away from her. He shook his head once. Small.
Final. Her breath started to come too fast. The monitor noticed immediately.
Jack lifted his free hand. Look at me. She shook her head.
Pain flashed across her face. She didn't care. "No."
The word scraped out of her. Jack leaned closer. Look at me.
Her eyes were wild now. Wet. Furious.
Lost. "He said—" Her voice cracked, uncontrolled. "He said later." The room went very still.
Jack swallowed. Vale had said later. Of course he had.
Of course the son of a bitch had given her a place to put her fear and then carried the blast away from her body with his own. Jack's thumb moved over her knuckles.
"I know," he said. She couldn't hear it. He mouthed it again.
I know. She stared at his mouth. "He said I had to tell you."
Jack went still. Robby's head lifted. Lena looked up.
The room changed around that sentence. Jack felt it. He also felt the way her hand trembled in his.
"What?" he said, forgetting for half a second that she couldn't hear him. Her eyes searched his face.
She tried to swallow. Her voice came out uneven, too loud at first, then too soft. "I told him... if it went wrong..."
Jack stopped breathing. She was crying harder now, but she kept looking at him.
Like if she looked away, she would lose the words. "I told him to make sure you knew."
Robby moved quietly toward the curtain. Lena went with him.
McKay followed after one last glance at the monitor, pulling the curtain partially closed behind them. Not fully.
Enough. Enough to give them the dignity of pretending this was private. Jack barely registered it.
His whole world had become her mouth trying to form words she could not hear. He leaned closer. Careful.
Terrified. "What?" he asked again, slower this time. She read him.
Her face twisted. "I told him to make sure you knew that I love you." Jack's hand tightened around hers.
The room vanished. No monitors. No smoke.
No blast. No dead sergeant in the corridor. No command point.
No ring. Only that. Only her.
Her eyes searched his face with raw, aching fear. Like she had handed him something breakable and expected him not to want it.
Her voice shook. "I told him I always have." Jack closed his eyes.
Just for one second. The words went through him like the blast, but different. Not destruction.
Impact. A wall inside him giving way. When he opened his eyes, she looked scared.
Actually scared. Not of the pain. Not of the hearing.
Of him. Of silence. Of maybe being too late.
He moved before doubt could get a hand around him. He leaned down and pressed his mouth to her forehead. Gently.
Barely. A kiss and a promise and a thank God all folded into one. She shook beneath it.
Jack drew back enough that she could see his face. He had to speak carefully now. She needed the words.
She deserved the words. He mouthed them first, slow and unmistakable. I love you.
Her breath caught. Her eyes widened. He said it out loud too, even if she couldn't hear it.
"I love you." Then again, because the first one had been stolen by injury and ringing and maybe the universe owed them repetition.
I love you. Her face broke. A silent sob moved through her.
Jack put one hand beside her head on the pillow, not touching where he shouldn't, but close enough to hold the space around her. "I should have told you," he said.
She couldn't hear. So he shaped it. I should have told you.
Tears slid into her hair. Her left hand clung to his. Jack looked down at their joined hands.
His bare ring finger. Her fingers wrapped around it like she had noticed the absence and chosen not to let go.
He lifted their hands carefully into her line of sight. Then mouthed: I took it off before tonight.
She stared. Her lips parted. He kept going before he could lose his nerve.
Not because I stopped loving her. Her eyes softened with pain. Understanding.
He swallowed. Because I started loving you. Her face crumpled all over again.
Jack's own eyes burned. He did not look away. Not now.
Not ever again if he could help it. "It scared the hell out of me," he said aloud. Then mouthed it slower.
It scared me. A tear slipped down his face before he could stop it. He ignored it.
She saw. Of course she saw. Her hand lifted a fraction like she wanted to touch his face.
Pain stopped her. Jack caught her fingers gently and pressed them against his cheek instead. Careful.
So careful. Her skin was cold. He closed his eyes against it for one second.
Then opened them because she needed his mouth. Later, he mouthed. She gave him a look through tears.
Even wrecked, concussed, half-deaf, she managed to make it clear she was tired of later. A broken laugh left him. Small.
Disbelieving. Real. "I know," he said.
He mouthed it too. I know. Then:
No more hiding. Her expression shifted. Fragile.
Hopeful in a way that scared him more than blood. He nodded once. No more hiding.
The monitor beeped steadily beside them. Her breathing slowed. Not normal.
Not easy. But less frantic.
Jack watched the numbers settle because that was what he knew how to do when emotion became too large to hold without data. Heart rate down.
Oxygen holding. Still alive. Still here.
Her eyelids fluttered. Exhaustion pulled at her hard now.
Shock. Pain. Concussion. The crash after adrenaline. All of it. Jack brushed his thumb once over the back of her hand.
Sleep, he mouthed. Her grip tightened. No.
He leaned closer. I'm staying. She stared at him.
He repeated it. I'm staying. Her eyes drifted toward his bare hand again.
Then back to his face. He knew the question. He answered it before she had to ask.
Still here when you wake up. Her mouth trembled. Then she tried to say something.
Too soft. Too broken. He leaned closer.
"What?" Her lips moved again. He caught it more from shape than sound.
"Promise?" Jack's chest ached. He pressed her hand to his cheek once more.
Then lowered it carefully back to the blanket. Promise, he mouthed.
And because she could not hear him, he said it aloud too. "I promise." Her eyes stayed on him for another second.
Then another. Fighting sleep like it was another instruction she had to disobey. Jack stayed exactly where he was.
Visible. Close. Bare hand wrapped around hers.
Finally, her eyes slipped closed. Her fingers loosened, but only slightly. Jack did not move.
Outside the curtain, The Pitt kept going. Mercer in OR. Vale gone.
Patients displaced. Staff shaken. The night cracked open and rearranged around everything that had happened.
But inside the dimmed bay, Jack stayed beside her bed and held her hand like it was the only thing in the world still attached to him. For now, it was.
Summary - Jack has spent his whole life knowing exactly what to do in a crisis. Standing outside the trauma bay while someone else keeps her alive is the one thing he doesn't know how to survive.
Word Count - 12200ish
Jack's POV
Jack had been forced out of rooms before. Not often. Not easily.
But it had happened. Medicine was not built around one person's refusal. It was handoffs and thresholds and sterile fields and operating room doors closing in your face because the job changed hands whether your body accepted that or not. Jack knew that. He had lived by it. He had taught residents not to mistake proximity for control.
He knew how to step back when stepping back was the only useful thing left. This was not that.
This was Lena's hand wrapped around his forearm while the trauma bay door closed between him and the woman standing inside with her hand buried in a patient's flank. This was glass where there should have been access.
This was Sergeant Vale taking Jack's place beside her. This was wrong. Every cell in his body knew it.
"Jack," Lena said. He did not look at her.
Through the glass, you were still standing exactly where he had left you. Pale under the trauma lights. One shoulder set too carefully. One hand braced over your own wrist. Your other hand inside Mr. Mercer's side, holding pressure on something Vale had not yet named aloud. Your eyes were on Vale now.
Good. That was good. That was what you needed to do.
Jack hated it so much he could barely breathe. "I'm out," he said. Lena's grip did not loosen. "Barely."
"I'm behind the line." "You are deciding whether lines are real." His jaw tightened.
Vale set his hard case down inside the room, every motion precise. He said something to you. Jack could see your mouth move when you answered, but the glass stole your voice. That might have been the worst part.
Not the blood. Not the device. Not the bomb squad tech between you and him.
The silence. Jack had spent months learning your voice without meaning to. He knew how it sounded across the department at three in the morning. He knew the clipped edge when a patient became combative, the quiet drop when a scared family member needed grounding, the dry bite when you were tired enough to become funny in self-defence.
Now you were speaking six feet away from him, and he heard nothing. His hand lifted toward the glass before he gave it permission.
Lena caught the movement. "Don't." He stopped with his fingers curled at his side. "I wasn't going in."
"You were going somewhere." He looked at her then. Bad idea.
Lena's face was calm in the specific, infuriating way charge nurses got when panic had been assessed and found clinically unhelpful. But her eyes were not untouched. She knew.
Of course she knew. Lena Handzo knew everything that happened on night shift eventually. She knew which nurse cried in the supply room after a bad paeds case and came out with dry eyes. She knew which resident had not eaten since noon. She knew which patients were going to turn mean before they opened their mouths. She knew which silences between coworkers were simply exhaustion and which ones were turning into something bigger.
Jack hated that she knew this one. "She's alone," he said. "She is with the bomb squad sergeant."
"That is not what I mean." "I know exactly what you mean," Lena said. "And I am telling you no anyway."
Through the glass, Vale angled a light near your arm. Jack stepped forward half an inch.
Lena's hand tightened immediately. The police officer by the door saw it and shifted his weight.
Jack's eyes cut to him. "Don't." The officer froze. Lena said, "Then don't make him."
Jack looked back through the glass. Vale looked up from inside the trauma bay.
His eyes found Jack's through the glass, and whatever he saw there made his expression flatten. He raised one hand.
Stop. Then he spoke, voice carrying through the cracked relay near the door. "Clear the corridor."
Garcia, who had been standing just outside the marked line with her arms locked across her chest, turned on him. "Excuse me?" Vale did not look at her. "Clear the corridor. Everyone outside the ED footprint."
The words hit like the first real blast. Not the room. Not the glass.
The corridor. Jack's entire body went cold. "No," he said.
Vale's gaze moved to him. "Dr. Abbott." "No."
Garcia stepped closer to the doorway, stopping before the line. "We are medical support." "And if this goes wrong," Vale said, voice level, "you become casualties."
Anesthesia's face went hard. "He is unstable." "Airway is secured enough for the moment. Blood is running. Monitor stays. You are outside the blast path."
"Glass won't protect us?" Shen asked quietly. Vale looked at him. The silence was answer enough.
Then Vale said, "No." The corridor changed.
Not visibly. Nothing moved. The lights stayed bright. The glass stayed whole. The monitor inside Trauma One kept beeping. But everyone understood something new.
The glass had never been safety. It had only been mercy.
A way to look at the person inside and pretend distance was not distance. Jack felt Lena's grip tighten before he moved.
"I'm not leaving the glass," he said. Vale stood inside the room. "You are." "I'm advising."
"You can advise from the command point." "I can't see her from the command point."
The words came out before he could make them professional. The corridor went still. Garcia looked away.
Shen's face tightened. Anesthesia stared at the floor. Lena's hand stayed on Jack's arm.
Vale did not soften. "That is not a tactical argument." Jack's eyes burned with fury. "She is my nurse."
"She is currently the person with her hand on an unstable device component," Vale said. "And if I have to worry about you breaching the corridor, I cannot keep my attention where it belongs." Jack heard it.
He did. That was the worst part.
He heard the logic. The clean line of it. Vale could not split his focus between the device and Jack's refusal to accept being useless. Jack knew that.
Knowing did nothing to help. Lena stepped in front of him. Not fully.
Just enough to force his eyes to hers. "Jack." He shook his head once. "No."
"She told you to leave the room." "That was the room." "Now I'm telling you to leave the corridor."
"I need to see her." Lena's face changed. Only for a second.
Then she said, softer, "I know." That nearly broke him. He looked over her shoulder.
Through the glass, you had turned your eyes toward him. Not your head. Not your body. Just your eyes, dragged by the argument you could not hear clearly but could probably feel. Vale said something sharply.
Your gaze snapped back to him. Good. Good.
Jack's throat tightened. "She'll look for me," he said. "Then don't make her," Lena said.
The words landed with surgical precision. He hated her for them. He loved her for them.
He couldn't move. Vale's voice came through again. "Clear the corridor now."
The police officer reached carefully for the door. Jack's body locked.
Lena must have felt the exact second he considered resisting, because her hand moved from his forearm to his chest. Flat.
Firm. Not enough to physically stop him. Enough to remind him who he would have to go through.
"Do not make me call security on you in front of your own staff," she said. His eyes snapped to hers.
Her voice dropped. "Do not make her hear that." That did it. Not all the way.
Enough. Jack stepped back. One step.
It felt like ripping something loose. Lena stayed with him.
Garcia moved first, furious and silent. Anesthesia followed, jaw tight. Shen looked once through the glass, then away. Princess stood near the wall, both hands pressed together as if she did not trust them apart, and then Lena pointed down the hall. "Princess. Go."
Princess swallowed. "Lena—" "Go." She went.
Ellis was already backing away with the tablet clutched to her chest, eyes wet above her mask. Hospital command moved because security physically guided him, which was probably the most useful thing he had done all morning. The corridor started to empty.
Jack did not turn his back on the glass. He walked backward until Lena said, "Don't be stupid." "I'm not."
"You're walking backward through an evacuated ED while emotionally concussed." He turned around. Barely.
Every step away from Trauma One was a violation. The nurses' station passed on his left. Abandoned.
A half-empty coffee cup sat beside a computer. A stack of labels had curled out of the printer and onto the floor. Blue gloves were scattered near the med room door. Someone had left a roll of tape on the counter, the strip half-pulled, waiting for a hand that was no longer there. The Pitt looked dead without people in it.
Not peaceful. Dead.
Jack's mind registered exits. Distance. Sightlines. Fire doors. Police placement. Security at the trauma corridor. Staff moving at the far end of the east hall. Patients out of the blast radius. Useful information.
None of it mattered more than the fact that he could no longer see you. When the trauma bay glass disappeared behind the corner, something in his chest went with it.
He stopped. Lena stopped beside him. "No," she said immediately.
"I can't see her." "I know." "No. Lena, I can't—"
"Yes," she said. "You can." The words were blunt enough to make him look at her.
She held his gaze. "Because she needs you to." His jaw worked.
"She told you why," Lena said. "She cannot think about you while her hand is on that device." Jack closed his eyes.
Your voice came back to him. I can't think about you. I have to think about my hand.
He had been angry for half a second when you said it. Not at you. At the truth.
At the fact that loving him, or whatever the hell sat between the two of you, had become another hazard in the room. He opened his eyes.
"Command point," Lena said. "Now." The command point had been built out of whatever the evacuation left behind.
A rolling computer cart. Two portable monitors. Lena's radio. A hospital command phone that kept ringing as if the building itself was panicking. A whiteboard dragged from the physician workroom and propped against the wall, already divided into ugly categories. Moved. Holding. Critical. Missing.
Jack hated the last one on principle. "Why is there a missing column?" he asked.
Lena did not look up from the roster. "Because if we don't make one, someone becomes missing quietly." Fair. Terrible.
"Curtain Three and daughter are in outpatient corridor," she said. "Still asking about the sandwich." "Of course she is," Lena said.
"Bay Five is in east hall on two litres." Jack looked up. "He stays on the oxygen."
Princess, standing by the portable oxygen tanks, said, "I told him that." "And?"
"He said nearby oxygen counts spiritually." "It doesn't," Jack said. "That's what I said."
A nurse wheeled an elderly woman past the command point, blanket tucked around her shoulders, portable oxygen tank clipped to the side of the chair. The woman's eyes moved from the police officers to the emptied nurses' station, frightened and confused. "Where's my daughter?" she asked.
Lena's face changed instantly. Not softer exactly. Focused differently. "She's with Perlah," Lena said, stepping into the woman's line of sight. "You're going to see her in the east hall. We're just moving everyone somewhere quieter."
"Is there a fire?" "No," Lena said. "No fire." Not a lie.
Not the truth either. The woman nodded because Lena sounded like someone who could be believed.
Jack watched the wheelchair roll away and felt the wrongness of it settle heavier under his ribs. The ED was not supposed to empty.
It was supposed to receive. That was the whole brutal promise of it.
You came in bleeding, scared, high, feverish, angry, dying, and The Pitt took you anyway. Now The Pitt was sending everyone away because danger had come in under someone's skin and settled beneath your hand.
McKay came in behind the command point, phone to her ear and another chart tucked under her arm. "No, I don't care if PACU says they're full," she said. "They are full of people who are alive. They can be more full."
She hung up and looked at Lena. "Septic Twelve?" Perlah answered before Lena could. "East hall, monitor attached, antibiotics running. Shen wrote the orders before he got pulled back."
"Second litre running." "Good." A child started crying near the outpatient corridor.
Not loudly. That made it worse.
A little boy with a splinted wrist sat in a wheelchair, his mother crouched in front of him, trying to keep her own face calm and failing by degrees. Princess moved before anyone asked.
She grabbed a warm blanket from the portable stack and knelt beside him. "Hey. You want to know a secret?" The boy sniffed. "What?"
"This blanket is stolen from the good warmer." His crying paused, suspicious. "There's a good warmer?" "Absolutely."
"There is not," Jack said automatically. Princess did not look back. "Do not ruin paediatric morale, Abbott."
The boy blinked. Then, somehow, laughed once. A tiny, wet sound.
Jack looked away. The radio on the command table crackled. Every head in the command point turned.
Vale's voice came through. "Trauma One to command. Corridor clear?"
Lena grabbed the radio. "Corridor clear. ED footprint evacuated except essential command and staged patients outside perimeter." "Copy," Vale said. "No one enters trauma corridor unless I request."
Jack reached for the radio. Lena moved it away without even looking at him. "No."
His eyes flashed. "I need to speak to him." "You need to ask me to speak to him."
"I am not a child." "Then stop reaching like one."
Garcia, still on the phone nearby, muttered, "I picked a hell of a night to answer pages." Jack ignored her.
Lena pressed the radio button. "Vale, Dr. Abbott is at command. He is requesting medical status." Requesting.
Jack almost hated her more for making it sound civilized. Static. Then Vale's voice.
"Patient remains alive. Blood running. Airway support stable. Nurse's hand position unchanged. I am beginning visual assessment." Nurse's hand position unchanged.
Jack breathed for the first time in what felt like minutes. Not enough. But some.
Lena looked at him. He looked away. "Thank you," she said into the radio.
"Updates only when status changes," Vale replied. "I need quiet." The radio went silent. Jack stared at it.
Quiet. Vale needed quiet. You were in there with quiet.
No Jack. No ED. No chaos to hide in.
Just Vale and the device and the patient and your own breathing. Jack's hands curled into fists.
A new set of footsteps came down the outer hall. Fast. Not running.
Almost. Jack turned before the figure reached the line.
Robby came around the corner in a scrub jacket, hair sleep-flattened on one side, ID badge clipped crooked. He looked like he had been pulled out of the shallow graveyard of pre-shift sleep and thrown directly into disaster. McKay was already there, still half on the phone with someone upstairs, but she looked up sharply when she saw him.
Security stopped Robby at the perimeter. "I'm Dr. Michael Robinavitch," Robby said. "Emergency attending. I was called in."
Security looked to Lena. Lena nodded once. "Command point only. No trauma corridor."
Robby stepped through, eyes scanning. The empty ED. The police.
The staff. Jack. Then the command radio.
His face changed. "What happened?" Jack did not answer quickly enough.
Robby came closer. "Jack." "Blast injury," Jack said. His voice sounded scraped raw. "Foreign body in left flank. Brother identified it as part of the device. Possible internal trigger. Her hand is stabilizing it and tamponading hemorrhage. Vale has the room."
Robby stared at him. Not blank. Never blank.
Robby's face always did too much, which was one of the reasons Jack found him unbearable and necessary in equal measure. "Her hand," Robby said.
"Yes." "Inside the wound?" "Yes."
"And you're out here." Jack's eyes cut to him. Robby understood the mistake immediately.
Lena said, "She told him to leave." Robby's expression shifted. "Oh."
Jack looked toward the trauma corridor. He could not see it from here. Could not see you.
His voice dropped. "And then Vale cleared the entire corridor." Robby's mouth tightened. "Good."
Jack turned on him. "Good?" "Yes," Robby said, not backing down. "Good. Terrible. Necessary. Pick your adjective after she's out."
Jack stared at him. Robby stepped closer, lowering his voice.
"You being able to see her is not worth more than her having Vale focused." Jack hated him. For half a second.
Then the hate collapsed under the weight of the truth. "She said she couldn't think about me," Jack said.
Robby's face softened in the worst possible way. "Then don't make her," he said. Jack looked away.
The radio sat silent on the command table. Silent. Silent.
Silent. It took everything in him not to pick it up. Robby moved to his side.
Not touching. Just there. Insurance.
Friendship. A witness. "You breathing?" Robby asked.
"Yes." "No, you're standing upright. Different thing." Jack gave him a look.
Robby ignored it. "Do it anyway." "I have seen this before." "I know."
"No, you don't." Robby's face went still. Jack regretted it immediately.
But the words were out, and his restraint was too frayed to pull them back cleanly. Robby's voice, when he answered, was quiet. "No. I don't. But I know you."
That was worse. Jack closed his eyes once. A controlled blink.
Nothing more. Behind them, McKay had fully taken over command with the sort of brisk authority that made the administrator look relieved to be overruled. Garcia was still on the phone. Lena was coordinating staff locations. Perlah was checking names against the roster. Princess stood beside the paeds patient, making a warm blanket sound like contraband.
The Pitt was functioning. Jack had built enough of the outside world for it to keep functioning. You were still inside.
The radio crackled. Everyone went still. Vale's voice came through.
"Visual confirms component housing. I am placing field markers. No movement from nurse. Patient remains alive." Jack's breath left him.
Robby's hand landed briefly on his shoulder. This time Jack did not tell him to move it.
Lena grabbed the radio. "Copy. Need anything?" "Negative," Vale said. "Maintain perimeter." Static.
Silence. Jack stared at the radio. Then toward the corridor he could not enter.
Reader's POV
Inside Trauma One, the quiet was too big. That was the first thing you noticed once they were all gone. Not just Jack.
Everyone. No Garcia outside the glass. No anesthesia arguing from the threshold.
No Shen at the airway. No Princess by the blood cooler.
No Lena's voice cutting through the hall close enough to feel like part of the room. The corridor beyond the trauma bay doors had emptied completely. Even the shadows seemed farther away.
The Pitt was gone. Not dead, you told yourself. Evacuated.
Safe. Farther from you. Farther from the device.
That was good. It did not feel good.
Vale stood in front of you now, the only person left in the room who could tell you what to do. But he was not working alone.
You realized that in the first thirty seconds after the corridor cleared. His radio kept murmuring.
Low voices. Short updates. Words that sounded official and calm and impossible to attach to the fact that your hand was still inside Mr. Mercer's flank. "Perimeter set."
"Secondary team holding." "Medical command at outer line." "Equipment staged."
Vale answered each one without taking his eyes off the field around your arm. "Hold perimeter."
"No one enters trauma corridor." "I'll call what I need." "Stand by."
His calm was not like Jack's. You had thought that before, but now, without Jack visible through the glass, the difference became everything.
Jack's calm pulled you toward him. Vale's pinned the room down. "I know you can't see him now," Vale said.
Your throat tightened so quickly it hurt. You hated him for knowing.
You hated everyone who could apparently read your face today. "He's outside the perimeter," Vale continued. "That is where he should be."
You swallowed. Your hand did not move. "My job is not thinking about him," you said.
Vale nodded once. "Exactly." "That's a terrible job." "I imagine so."
His honesty was rude. Useful, but rude.
He crouched beside his hard case and opened it again. "Your job is your hand. Mr. Mercer breathing. My voice. Nothing else." You breathed in once.
Carefully. "My hand," you said. "Yes."
"Mr. Mercer breathing." "Yes." "Your voice."
"Good." Mr. Mercer lay under the bright trauma lights, supported by tubing and machinery you were trying not to think too hard about. The monitor tracked him in glowing numbers you did not want to understand too deeply.
Blood still ran. The pump clicked in small, steady intervals. Your right hand remained buried inside his flank.
The foreign body rested against your palm. Hard. Smooth-edged.
Wrong. Vale's radio crackled again. A man's voice came through. "Vale, do you need the blanket package?"
Vale looked at you, then at the wound, then at the angle of your shoulders. "Affirmative," he said. "No entry past threshold. Slide it in."
Your stomach tightened. "Blanket package?" "Protection," Vale said.
That did not help as much as he probably thought it should. "For me?" "For you."
Your mouth went dry. "That sounds bad." "It means I'm reducing risk where I can." "That still sounds bad."
"It's better than not reducing risk." You hated that answer. Mostly because it was true.
The trauma bay door opened only far enough for a gloved hand to push a sealed bundle across the floor. Whoever was outside did not step in. You saw the edge of dark gear, boots, a shield angled near the doorway, and then the door closed again. Vale retrieved the bundle himself.
Slowly. Never crossing near your hand without telling you.
"I am moving behind you," he said. "I am not touching you yet." Your breath caught. "Yet?"
"I need to place protective gear. Because of your arm position, we can't put it on normally." "Okay."
"You will feel weight across your chest and shoulders. I will work around your right arm. You do not help me." "I don't help."
"Correct." "You're enjoying how often I have to say that." "I am enjoying that you're still saying it."
That made something almost like a laugh catch behind your ribs. Vale opened the bundle.
A heavy protective vest came out first, black and stiff, not like the soft lead aprons from radiology or the flimsy plastic gowns everyone pretended helped with fluids. This looked like it belonged to another world entirely. Then a thick protective blanket.
Clear eye protection. Something for your ears. Your stomach turned.
Vale noticed. "Look at my face," he said. You did.
"Not the gear. My face." "Your face is not reassuring." "Good. Reassuring would be dishonest."
"You and Jack would get along terribly." "Probably." He lifted the protective glasses first.
"These go on your face. I'll place them. You do not lean in." "I don't lean." "Good."
The glasses slid carefully into place. Then the ear protection.
"I need one hand free to put these on properly," he said. "I don't have one. So this will be imperfect." "Great."
"It will still help." "Better."
He placed them carefully, one side at a time, adjusting around your hair without jostling your head. The room muffled slightly. Not silent. Never silent. But the monitor became duller. The pump softer. Your own breathing louder. You hated that.
You also understood why he did it. Then came the vest. Vale held it open in front of you.
"I'm going to bring this around your left side first," he said. "Then across your chest. Your right arm stays exactly where it is. If anything feels like it is pulling your shoulder, you say stop." "What if saying stop makes me move?"
"Use one word." "Stop?" "Good choice."
His mouth barely moved. Yours almost did too.
He worked the vest around you with awful care. It was heavy. Not unbearable, but solid enough that your body noticed it immediately. The weight settled over your chest and left shoulder, then across part of your torso. He did not try to force it over your right shoulder.
Couldn't. Your right arm was still angled down into Mr. Mercer's wound, locked in place by blood, pressure, and terror.
Vale adjusted the vest as much as he could without touching your trapped arm. "Any pull?" "No."
"Any change in your hand?" You listened to your body. To the pressure under your palm.
To the shape beneath it. "No." "Good."
He secured what he could, then reached for the protective blanket. "This is going over part of your lower body and side," he said. "It will feel heavy. It is not permission to lean."
"Nothing is permission to lean. I'm sensing a theme." "You're doing great with themes."
He placed the blanket slowly, creating a barrier around what he could protect without trapping you further or interfering with the wound. The weight pressed against your hip and thigh. Your knees wanted to shift under it. They didn't.
The radio crackled. Another voice came through, lower than the first. "Vale, confirm subject is protected as much as feasible?"
Vale glanced over you. "Protected as much as feasible. Right arm exposed and engaged. No full vest seal possible." "Copy. We are holding at secondary line."
Secondary line. That meant there were more of them outside. More people waiting.
More people who knew exactly what this could become. Vale crouched again. "Still with me?"
You breathed in. "Yes." "Any change under your hand?"
"No." "Pressure?" "Same."
"Shape?" "Same." "Pain?"
You considered lying. That seemed stupid when the only two people in the room were you and a man trained to notice tiny changes that could kill everyone.
"Not pain," you said. "Awareness." Vale nodded. "Shoulder?" "Mostly."
"Wrist?" "Some." "Fingers?"
"Fine." "Good. Tell me if that changes." "Can I move if it changes?"
"No." "Then that feels like a cruel question." "It tells me how much time I have."
The answer settled coldly. Time. That was all anyone had been buying since Mr. Mercer came in.
Time with blood. Time with oxygen. Time with your hand.
Time with Jack outside the perimeter. Vale angled the light toward the wound.
"I'm going to look," he said. "I'm not touching you. I'm not touching the object. You do not help me." "You're looking. Not touching. I don't help."
"Good." The light came on. Thin and white.
It slid over your glove, over blood-wet skin, over the torn wound edge. You kept your eyes on Vale's shoulder because looking down felt like falling. The smell was worse without people in the room.
Blood. Smoke. Antiseptic.
Burned fabric. Fear, maybe, though that was not a smell. It only felt like one. Your stomach rolled.
Vale did not look up. "Let the nausea pass." "You say that like it's polite."
"It will pass faster if you don't chase it." "I'm not chasing it." "You're arguing with it."
"That sounds like me." Vale's mouth barely moved. "So I've gathered." It almost helped.
Almost. He examined the wound for what felt like a lifetime, then lifted his radio with one hand. "Vale to secondary."
A crackle. "Secondary."
"I have partial visual. Component housing appears consistent with brother's statement. Nurse's hand is stabilizing from medial side. No visible independent movement. I'm placing markers and support. No remote tools in the field yet." "Copy. Recommend field stabilization before extraction attempt."
"I agree." You did not know what half of that meant. You understood enough.
"Extraction attempt," you said. Vale lowered the radio slightly. "Not yet."
"But eventually." "Eventually." "My hand is what you're extracting?"
"No," he said. "Your hand is what I am removing. The device is what I am stabilizing." "That distinction does not make me feel better."
"It should make you feel informed." "Rude." "Alive," he said again.
You breathed carefully. Small. Measured.
Vale placed a small marker near the wound edge. The bed shifted by almost nothing. Your whole body wanted to flinch.
"Hold," Vale said. You held. The object stayed where it was.
The monitor kept beeping. Nothing happened. "Good."
You hated how much you needed that word. He placed another marker. Then another.
Every movement announced. Every motion slow enough to make time feel serrated. His radio murmured between steps.
"Marker one placed." "Copy." "Marker two placed."
"Copy." "No field shift." "Copy."
It became a rhythm. A terrible one. But a rhythm.
"I am placing support near your forearm," Vale said. You breathed in. "It will not take your weight."
You breathed out. "It is a reference. Not permission to relax." "Nothing about me is relaxed right now."
"Good." "Rude." "Alive."
You could not argue with that. Your knees had started to ache from standing locked in place. You were aware of every joint now. Every muscle. Every place your body wanted to make a reasonable adjustment and was absolutely forbidden from doing so.
Vale looked at your face. "Knees?" You stared at him. "What?" "You're locking them."
"Probably." "Unlock them." "No."
"That wasn't a request." "I'm not moving." "Your knees are not your hand."
"They are attached to me." "Micro-movement only. Torso stays fixed. Arm stays fixed. I count it." Your mouth went dry.
"No." Vale's expression did not change. "If you faint, your hand moves." That shut you up.
He let the silence sit for one second. Then he said, "On three. Hips and knees only. A fraction. You do not shift your shoulder. You do not adjust your hand."
You stared at him. He stared back. There was no Jack through the glass now. No familiar face to pull your eyes to.
Only Vale. "My hand stays," you whispered. "Yes."
"My shoulder stays." "Yes." "Just knees."
"Correct." You wanted Jack. The thought hit so hard you almost lost your breath.
You wanted his voice. His eyes. His dry little correction. His infuriating certainty. You wanted him to tell you that you could do this in the specific way that made you believe him even when everything was impossible. Vale saw something move through your face.
His voice lowered slightly. "He left because you told him to." Your eyes burned.
"Don't." "He listened because you needed him to." A tear slipped down your cheek.
You could not wipe it away. Vale continued, steady and mercilessly useful. "Now you listen because he needs you to."
Your throat closed. Then you nodded internally. Not with your head.
Never with your head. "Okay." "On three," Vale said. "One. Two. Three."
You unlocked your knees by the smallest possible fraction. Nothing shifted under your palm. Nothing changed.
The foreign body stayed where it was. You breathed once. Then again.
The black dots at the edges of your vision eased back. Vale nodded. "Better." "I hate that you were right."
"People usually do." "Jack especially would." "I gathered that too."
The sound that tried to leave you was almost a laugh. It helped. Then the monitor changed.
Not much. Enough.
A different pitch in the alarm. A number sliding lower in the corner of the screen. The pulse still too fast, the oxygen decent enough for the moment, the pressure dipping again in a way that made your stomach go cold before your fear could catch up. Your eyes flicked to the monitor.
Not your head. Just your eyes. You could see enough from where you stood.
Too much, actually. "His pressure's dropping," you said. Vale looked up from the support near your forearm.
He glanced at the monitor, but there was no instant interpretation in his face. Not like Jack. Not like Shen. Not like Garcia. Vale knew blast radius and device housing and what movement could do. He did not know the particular dread of a blood pressure that kept sliding no matter how much blood you poured into someone. "What number?" Vale asked.
You swallowed. "Fifty-six systolic. Pulse still one-forties. Sat's holding around ninety-one, but he's not perfusing." Vale reached for his radio immediately.
"Trauma One to command." Static. Then Lena's voice answered. "Command."
Vale kept his eyes on you as he spoke. "Patient status change. Nurse reports systolic pressure down to fifty-six, pulse in the one-forties, oxygen saturation holding around ninety-one. She reports blood is still running and no major increase in external bleeding around her hand. I need medical lead." A pause.
Then Jack's voice came through the radio. Controlled. Too controlled.
"Abbott." Your eyes closed before you could stop them. Not fully.
Just a blink too long. Vale's gaze sharpened. "Eyes open," he said quietly.
You opened them. Jack's voice came through again, thinner through static. "Can she see the monitor?" Vale looked at you.
You nodded internally. Not with your head. Never with your head.
"She can see enough," Vale said. "She's watching without moving." There was a fraction of silence.
Then Jack said, "Ask her if there's any visible increase in bleeding." Vale repeated it to you, even though you had heard him. "Visible increase in bleeding?"
You kept your eyes on the wound edge as much as you could without dropping your head. "No. Same seep around my wrist. No surge." Vale relayed it. "No visible surge. Same seep around her wrist."
Jack absorbed that quickly. You could hear it in the brief silence. "Likely continued internal loss," he said. "He needs OR, but he can't move until the device is secured."
Vale looked at you as Jack spoke. You did not look at the radio.
You would not look at the radio like it was Jack's face. You would not.
Jack continued, more controlled now. "Blood continues. Do not let her adjust pressure to chase the number. If there's no visible hemorrhage change, you keep working the device. Her hand stays exactly where it is." Vale answered, "Understood."
Jack's voice came again. "Can she maintain?" Vale's eyes stayed on yours. He did not ask you out loud immediately.
Maybe because he already knew the answer would be yes whether it was true or not. Maybe because he understood that Jack would know that too.
Finally, Vale said, "Can you maintain?" Your shoulder had begun to burn in earnest now. Not shaking yet.
But aware. So aware it felt like your whole arm had become one long warning. "Yes," you said.
Vale watched your face for half a second. Then pressed the radio. "She says yes."
The silence on the other end was small. Brutal. Jack knew.
Of course he knew. Then his voice returned, rougher by a thread. "Tell her she's doing exactly what she needs to do."
Vale looked at you. "Dr. Abbott says you're doing exactly what you need to do." Your mouth trembled.
"That is manipulative." Vale's mouth twitched. "Take it up with him later." Later.
The word went through you like oxygen. Later. You held onto it.
Vale clicked the radio off before Jack could say anything else. Cruel man. Probably wise.
He turned back to the wound. "The brother described a pressure-sensitive internal component. Your hand is likely preventing movement inside the housing." Likely.
There it was again. The worst word. His radio crackled before you could answer.
"Secondary to Vale. Support recommendation ready." Vale lifted the radio. "Go." You heard only pieces.
Not the kind of pieces that could teach you anything useful. Just enough to know there were other people thinking through the geometry of your survival from far away.
"Maintain current pressure." "External stabilization." "Controlled hand removal."
"Containment transfer." Vale listened without looking away from the wound. "Copy," he said. "I'm building support now."
Your breathing went shallow. "Hand removal," you said. Vale set the radio down.
"Not yet." "But soon?" "Soon is a dangerous word."
"Of course it is." "I'm going to tell you what you need to know." You stared at him.
Vale held your gaze. "We are going to build support. Then I am going to guide your hand out in one controlled motion while I stabilize the object. You will not rush. You will not pull. You will not stop halfway unless I tell you."
Your ears filled with the sound of your own blood. "I can't." "You can."
"You don't know that." "No," Vale said. "But Dr. Abbott does." That was unfair.
It worked anyway. Your eyes stung. "My hand," you whispered.
Not the alarms. Not the evacuation. Not the clipped voices of police and hospital command trying to make a disaster fit inside procedures that had clearly been written by people who had never stood ten feet from one. The quiet.
Jack stared at the radio on the command table like he could force it to speak by hating it enough. It sat between Lena's roster sheets and a half-dead portable monitor, black plastic, dust in the speaker grille, one corner scuffed white from too many drops. Ordinary. Hospital-grade. Ugly.
It was the only thing connecting him to Trauma One now. To Vale. To Mr. Mercer.
To you. And it was silent.
Lena had moved two feet away to argue with security about staff accountability. McKay had taken over the command board with the unnerving efficiency of someone who enjoyed making chaos feel personally ashamed of itself. Garcia was on her third phone call with OR, one hand pressed to her forehead, voice sharp enough to cut through concrete. Robby stood beside Jack without touching him.
That was deliberate. Jack knew Robby well enough to know the difference between accidental proximity and triage.
Robby was triaging him. Quietly. Carefully.
Annoyingly. "I can feel you doing it," Jack said. Robby looked at him. "Doing what?"
"I learned from the best." Jack's eyes did not leave the radio. "Pick a worse time to be funny." "I'm not being funny."
That made Jack look at him. Robby's face had settled into something serious and tired, the kind of expression that usually came after bad news had found a room before anyone was ready for it.
Jack hated it. He looked away first. The radio stayed quiet.
Across the command point, one of the bomb squad officers stood near the police perimeter, speaking low into his shoulder mic. He was younger than Vale, broader, with a hard case at his feet and an expression Jack did not like. Too calm.
Too distant. Too outside the room. Jack knew that was unfair.
He didn't care. The officer said something into the mic that Jack couldn't fully catch. Then he heard:
"Extraction window depends on subject compliance." Subject. Not your name.
Not nurse. Subject. Jack moved before he made a decision.
Robby's head snapped toward him. "Jack." Jack ignored him.
He crossed the command point in three strides, cutting between a portable oxygen tank and the edge of McKay's board. The bomb squad officer looked up just in time.
"Do not call her that." The officer blinked. "Excuse me?"
Jack stopped close enough that Lena's head lifted across the room. Robby was already moving behind him.
Jack's voice stayed low. That was the only mercy he had left in him. "She is not a subject."
The officer's expression tightened. "Dr. Abbott, that's standard—" "I don't care what it is."
"Jack," Robby said from behind him. Jack did not turn.
The officer straightened slightly. "She is inside an active hazard area. We use operational language for clarity." "She has a name."
"I understand that." "No," Jack said. "You don't." The command point went quieter.
Not silent. Never silent. There were still patients staged beyond the line, still phones, still radios, still the low machine hum of a hospital forced to keep functioning around a hole blown through its centre. But people noticed.
Of course they did. Jack heard it happening. McKay stopped speaking mid-sentence.
Garcia lowered her phone. Princess looked over from the portable oxygen tanks, eyes wide and wet.
Lena said his name once. "Jack." The bomb squad officer kept his voice controlled. "I'm not trying to disrespect your nurse."
"My nurse?" Jack repeated. The officer realized too late that those were the wrong words too.
Robby stepped in then, hand closing around Jack's upper arm. "Enough." Jack looked at him.
Robby's face was close now. Calm. Firm. No room. "Move," Robby said. Jack's eyes flashed. "Get your hand off me."
"No." The word landed flat between them. For a second, Jack genuinely thought about shaking him off.
Then Robby's grip tightened. Not hard. Just enough to tell him he would make this ugly if Jack made him.
"Move," Robby repeated. "Now." Jack held his stare. Robby did not blink.
Behind them, Lena's voice cut in, low and dangerous. "Abbott." That did it. Not because Jack was calm.
Because he was outnumbered by people who loved him enough to humiliate him if it kept him from doing something stupid. He stepped back.
Robby did not let go. He guided him away from the bomb squad officer, past the command board, past the abandoned coffee, past the rolling cart with the radio sitting on top like a loaded weapon.
Jack stopped near the supply alcove, far enough that the command point could pretend not to listen if it tried very hard. Robby positioned himself directly in front of him.
"What the hell are you doing?" Robby said. Jack's laugh came out short and ugly. "I'm correcting terminology."
"No. You're picking a fight with the people keeping her alive." Jack's jaw clenched.
Robby lowered his voice. "Look at me." "Don't." "Look at me."
Jack did. Robby's face was pale, but his eyes were steady. Good attending eyes.
Friend eyes. The worst kind. "I know you love her," Robby said.
Everything in Jack went still. The command point blurred at the edges.
For one second, there was no radio. No police perimeter. No evacuation. No bomb squad. No patient bleeding inside the room Jack had been forced to leave. Only Robby's sentence.
Blunt. Quiet. Irreversible.
Jack's voice came out rough. "This isn't the time." "It is exactly the time if you're going to start swinging at bomb squad over vocabulary."
"I wasn't swinging." "You were close enough that I started calculating bail." Jack looked away.
Robby stepped with him, blocking the escape. "No," Robby said. "You don't get to disappear into angry and call it useful. Not right now."
Jack's eyes snapped back. "Useful?" "Yes. Useful." Robby jabbed one finger toward the command point. "Vale needs quiet. Lena needs a command structure. Garcia needs a surgical plan. She needs you not making her the centre of a testosterone-sponsored incident in the hallway."
Jack flinched at that. Robby saw. Of course he did.
His voice softened by one degree, which somehow made it worse. "She told you she couldn't think about you." Jack's throat tightened.
"Don't make her," Robby said. Jack looked past him, toward the corridor that led back to Trauma One.
He could not see it from here. That was the wound. That was the thing his body kept forgetting and remembering.
"I can't see her," he said. "I know." "You don't."
Robby's face shifted. Jack knew he was being cruel. He could feel it.
He still could not stop. "You don't know what this looks like," Jack said. "You don't know how fast it happens. You don't know what a room sounds like after. You don't know—"
"No," Robby said. "I don't." That stopped him harder than an argument would have. Robby held his gaze.
"I don't know that," Robby said. "I'm not going to stand here and pretend I do. I haven't seen what you've seen." Jack's breath scraped.
"But I know you," Robby continued. "And I know when you're scared enough to start making everything around you an enemy because at least enemies give you something to fight." Jack's mouth opened.
Nothing came out. Robby's voice stayed low. "You are not in the army right now." Jack's whole body tightened.
Robby did not back off. "You are not back there," he said. "You are here. In Pittsburgh. In The Pitt. With Lena ready to throw you into a supply closet if you make her. With Garcia trying to keep an OR alive. With a bomb squad sergeant doing the only job in the building you cannot do."
Jack looked away, jaw working. "And with her," Robby said, quieter, "still alive inside that room." Still alive.
The words hit like a hand around his throat. Jack closed his eyes. Just once.
The image came anyway. Not you. For a second, not you.
A different room. A different kind of light. Dust in the air so thick it turned morning brown. Someone shouting for a medic. Someone else not shouting at all. Heat. Pressure. The smell of burned wiring and blood and concrete. A hand in his.
Then not. He opened his eyes before the memory could finish. Robby was watching him.
Not pushing. Not pitying. There.
Jack hated how badly he needed him. "I know how this can go," Jack said. His voice was quieter now.
More dangerous because it was honest. "I know."
"No, Robby." Jack shook his head once. "I know how fast a body stops being a person. I know what blast does. I know what gets left when everyone says there was nothing else to do." Robby swallowed.
Jack's chest felt too tight. "I have seen it too many times." The radio crackled somewhere behind them.
Both of them turned. But it was only static. No update.
No voice. No you. Jack's hands curled.
Robby watched the movement, then looked back at his face. "Jack," he said.
Jack shook his head. "I can't lose another person I love." The words came out before he could stop them. Not loud.
Not dramatic. Just there. Between them.
Robby went still. Jack heard what he had said a second after he said it. Another person.
I love. The command point seemed to move farther away.
Phones. Radios. Staff. Patients. All of it faded under the weight of those four words. Person I love.
Robby's voice, when it came, was very soft. "Yeah." That was all.
No surprise. No performance. Just yeah.
Jack looked at him. Robby's eyes were tired and sad and too kind. "You knew," Jack said.
Robby's mouth shifted faintly. "Everybody with a pulse knew." Jack huffed once. It almost hurt.
"Not helpful." "No," Robby said. "But true." Jack dragged a hand over his face. His fingers caught briefly on nothing.
On absence. His left hand lowered. Robby's gaze dropped.
Not obviously. But enough. Jack saw the moment he noticed.
Or maybe not noticed. Acknowledged. His wedding ring was gone.
It had been gone for weeks. Longer, maybe.
The skin where it used to sit still looked faintly marked to Jack, though probably no one else would have seen it unless they knew exactly what absence looked like. Robby did.
Of course Robby did. "I noticed," Robby said. Jack stared at him.
Robby's eyes lifted back to his. "You stopped wearing it a while ago." Jack's jaw tightened. "That's not—"
"I'm not making it into something." "Sounds like you are." "I'm saying I noticed."
Jack looked down at his hand. No ring. No metal.
No easy explanation sitting there for the world to read. For years, the ring had been armour. Grief made visible. Boundary made respectable. A small, gold reason no one had to ask why Jack Abbott lived like a man who had locked certain doors and thrown away the keys.
Taking it off had not felt like moving on. He hated that phrase.
Moving on sounded like leaving someone behind at a bus stop. It had not been that. It had been quieter.
One morning after shift, sitting on the edge of his bed, unable to stop thinking about the way you had laughed at something stupid in the med room. The way guilt had not arrived first that time. The way warmth had. He had taken the ring off because wearing it had started to feel less like love and more like hiding.
Then he had sat there for twenty minutes with it in his palm. Like it might accuse him. It hadn't.
That had almost been worse. Robby's voice was careful. "I didn't say anything because it wasn't mine to say."
Jack's throat worked. "I didn't know if anyone noticed." Robby gave him a look.
Jack almost laughed again. This time it hurt less. "Right," Jack muttered. "Stupid."
"Deeply." Jack looked back toward the corridor. "She doesn't know."
"That you took it off?" Jack nodded once. "Maybe she does," Robby said.
Jack's eyes cut back. Robby shrugged. "She's a nurse. She notices things for a living. Also, you are not subtle."
"I am extremely subtle." "You nearly committed a felony because a bomb tech said 'subject.'" Jack glared at him.
Robby lifted both hands slightly. "Subtle as mist." Despite himself, despite the radio, despite the corridor and the patient and the terror chewing the inside of his chest apart, Jack's mouth moved.
Barely. Then it was gone. Robby saw it anyway.
His expression softened again. "There you are." "Don't." "Okay."
A beat. Then Robby said, "Listen to me." Jack exhaled. "You keep saying that."
"Because you keep acting like you're going to do something dumb." "I'm standing here."
"You are one radio update away from becoming a problem." Jack did not argue. That was answer enough.
Robby stepped closer. "She needs you alive," Robby said. "She needs you outside the perimeter. She needs you making medical decisions that don't come from panic. She needs you to not turn your fear into another thing Vale has to manage."
Jack looked away. Robby's voice gentled, but did not soften enough to let him escape.
"And when she comes out," he said, "she's going to need you to be the person she can fall apart with. Not the person everyone had to restrain." When.
Not if. Jack shut his eyes again. This time, he held the word.
When. When she comes out.
When she hears him say the thing he should have said before a bomb squad sergeant and an evacuated ED and her hand on a device made cowards of every careful delay. When he can touch her.
When he can tell her that he took the ring off not because love had ended, but because it had changed rooms. When.
He opened his eyes. Robby was still there. Annoyingly.
Thankfully. Jack's voice came out low. "I don't know how to do this." Robby nodded. "I know."
"I'm better in the room." "Most of us are."
"No." Jack shook his head. "I mean I am better when there is blood and a job and something to fix." Robby's mouth twisted. "Yeah. I noticed."
Jack stared at the command table. At the radio. At Lena's pen moving over the roster.
At the little boy with the splinted wrist wrapped in the allegedly stolen blanket. At the elderly woman in the east hall clutching her oxygen tubing while Perlah crouched in front of her and promised her daughter was nearby.
At The Pitt, emptied but still alive. Then at the corridor he could not enter. "What do I do?" Jack asked.
The question cost him more than he wanted it to. Robby did not make him regret it.
"You stand here," Robby said. "You listen. You answer when Vale calls. You let Lena run the evacuation. You let Garcia run the OR. You let me handle the board. And you do not pick another fight with bomb squad unless they actually endanger her." Jack swallowed.
"And breathe," Robby added. Jack gave him a look. Robby shrugged. "You're bad at it."
"I'm a physician." "Physicians are the worst patients." "I'm not a patient."
"Not yet." Jack's eyes narrowed. Robby held up a hand. "Too soon?"
"Deeply." "Fair." The radio crackled again.
Every person at the command point froze. Jack turned so fast his hip nearly clipped the rolling cart.
Lena grabbed the radio. "Command." Static.
Vale's voice came through, clipped and calm. "Trauma One. Field support placed. Nurse remains stable. No device movement observed."
Jack's breath left him so hard Robby's hand twitched like he wanted to steady him. Vale continued.
"Patient pressure declining. Nurse identified change from monitor. No visible increase in external bleeding. Requesting medical recommendation before proceeding to controlled removal plan." Lena looked at Jack.
So did everyone else. For one second, Jack heard Robby's voice again. Get your act together.
He stepped forward. Not toward the corridor. Toward the radio.
Lena let him take it this time. Jack pressed the button. His voice came out steady.
Not calm. Steady.
"Abbott. Continue blood as running. Do not alter her pressure to chase the blood pressure. If there's no visible external increase, assume internal loss. He needs OR, but not until Vale clears transport. Her hand stays exactly where it is until Vale has stabilization." A pause.
Then Vale: "Copy." Jack closed his eyes briefly. Then pressed the button again.
"And tell her," he said, voice rougher despite every effort, "she is doing exactly what she needs to do." Static.
A second. Two. Then Vale answered.
"I'll tell her." The radio went quiet. Jack lowered it slowly.
Robby stood beside him. Lena watched him from the other side of the table. No one spoke.
Jack looked down at his bare left hand. Then toward the corridor. Still unable to see you.
Still unable to reach you. Still here. Still useful.
Barely. For now.
Readers POV
Vale told you what Jack said. Not immediately. First, he finished listening to the radio.
First, he looked at the monitor. First, he looked at your hand, at the wound, at the small field supports he had built around your forearm like the most terrible scaffolding in the world.
Then he looked at you. "Dr. Abbott says you are doing exactly what you need to do." For a second, the room disappeared.
Not completely. Never completely.
The monitor still beeped. The blood pump still clicked. Mr. Mercer still breathed with the help of machinery. Your right hand still stayed buried inside his flank, palm braced against the foreign body that everyone was now careful not to describe too much. But Jack's voice existed in the sentence Vale had carried to you.
Not the sound of it. The weight. You swallowed.
"That's manipulative." Vale's expression did not change. "Take it up with him later."
Later. The word moved through you like air. Later was a room that did not have blood on the floor.
Later was Jack close enough to hear. Later was your hand free.
Later was a thing you could not afford to believe in too hard, but you held it anyway. Small. Careful.
Like everything else. Vale set the radio back onto the sheet beside his case. "We're moving to the next step."
Your mouth went dry. "Extraction?" "Preparation for extraction."
"That feels like something people say before extraction." "It is." You tried to breathe.
The protective gear Vale had placed around you shifted very slightly with your chest. The vest was heavy across your left side, awkward where it could not close properly because of the angle of your right arm. The blanket pressed along your hip and thigh. The glasses sat on your face, too clean for the room. The ear protection muffled the edges of sound, which made your own breathing enormous. You hated all of it.
You were grateful for all of it. Vale's radio murmured again.
A voice from outside. "Secondary to Vale. Field support confirmed?" Vale pressed the button. "Partial support placed. Nurse remains primary stabilizer. No visible device movement. Preparing controlled extraction and handoff."
Controlled extraction and handoff. Your stomach turned.
Vale must have seen it, because he looked up before the radio answered. "Do not make that phrase bigger than it is."
"It's pretty big already." "It is a sequence." "It's my hand."
"Yes," he said. "And that is why we do it as a sequence." The voice on the radio returned. "Copy. Maintain communication. Perimeter holding. Medical command standing by."
Medical command. Jack. You did not look toward the radio.
You had learned that lesson. Barely.
Vale shifted his weight, still crouched near the bed. "I am going to tell you the whole sequence once. Then I will give it to you in pieces. You do not move during the explanation." "My hand stays."
"Correct." "My pressure stays." "Correct."
"I don't anticipate." "Correct." He paused.
"Good. Now listen." You listened. There was nowhere else to go.
"I have support around your forearm. It is not bearing your weight. It is there to limit accidental drift. I am going to establish external stabilization around the object. I will tell you before every contact. When I have it, I will ask you to release pressure by degrees." Your heart slammed hard.
"Release pressure." "By degrees," Vale repeated. "Not all at once. Not pulling. Not lifting. Not deciding. I will count. You will follow the count. If I say stop, you stop immediately."
"What if I can't?" "You can." "I'm serious."
"So am I." The calm of him should have been offensive. Maybe it was.
Maybe you needed it anyway. Vale's eyes stayed on yours. "Your body wants to make this one big movement because it is scared. We are not going to let it. We are going to make it small. Pressure first. Angle second. Extraction third. Handoff last. You only live in the step I give you."
Your throat tightened. "That sounds like Jack." "Then he gives good instructions."
"He'd be unbearable if he heard you say that." "Then don't tell him." The almost-laugh hurt your chest.
You held it carefully. The monitor alarm gave a short, angry chirp. Your eyes flicked to it.
Pulse still too fast. Pressure still too low. Sat holding.
For now. "His pressure's still down," you said. Vale glanced, then back to you. "Is it worse?"
You looked without moving your head. "No. Same range." "Then it is not your step."
You hated that. You understood it. "Okay."
Vale lifted the radio again. "Vale to secondary. Beginning stabilization. Nurse is alert and able to follow commands. Patient pressure remains low but no acute monitor change." "Copy. All units holding."
All units. There were people outside you could not see. People holding a perimeter. People moving patients. People waiting for either disaster or miracle.
And Jack. Somewhere outside the emptied ED, Jack was waiting with a radio and bare hands. Your eyes burned.
Vale saw. "Not now," he said. "I know."
"Do you?" "No." His mouth twitched once. "Honest."
"Efficient." He nodded like he accepted the answer. Then his face settled.
Something in the room changed with it. This was no longer preparation. This was the thing.
"I am going to touch the outer wound edge," Vale said. "Not your hand. Not the object." Your breath caught. "Okay."
"Say it." "You're touching the wound edge. Not my hand. Not the object." "Good."
His gloved fingers moved into the edge of your vision. Slow. Unbearably slow.
He touched near the wound. Not you. Not the thing under your palm.
The contact was still close enough that your entire body tried to go rigid. "Hold," Vale said. You held.
"Breathe." You breathed. "Again."
You breathed again. "Good."
The radio murmured low, but Vale did not answer it. His attention narrowed to the wound, to the supports, to your arm. "I am placing stabilization on the lateral side," he said.
You stared at him. "Not the object yet," he added. "Beside it." "Beside it," you repeated.
He placed something you could not see and did not want to see. Your hand stayed in place. Pressure unchanged.
Palm braced against the hard, smooth edge inside Mr. Mercer's flank. Your fingers were starting to feel strange now.
Not numb. Not exactly. But distant, like they belonged to someone who had been holding on for too long.
"Fingers," Vale said. You swallowed. "Weird." "How?"
"Not numb. Just... far away." "Can you feel the shape?" "Yes."
"Can you feel pressure?" "Yes." "Pain?"
"Some." "Good." "Good?"
"Pain means you can still feel enough to follow instructions." You shut your eyes for a fraction of a second.
"Eyes," Vale said. You opened them. "Sorry."
"Stop apologizing." "Tell everyone to stop being terrifying." "Later."
There it was again. Later. You breathed.
Vale placed another support. Then another. Each time, he announced it.
Each time, you repeated back enough to prove you understood. Each time, nothing happened. The room did not explode.
Mr. Mercer did not crash. Your hand did not move. The world continued in tiny, impossible increments.
After what felt like hours and was probably less than three minutes, Vale sat back slightly. His face remained composed.
But you saw something change. A decision settling. "Okay," he said.
The word did not feel okay. Your stomach turned cold. Vale lifted the radio. "Vale to command."
Static. Lena answered. "Command."
"I have preliminary stabilization. Preparing controlled extraction and handoff. Medical standby." A silence.
Then Jack's voice. "Abbott." Your lungs forgot their job.
Vale did not look away from you. "Dr. Abbott, I need you to listen. Do not interrupt unless I ask for medical input." A beat.
Then Jack said, "Understood." It was the least Jack-sounding thing he had ever said.
Vale continued. "Nurse remains alert. Hand position unchanged. I am going to guide pressure release and angle. Due to position, she will have to draw the component out and hand it to me. Patient will need immediate medical entry once I call safe enough for movement." The radio stayed silent for half a second.
That was all. Half a second. But you knew Jack well enough to hear everything he was swallowing inside it.
Then his voice came through. Low. Controlled.
Strained nearly past recognition. "Garcia and anesthesia are ready." "Good."
Another pause. Then Jack asked, "Can she hear me?" Vale looked at you.
Your mouth went dry. "Yes," Vale said. Static.
For a second, nothing. Then Jack's voice softened through the radio in a way that made the whole room tilt.
"Don't listen to me right now," Jack said. Your eyes filled instantly. Vale watched your face.
Jack continued, rougher now. "Listen to Vale. That's your job." You breathed in. It shook.
"I'm trying," you whispered, too quietly for the radio. Vale heard. He did not relay it.
Maybe mercy existed after all. Jack's voice came again. "You can do this."
That was worse. That was better. Then the radio clicked silent from command's end.
Either Jack had let go. Or someone had taken it from him. You did not ask.
Vale set his radio down. "Now me," he said. You nodded internally.
Not with your head. "My hand," you said. "Your hand."
"Mr. Mercer breathing." "Yes." "Your voice."
"Yes." "And later." Vale paused for only a second.
"And later." His eyes moved over your face, then to your shoulder, then to the wound. "Your breathing changed," he said.
You swallowed. "I'm aware." "You were steadier a minute ago." "That feels rude to point out."
"It's useful to point out." "Useful to who?" "To both of us."
He placed another support near your forearm, pausing before his hand entered your peripheral vision. "I'm touching the support," he said. "Not you."
"Okay." "You were thinking about Dr. Abbott." Your heart kicked.
You looked at him. Or tried to. Not your head. Just your eyes.
Vale's face stayed maddeningly calm. "That is wildly inappropriate timing." "It's relevant."
"It is absolutely not relevant." "You stopped hyperventilating." "I did not hyperventilate."
"You were close." "I was emotionally breathing." "That's not a thing."
"It is in my line of work." Vale's mouth twitched. Barely.
Then his eyes returned to the wound. "Tell me about him." Your throat closed.
"What?" "Dr. Abbott," Vale said. "Tell me about him." "No."
"That wasn't a request." You stared at him. "You want me to talk about Jack while my hand is inside a patient and there's a bomb under my palm?"
"I want you steady," Vale said. "You are steadier when you think about him. So yes." Your eyes burned. "That's cruel."
"It's practical." "That's worse." "I know."
He adjusted the edge of the protective blanket near your hip, slow enough that your body did not startle. "Start small," Vale said.
"I can't." "You can." "Everyone keeps saying that."
"Then a lot of people are correct." You breathed out. It shook.
Vale looked up. "Small," he repeated. "One thing." Your mouth trembled.
The monitor beeped. Mr. Mercer breathed with the help of machinery.
Somewhere far beyond the emptied trauma corridor, Jack was outside the perimeter, unable to see you, maybe listening to a radio like it was the only thing in the world. You focused on Vale's face.
Not the wound. Not the device. Not the blood drying tacky beneath your glove.
"His pen," you said. Vale paused. "His pen?" "He has this black pen he acts like is government property."
Vale's eyes stayed on yours. "Good. Keep going." "It writes better than the hospital ones." "That matters?"
"At three in the morning? Deeply." Vale's mouth moved again, not quite a smile.
"And he pretends not to know I steal it." "Does he know?" "He knows everything."
Your breathing eased by a fraction. You noticed it. So did Vale.
Of course he did. "He gives it to me anyway," you said. "Why?"
"Because he's an idiot." Vale's eyebrows lifted. "Because he trusts me," you corrected, voice softer.
Vale held your gaze for one beat. Then nodded. "Good."
Your arm still hurt. Your hand was still inside Mr. Mercer's flank. Nothing about the room was better.
But the panic had shifted shape. Not gone. Never gone. But less wild at the edges. Vale reached for the radio clipped near his shoulder.
"Secondary, hold," he said. "I'm maintaining nurse focus before the next step." A voice crackled back. "Copy. Perimeter holding."
Vale looked back at you. "Keep going." "I'm going to run out of things."
"No, you're not." That was the problem. You weren't.
There were too many things. Jack's hand under your bruised wrist. Jack's voice cutting through a room.
Jack standing too close at the nurses' station because neither of you had been brave enough to either step away or step closer. Jack taking the terrible truth and making it smaller.
Jack outside because you had told him to go. Your eyes filled. Vale's voice lowered. "One more."
You shook your head internally. "Tell me one more thing." Your voice came out barely there.
"He makes me feel safe." Vale went still. Not frozen.
Not startled. Just still enough that you knew he understood the size of what you had said.
You kept your eyes on him because if you looked anywhere else, there would be no holding it back. "That's stupid, isn't it?" you whispered. "Considering."
"No," Vale said. The word was immediate. Firm.
Not comforting. Certain. "No," he repeated. "It is not stupid." Your mouth trembled.
Vale's hand settled near the support at your wrist, not touching you yet. "You are steadier now," he said. "We use that."
"Use Jack?" "Use what works." That made a broken sound leave you.
Almost a laugh. Almost a sob. "God, he would hate that."
"Then survive and tell him." There. Later again.
A place to put the fear. Vale's face shifted back into command. "Now we move to extraction."
Your breath caught. "No." "Yes."
"I was enjoying talking about pens." "I know." "Vale."
His eyes held yours. "Keep talking about him," he said. "But follow my count." Your throat tightened.
"How am I supposed to do both?" "Badly, if necessary." "That's not reassuring."
"It wasn't meant to be. It was an instruction." He lifted his hand. "I am going to place my hand over yours."
Your whole body went cold. "No." "Yes."
"You said—" "I know what I said. This is the step. I will match your position first. You will feel contact over your glove and wrist. You do not respond to the contact."
Your breathing tried to go fast again. Vale cut it off. "Tell me about his hand."
You blinked. "What?" "Dr. Abbott's hand," Vale said. "Earlier. You looked at your wrist when I said contact."
Your throat closed. That was worse than the pen. Much worse.
"That's not fair." "No," Vale said. "It's useful." The room narrowed.
Mr. Mercer breathing. The monitor. Vale's hand hovering above yours.
Jack's hand around your wrist at the nurses' station, careful and warm, thumb resting beneath the red mark like touching you was something he had to make himself do gently. Vale's gloved hand moved into your peripheral vision.
Slow. "Tell me," he said. You swallowed.
"He checked my wrist earlier." "Why?" "Patient grabbed me."
Vale's hand settled lightly over the back of your right hand and wrist where they disappeared into the wound. Your body screamed.
Your hand did not move. Vale's voice stayed even. "Pressure unchanged." You breathed.
"Shape unchanged." You breathed again. "Keep talking."
"It was nothing," you whispered. Vale's eyes flicked to yours. "Was it?" "No."
The answer came out before you could make it smaller. Your eyes burned.
"He didn't make it a thing," you said. "That's what he does. He notices everything, but he lets you keep your dignity." Vale matched the angle of your hand.
Not pushing. Not pulling. Just there.
"And that matters?" "Yes." "Why?"
Your mouth trembled. "Because everyone sees too much in this place," you said. "But Jack... Jack sees it and doesn't use it against you."
Vale's face remained still, but his eyes stayed on yours. "Good," he said. "First count." Your breath caught.
"I am going to ask you to decrease pressure by the smallest amount you can imagine," he said. "While you do, tell me where his thumb was." Your throat tightened.
"Vale." "One step," he said. "One detail." The monitor beeped.
Mr. Mercer breathed. Somewhere outside the perimeter, Jack existed. Alive.
Waiting. Bare hand where the ring used to be, though you did not know that yet. Vale began the count.
"One." Your whole body went silent. "Two."
You thought of Jack's face angled down toward your wrist. "Three." You decreased pressure.
Barely. A surrender smaller than breath. "Under the bruise," you whispered.
Vale's hand stayed over yours. The object did not move. The room did not end.
"Stop," Vale said. You stopped. "Hold there."
You held. Vale checked the markers. "No shift."
A sob slipped out of you. Vale's voice stayed steady. "Good. Again."
"I can't." "You can. Tell me what he did when he let go." You dragged in air.
"What?" "When he let go." You wanted to laugh.
You wanted to scream. You did neither. Vale counted.
"One." Your fingers burned. "Two."
Your palm stayed aligned beneath his hand. "Three." Another fraction of pressure released.
You whispered, "He did it slowly." Vale checked the field. "No shift. Hold."
You held. Tears slid under the protective glasses. Vale's mouth moved by almost nothing.
"Why did that matter?" Your breath came out uneven. "Because he didn't want to."
The words were barely there. Small. Embarrassing.
True. Vale watched you for half a second. Then nodded once.
"Good." The word nearly undid you. Your hand stayed steady.
Vale's hand remained over yours. The foreign body stayed beneath your palm. Less pressure now.
Not gone. Not free. But less.
Enough that the world felt like it had tilted forward. Vale spoke into his radio without looking away.
"Secondary, pressure reduction initiated. No visible shift. Preparing controlled extraction." A voice came back. "Copy. Maintain current sequence."
Controlled extraction. Your mouth went dry again. "What does that mean?"
Vale's eyes stayed on yours. "It means your hand is the only thing with the correct angle." "No."
"Yes." "No, Vale." "Listen to me."
"I can't pull it out." "You can." "No, I can't."
"You can," Vale said again, calm and absolute. "Because you are already holding it. I cannot safely get around your hand without shifting the component. I can stabilize the field. I can receive it. But you are the one who has to draw it out." Your ears filled with static.
Not the radio. Your own blood. The room seemed to move farther away.
"I can't." "You can." "You don't know that."
"No," Vale said. "But you know the angle. Your hand knows it." "That is not comforting." "It is true."
Your breath came too fast. Vale's eyes sharpened. "Do not leave me now."
"I'm not." "You are. Come back." "I don't know how."
"Tell me what Dr. Abbott said when he looked at your wrist." The question hit you sideways.
You blinked hard behind the protective glasses. "What?" "Earlier. What did he say?"
Your mouth trembled. "He told me to tell Shen if Twelve got agitated again." Vale held your gaze.
"And what did he mean?" You swallowed. "He meant he was worried."
"Good. Hold onto that." "I don't want to hold onto that. I want him here." "He is not here."
The bluntness hurt. Vale did not apologize.
"He is alive outside the perimeter because you told him to go," he said. "Now keep him there by doing this right." A sob got caught in your throat.
Your hand stayed steady. "Okay," you whispered. Vale nodded once.
"I'm going to tell you the sequence. You do not move while I explain." "My hand stays." "Yes. For now."
For now. You hated that.
Vale continued. "On my count, you will release pressure another fraction. Then you will change angle exactly with my hand. Then, when I tell you, you will draw the object out along that angle. Slow. No pulling. No jerking. No stopping halfway unless I say stop." Your vision narrowed.
"And then?" "You hand it to me." You stared at him.
The words made no sense. They were simple. They were impossible.
"I hand you the bomb." "You hand me the component," Vale said. "Do not make it sound polite."
"You hand me the component," he repeated. "I will take it. You will let go only when I say I have it." Your breathing broke apart.
The monitor beeped faster. Or maybe that was your pulse. Vale's voice stayed low. "You have done every step so far."
"This is different." "Yes." That was not what you wanted him to say.
He knew that. He said it anyway. The room held for one terrible second.
Then Mr. Mercer's pressure dipped again. Your eyes caught the number. Forty-eight.
Vale saw your face. "Number?" "Forty-eight," you whispered.
His jaw tightened for the first time. Only slightly. Enough.
Time narrowed. "Okay," Vale said. "We finish." Your lips parted.
No sound came out. Vale's hand remained over yours.
"I'm going to take more position now," he said. "You are going to let me guide. Not loose. Not limp. Guided." "Vale—"
"I know." "No, I need—" The sentence broke.
Because suddenly there was no later. No pen. No nurses' station.
No Jack almost smiling at three in the morning. Only this step and the terrifying possibility that it might be the last.
Vale's eyes stayed on yours. "What do you need?" The question undid you.
Not because it was gentle. Because it was practical. Because he was asking like there might be an answer.
Your mouth trembled. "If this goes wrong..." Vale went very still.
"No." "Please." "No messages."
You understood immediately why Jack had stopped Mr. Mercer earlier. You understood it with your whole body.
Messages were surrender. Messages made death feel invited. But fear was bigger than dignity now.
"If this goes wrong," you said, tears running hot under the protective glasses, "make sure Jack knows..." Your throat closed.
Vale's expression changed. Not much. Enough.
"Tell him yourself." "I might not get to." "You don't know that."
"Neither do you." The room held. The monitor beeped too fast.
Mr. Mercer breathed because machines helped him. Your hand stayed against the object. Vale did not speak.
You forced the words out before courage could fail. "Make sure Jack knows I love him." Vale's face stilled completely.
The sentence seemed to exist outside your body now. Huge. Terrible.
True. You had not meant to say it like that. Not here.
Not to Vale. Not with Jack outside the perimeter and a radio silent somewhere beyond the room. But there it was.
The thing you had carried through glances and coffee and bruised wrists and almost-smiles at three in the morning. The thing you had refused to name because naming it made it real and real things could be lost. Too late.
It was real now. Your voice shook. "Tell him I've always loved him."
Vale's jaw tightened. Just once. Then his face became calm again.
Not cold. Steady. "I'll make sure he knows," he said.
It should have comforted you. It didn't. Not exactly.
It made the fear real in a way that nearly broke you. Vale saw that too.
"But I'm not delivering that message today," he said. Your breath caught. "What?"
"You are." A sob broke out of you. "Vale—"
"No." His hand tightened slightly over yours. "You do not get to give me his heart like it's evidence because you're scared." That undid you.
Completely. A sound left you that was almost a laugh and almost grief. "That is incredibly mean."
"Yes." "I'm confessing my love in a bomb room." "You're delaying my count."
A laugh came out of you. Wet. Broken.
Completely inappropriate. Vale's mouth almost moved. Almost.
Then he said, "Dr. Abbott can hear it from you when your hand is free." "When?" "When."
You cried again. But your hand stayed steady. Vale waited one breath.
Two. Then he said, "Ready?" "No."
"Correct answer. We're doing it anyway." Your lungs shook. "My hand."
"Your hand." "Mr. Mercer breathing." "Yes."
"Your voice." "Yes." "And later."
Vale held your gaze. "And later." Then his voice changed.
Sharper. Command.
"On my count. Pressure release and angle together. I have your position. You follow my hand. You do not stop unless I say stop." Your whole body went cold.
"Okay." "Say it." "I follow your hand. I don't stop unless you say stop."
"Good." The monitor alarmed again. Vale did not look away.
"One." You felt his hand guide yours. "Two."
Your fingers loosened by a degree. "Three." You moved.
Slow. Not pulling. Not jerking.
Not escaping. Following. Vale's hand over yours.
The wound releasing around your glove by awful fractions. The foreign body shifting from something pinned under your palm to something held between your fingers with the most careful grip of your life.
Your body screamed to yank free. You did not. "Stop," Vale said.
You stopped. Halfway. Your hand still partly inside.
The object partly drawn out. The worst possible place. Your breath came in ragged gasps.
Vale's eyes checked the markers. The wound. The object.
The monitor. "No shift." You sobbed.
"Good," he said. "Final count." "I can't." "You are."
"I can't." "You are." "My fingers—"
"Follow my hand." "Vale—" "Look at me."
You did. He was the whole world now. Not Jack.
Not later. Not love. This.
Vale's face. Vale's hand. Vale's count. "Final count," he said. "One." Your hand followed.
"Two." The wound released another fraction of your glove. "Three."
The object came free. For one impossible second, you were holding it. Not under your palm.
Not hidden inside Mr. Mercer's body. In your hand. Small enough to hold.
Heavy enough to end everything. Your mind tried to understand that and failed. Vale's hand was already there.
Open. Steady. "Do not look at it," he said.
Too late. You had already seen enough. Metal.
Blood. Wrongness. "Eyes on me," Vale said.
You snapped back to him. "Hand it to me." Your arm moved.
Slowly. So slowly it felt like time had become thick around your wrist. Your fingers did not tighten.
Did not loosen. Did not shake. Vale's hand came beneath yours.
"Not yet," he said. You froze with the object suspended between you. A sob tore through your throat.
"Vale." "Not yet." Your shoulder screamed.
Your fingers burned. The monitor shrieked. Mr. Mercer's blood slicked your glove.
Vale adjusted his grip by a fraction. "Now," he said. You released it.
Vale took the object. Fully. Cleanly.
No drop. No shift. No end.
For one impossible second, nothing happened. No blast. No sound.
No light. Only your empty hand hanging in the space where the object had been. Covered in blood.
Shaking now. Finally shaking. Vale did not move immediately.
He held the component exactly where it was, both hands steady, his eyes locked on the containment setup beside him. "Hand clear," he said, not into the radio.
To you. To the room. To himself, maybe.
Your breath came out broken. "My hand is clear," you whispered. "Yes," Vale said. "Keep it that way."
His eyes flicked once to the sealed containment case at his side. His squad would be waiting beyond the corridor. Watching. Ready. They would not need him to explain every second. Not while he had the thing in his hands. He lowered the component into the containment cradle with excruciating care.
Once. Slow. Exact.
Then his left hand lifted just enough to activate the case mechanism. A soft click. A lock.
The smallest sound in the world. His radio crackled once from the floor, voices layered under static.
"Vale, confirm status." Vale did not answer. He had both hands on the containment case now.
His attention had narrowed completely. To the case. To the route.
To every inch between Trauma One and wherever his team planned to take it. Your hand was out. Empty.
Free. You stared at it like it belonged to someone else.
Like it had come back from somewhere it should not have survived. Mr. Mercer was still breathing.
The monitor was still screaming. The blood pump was still clicking. The room had not ended.
You had not ended. Then Jack's voice broke through the radio lying on the floor. Raw.
Uncontrolled. "Is she clear?" Vale's eyes flicked toward the radio.
Only once. He did not reach for it. Did not answer.
Couldn't. Not now. Not with the containment case in his hands and the component inside it.
Your eyes filled instantly. You wanted to answer. You wanted to tell Jack you were clear.
You wanted to tell him your hand was free. You wanted to tell him you loved him yourself, because Vale had refused to be your courier and maybe, impossibly, he had been right.
But your throat would not work. The radio crackled again. "Vale, confirm."
Then Lena's voice, tighter. "Trauma One, status?" Vale still did not answer. He looked at you instead.
"Stay where you are," he said. Your mouth trembled. "Vale—"
"Do not follow me. Do not move toward the door. Medical will come when the route is clear." "Where are you going?"
"Out." "With it?" "With it."
Your stomach dropped. He lifted the containment case carefully. Not fast.
Never fast. But with controlled urgency, the kind that changed the pressure in the room. Every movement had purpose now.
Every breath looked measured. The case was sealed, but no one in the room pretended sealed meant safe.
Vale backed away from the bed first. One step. Pause.
Another. He did not turn his back on the field until he had cleared the edge of the trauma bay table. Only then did he angle toward the doors.
The radio kept murmuring from the floor. Static. Questions.
Command trying not to sound like command was afraid. Jack's voice cut through once more. Your name.
Not a question this time. A fracture. You closed your eyes for half a second.
Vale's voice snapped across the room. "Open them." You did.
"Stay standing," he said. "I'm trying." "You're succeeding."
"Feels different," you whispered. "It usually does." He reached the trauma bay doors.
The corridor beyond was empty. Bright. Too quiet.
For one terrible second, Vale stood in the threshold with the containment case held steady in both hands. Then he stepped through.
The door swung wider behind him. You saw the evacuated corridor beyond him.
Saw one bomb squad officer far down the hall, shield raised but not close. Saw another at the corner, hand lifted in a signal you did not understand.
Vale kept moving. One step into the corridor. Then another.
Farther from you. Farther from Mr. Mercer. Farther from the bed.
Not far enough. The radio on the floor hissed. Someone said, "Hold perimeter."
Then the world went white. There was no sound at first. That was the strangest part.
No roar. No bang. Just light.
Pressure. The whole room hitting you at once.
The force punched through the trauma bay like a hand through glass. The door blew inward. The windows shattered. The monitor tore sideways. Something slammed into the wall hard enough to break apart. Heat and air and noise arrived together, too big for your body to understand. You were thrown backward.
Not falling. Thrown. Your feet left the floor.
Your shoulder struck something first. Then your back. Then the ground.
The air left your lungs in one hard, silent burst. For a second, you could not tell if you were still in your body.
The ceiling lights flickered above you. Or maybe they were sparks. Or maybe your eyes were not working right.
Sound came back wrong. Muffled. Distant.
Like you were underwater. The monitor was screaming, but it sounded far away. The fire alarm flashed without meaning. Somewhere, glass was still falling. Somewhere, someone was shouting.
You could not hear the words. Your ears rang with one long, high note that swallowed everything else. You tried to move.
Pain answered from everywhere. Your right hand curled against the floor. Empty.
Free. Still free. That mattered.
You didn't know why yet. Only that it mattered. Your mouth opened.
You tried to say Jack's name. Nothing came out. Or maybe it did.
You couldn't hear it. Smoke drifted across the trauma lights. The room tilted.
Darkness crowded the edges of your vision. The last thing you saw was the trauma bay door hanging half-open in its frame.
Beyond it, shapes moved in the white haze. Running. Shouting.
Too far away. Too muffled. And then everything went black.
I posted this a while ago over on Wattpad and I decided that it is time to bring this over here now for you all to enjoy :)
Summary - A routine night shift turns into the worst kind of emergency, leaving Jack facing an impossible choice when every second counts.
Word Count - 11600ish
Readers POV
At two forty-three in the morning, The Pitt was not quiet. It was never quiet. It just changed volume depending on the hour. By midnight, the department had been loud in the obvious ways: stretchers rattling through ambulance doors, family members asking for updates every seven minutes, monitors chirping over each other, somebody crying in the waiting room because the vending machine had eaten their card. By two forty-three, it had gone into a different kind of noise. The tired kind.
The kind made of phones ringing too long, printers jamming, half-finished orders, low voices behind curtains, wheels squeaking over linoleum, nurses saying, "I'll be right there," in the exact tone that meant they had already said it five times.
You stood at the nurses' station with trauma shears clipped to your scrub pocket, two labels stuck to your wrist, and a computer frozen on the medication record. You tapped the mouse. Nothing. You tapped it harder. Still nothing. Jack stood beside you, looking down at the screen.
"Threatening it won't help."
You didn't look up. "I'm not threatening it."
"You're staring at it like you know where its children go to school."
"I do. They're all in radiology, refusing to upload images."
His mouth shifted. Not a smile. Almost. That was usually all anyone got from him at this hour. You reached for the keyboard and hit enter again. The screen stayed frozen.
"Brilliant," you muttered. "Love a machine with boundaries."
Jack leaned one forearm against the counter, close enough that his sleeve brushed yours. "Try logging out."
"If I log out, I may never get back in."
"That sounds dramatic."
"This hospital once locked me out because I entered my password too emotionally."
"That explains several things."
You turned your head and gave him a look. Jack looked back, perfectly bland. The fluorescent light cut shadows under his eyes. His scrub top was wrinkled at the collar, and there was a smear of dried betadine near one cuff. He looked tired in that clean, contained way he had, like exhaustion had asked for permission before settling on him. Infuriating. You clicked the mouse again. The system gave one weak blink and unfroze.
You lifted both hands. "See? It responds to fear."
"Says the man who makes residents apologize to CT."
"They should."
"They absolutely should," you said, and reached for the med scanner.
Across the station, Perlah was on the phone with lab, using her calmest voice, which meant someone was in danger. Princess stood at the counter with a tray of specimens, labelling each one with the focus of a woman who had entered a temporary spiritual agreement with order. A call bell went off. Then another.
From Curtain Three, a woman called, "Excuse me? My father still hasn't gotten his sandwich."
Perlah hung up the phone and said, "Lab says they never got the green top from Bay Six."
Princess held up a bag without looking. "That green top?"
Perlah stared at it. Princess stared back.
You whispered, "Nobody move. It might be a trap."
Jack took the specimen bag from Princess and checked the label. "Bay Six."
Princess pointed toward the tube station. "It was waiting for the printer."
"The printer doesn't process labs."
"It had an attitude. I was letting it calm down."
Perlah came over and snatched the bag. "I'll walk it down before this place invents a new failure point."
She left with the grim purpose of someone going into battle.
Jack watched her go. "She's handling the night well."
"She threatened to divorce the tube system ten minutes ago."
"Healthy boundaries."
You scanned the medication and signed it off before the computer changed its mind. "You always this supportive of workplace conflict?"
"Only when it's justified."
"That's every night."
"Then yes."
A laugh slipped out of you before you could stop it. Jack looked at you. Only for a second. But there it was again. That almost-warmth. That almost-softening. The look that made you forget, briefly and stupidly, that you were at work. You looked away first. Safer. The problem with Jack was that most people saw the sharp edges and stopped there. The dry comments. The clinical stare. The way he could flatten a room with one sentence and no raised voice. All of that was real. But it was not all of him. You knew that now.
You knew because he remembered which patients made you clench your jaw. Because he put coffee near your charting hand on bad nights and pretended he had just "overestimated his own caffeine needs." Because he stepped in when a family member got too loud, not to take over, but to stand beside you while you handled it yourself.
Because he had a way of seeing too much and saying almost nothing. Tonight, he had seen Curtain Twelve. You had known he had. The patient had been septic, febrile, frightened, and strong enough to grab your wrist when you leaned over to adjust his line. It had lasted maybe three seconds before you got him to let go. Princess had been there. Shen had been called. The man had apologized afterward, confused and shaking. It was over. It should have been over. But Jack's eyes had dropped to your wrist three times since. You kept pulling your sleeve down without meaning to. Jack noticed that too. Of course he did.
You tried to ignore it by moving. That usually worked in the ED. There was always something else to do, somewhere else to put your hands, another task to fold yourself into until whatever awkward, tender thing had started to rise between you sank back down again.
You checked on Bay Five, who insisted his breathing was "fine now" while still requiring oxygen. Ellis adjusted his orders and gave him the kind of look that made him reconsider lying to women in scrubs. Shen finally got cardiology to answer by using Jack's name like an institutional threat. Princess found two missing saline flushes in a linen cart and declared it "evidence of collapse."
Normal. Annoying. Alive. By three ten, you were back at the station, rewriting a discharge instruction because the printer had decided to cut off everything after return immediately if— which felt medically bold. You reached for the tape dispenser and winced before you could stop yourself. It was small. Barely anything. The kind of automatic reaction you would have ignored on any other night, from any other bruise. Your wrist had twisted awkwardly when Twelve grabbed you earlier, and the movement pulled at the sore place just enough to make your fingers pause. You recovered quickly. Not quickly enough. Jack was three feet away, signing a chart. His pen stopped moving.
You looked at the papers very hard and pretended not to notice him noticing. That was usually the safest method with Jack. If you gave him an opening, he would walk through it with that quiet, terrible focus of his, the one that made patients confess symptoms they had planned to take to the grave and made residents suddenly remember protocols they had been ignoring. You reached for the tape again with your other hand. Jack said nothing. Which meant he was absolutely going to say something. You could feel him beside you, still and silent, while the department kept moving around both of you.
Princess passed behind the station with a stack of clean blankets and paused long enough to look between your wrist and Jack's face.
"Nope," she said under her breath, and kept walking.
You shot her a warning look. She ignored it with professional ease.
Perlah leaned around the corner from the desk phone. "Radiology says the portable chest from Four is 'in process.'"
You latched onto that like a life raft. "It's been in process for forty minutes."
Jack's gaze did not leave your wrist. "Did they define process?"
Princess, already halfway down the hall, called back, "They defined it as 'in process.'"
"That's circular," Jack said.
"That's radiology," you answered.
It almost worked. For about three seconds, the conversation went back to normal. You wrote another line. The printer coughed. Someone laughed down the hall. Shen's voice rose from Bay Six, calm but deeply tired. Then your sleeve slipped back as you reached for the discharge packet. The red mark showed again. Jack set his pen down. Not loudly. Not dramatically. Just enough that you heard it. You looked at him. He looked at your wrist.
And then, quiet enough that it did not belong to the station, he said, "Let me see."
You glanced toward Curtain Three, toward Princess disappearing down the hall, toward Perlah still half on the phone. Nobody was watching directly. Everyone was probably listening a little, because this was The Pitt and walls were a myth, but no one was making it obvious. You could have told him no. Not because you wanted to. Because saying yes felt like letting him stand somewhere closer than either of you usually admitted he already did. But Jack did not reach for you. He just waited. A request. Not an order. That was worse, somehow. You turned your wrist over. Jack took your hand carefully. Not dramatically. Not like you were fragile.
Like he was trying very hard not to make you feel watched. His fingers settled around your palm first, warm and steady. Then his thumb shifted the edge of your sleeve back just enough to see the faint red mark circling the skin. It barely hurt. You had seen worse bruises from IV pumps and supply carts and the med room drawer that stuck every time someone needed something fast. Jack's jaw tightened anyway. You watched his face instead of your wrist. That was safer, and somehow not safer at all.
He did not look angry exactly. Not in the easy way. It was quieter than that. Controlled. Focused down into something small enough to survive at the nurses' station. If he had been another man, he might have made noise about it. Asked too many questions. Turned concern into a spectacle. Jack didn't. He just looked. That made it harder to breathe. His thumb did not press the mark. It rested just beneath it. Warm. Steady.
A point of contact small enough that anyone walking past could miss it, but you couldn't. You felt it all the way up your arm, under your ribs, in the place where your heart had gotten embarrassingly used to making bad decisions around him.
"Does it hurt?" he asked.
Quiet. Still not quite doctor. Not quite anything else either.
"No," you said.
His eyes lifted to yours.
You amended, because Jack had a gift for making lies feel useless, "Not much."
His gaze held yours for a beat. Long enough that the sounds around you seemed to thin out — not disappear, exactly, because The Pitt never allowed anything that generous, but fade to the edge of awareness. The phone ringing. The printer grinding. Princess saying something down the hall. Shen's voice from Bay Six, calm and deeply tired. All of it kept going. You and Jack didn't. His thumb moved once. Not over the bruise. Just beneath it. A slow, careful sweep against your pulse. You wondered if he could feel it jump. You knew he could. That was the problem with him.
He noticed everything and let you pretend he hadn't. Jack's eyes dropped to where his thumb rested against your skin. His expression stayed almost unreadable, but something in his face had gone still in a way that made your stomach tighten. Not clinical. Not anymore. There was no reason for him to keep holding your wrist. He had already seen the bruise. Already assessed the mark. Already confirmed you were not hiding anything worse under your sleeve. He should have let go. You should have pulled away. Neither of you did. Your fingers shifted once against his palm. Barely. An accident, maybe. Except Jack looked at them. Then back at you.
Your breath caught before you could stop it. His thumb stilled. For one dangerous second, you thought he was going to say something. Not a joke. Not a clipped instruction. Something real enough to make the station lights feel too bright. But Jack was Jack. And the room was full of patients and nurses and unfinished charts and every reason in the world not to cross whatever line the two of you kept walking up to and pretending was just part of the floor. So he said nothing.
He only turned your wrist a fraction more, checking the mark from the other angle with a care so quiet it almost hurt worse than words.
"You should ice it," he said at last.
There it was. A safe sentence. A clinical sentence. You almost smiled because it sounded so much like him and so little like what was actually happening.
"I'll add it to my glamorous post-shift plans."
His eyes lifted again. "You have plans?"
The question was too casual. You heard what sat under it anyway.
You shrugged lightly, because you were not brave enough to do anything else. "Sleep. Maybe laundry. Maybe staring at a wall until my soul comes back."
"Ambitious."
"Don't be jealous."
"I'm devastated."
His hand was still around your wrist. His thumb was still against your pulse. You looked down at it, then back at him. Jack noticed. Of course he did. This time, his expression changed before he could stop it. Not much. A flicker of restraint. The faintest tightening around his eyes. Like letting go had become a choice instead of a reflex. Like he knew exactly how long he had been touching you. Like he knew you knew too. Your mouth went dry.
"Jack," you said.
Not warning. Not question. Just his name. His fingers flexed once around your hand. Then, slowly, he released you. Not all at once. His thumb left your pulse first. Then his fingers loosened from your palm. Then your hand was yours again, and somehow that felt colder than it should have. You tucked it against your side before you could do something stupid, like reach for him again.
"Thanks," you said, because you had to say something.
Jack nodded once.
His voice was even when he answered, but quieter than before. "Tell Shen if Twelve gets agitated again."
"I will."
His expression told you he did not fully believe that. Your expression told him you knew. Neither of you pushed it. That was the thing between you lately. Everything unspoken, and somehow all of it too loud. For a second longer, Jack stayed where he was. Close enough that his sleeve nearly brushed yours. Close enough that you could see the tiredness at the corners of his eyes and the line his mouth made when he was keeping too much behind it. Then Princess's voice carried from down the hall.
"Radiology says the portable chest from Four is still 'in process.'"
The station exhaled around you. The moment broke. Not cleanly. Not completely. Just enough for both of you to pretend it had.
You frowned toward Princess. "That's what they said ten minutes ago."
"They have committed to the bit."
Jack reached for the chart you had been about to grab and handed it to you. "Bay Five needs reassessment before he negotiates another cigarette."
You took the chart. "He offered me three dollars and half a pack of gum earlier."
"Was the gum sealed?"
"No."
"Then no deal."
You smiled. This time, Jack almost did too. The station settled back into motion.
You checked on Bay Five again, adjusted his nasal cannula when he tried to claim oxygen worked better if it was "nearby," and reminded him that lungs were not spiritual. Ellis laughed into her chart. Shen finally walked past with a face that suggested cardiology had answered the phone and made him regret wanting that.
By three twenty, you were back at the station again, rewriting the discharge paper because the printer had cut off the final line a second time. Jack came up beside you with a chart in one hand and his good pen in the other. You looked at the pen. He looked at you.
"No," he said.
"I didn't ask."
"You looked."
"I admire quality stationery."
"You steal quality stationery."
"I prefer redistribute."
Jack handed you a different pen from the cup. You clicked it. It didn't work. You clicked it again. Nothing. You held it up. Jack looked at it, then sighed and gave you his.
You accepted it with great dignity. "That was very brave."
"It was a lapse in judgment."
"Still counts."
"Give it back."
"When I'm done."
"You've said that before."
"And yet here we are."
His shoulder brushed yours as he leaned closer to read the discharge paper. It was not necessary. The font was large enough. Neither of you moved away.
"You misspelled dizziness," he said.
You looked down. You had.
"You saw nothing."
"I saw malpractice."
"It's three in the morning."
"Dizziness still has two z's at three in the morning."
"Does it?"
"Usually."
You corrected it. Jack stayed there, close and quiet, his attention ostensibly on the paperwork. Your attention was on the warmth of him beside you. On the place where his hand had held your wrist. On how he had not said what he was thinking, and how somehow that made it worse. Then the ambulance radio crackled. The whole station shifted before the words even came through. Everyone heard the tone first. The clipped urgency. The incoming.
"Medic Seven to Mercy, inbound with trauma alert."
Jack straightened. You felt the change in him instantly. The warmth, the almost-smile, the quiet station version of him vanished behind something stiller. Sharper. The radio continued.
"Adult male, early twenties. Blast injury from unknown device. Penetrating abdominal trauma, burns to torso and upper extremities. Hypotensive en route. Altered mental status. ETA four minutes."
For a breath, nobody spoke. Blast injury. Unknown device. You looked at Jack. His face had closed. Not panic. Never panic. Something older than that. Something trained into the bones. You knew pieces of his army history the way most people knew pieces of Jack — incompletely, carefully, mostly through what he did not say. But you knew enough to recognize when certain words landed badly. This one landed. Then he moved.
"Trauma One," Jack called, voice cutting clean through the station. "Now."
The department snapped with him. Princess was already reaching for the blood cooler.
Perlah grabbed the phone. "Surgery and anesthesia?"
"Yes," Jack said. "Tell them penetrating abdominal blast injury, unstable, possible retained foreign body. Shen, airway side. Ellis, monitors and access."
Shen came out of the physician workroom, expression gone alert. "Unknown device?"
"Unknown," Jack said.
Just that. But it changed the air. You stripped off your old gloves and moved to the trauma sink. Jack turned toward you.
"Left side," he said.
Not a question. Not quite an order either. He trusted you there.
You nodded. "Already there."
His eyes held yours for half a second. Whatever had passed between you at the station was still there, pushed down beneath the incoming trauma, beneath protocol, beneath the part of both of you that knew how to work when the room got loud. Then Jack looked toward the ambulance doors. The sirens were close now. Growing louder. You pulled on fresh gloves, your wrist still warm where his hand had been. And waited for the doors to open. The ambulance doors opened hard enough to rattle the frame. Noise came with them.
Wheels over linoleum. Monitor alarms. A paramedic's voice cutting through the department. Rainwater hitting the floor from jackets and boots. The metallic smell that always seemed to arrive before the stretcher did. Blood. Smoke. Burned fabric. You had half a second to see Jack's face. Still. Not blank. Jack was never blank. There was always something moving under the surface with him, even when he didn't let it reach daylight. But this was different. The words from the radio had followed him into the trauma bay. Blast injury. Unknown device. For one breath, he looked like a man hearing something from a long way away.
Then the stretcher crossed the threshold, and Jack was back.
"Trauma One," he said. "Straight in."
The paramedics moved fast. The patient was young. Early twenties, maybe. Hard to tell beneath the soot and blood and the harsh white light of the bay. His clothes had already been cut open in places, most of his shirt peeled away, the edges of it blackened and wet. Burns marked his chest and shoulder in angry red patches. His left arm was wrapped above the elbow with a tourniquet, blood dark around the torn sleeve below it. But his abdomen was worse. No. Not abdomen. Side.
Left flank, low and ragged, half-covered by an EMS dressing that had already soaked through. Blood had spread beneath the padding and down onto the sheet in dark, fast streaks. You moved to the patient's left side without needing Jack to point. That was where he put you. That was where he trusted you. Shen took airway. Ellis moved to the monitor. Princess came in with the blood cooler and set it where you could reach. Perlah stood at the threshold with the phone pressed to one ear, already calling surgery. The lead paramedic started report before the stretcher stopped moving.
"Twenty-three-year-old male, Evan Mercer. Found in a garage after reported device failure. Fire was still securing the scene when we left. Burns to torso and upper extremities, penetrating injury to left flank and abdomen, altered en route. Pressure eighty over palp, pulse one-forty, respirations shallow. One eighteen in the right AC, fluids running. Tourniquet left upper arm placed at zero-two-fifty-eight."
Jack listened without interrupting, eyes moving over the patient, over the lines, over the tourniquet, over the soaked dressing at his side.
"What kind of device?" he asked.
The paramedic shook his head. "Unknown. Fire said homemade. We weren't given details."
"Any concern he brought anything active in with him?"
"Not that they told us. They cleared him for transport once they got him away from the workbench. They told us not to pull any debris, minimize movement, get him here."
"Did anything shift during transport?"
"Not that we saw. Dressing stayed in place. Bleeding got worse in the last three minutes."
That mattered. You saw Jack file it away. The patient moaned beneath the oxygen mask. His eyes opened and rolled toward the lights.
"Mr. Mercer," Shen said, leaning in. "You're at Mercy. Stay with us."
The patient jerked weakly against the straps.
Jack stepped closer. "Mr. Mercer, I'm Dr. Abbott. You're in the emergency department. We're going to take care of you."
The patient's mouth moved beneath the mask. Nothing came out.
"On my count," Jack said. "Ready? One, two, three."
Everyone moved. The transfer was brutal and clean. The patient slid from stretcher to trauma bed in one coordinated pull. The monitor shrieked as leads were switched over. Ellis called out numbers while Princess snapped open blood tubing.
"Pressure seventy-eight systolic," Ellis said. "Pulse one-forty-six. Sat eighty-nine on non-rebreather."
"Shen?" Jack asked.
"Airway's not great," Shen said. "He's tiring. Burns near the neck, no obvious soot in the mouth. Voice weak."
Jack said, "Prepare for intubation. I want anesthesia in here."
Perlah called from the door, "Anesthesia's coming. Surgery too."
"Good. Two large-bore IVs if we can get them. Blood now. TXA. Burn dressings after hemorrhage control."
You cut away enough of the remaining fabric to expose the dressing EMS had placed. The gauze was soaked through. Not just stained. Saturated. Blood welled at the edges with each shallow, frantic breath the patient took.
That was standard. Normal. Trauma nursing, not surgery. Control the bleeding. Maintain pressure. Don't go hunting. Don't extract anything. Keep the patient alive long enough for the people with scalpels and better lighting. You placed both gloved hands over the dressing and leaned in with firm, even pressure. The gauze gave beneath your palms. Warmth pushed up between your fingers. Mr. Mercer bucked against the bed.
Shen caught his shoulder. "Easy. Easy."
Mr. Mercer's eyes went wide. He tried to speak around the mask.
"No—"
Jack looked at him. "Mr. Mercer, stay still."
"No," he gasped. "Don't— don't touch—"
"You're bleeding," Jack said. "She's holding pressure."
Mr. Mercer shook his head weakly, panic cutting through shock. "Don't move it."
Your hands stayed where they were. Pressure over dressing. Nothing more. But the blood kept coming. Too much. It slid hot under your palms, slicking the gauze until the pressure dressing no longer felt like pressure at all. It shifted beneath you, unstable and soaked, and the patient's pressure dropped on the monitor with a sharper alarm.
"Sixty-eight systolic," Ellis said.
Garcia entered then, gown half tied, hair pulled back, already gloving as she crossed the room. "What do we have?"
"Blast injury," Jack said. "Unstable. Penetrating left flank and abdomen. Active hemorrhage. Possible retained foreign body. Dressing's saturated."
Garcia stepped to the opposite side of the bed and looked down. Her face sharpened.
"That dressing isn't doing anything," she said. "We need direct pressure at the source."
Jack looked at the wound. Then at you. A single beat. A decision neither of you had time to make gently.
"Can you maintain pressure if we open the dressing?" he asked.
"Yes," you said.
Your voice sounded steadier than you felt.
Garcia's eyes flicked to Jack. "We don't pull anything."
"We don't pull anything," Jack said. "We expose only what we need to control hemorrhage."
Anesthesia came in behind Garcia, mask hanging around his neck, respiratory at his shoulder.
"I hear airway and hypotension," anesthesia said.
"You heard correctly," Shen said. "He's tiring."
Jack didn't look away from the wound. "Prepare for intubation. Hold until I say."
Anesthesia's hand paused, but he nodded. "Understood."
Jack looked at you. "Ready?"
You nodded.
"Slow," he said. "Only the dressing. Hands steady."
Garcia cut the outer wrap. You kept pressure until the last second. Then the dressing opened beneath your hands. Blood surged. Dark. Fast. Immediate.
"Pressure," Jack said.
You moved before the word finished. Not exploring. Not searching. Just following the bleed. Your right hand pressed deep into the torn opening at his side, fingers sinking past slick tissue and ruined fabric, down to the place where the bleeding seemed to pulse hardest. Your left hand braced over your own wrist to hold the pressure steady. The heat of it swallowed your glove. Mr. Mercer screamed.
Shen leaned close. "Mr. Mercer, stay with me."
"Pressure?" Jack asked.
You swallowed hard.
"Better," you said. "Not controlled."
Garcia leaned just close enough to see without touching. "You're tamponading something."
"I can feel resistance," you said.
"Debris?"
"I don't know."
You did not move your hand. You did not lift. You did not go deeper. You just held. That was the job. Hold pressure. Keep him alive. Let surgery get there. Mr. Mercer's hand jerked toward his side.
Ellis caught it gently but firmly. "No, Mr. Mercer. Don't grab."
His eyes fixed on you. On your arm. On where your hand disappeared into the wound in his side.
"No," he gasped.
Jack leaned over him. "Mr. Mercer."
"No. No, no, no."
"Listen to me," Jack said. "You're bleeding. She's stopping the bleed."
Mr. Mercer shook his head. Tears mixed with soot at the corners of his eyes.
"Don't move it."
The room tightened. You felt your own breathing change. Jack saw.
"What?" he asked.
You kept your eyes on him because looking at your hand suddenly felt impossible.
"There's something against my palm."
Garcia went still.
Jack's voice stayed controlled. "Describe it."
Your mouth had gone dry.
"Hard," you said. "Smooth edge. Not loose."
Anesthesia's hand stopped above the medication tray. Shen looked from the patient to Jack. The monitors kept beeping. Nobody else moved. Jack's face did not change. That scared you more than if it had.
"Mr. Mercer," Jack said, voice low and controlled, "the foreign body in your flank — what is it?"
Mr. Mercer stared at him. His breathing hitched hard.
"I don't know."
"Mr. Mercer."
"My brother said not to pull it."
The words dropped into the trauma bay one at a time. You felt each one. Jack's eyes moved back to yours. Still calm. Too calm.
"What exactly did your brother say?" he asked.
Mr. Mercer's eyes filled.
"He said if part of it got stuck, don't pull. Don't let it shift."
Garcia's face changed. Anesthesia looked at Jack. Shen did not move. Princess stood by the blood cooler, suddenly pale above her mask. Mr. Mercer sobbed once, weak and terrified.
"He said it could still go."
The room lost all its air. Could still go. Your hand stayed inside his side. Pressed against blood and torn tissue and the hard, wrong shape beneath your palm. For one strange, awful second, your mind did not give you fear. It gave you details. The heat of the wound. The pressure of your left hand bracing your right. The ache already starting in your shoulders. The slick pull of blood around your wrist. The blood warmer humming. Jack's face. God, Jack's face. He looked down at where your arm disappeared into Mr. Mercer's side. Then at the wound. Then back at you. The old stillness was there again. Not panic. Training. Memory. Calculation.
Something awful and familiar moving behind his eyes.
Garcia spoke first, very quietly. "Jack."
"I know," he said.
Anesthesia's voice was low and tight. "Is he saying there's an active explosive component inside the wound?"
"No one says that yet," Jack replied.
His voice was calm. Too calm. He lifted one hand slightly, palm down. A signal to the room. Hold. Stay. Do not react. Then he looked at you. Only you.
"Do not move your hand," Jack said.
Your throat locked. Your whole body wanted to nod. His voice sharpened immediately, not loud, but absolute.
"Don't nod. Don't shift. Don't do anything with your body except breathe."
You froze. Everything in you went still. Your hand stayed inside Mr. Mercer's side. Exactly where it was. Jack's eyes stayed on yours.
"Just keep looking at me."
So you did. The rest of the room blurred around the edges. Your right hand was buried in the wound. Your left hand braced over your own wrist. Your palms were warm with blood. Something beneath your hand might have been a piece of metal. Might have been nothing. Might have been everything. But Jack was in front of you, eyes steady, voice low and certain.
"Good," he said. "Exactly like that."
Your breath came too fast. You tried to slow it. Failed. Jack saw that too.
"Breathe with me," he said.
You didn't want to. Not because you didn't trust him. Because breathing felt like movement. Because your ribs moving felt dangerous. Because every tiny part of your body suddenly seemed capable of betrayal. Jack understood before you said it.
"You can breathe," he said. "Slow. Small. Nothing else moves."
You followed him. In. Out. Small. Careful. Your eyes stayed on his. Behind him, the room remained frozen in pieces. Garcia's hands were lifted away from the field. Anesthesia stood still near the airway cart. Shen held his position at the patient's head. Ellis had one hand hovering above the monitor controls but did not touch them. Princess stood near the blood cooler, face pale above her mask. Perlah was at the threshold with the phone still in her hand, eyes wide and fixed on you. Jack did not look away from you.
"Perlah," he said, voice still quiet.
Perlah startled, then caught herself. "Yeah."
"Call security. Quietly. Possible explosive hazard in Trauma One. No overhead page yet. Then get hospital command. Tell them we need police bomb squad."
Perlah swallowed. "Okay."
"Slowly," Jack said.
She moved. One step back. Then another. The room watched her leave like even the air had become tripwire.
Garcia's eyes stayed on your arm. "If she's tamponading the bleed and stabilizing the object, we cannot move her hand."
"She's not moving," Jack said.
"I know."
"She's not moving," Jack repeated.
The words landed harder the second time. Not harsh. Final. You were grateful for it. Terrified by it too. Because he was right. You could not move. Not your hand. Not your wrist. Not the fingers pressed against the hard edge inside Mr. Mercer's side. Not the wrist Jack had touched ten minutes ago when the world had been annoying and alive and ordinary.
Anesthesia spoke carefully. "Airway is still a problem."
Jack's jaw flexed once. You saw the calculation move across his face. The patient. The airway. The bleed. The possible device. You. The people in the bay. The rest of the department outside the doors. All of it. All at once.
"What can you do without shifting him?" Jack asked.
Anesthesia answered just as carefully. "Support ventilation. Prepare meds. But intubation means movement. Even minimal movement."
"Then prepare. Don't proceed until security and command are in the loop."
Anesthesia nodded. "Understood."
Mr. Mercer was crying now, silent tears cutting through soot on his cheeks.
"I'm sorry," he whispered. "I'm sorry. We didn't think it would—"
"Mr. Mercer," Jack said, still watching you. "You're going to stay very still. You're going to let Dr. Shen help you breathe. You're not going to reach for the wound. Do you understand?"
The patient gave the smallest nod.
Jack's eyes flicked to him. "No nodding. Say yes."
"Yes," Mr. Mercer whispered.
"Good."
A sound left you before you could swallow it. Barely a sound. Almost nothing. Jack's attention snapped back.
"You're okay," he said.
You couldn't answer. He corrected immediately.
"You are doing okay," he said. "That's different."
That nearly broke you. Because it was different. Because you were not okay. But you were doing it. You were standing there with your hand inside a patient's side, not moving because Jack told you not to move, because a terrified patient said the thing beneath your palm might still go off, because the ED had suddenly become the centre of a blast radius and you were holding the middle of it against a stranger's body. You kept looking at Jack. He kept looking back. Security arrived at the trauma bay doors. Two officers. Both trying to look calmer than they felt.
Perlah stood behind them, phone still pressed to her ear. Jack did not turn fully away from you.
"Possible explosive hazard in patient wound," he said. "Restrict access to Trauma One. Quietly clear adjacent bays and the immediate hallway. Get hospital command here now. We need police bomb squad. No overhead announcement until command decides. Nobody runs."
One guard swallowed. "You want the ED evacuated?"
"Not yet," Jack said. "We don't know enough, and moving everyone at once creates more risk. Immediate area first. Then command makes the call."
The guard nodded and moved. The second stayed at the door.
"No one enters without my permission unless they are security, hospital command, or bomb squad," Jack said.
"Understood."
The door area cleared. The room felt smaller. Your hand did not move. Your arm was already beginning to burn. Not badly. Not yet. But enough to remind you that muscles were stupid, disloyal things. Jack saw your eyes flicker.
"Stay with me," he said.
"I'm here," you managed.
"I know."
His voice softened by half a degree. Not enough for anyone else. Enough for you.
"Keep looking at me."
So you did. The monitor alarmed louder.
Ellis read the number, voice strained but steady. "Pressure sixty-eight systolic."
Garcia cursed under her breath.
Anesthesia said, "Jack, we're running out of airway."
Jack's eyes stayed on you for one heartbeat longer. Then he looked at the room.
"Okay," he said, voice low and absolute. "Nobody moves unless I tell you."
He looked back at your arm. At the wound. At the thing beneath your hand. Then at you.
"Nobody moves."
Nobody moved. For three seconds, maybe four, the trauma bay held itself in an impossible stillness. The monitors did not care. They kept screaming. Mr. Mercer's pulse raced across the screen in sharp green spikes. His oxygen saturation hovered too low. His pressure sat in the kind of range that made everyone in the room want to do something with their hands. But nobody did. Not without Jack. Not with your hand inside Mr. Mercer's flank, braced against a foreign body that might be harmless debris, might be unstable metal, might be the thing everyone in the room was suddenly trying very hard not to imagine.
You kept your eyes on Jack. That was the only instruction you could follow without thinking. Just keep looking at me. So you did. His face was steady. Pale under the trauma lights, yes. Sharper than before, yes. But steady. You hated him a little for that. You needed him for it more.
"Okay," Jack said, voice low. "We're going to slow this down."
Garcia's eyes flicked to the monitor. "He doesn't have much slow left."
"I know."
"Pressure's still dropping," Ellis said from the monitor. Her voice was tight, but controlled. "Sixty-four systolic."
Jack nodded once, like he had already built that number into the room.
"Blood keeps running," he said. "No one crosses her side of the bed."
Princess stood near the blood cooler, frozen with one hand hovering uselessly in the air.
Jack looked at her. "Princess."
She blinked. "Yeah."
"Blood tubing. Can you reach the pump without crossing behind her?"
Princess looked. Calculated.
Nodded once. "Yes."
"Slowly."
Princess moved like the floor might object. One step. Pause. Another. She reached the pump, adjusted what she needed, and backed away with the kind of care usually reserved for live wires and sleeping infants.
"Blood's running," she said.
"Good."
The word had weight in Jack's mouth. Not praise exactly. More like a rope thrown across the room. Everyone took it.
Shen stayed at the head of the bed, jaw tight, one hand supporting the oxygen mask. "He's tiring."
Mr. Mercer's breaths had turned shallow. Fast. Wet at the edges. Anesthesia stood beside Shen, meds ready but untouched, body held in the miserable restraint of someone trained to act and forced to wait.
"Jack," anesthesia said, "if he arrests, we lose every option."
"If you intubate and he bucks or we shift his torso, we may lose the room."
The words were quiet. No drama. That made them worse. Your fingers wanted to tighten. You did not let them. Jack's eyes moved back to yours instantly.
"Don't change pressure," he said.
"I'm not."
Your voice sounded thin.
His softened by a fraction. "Good."
Garcia watched your arm disappear into the wound. "How's your hold?"
You took a careful breath. Small. Jack's eyes stayed on you.
"Stable," you said. "I think."
"Bleeding?"
You did not look down. You couldn't. Jack looked for you.
"No major change," he said. "She's tamponading enough to buy us time."
"Not much," Garcia said.
"No," Jack said. "Not much."
That was the thing about him. He did not dress bad news up. He did not hand you false comfort and ask you to swallow it because it was easier for him. If Jack said something, he meant it. If he didn't know, he didn't pretend. Right now, that should have scared you. Instead, it made the floor feel a little more solid. You kept your hand still. Kept your palm exactly where it was. The foreign body stayed pressed against the heel of your hand, hard and wrong beneath slick heat and torn tissue. Security had begun moving outside the bay.
You could hear it in fragments through the glass and open doorway. Low voices. Footsteps. A stretcher wheel squeaking away from the adjacent trauma room.
Someone asking, "Why are we moving him?"
A security officer answering too calmly, "Maintenance issue in the trauma corridor. We're moving you somewhere quieter."
Maintenance issue. You almost laughed. The sound got nowhere near your mouth.
Perlah appeared at the threshold, phone still in hand, face pale above her mask. "Security is clearing the immediate hall. Hospital command's been notified."
"How long for police?" Jack asked.
"Dispatch says units are close. Bomb squad is being requested through city."
"Estimate?"
"Not yet."
"Get one."
Perlah nodded and stepped back carefully, like even the doorway had become dangerous. A minute later, Lena Handzo appeared behind security. Night-shift charge. She did not enter the room. She stopped exactly where the security officer told her to stop, one hand braced on the doorframe, eyes taking in everything with brutal, efficient speed. The patient. Garcia. Anesthesia. Shen. Jack. Your arm. Her face did not change. That was how you knew she understood.
"Abbott," Lena said.
"Lena."
"Perlah says possible explosive hazard."
"Possible," Jack said. "Foreign body in the left flank. Patient reports it may be part of the device. Her hand is controlling hemorrhage and stabilizing it. She cannot move."
Lena's eyes came to yours. No panic. No pity. Only command. Only: I see you. Stay steady.
Then she looked back at Jack. "Adjacent bays are clearing. Security has both ends of the corridor. I'm moving ambulatory patients first, quiet and slow."
"Good."
"Waiting room?"
"Not yet," Jack said. "If the waiting room hears bomb, we get stampede risk."
"Agreed."
The administrator beside her — hospital command, suit jacket over a dress shirt, hair mussed like he'd been dragged from a sleep room or office couch — looked like he wanted to say something. Lena beat him to it.
"We stage evacuation," she said. "Immediate corridor first. Then the department in zones once police gives us routes. Nobody runs. Nobody says explosive in front of patients."
The administrator swallowed. "Hospital policy requires—"
"Hospital policy doesn't move sixty patients safely in thirty seconds," Lena said, not looking at him. "Give us three minutes and a plan."
Jack gave the smallest nod. You saw it. So did Lena. For a second, the two of them spoke the language of people who kept departments alive when the building tried to eat itself. Then Jack looked back at you.
"Stay in this room," he said.
You blinked once. Not too hard.
"What?"
"Not the hallway. Not the department. This room."
You realized your thoughts had started to follow the noise outside. The stretchers. The patients. The people being moved because of what was under your hand. You brought your focus back to him.
"Okay."
His gaze held yours. "Better."
The room narrowed again. Jack's face. Jack's voice. Your hand. The foreign body beneath your palm. Mr. Mercer made a small, broken sound beneath the oxygen mask.
"Am I going to die?"
The question hit the room differently than the alarms. You felt it under your hand. Not movement. Not pressure. Just the human awfulness of him being awake enough to ask. Jack's face changed as he looked down at the patient. Focused differently.
"Mr. Mercer," he said, "right now you are alive. We are going to keep working from there."
Mr. Mercer's eyes rolled toward him. "I'm sorry."
"Save your energy."
"I didn't—" His breath hitched. "We didn't mean—"
"Mr. Mercer."
Jack's voice cut cleanly through the panic. The patient went quiet.
"You are going to breathe slowly," Jack said. "You are going to listen to Shen. You are not going to reach for your flank. You are not going to help. You are not going to apologize. Do you understand?"
Tears tracked through the soot on Mr. Mercer's face.
"Yes."
"Good."
Jack looked at Shen.
Shen nodded once and leaned closer to the patient. "Follow me. Small breaths. In. Out. That's it."
Your own breath tried to follow. Jack caught it. Of course he did.
"One breath at a time," he said to you.
You gave the smallest nod before you remembered. Your stomach dropped. Jack's eyes sharpened. Nothing happened. Your hand had not moved.
His voice stayed level. "You caught it."
Your mouth trembled once. You locked it down. Outside the bay, Lena had already started moving the department around you. You could hear her in pieces.
"Not that way. Use the east hall."
"Tell transport I need two more stretchers."
"No, do not say Code Black in front of the waiting room."
"Perlah, you're with security. Princess stays until Abbott releases her."
"Clear Trauma Two first. Then Curtain One through Four. Quiet."
Her voice stayed low. Firm. Unhurried. Exactly what the hallway needed. Exactly what you needed not to hear too much of. Because if you thought about the whole department, you would come apart. Jack seemed to know that before you did.
"Small room," he said.
You stared at him.
"What?"
He kept his voice quiet, pitched for you and no one else. "Make it small."
You swallowed. "The room?"
"Smaller."
Your fingers stayed locked in place. "How?"
"My face. Your hand. Mr. Mercer breathing. That's all."
That was almost funny. Almost.
"You make crisis sound like a mindfulness exercise," you whispered.
"I make crisis sound survivable."
You breathed once. Careful. Small.
"Okay," you said.
Jack nodded. "Good."
The administrator's voice carried from the doorway, lower now but still strained. "Do we need to evacuate the entire ED?"
Jack did not turn fully away from you. "Prepare for it. Don't initiate full movement until police arrive unless threat changes. Immediate zone first. Critical patients only if they can be moved safely. Everyone else stays calm."
"Can the patient be moved?" the administrator asked.
Garcia answered before Jack could.
"No."
No hesitation.
The administrator blinked. "No?"
Garcia's eyes were cold. "He's hypotensive, bleeding, airway unstable, and there is a possible explosive foreign body in his flank being manually stabilized by a nurse who cannot move. So no."
The administrator went quiet. Good.
Anesthesia spoke carefully. "Airway is still a problem."
Jack's jaw flexed once. You saw the calculation move across his face. The patient. The airway. The bleed. The possible device. You. The people in the bay. The rest of the department outside the doors. All of it. All at once.
"What can you do without shifting him?" Jack asked.
Anesthesia answered just as carefully. "Support ventilation. Prepare meds. But intubation means movement. Even minimal movement."
"Then support ventilation. Prepare for intubation. Do not proceed until police and bomb squad are in the loop unless he crashes."
Anesthesia nodded. "Understood."
The room moved in millimetres. Not inches. Millimetres. Shen shifted the seal on the mask with exquisite care. Respiratory adjusted tubing. Anesthesia watched Mr. Mercer's chest rise just enough. You did not look away from Jack. You could hear everything. You could feel too much. The patient's blood warm around your glove. The pressure of the foreign body beneath your palm. The careful brace of your other hand around your own wrist. Your arm had begun to notice the position. Not pain yet. Not really.
Just a growing awareness in your shoulder, a low pull through muscle and tendon that said this was not something a body was meant to hold forever. Not forever, you told yourself. Eight minutes. Or twelve. Or however long it took for someone who knew what they were doing to walk through the doors and tell you how to survive this. Jack's eyes flicked once to your shoulder. Then back to your face. He didn't ask if you were fine. Maybe he had learned. Maybe he knew better than to give you the opportunity to lie.
"Still with me?" he asked.
You breathed in carefully.
"Yeah."
"Good."
That was all. No speech. No softening that would make the room look too closely at either of you. Just the word. Good. You held onto it.
Lena reappeared at the doorway. "Police are coming through the ambulance bay. Bomb squad is being routed now."
"How long?" Jack asked.
"Dispatch says at least twelve minutes."
Twelve. You tried not to count it. Twelve minutes sounded short until you were not allowed to move.
Garcia glanced at your arm. "How long has she been holding that position?"
Ellis looked at the clock. "Since zero-three twenty-three."
Only minutes. It felt longer.
Garcia's face tightened. "We need a plan before fatigue becomes part of the problem."
"It's already part of the problem," anesthesia said.
"Not yet," Jack said.
He looked at you when he said it. Not pretending. Not comforting. Assessing. You understood the difference. He wasn't telling them you could do this forever. He was telling them you were steady now. For some reason, that helped more than if he had told them you were okay.
Lena's gaze moved from Jack to you, then back again. "I'm opening the evacuation plan for the full ED. Quietly. We'll move by zones if police confirms route."
"Do it," Jack said.
"And Abbott?"
He looked at her.
"When the bomb squad gets here, this becomes their scene."
Jack's face did not change.
"I know."
Lena studied him for one second. Maybe two. Like she heard what he did not say. Then she nodded once and disappeared from the doorway. Mr. Mercer's eyes fluttered again.
Shen's voice stayed calm near his ear. "Stay awake if you can, Mr. Mercer."
"I'm tired," the patient whispered.
"I know."
"I'm cold."
Princess looked at Jack. Jack nodded once.
"Blanket from the warmer," he said. "No crossing her side. No touching the wound. Lay it from the legs up."
Princess moved with awful care. A warm blanket unfolded over Mr. Mercer's lower legs, then his hips, stopping well away from your arm and the injury. Normal nursing care in the least normal room in the world. Mr. Mercer cried harder.
"I'm sorry," he whispered again.
You wanted to tell him to stop apologizing. You couldn't trust your voice. Jack did it for you.
"Mr. Mercer," he said, "save your strength."
"Tell my mom—"
"No," Jack said.
The word was sharp enough that the room looked at him. Even you. Jack's eyes stayed on Mr. Mercer now.
"You are not giving messages right now," he said. "You are breathing. That is your job."
Mr. Mercer's mouth trembled.
"Do you understand?"
"Yes."
"Good. Keep doing your job."
Then Jack looked back at you. Like there had not been a knife hidden in that sentence. Like he had not just stopped a dying man from doing the exact thing you would later need to do. Your throat tightened again. You did not know why that hurt. Only that it did.
Lena's voice came from the door. "Bomb squad ETA eight minutes."
Eight. Jack's gaze stayed on yours.
"Don't count backwards," he said.
You gave the smallest breath of a laugh, barely enough to move air.
"Bossy."
"Efficient."
Then he looked back to the room. "We use the time. We do not stare at the clock."
Garcia watched the bleeding. Shen watched the airway. Lena moved the hospital around the blast radius. Jack stayed in front of you. You watched him. And under your palm, the foreign body stayed exactly where it was. Eight minutes did not pass cleanly. Time in the trauma bay stopped behaving like time. It became numbers instead. Pulse one-fifty-two. Pressure sixty-two. Sat eighty-eight with assisted breaths. Blood running. Second unit ready. Police on site. Bomb squad inbound. Your hand inside Mr. Mercer's flank. The foreign body under your palm. Jack in front of you. That was the shape of the room. Everything else moved around it.
Outside the trauma bay, The Pitt was being quietly dismantled piece by piece. Not evacuated all at once. Not at first. That would have been chaos. A stampede in a department full of chest pain, intoxication, fever, fractures, elderly patients with walkers, children with frightened parents, nurses pushing stretchers, doctors trying to decide who could move and who absolutely could not. So Lena moved it like she moved everything else. In zones. With a low voice and no patience for panic. You could hear her beyond the glass, firm and clipped and too calm.
"Curtain One through Four, east corridor."
"No, not that way. East corridor."
"Tell transport I need two more stretchers."
"Do not say bomb in front of patients."
"Safety relocation. That's the phrase."
"Who is with Bay Six?"
"Then find out."
Security stood at both ends of the trauma corridor. Police had come in through the ambulance bay and were keeping everyone back. Hospital command hovered near the doors with the anxious uselessness of someone discovering that a laminated emergency policy was not the same thing as an emergency. Inside Trauma One, no one wasted motion.
Princess had backed away from the blood cooler after setting up the second unit. Ellis stayed at the monitor, face pale, voice steady. Shen held airway support with the tight focus of a man trying to keep a dying patient alive without letting the patient move. Anesthesia stood beside him, ready for the moment the risk of not intubating outweighed the risk of movement. Garcia watched the wound. Jack watched everything. Not just you. That would have been easier and worse.
He watched the patient's pressure. The blood pump. Shen's hands. Anesthesia's medications. Garcia's body language. The doorway. The hall. Lena. Security. The place where your arm disappeared into Mr. Mercer's side. And you. Always back to you. A check. A question. A promise he had no right to make. You had stopped trying to name what sat between you. There was no room for it now. No room for the memory of his thumb under your bruised wrist. No room for the almosts and maybes and silences that had been building for weeks. Except, somehow, that was all there was room for.
"Sat's holding at eighty-eight," Ellis said.
"Holding is generous," anesthesia muttered.
"It's the word I have," Ellis said.
Jack did not look away from the monitor. "Keep assisting. No intubation unless he loses respiratory drive completely."
Anesthesia's mouth tightened. "Understood."
Mr. Mercer made a thin sound beneath the mask.
Shen leaned closer. "Stay with me, Mr. Mercer. Small breaths."
The patient's eyes fluttered. "My brother?"
Jack's face changed by less than a breath.
"Police are speaking with him," he said.
That was new. Your eyes moved to Jack before you could stop them. His gaze caught yours. Yes, his face said. They had found the brother. They knew more than they were saying. A cold line opened down your back. Before you could ask, Lena appeared at the threshold again, one hand over the phone tucked against her ear.
"Police have the brother," she said. "Bomb squad is two minutes out. They're getting information from him now."
Jack's jaw flexed.
"Is he stable enough to talk?"
"Panicked, but talking," Lena said.
Garcia's eyes stayed on the wound. "If there's information we can use, we need it."
Lena nodded once. "They're relaying to bomb squad, not us."
Anesthesia looked up. "Why not us?"
"Because if it's what we think it is," Jack said, voice low, "they'll want the room cleared before they say it out loud."
The silence after that was worse than the alarms. You stared at him. He did not look away. The hallway behind Lena had changed again. There were fewer voices now, but more movement farther away. Bigger movement. Stretchers. Wheelchairs. Orders passed between staff. The wide machinery of a hospital trying to shift its own weight without collapsing. A security officer approached Lena from the side.
"Immediate trauma corridor is clear," he said. "Police are expanding perimeter. They want the whole ED evacuated."
Lena's face did not change. But the air did. The whole ED. Not adjacent rooms. Not the trauma corridor. Everything.
Waiting room. Curtains. Bays. Hall beds. Psych holds. Boarders who had been waiting upstairs for beds that did not exist. The old woman in Curtain Two who needed oxygen. The kid with the broken wrist. The man in Bay Five who thought oxygen worked if it was "nearby." The septic patient in Twelve. People who had come to The Pitt because something was wrong and now had to be moved because something worse had followed someone else inside.
Your stomach turned. Your hand did not move. Jack saw the change in your face.
"Don't take it," he said.
You could barely hear yourself. "They're evacuating the whole ED."
"Yes."
"Because of—"
"No," he said.
The word cut through the thought before it could finish forming. Your eyes burned.
"Jack—"
"No. Because of the device. Because of the risk. Because that's protocol. Not because of you."
Your throat worked. You wanted to believe him. You mostly did. It didn't help as much as you needed it to.
Lena looked toward hospital command. "We evacuate by acuity and mobility. Ambulatory to the east hall and outpatient corridor. Stretcher patients to radiology holding if police clears it. Criticals go to pre-op and PACU overflow. Psych stays with security escort. Anyone on oxygen gets portable tanks before movement."
The administrator blinked. "Can we move patients into PACU without—"
"Yes," Lena said.
He opened his mouth. She looked at him. He closed it. Good man.
"Call upstairs," Lena continued. "Tell them ED is unloading into every available monitored space. I do not care whose census sheet gets ugly."
Security spoke into his radio, then nodded. "Police cleared east hall and outpatient corridor. Ambulance bay is locked down. Incoming ambulances diverted."
"Not critical trauma," Jack said, still watching the monitor.
Lena's eyes flicked to him.
"If a critical trauma is ten minutes out, they can't circle the city," Jack said. "Robby or McKay can make that call outside. But no one comes through this corridor."
Lena nodded. "I'll route command through Robby."
"Robby's here?"
"Just arrived."
Something moved across Jack's face. Not relief. Not exactly. Robby meant backup. Robby also meant someone who could look Jack in the eye and say no. You saw Jack understand both things. He said nothing. The ambulance bay doors beyond the hall opened again, and a new kind of quiet entered with the people who came through. Bomb squad. You knew it before anyone said it.
Maybe it was the way the police officer near the door straightened. Maybe it was the way Lena shifted aside without being told. Maybe it was the shape of the two responders who stopped behind the marked line, one with a hard case, the other speaking low into a radio. The lead tech was a man in dark gear, hair cropped close, face composed in a way that did not belong to hospitals. Calm like roads blocked at midnight. Calm like wires and blast radius and choices made very slowly.
"I'm Sergeant Vale," he said. "Bomb squad. Nobody changes position."
Jack answered immediately. "No one has."
Vale's eyes moved across the trauma bay. Patient. Wound. Your arm. Garcia. Shen. Anesthesia. Ellis. Princess. Jack. Then back to you. He did not ask if you were okay. You were grateful.
"We spoke to the brother on the way in," Vale said.
The words changed the room again.
Jack's voice stayed level. "What did he say?"
Vale did not answer. Not yet. His eyes moved to the number of people in the bay.
"I'll brief essential personnel only."
Jack's expression hardened. "My trauma team is essential."
"Not all of them," Vale said.
Garcia stepped forward half an inch, then stopped herself. "This patient is unstable."
"I understand."
"With respect, Sergeant, if he bleeds out or loses his airway while you're clearing the room, the device won't matter."
Vale's gaze stayed level. "With respect, if that device functions the way the brother described, nobody in this room gets to use the airway."
Silence. No one breathed right for a second. Your hand stayed inside Mr. Mercer's flank. You felt heat. Blood. The hard, smooth edge pressed beneath your palm. For the first time since this began, the foreign body stopped being unknown. Not to them. Not to the bomb squad. They knew. And they were not saying it in front of everyone. That scared you more than the guessing had.
Jack looked at Vale. "Who stays?"
Vale answered without hesitation. "The nurse with her hand in the wound. Me. One medical lead outside the immediate radius to advise. Everyone else leaves until assessment is complete."
"No," Jack said.
Flat. Instant. Lena closed her eyes for half a second in the doorway. Like she had been waiting for that and hated being right.
Vale looked at Jack. "This is not negotiable."
"I'm the attending."
"You can advise from outside."
"The patient is unstable."
"And the device is unstable."
"You don't know that until you assess it."
"We know enough," Vale said. "That is why I'm clearing the room before I give details."
Garcia's mouth tightened. "I need to be able to control hemorrhage."
"You cannot operate around a live device."
"I'm aware."
"Then you are outside until I tell you otherwise."
Garcia looked furious. She also looked like she knew Vale was right.
Anesthesia spoke next, low and tense. "If he crashes while we're outside—"
"I'll call you back if I need you," Vale said.
"If you need us, it may be too late."
Vale's eyes flicked briefly to Mr. Mercer. "I know."
That was the first human thing in his voice. Not softness. Not comfort. Just the truth. Jack did not move. His shoulders had gone still in a way that made your stomach tighten. You had seen him calm all night. You had seen him controlled. This was different. This was refusal settling into his bones.
"I was in the army for years," Jack said, voice low. "I've seen devices in bodies. I've seen what happens when people move wrong."
The room seemed to hear everything under that. Blast trauma. Blood in places blood should not be. Rooms that did not stay rooms. Vale's expression changed by the smallest degree. Not softened. Understood, maybe.
"Then you know why you can't stay," Vale said.
Jack's eyes stayed on him. "Then you know why I won't leave."
Not her. He did not say that. He did not need to. Everyone heard it anyway. Then Mr. Mercer's monitor alarmed again, high and shrill. Ellis flinched but did not touch anything.
"Pressure fifty-eight," she said.
Garcia looked at Jack. "He needs more blood."
Princess shifted automatically toward the cooler.
Vale's voice snapped across the room. "Stop."
Princess froze. The blood pump clicked steadily.
Jack's eyes cut to Vale. "You cannot freeze all care."
"I can freeze movement until I know what's safe."
"He dies if we do nothing."
"He may detonate if you do anything."
The sentence landed like a physical thing. You heard someone inhale. Maybe you. Jack's face turned hard enough to frighten you.
"Then tell me what it is."
Vale looked at the room again. At all the people. Too many.
"No."
Jack took one step toward him. Small. Controlled. A movement with no wasted motion. Vale did not flinch. Lena stepped into the doorway. Not into the room. Just enough.
"Jack."
He did not look at her.
"Not now," he said.
"Yes," Lena said. "Now."
His jaw tightened.
"Abbott," Vale said, "you have ten seconds to step out before I have security remove you."
Jack almost laughed. There was no humour in it.
"Good luck."
Lena moved then. She crossed the threshold carefully, hands visible, her eyes locked on Jack rather than the bed. She did not come near you. Did not come near Mr. Mercer. She stayed on Jack's side of the room, outside the path Vale had claimed.
"Lena," Jack warned.
"No," she said.
One word. Charge nurse voice. Not loud. Immovable. Jack finally looked at her.
"You need to leave," Lena said.
"I'm not leaving."
"You are."
"I am the attending physician responsible for that patient."
"You are a body in a blast radius."
His eyes flashed. "Don't."
"I will not let you dress this up as medical necessity if it isn't."
The room went still around that. You felt the words hit him. Because they were true. Because everyone knew they were true. Because you knew they were true too. Jack looked at you then. For one breath, everything else dropped away. Not the patient. Not the bomb. Not the blood. Just the noise around it. Jack looked at you like if he held you there with his eyes hard enough, he could make the next five minutes survivable. You wanted to let him. You wanted to be selfish. You wanted to say, Stay.
Instead, you heard yourself say, "Jack."
His face changed. That soft version of your voice had always done something to him. You had seen it before in smaller rooms, over smaller wounds. Not like this. Never like this.
"Don't," he said.
You swallowed. Your hand did not move.
"I need you to go."
His eyes sharpened with something almost like betrayal.
"No."
"Yes."
"You don't get to ask me that."
"I'm not asking."
Lena went very still. Jack stared at you. You forced yourself to keep looking at him because if you looked anywhere else, you would break apart. Your voice shook once and then steadied.
"You told me to keep the room small."
His throat moved. You kept going.
"I can't do that if you're arguing with the bomb squad."
His mouth pressed into a hard line.
"That's unfair," he said quietly.
"I know."
"You're using my own instructions against me."
"Yes."
A tear slipped down your cheek. Still, your hand did not move.
"I need you outside," you said. "Where I know you're not standing next to me if this goes wrong."
Jack's eyes flashed. "Do not say that."
"Jack."
"No."
"If you stay, I'll be thinking about you."
The words came out before you could stop them. Too honest. Too late to take back. His face went still. You breathed in carefully. Small. Shallow.
"I can't think about you," you said. "I have to think about my hand."
For a second, no one moved. Then Jack closed his eyes. Just once. A blink too long. When he opened them, something had changed. Not acceptance. Never that. Understanding. The terrible kind. Outside the room, the ED evacuation widened again. You heard Lena's radio crackle from her shoulder.
"All units, full ED evacuation is active. Repeat, full ED evacuation active. Move by zone. Maintain east corridor. No patient traffic through trauma."
Full ED evacuation active. The words made your stomach turn cold. Jack heard them too. So did everyone.
Vale glanced once toward Lena. "Now, Dr. Abbott."
Jack looked at your arm. At the wound. At the place where your hand disappeared into Mr. Mercer's side. Then back at your face.
"You listen to Sergeant Vale," he said.
You almost nodded. Caught yourself.
"Okay."
"You do exactly what he says."
"Okay."
"You do not improvise."
Your mouth trembled. "That's rich, coming from you."
For the first time since Vale arrived, Jack's mouth almost moved. Almost. Then it vanished.
"I'll be right outside."
You wanted to say that wasn't enough. You wanted to say it was too far.
Instead, you whispered, "I know."
Lena stepped closer to him.
"Jack," she said softly.
He did not move. She put one hand on his arm. Not yanking. Not forcing. Just contact. A reminder that he had a body and it needed to leave the room. Jack looked at her hand like he might argue with that too. Then he let her pull. Only Lena could have made it look like she wasn't dragging him. Only Jack could have made being dragged look like a tactical retreat. He stepped back once. Then again. Every inch looked carved out of him. At the doorway, he stopped. Vale's patience had clearly reached its edge, but he held. Jack turned his head. Not fully.
Just enough to look at you one more time. You held his gaze. There was so much in his face now that it hurt to see it. Fear. Fury. Helplessness. Something else too. Something neither of you had said, but which had been living between you so long it almost had a pulse. You did not say it. Not yet. Not with him there. Not when it might make him step back into the room. So you gave him the only thing you could. You kept your hand still. Jack saw. His face broke for half a second. Then Lena pulled him across the threshold.
The security officer closed the trauma bay door behind him. The sound was soft. Final. For a moment, Jack stood on the other side of the glass like he had forgotten how to exist there. Lena stayed beside him, her hand still wrapped around his forearm. Not because she could hold him if he truly decided to go back in. Because she would try. Behind him, the hallway was no longer The Pitt as you knew it. It was evacuation. Security. Police. Stretchers disappearing around corners.
Staff moving patients away from the room where you stood with your hand inside a man's body and the centre of the disaster under your palm. Jack did not look at any of it. He looked only at you. Vale stepped closer. Not blocking him completely. But enough that your world had to change shape.
"Okay," he said, voice calm in a different way than Jack's. "Now I can tell you what we're dealing with."
Your stomach turned cold. Outside the glass, Jack went utterly still. Vale set the hard case down with careful precision.
"Look at me," he said.
Can't wait to read the rest, read the entire story here now.
Loving Dr Abbott - {Code Black - Part 2} - Wattpad
Summary: Two weeks of stolen kisses, folded notes, and finding excuses to be alone turn into one uninterrupted summer night. Unfortunately, Robby comes home eventually.
Warnings: Mutual pining, secret relationship, young Jack Abbot, summer romance, Reader is Robby’s sister, workplace make-outs, semi-public kissing, explicit sexual content, oral sex—male receiving, penetrative sex, protected sex, enthusiastic consent and check-ins, praise, multiple positions, protective/angry Robby, discussion of Jack leaving for the Army, no use of Y/N.
Author's Note: Welcome to the chapter where five minutes become two weeks of stolen kisses, secret notes, and one uninterrupted night on Jack’s porch futon. And then Robby comes home.
After the carnival, you and Jack became very bad at pretending the summer was casual.
It started the next morning.
You woke before your alarm.
The cabin was still quiet around you, pale light slipping through the curtains and stretching across the floorboards. Robby’s bedroom door remained shut across the hall. He had closed the bar the night before and would not need to be back at the club until later that afternoon.
You sat up slowly.
The crooked bear Jack had won you leaned against the pillow beside you, one uneven eye pointed vaguely toward the ceiling.
Then you heard movement on the porch.
The scrape of the futon frame.
A boot hitting the floor.
You pushed back the blanket and slipped out of bed.
The hallway stayed silent as you crossed the living room and eased open the porch door.
Jack stood beside the futon with his back partially turned to you.
He had already pulled on his work pants, but the button remained undone at his waist. One boot was laced. The other sat on the floor beside him. His shirt lay abandoned across the end of the futon.
Morning light moved across his bare shoulders as he bent to reach for the second boot.
You pulled the door nearly closed behind you.
Jack looked over his shoulder. His hand stopped halfway to the floor.
“Morning,” you whispered.
Jack straightened. His hair was still flattened on one side from sleep, curls mussed around his forehead.
“Morning,” he replied quietly.
You stepped farther onto the porch. Jack glanced toward the door behind you.
“Robby asleep?” he asked.
You nodded. “He won’t be up for hours.”
Jack looked back at you. Neither of you moved. You had kissed him less than twelve hours ago.
It already felt like too long.
You crossed the remaining distance between you. Jack’s hands found your hips before you reached him completely. You rested your palms against his bare chest.
“Morning,” you whispered.
Jack’s mouth curved.
“You said that already,” he reminded you.
You looked at his mouth. “I know,” you replied.
Jack kissed you.
The first touch was slow, still softened by sleep.
Then your fingers slid into his hair, and Jack pulled you between his legs.
The kiss deepened immediately.
His palms moved around your hips to the small of your back, drawing you closer until your knees brushed the edge of the futon.
You leaned into him.
Jack’s mouth moved over yours with none of the careful hesitation from the photo booth. He already knew you would kiss him back.
Your hand slid over his shoulder. His skin was warm beneath your palm.
The futon frame creaked when Jack shifted beneath you.
Both of you froze.
You looked toward the porch door. The cabin remained silent. Jack’s mouth brushed yours again.
“Quiet,” he whispered.
You looked back at him.
“We’re not wasting time, remember?” you whispered.
Then you kissed him again.
Jack’s hand slid beneath the hem of your sleep shirt, spreading warm against your waist as he pulled you closer. Whatever caution the creaking floor had inspired disappeared almost immediately.
Jack caught the back of your neck and pulled you closer.
The kiss turned slower, deeper.
Your knee pressed onto the futon beside his thigh. Jack’s hand moved higher beneath your shirt, stopping against your ribs.
A quiet breath slipped from you.
Jack swallowed it with another kiss.
The frame gave another soft squeak beneath your weight.
You pulled back just far enough to speak.
“We have to get ready,” you whispered.
Jack rested his forehead against yours. “Eventually,” he replied.
You glanced toward the clock hanging near the porch door. Then you looked back at him.
“Five minutes,” you decided.
Jack lifted his head. “Five minutes?” he asked.
You slid your hands into his hair again.
“Then we finish getting ready,” you clarified.
Jack’s hands tightened at your waist.
“You’re keeping track?” he asked.
“No,” you admitted.
Jack smiled against your mouth.
“Good,” he said.
He kissed you again.
Five minutes became impossible to measure.
Jack pulled you fully onto the edge of the futon, your knees settling on either side of one of his thighs. His palms moved beneath your shirt, warm against your waist as your fingers tangled in his hair.
Every time one of you tried to slow down, the other leaned in again.
The cabin remained silent.
The lake moved softly beyond the screened windows.
Jack kissed the corner of your mouth, then your jaw.
You pressed your lips together to keep from making a sound when his mouth found the side of your neck.
“Jack,” you whispered.
He lifted his head.
“Too much?” he asked quietly.
You shook your head.
You kissed him once more before finally pressing both palms against his chest.
“Now we have to get ready,” you said.
Jack looked at your mouth.
“You said that five minutes ago,” he reminded you.
“This time I mean it,” you replied.
You climbed off his lap and straightened your sleep shirt. Jack caught your hand before you could move away. He pressed a kiss to the inside of your wrist.
Your resolve nearly disappeared. Jack released you slowly. You backed toward the door.
“Get dressed,” you whispered.
Jack glanced down at himself.
“I was trying,” he replied.
You slipped inside before he could pull you back.
By the time you came out again, Jack was waiting beside the Jeep.
He had finished dressing, his work shirt tucked into his pants and both boots laced. His keys hung from one hand.
You stepped off the porch in your club polo, white tennis skirt, and sneakers, carrying a travel mug in one hand and an apple in the other.
Jack looked up. He went completely still.
You slowed.
His gaze moved over you once. Not lingering long enough to be obvious. Long enough that you felt it anyway.
You crossed the yard toward him.
“What?” you asked.
Jack did not answer.
You reached the passenger side of the Jeep.
Jack stepped forward and took the coffee from your hand. Then he took the apple.
You opened your mouth to ask what he was doing.
Jack set both on the hood behind him. His hand closed around your waist. He moved before you could say anything.
Your back met the side of the Jeep as Jack kissed you.
You caught the front of his work shirt, startled laughter disappearing against his mouth. Jack stepped between your feet. One hand remained firm at your waist. The other slid down the outside of your thigh.
Your breath caught.
His palm moved beneath the edge of the skirt, only slightly, his thumb pressing into the warm skin above your knee.
You kissed him harder.
Jack made a quiet sound against your mouth and pulled you closer, the Jeep's metal cool against your back. Your fingers tightened in his shirt. His hand moved another inch beneath the skirt.
A floorboard creaked inside the cabin.
Jack stopped.
You both looked toward the house. The porch remained empty. No door opened.
Neither of you moved for several seconds.
Jack looked back at you. His hand was still beneath your skirt.
“We should go,” you whispered.
Jack’s gaze dropped to your mouth.
“Probably,” he agreed.
Neither of you moved.
You raised your eyebrows. “Jack.”
He kissed you once more.
Quickly this time. Almost.
Then he withdrew his hand and reached behind him for the coffee and apple.
You stared at him.
Jack opened the passenger door and placed both inside. He looked entirely too composed.
“You took my breakfast,” you said.
Jack rested one hand against the open door.
“I put it in the Jeep,” he corrected.
“You also attacked me,” you added.
Jack looked at the skirt again before meeting your eyes.
“I did,” he agreed.
Heat rushed into your face.
You climbed into the passenger seat.
Jack closed the door and walked around the front of the Jeep.
A moment later, he slid behind the wheel and started the engine. You picked up your coffee. Jack backed out of the drive. Neither of you spoke until the cabin disappeared behind the trees. Then Jack glanced toward you.
“Five minutes?” he asked.
You took a drink from the mug.
“Apparently not enough,” you replied.
Jack’s hand tightened once around the steering wheel.
That should have been enough to get both of you through the morning.
It was not.
Over the next two weeks, you and Jack became very good at finding each other.
You learned which parts of the grounds crew schedule left him alone.
Jack learned the exact route of your beverage cart.
The notes started three days after the carnival.
You climbed into the cart before your shift and found a folded napkin tucked beneath the water bottle in the cup holder. You opened it.
Behind the maintenance shed. Ten minutes.
You looked across the fairway.
Jack stood beside a mower with one hand braced against the open engine compartment, pretending to inspect something beneath the hood.
Then he glanced toward you.
You held up the note.
Jack’s mouth curved before he looked back down at the mower.
Ten minutes later, you parked the cart behind the maintenance shed.
Jack was waiting near the fence with his arms folded.
You climbed out of the cart.
“You wrote me a note,” you said.
Jack pushed away from the fence.
“You came,” he replied.
You folded the napkin and slipped it into the pocket of your skirt.
“You could’ve asked me,” you pointed out.
Jack stopped in front of you.
“Someone might’ve heard,” he explained.
You glanced toward the beverage cart sitting beside the shed.
“This is much more discreet,” you said.
Jack’s hand settled at your waist.
“You’re the one who parked there,” he reminded you.
You looked toward the empty service road.
“No one can see us,” you argued.
Jack drew you closer.
“Then I guess we’re safe,” he said.
He kissed you before you could answer.
After that, the notes became a habit.
Jack left them in the cup holder of your cart, folded beneath your travel mug or tucked around a cold bottle of water in the cooler.
Sometimes they contained instructions.
Dock. After Robby falls asleep.
Employee lot. After your shift.
Tool shed. Five minutes.
You answered the last one by finding Jack near the clubhouse and slipping a folded piece of paper into the breast pocket of his work shirt. Jack caught your wrist before you could walk away.
“What was that?” he asked.
You glanced at the corner of paper protruding from his pocket.
“A response,” you replied.
Jack released your wrist and pulled out the note.
You started back toward the beverage cart while he unfolded it.
Tool shed? Devastatingly romantic. I’ll be there.
Jack lifted his head. You climbed into the driver’s seat and looked back at him. His mouth curved.
“You’re welcome,” Jack called.
You started the cart.
“Try harder next time,” you called back.
Jack laughed as you drove away.
Not every note arranged a meeting.
You passed Jack near the ninth hole one afternoon and slipped another into his pocket while handing him a bottle of water.
He waited until you had driven away before opening it.
Looking good, Abbot.
When you returned twenty minutes later, Jack stood beside the path with the note in his hand.
You slowed the cart.
“Need something?” you asked.
Jack approached the driver’s side.
“This yours?” he asked.
You glanced at your own handwriting.
“Could’ve been anyone,” you said.
Jack looked down at his dirt-streaked work shirt.
“You think this looks good?” he asked.
You let your gaze move over him. His sleeves were pushed above his forearms. Sweat darkened the collar of his shirt, and a streak of dirt crossed one side of his jaw. You looked back into his eyes.
“I stand by the note,” you said.
Jack’s expression changed.
You pressed the accelerator before he could reach for you.
Jack stepped away from the cart.
“That’s not fair,” he called.
You glanced over your shoulder.
“I don’t know what you mean,” you called back.
The following morning, another note waited in your cup holder.
The skirt isn’t fair either.
You stared down at the words. Then you looked across the grounds. Jack stood near the maintenance building, watching you.
You folded the note slowly and slipped it into the pocket of your skirt.
Even from across the fairway, you saw him go still.
You smiled and drove away.
The notes led to kisses behind the maintenance shed, beside the employee entrance, and once inside the equipment garage while someone searched for a missing rake on the other side of the wall.
At the cabin, you had to be more careful.
Jack’s hand brushed your lower back whenever he passed behind you in the kitchen.
Your fingers found his beneath the table while Robby complained about work.
Once, you followed Jack into the pantry for a box of crackers.
He found them immediately. Then he closed the door. You looked toward him in the dim space.
“The crackers are right there,” you whispered.
Jack set the box on the shelf behind you. “I know,” he replied.
“Then why did you close the door?” you asked.
Jack stepped closer.
“I don’t know,” he answered.
You smiled.
“Liar,” you whispered.
Jack’s hand found your hip.
You kissed him before he could defend himself. Through the thin door, Robby opened the fridge.
“Did we run out of mustard?” Robby called.
You froze against Jack. Jack pressed his forehead against yours.
“Top shelf,” you called back.
“Found it,” Robby replied.
Jack’s shoulders began to shake beneath your hands. You covered his mouth.
“Do not laugh,” you whispered.
Jack kissed your palm. You pulled your hand away.
“That was cheating,” you said.
Jack’s thumb moved against your hip.
“You kissed me,” he reminded you.
“For five seconds,” you whispered.
Jack looked toward your mouth.
“We still have time,” he said.
You kissed him again.
When you finally stepped out of the pantry, Robby stood at the counter, squeezing mustard onto a sandwich. He glanced at the box in your hands.
“That took a while,” Robby said.
You lifted the crackers.
“They were difficult to find,” you replied.
Jack stepped out behind you. Robby looked toward him.
“And you were helping?” Robby asked.
Jack took the box from your hands. “I found them,” he replied.
Robby studied both of you.
“You’re acting weird,” he said.
You reached into the open box.
“You always think that,” you reminded him.
Robby considered your answer.
“Fair,” he conceded.
Jack’s fingers brushed yours inside the box.
By the second week, the stolen moments had become part of the rhythm of the summer.
Jack waited beside the Jeep when his shift ended before yours. You left sandwiches wrapped in foil inside his toolbox when he forgot lunch. He placed cold bottles of water in your cart before the hottest part of the afternoon. You slipped notes into his pocket whenever you passed close enough.
You kept every note he gave you.
Some were written on napkins. Others had been torn from old receipts or the corners of discarded work orders.
You smoothed each one carefully before tucking it into the side pocket of your bag.
At night, you moved them into the drawer beside your bed.
The ugly bear watched from the pillow as the little stack grew.
You did not tell Jack.
He did not need to know that you had started saving pieces of the summer before it was even over.
Jack kept the photo strip.
You discovered that by accident one afternoon when he left his wallet on the kitchen counter while he showered.
You only meant to move it away from the wet ring beneath someone’s glass.
The edge of the photo strip peeked out when you picked it up.
You pulled it free just far enough to see the fourth picture.
Jack kissing you. One hand at your neck. The other reaching for your waist.
The bathroom door opened down the hall.
You slid the photograph carefully back into place and set the wallet down.
Jack entered the kitchen with damp hair and a clean shirt. His gaze moved from you to the wallet. Then he looked back at you.
“You saw it,” he said.
You leaned against the counter.
“You really kept it,” you replied.
Jack picked up the wallet.
“I said I would,” he reminded you.
“I didn’t know you meant in there,” you said.
Jack ran his thumb along the worn leather edge.
“Where else would I put it?” he asked.
You had no answer that would not reveal too much. Jack watched you for another moment. Then he stepped closer and hooked one finger through the belt loop of your shorts.
“You okay?” he asked.
You nodded.
“Yeah,” you answered.
Jack’s expression softened.
“Good,” he said.
He drew you toward him and kissed you slowly in the middle of the kitchen.
Two weeks after the carnival, you and Jack were still calling it just the summer.
He carried your photograph in his wallet.
You kept his notes hidden beside the ugly bear.
Neither of you understood yet how long those pieces would have to last.
By the end of the second week, the notes had stopped being the only way you made plans.
Sometimes the opportunity announced itself over dinner.
Robby stood at the kitchen counter in his work clothes, finishing the last few bites of dinner before leaving for the club. You sat at the table with one leg folded beneath you, your book open in front of you. Jack stood at the sink rinsing the plates while you gathered the empty glasses from the table. Robby glanced toward the clock above the stove.
“I’m closing again tonight,” he said.
You looked up from your book.
“Didn’t you close last night?” you asked.
Robby carried his plate toward the sink.
“Mike traded shifts with me,” he explained. “He covered Sunday.”
Jack took the plate from him.
“What time will you be back?” he asked.
The question sounded casual.
You turned toward the table before Robby could catch your expression. Robby reached for his keys.
“Late,” he answered. “A few people are going to a party after we lock up.”
You looked toward him. “Club people?” you asked.
Robby shrugged into his jacket.
“Mostly bartenders,” he replied. “A couple of lifeguards.”
You leaned one hip against the table.
“The lifeguard?” you asked.
Robby pointed his keys at you. “Do not start,” he warned.
You lifted both hands.
“I didn’t say anything,” you replied.
Jack turned away from the sink, drying his hands on a towel. His mouth twitched. Robby looked toward him.
“You’re not helping,” Robby said.
Jack folded the towel over the edge of the sink.
“I didn’t say anything either,” he replied.
Robby narrowed his eyes at both of you.
“I hate this cabin,” he muttered.
You picked up the last glass.
“You invited us,” you reminded him.
Robby opened the door.
“That was before you formed an alliance,” he said.
He stepped onto the porch, then looked back inside.
“Don’t wait up,” he added.
You carried the glass toward the sink.
“Wasn’t planning to,” you replied.
Jack reached for it before you could set it down. Neither of you looked at the other. Robby paused. His gaze moved between you.
“Why did that sound suspicious?” he asked.
You turned toward him.
“Because you’re paranoid,” you answered.
Jack set the glass beside the others. Robby continued watching both of you for another beat. Then he shook his head.
“I’ll see you tomorrow,” he said.
You smiled. “Have fun,” you replied.
Jack looked toward the doorway.
“Drive safe,” he added.
The screen door slammed behind Robby. His footsteps crossed the porch. A few seconds later, his car started in the drive. You wiped the table slowly. Jack rinsed the final glass. The engine noise faded down the road.
The cabin went quiet.
You kept wiping the same clean spot. Jack turned off the faucet.
“You’ve been cleaning that for a while,” he said.
You looked toward him.
“You’ve rinsed that glass twice,” you replied.
Jack glanced down at the glass in his hand. Then he looked back at you.
Neither of you pretended after that.
Jack set the glass in the drying rack.
You folded the dishcloth beside the sink.
For a moment, neither of you moved.
The cabin felt different without Robby in it. Quieter. More private than it had been all summer. You reached for the book you had left on the table. Jack watched you tuck it beneath your arm.
“Where are you going?” he asked.
You nodded toward the porch.
“I was going to read,” you replied.
Jack glanced toward the medical textbook resting near the end of the counter. Then he picked it up.
“I’ll come with you,” he said.
You looked toward him.
“Are you actually going to read?” you asked.
Jack stepped closer.
“I was planning to,” he replied.
You glanced at the book in his hand.
“That sounded suspiciously uncertain,” you said.
Jack’s mouth curved.
“I’ve had trouble concentrating lately,” he admitted.
You held his gaze for a beat. Then you turned toward the porch.
“Sounds serious,” you said.
Jack followed close behind you.
“It’s becoming a problem,” he agreed.
The sun had started to lower beyond the lake, turning the water gold through the screened windows. Jack’s futon was still laid flat against the wall, covered with the rumpled blanket and mismatched pillows he used every night.
You settled near one end and rested your back against the wall.
Jack sat beside you.
His shoulder pressed lightly against yours as he stretched his legs out along the futon.
You opened your book. Jack opened his. For several minutes, the porch stayed quiet.
Pages turned.
The lake moved softly beyond the screens. A breeze shifted through the trees. Jack’s bare foot brushed yours.
Neither of you moved away.
You read the same paragraph twice. Beside you, Jack had not turned a page. You glanced toward his book.
“Learning anything?” you asked.
Jack looked down at the page as though he had forgotten it was there.
“Not much,” he admitted.
You smiled.
“You’ve been staring at it for ten minutes,” you pointed out.
Jack looked toward you.
“I’ve been distracted,” he said.
You lowered your book slightly.
“By what?” you asked.
Jack’s gaze dropped to your mouth. He did not answer.
You closed your book. The soft sound carried through the porch.
Jack watched you set it beside the futon. Then he closed his own.
Neither of you said anything.
Jack reached for you first.
His hand curved around the side of your neck as he leaned in, and your mouth met his halfway.
The kiss turned heated almost immediately.
There was no need to keep it quiet. No brother sleeping down the hall. No coworker about to come around the corner. No stolen five minutes already running out.
Your fingers slid into Jack’s damp curls as his mouth moved firmly against yours.
His other hand found your waist and pulled you closer along the futon.
Your knee pressed against his thigh.
Jack shifted toward you, the textbook slipping forgotten onto the floor.
Neither of you looked down.
His hand moved beneath the hem of your shirt.
Warm fingers spread across the bare skin of your waist.
You breathed his name against his mouth.
Jack kissed you harder.
Your hands moved over his shoulders, then down his chest.
You gathered his shirt in your fists. Jack lifted his arms and let you pull it over his head.
The shirt landed somewhere behind him.
Your palms found his bare chest.
His skin was warm beneath your hands.
His heart beat hard under your touch.
Jack looked down at where your fingers rested.
Then he looked back at you.
The expression on his face made your breath catch.
You kissed him again.
Jack guided you back against the pillows, following until his body hovered over yours.
His mouth left yours and moved along your jaw.
You tipped your head back.
Jack kissed the side of your neck, his hand sliding higher beneath your shirt.
Your fingers tightened against his shoulders.
A soft sound escaped you.
Jack lifted his head. His eyes searched yours.
You reached between you and found the waistband of his pants.
Jack inhaled sharply when your fingers slipped beneath it. You pushed at the fabric. His hand closed gently around your wrist. You stopped. Jack stayed close enough that his breath moved across your mouth.
“Are you sure?” he asked quietly.
You held his gaze. “Yes,” you answered.
Jack did not move.
“You’re sure?” he asked again.
You turned your hand inside his grip and caught his fingers.
“I’m sure,” you said.
The words seemed to settle between you.
Jack’s expression changed. Not relief. Something deeper.
The same anticipation you felt. The same want. The same disbelief that neither of you had to stop this time.
Jack released your wrist slowly.
His hand slid up your arm, then returned to the side of your neck.
He kissed you again.
Slower at first.
Then with all the hunger he had been holding back for two weeks.
Your hand returned to his waistband.
This time, Jack let you.
You pushed his pants lower over his hips.
Jack lifted just enough to help you, his eyes never leaving your face as you worked the fabric down his legs. He kicked them free at the end of the futon.
You placed one hand against his chest.
Jack followed the gentle pressure and settled back against the pillows.
For a moment, you only looked at him.
His curls were disordered from your hands. His breathing had already turned uneven, and his bare chest rose beneath your palm.
Jack reached for your waist.
You moved over him before he could pull you down, settling across his lap with one knee on either side of his hips.
His hands closed around you immediately.
You leaned down and kissed him.
Jack met you with the same hunger, one hand sliding up your back while the other held firmly to your hip. You shifted against him. The friction drew a rough breath from Jack’s mouth.
You felt it against your lips.
His fingers tightened. You moved again, slower this time. Jack broke the kiss with a strained exhale and rested his forehead against yours.
You watched his eyes close briefly.
The reaction sent a fresh wave of heat through you. You kissed the corner of his mouth. Then his jaw. Jack tipped his head back against the pillow as your lips moved down the side of his neck.
His hand traveled along your spine, flexing each time you shifted over him. You pressed an openmouthed kiss beneath his jaw.
Jack’s breath caught.
You smiled against his skin and rolled your hips against him again.
Jack’s head fell back against the pillow.
A low sound escaped him before he could contain it.
The reaction sent another wave of heat through you.
Jack turned and caught your mouth in another kiss.
It was less controlled now.
His hand slid beneath your shirt and moved over your back as you kissed him, your body pressed fully against his.
You felt how hard he was beneath you.
How much he wanted you.
The knowledge made you ache.
You kissed your way down his throat again. Jack’s chest lifted sharply when your mouth reached his collarbone. You moved lower. Your lips traveled over the warm skin of his chest while your hands followed, learning the planes of him slowly.
Jack watched you.
You could feel his attention with every kiss. His fingers moved into your hair as you reached his stomach, but the touch stayed loose. Careful. You hooked your fingers into the waistband of his underwear. Jack’s hand closed gently around your wrist. You stopped and looked up at him. His breathing was unsteady.
“You don’t have to do that,” he said quietly.
You held his gaze.
“I know,” you answered.
Jack did not release you. You curled your fingers around the waistband beneath his hand.
“I want to,” you told him.
Something shifted in his expression. You moved higher just enough to kiss the inside of his wrist.
“I want you,” you said.
Jack released a shaky breath. His fingers loosened around you. For a moment, he only looked at your face. Then his hand slid into your hair again.
“Okay,” he said softly.
You pulled the fabric down.
Jack lifted his hips to help you, his stomach tightening beneath your hand. When you settled between his legs again, the anticipation that had followed you for two weeks seemed to gather into that single moment. Jack watched you lower your head. His fingers flexed in your hair.
The first touch of your mouth pulled a broken breath from him.
You looked up.
Jack’s head had fallen back against the pillow, his jaw tight as though he were already trying to hold himself together.
You took him deeper.
Jack moaned.
The sound was rough and completely unguarded.
It went straight through you.
His hand tightened in your hair before immediately loosening again.
You moved slowly at first, paying attention to every shift in his breathing.
Every time his stomach tightened. Every involuntary movement of his hips before he forced himself still.
Jack said your name.
Not as a warning. Not as a question. Like he did not know what else to say.
You wrapped one hand around him and worked it in rhythm with your mouth.
Jack’s free hand gripped the edge of the blanket. A low curse left him.
You glanced up again.
His eyes were closed. His lips were parted, his composure completely gone beneath you.
You loved it.
You loved that the same man who had spent two weeks leaning against the beverage cart with that knowing curve to his mouth now looked wrecked because of you.
You changed the rhythm.
Jack’s eyes opened. His gaze found yours.
The sight of you watching him seemed to undo something else.
His hips lifted before he caught himself.
“Sorry,” he breathed.
You kept your mouth around him as you shook your head.
Jack’s hand moved carefully through your hair. You continued until his breathing turned ragged and the muscles beneath your palm grew tense. His fingers tightened. Then Jack stopped you.
“Come here,” he said, his voice rough.
You lifted your head.
Jack reached for you immediately.
He caught beneath your arms and pulled you back over him before you could ask why. Your body settled against his. Jack cupped the back of your neck and kissed you. The kiss was deep and desperate, his other arm wrapping around your waist until there was no space left between you. You could feel his heart pounding against your chest. You drew back only far enough to breathe.
“I wasn’t finished,” you whispered.
Jack opened his eyes. The want in them made your stomach tighten.
“I know,” he said.
His thumb moved along the side of your neck. You searched his face.
“Did you want me to stop?” you asked.
Jack shook his head immediately.
“No,” he answered.
His breath remained uneven. Jack looked at your mouth before meeting your eyes again.
“I needed you back up here,” he admitted.
Something warm opened in your chest. You brushed your fingers through the curls at his temple. Jack turned his face into your palm and kissed it once. Then his hands found the hem of your shirt.
He looked at you.
You lifted your arms.
Jack pulled the shirt over your head and let it fall beside the futon.
For a moment, he only looked at you.
His gaze moved slowly over your bare skin before returning to your face. The intensity in his expression made your breath catch harder than any hurried touch could have.
Jack’s hands settled at your waist. Then he leaned forward and kissed you.
Slowly this time.
His mouth moved from yours to your jaw, then down the side of your neck. You tipped your head aside and held the back of his neck, your fingers threading through his curls as he drew you closer.
Every kiss felt deliberate.
As though he had spent the past two weeks imagining exactly where he would put his mouth once neither of you had to listen for footsteps.
Jack’s lips moved lower.
He kissed across your collarbone, then down the center of your chest.
Your breathing turned uneven beneath his attention.
Jack’s hands followed the changing rhythm of your body, moving over your ribs and waist before sliding higher again.
His mouth closed over one breast.
A soft sound escaped you.
Jack’s hand tightened at your side. He lifted his head just enough to look at you.
“Okay?” he asked.
You nodded quickly.
“More than okay,” you whispered.
Jack’s expression shifted.
Relief and want crossed his face at once.
He returned his mouth to you, kissing and touching until your fingers tightened sharply in his hair.
“Jack,” you breathed.
He looked up again.
You pulled gently at the back of his neck.
“Don’t stop,” you whispered.
Jack kissed you once, hard and grateful, before guiding you onto your back.
He followed you down, settling between your legs with one arm braced beside your head.
His other hand moved slowly over your stomach.
You watched it travel lower.
Jack’s fingers reached the waistband of your sleep shorts and paused. His eyes lifted to yours.
“You want this?” he asked quietly.
You held his gaze.
“Yes,” you answered.
Jack slipped his hand beneath the waistband.
His fingers moved through both layers of fabric until they found bare skin.
Your breath caught.
Jack stayed close enough that his forehead nearly touched yours. He watched your face as his hand moved lower. The first stroke of his fingers made your hips lift instinctively.
Jack’s mouth brushed yours.
“That good?” he asked.
You nodded.
“Yes,” you breathed.
Jack kissed you again.
His touch stayed patient at first.
He learned you slowly, changing pressure whenever your breathing shifted and repeating every movement that made your fingers tighten against his shoulders.
You opened your legs farther around him.
Jack’s hand moved more easily beneath the fabric.
His thumb found the place that made your whole body tense.
A broken sound left you.
Jack swallowed it with another kiss.
His fingers moved in slow circles while his mouth stayed close to yours.
You could feel how carefully he watched you.
How quickly he responded to every small reaction.
Your hips began moving against his hand.
Jack’s breathing turned rougher.
He pressed his face into the side of your neck and kissed you there while his fingers continued.
“You feel so good,” he murmured against your skin.
You tightened your hand at the back of his neck.
“Jack,” you whispered.
He lifted his head.
“What do you need?” he asked.
You could barely form the words.
“More,” you answered.
Jack’s eyes darkened. His fingers shifted lower.
He moved one inside you slowly.
Your breath left you in a rush.
Jack stopped immediately.
“Still okay?” he asked.
You nodded and pulled him closer.
“Yes,” you said. “Please.”
Jack kissed you as he began to move his hand. Slowly. Carefully.
His thumb kept the same steady rhythm while his finger worked inside you.
Your legs tightened around his hips.
You clung to his shoulders, then slid one hand into his curls and held him close enough that every breath passed between you.
Jack added another finger only after your body had relaxed around the first.
The stretch made you gasp.
He stilled again.
You opened your eyes.
Jack was watching you.
“You’re okay?” he asked.
You nodded.
“I’m okay,” you assured him.
Jack kissed your mouth.
Then he began moving again.
The combination of his fingers and thumb pulled you closer to the edge with every stroke. Your breathing broke apart. Your hips chased his hand. Jack’s mouth moved along your jaw and back to your lips, never letting you drift far from him.
He kept one hand beneath your shorts and the other cupped around your face.
“You’re close,” he said quietly.
You tightened around his fingers.
“Yes,” you breathed.
Jack’s thumb pressed more firmly.
Your whole body tensed.
The pleasure built sharply, almost too quickly.
You caught his wrist. Jack stopped at once. You shook your head.
“Not yet,” you whispered.
His eyes searched yours.
“You want me to stop?” he asked.
You loosened your grip and slid your hand up his arm.
“No,” you answered. “I want you.”
Jack went still. You pulled him closer until your mouths nearly touched.
“I want you inside me,” you whispered.
A shaky breath left him. His fingers remained inside you for one more moment, as though he needed to be certain you meant it.
“You’re ready?” he asked.
You nodded. “I’m ready,” you told him.
Jack slowly withdrew his hand. You watched his fingers slide free.
His eyes stayed on yours as he brought them to his mouth.
Jack sucked them clean slowly. Your breath caught.
“Jesus, Jack,” you whispered.
Jack’s mouth curved around his fingers.
He pulled them free and grinned.
The expression was smug enough to send another pulse of heat through you.
“What?” he asked.
You stared at him.
“You know what,” you replied.
Jack leaned down and kissed you.
You could taste yourself faintly on his mouth.
The realization made your fingers tighten at the back of his neck.
Jack smiled against your lips.
Then Jack reached into the side pocket of the duffel bag beside the futon and found a condom.
The small foil packet caught briefly in the porch light.
Something about seeing it in his hand made the moment feel suddenly real.
Not imagined. Not stolen. Not something either of you would have to stop before it went too far.
Jack looked back at you. His breathing was still uneven.
“Still sure?” he asked quietly.
You reached for him.
“Yes,” you answered.
Jack leaned down and kissed you before tearing the packet open.
You kept one hand at the back of his neck while he rolled the condom on, your fingers moving through the curls at his nape.
When he settled between your legs again, the weight of him pressed you more deeply into the futon.
One of his hands found your waist. The other curved around your cheek.
Jack held your gaze.
You rested one hand against his shoulder and threaded the other into his hair.
Neither of you moved for a second.
The anticipation stretched between you until it felt impossible to breathe around it. Jack brushed his thumb over your cheek.
“Tell me if you need me to stop,” he said.
You nodded.
“I will,” you promised.
Jack kissed you as he pushed inside.
The first stretch made your breath catch against his mouth.
He stopped immediately.
His forehead rested against yours.
“Okay?” he asked.
You tightened your fingers at the back of his neck.
“Yes,” you answered. “Just slow.”
Jack nodded once.
He moved again carefully, giving you time to adjust with every inch.
You kept your eyes on his face.
The concentration in his expression. The strain in his jaw. The way his breath shook when he finally settled fully inside you.
Jack stayed still.
His hand remained at your waist, holding you as though he was afraid even the smallest movement might be too much.
You shifted beneath him experimentally. A rough sound left his throat. Your stomach tightened. Jack closed his eyes briefly.
“You okay?” you asked.
He opened them again.
“Trying to be,” he admitted.
You pulled him down and kissed him.
Jack began to move. Slowly at first. His hips rolled into yours with careful, measured strokes while his mouth stayed close to yours.
You felt every shift of his body.
Every breath he took.
Every time his fingers tightened against your waist before loosening again.
Your legs moved around him.
Jack’s rhythm deepened.
The futon creaked beneath you, but neither of you reacted this time.
You no longer had to.
Jack kissed the corner of your mouth, then your jaw.
Your hand moved from his shoulder to his back, holding him closer as his pace began to build.
The closeness made everything more intense.
His chest against yours. His breath passing over your skin. His face close enough that you could watch the pleasure move through him.
You threaded your fingers more tightly into his curls.
Jack’s eyes opened.
He looked at you as though the sight of you beneath him was almost too much. Your hips lifted to meet his next stroke. Jack’s mouth parted.
“Again,” he said, his voice strained.
You moved with him. Jack dropped his forehead to yours.
“That,” he breathed.
You found the rhythm together.
The awkwardness disappeared. Jack’s movements became surer, his hand guiding your waist while your legs tightened around him. He kept returning to your mouth. Every few breaths, another kiss. Every time you made a sound, his body reacted.
The pleasure began building again.
Not as sharply as it had beneath his hand. Deeper. Warmer. Spreading through your body with every slow thrust.
Jack noticed the change in your breathing.
His hand slid from your waist between your bodies.
You gasped when his thumb found you again.
Jack’s pace never stopped.
He touched you in the same rhythm he had learned moments earlier.
Your body tightened around him.
Jack’s breath broke. His eyes closed for a second. Then he looked back at you.
“You’re close,” he said softly.
You nodded. Your fingers pulled at his curls.
“Yes,” you breathed.
Jack kissed you.
His thumb pressed more firmly. The pressure inside you built too quickly to contain. Your legs tightened around his hips. Jack kept moving through it, steady and close, his hand cupping your face again as the pleasure finally broke.
You came with his mouth against yours.
Your body tightened around him in waves.
Jack groaned into the kiss.
He slowed but did not stop, carrying you through it while your fingers clenched against his shoulders.
When the last tremor passed, you fell back against the pillows, breathing hard.
Jack rested above you. His forehead pressed to yours. His entire body shook with the effort of holding himself together.
You opened your eyes.
Jack was watching you. The expression on his face was almost dazed.
You brushed your thumb across his cheek.
“You okay?” you asked.
Jack released a breath that sounded almost like a laugh.
“Not really,” he admitted.
You smiled. Then you placed one hand against his chest.
Jack understood before you had to explain. He shifted carefully and let you guide him onto his back.
You moved over him.
His hands found your hips immediately.
You lowered yourself onto him again.
Jack’s head tipped back against the pillow as a low moan escaped him.
You settled fully in his lap and leaned down to kiss him.
Jack met you desperately.
His hands slid from your hips to your waist, helping you find the rhythm.
You stayed close to him. Your chest against his. Your mouth never far from his. You moved slowly at first, still sensitive, letting the angle change until it felt right.
Jack’s fingers tightened around you.
His breathing turned ragged almost immediately. You kissed along his jaw.
Jack said your name.
The sound came apart in the middle.
You loved it.
You lifted your hips and lowered yourself again.
Jack’s eyes closed. His hands moved along your thighs, then back to your waist as if he could not decide where he needed to hold you most.
You leaned over him.
Your forehead rested against his.
Jack opened his eyes. The want in them had turned almost helpless.
You moved faster.
Jack’s arms wrapped around you. He held you against him while you rode him, his mouth catching yours between broken breaths.
His hips began meeting yours.
The rhythm grew less controlled. More urgent. You felt him getting close in every tightening muscle beneath you. Every rough exhale. Every time his grip grew firmer.
Jack turned his face into your neck.
“I’m close,” he said, his voice unsteady.
You held the back of his neck.
“I know,” you whispered.
You kept moving. Jack’s arms tightened around you. His mouth found yours again.
Then his whole body tensed beneath you.
He came with a broken sound against your lips, holding you so tightly that neither of you could move for several seconds.
You stayed folded over him.
Your breathing mixed between you.
Jack’s hands moved slowly up your back.
Neither of you spoke.
The porch was quiet except for the lake beyond the screens and the uneven rhythm of both your breaths.
You rested your cheek against his chest. Jack’s heartbeat pounded beneath your ear. His fingers traced once along your spine. Then again. After a long moment, Jack turned his head and pressed a kiss against your temple.
“You okay?” he asked softly.
You lifted your face.
Jack looked almost nervous now.
As though the certainty from before had vanished the second there was room to think again. You touched his cheek.
“I’m good,” you answered.
Jack searched your expression.
“You’re sure?” he asked.
You smiled and leaned down to kiss him.
“I’m sure,” you said against his mouth.
Jack’s hand settled at the back of your neck.
He kissed you again.
Slower now. No urgency left. Only warmth. Only the two of you stretched across the futon while the summer night moved quietly around the porch.
Eventually, the air on the porch began to cool.
You remained stretched over Jack, your cheek against his chest while his fingertips moved lazily along your back.
Neither of you seemed willing to move.
Jack pressed a kiss to your temple.
“We should get dressed,” he said quietly.
You closed your eyes.
“Do we have to?” you murmured.
Jack’s chest shifted beneath you with a quiet laugh.
“Robby will come home eventually,” he reminded you.
You lifted your head and looked toward the dark cabin.
“Right,” you said.
Neither of you moved. Jack’s hand slid once more along your back.
“And I should take care of this,” he added.
You followed his glance downward. Heat climbed into your face. Jack’s mouth curved.
“Don’t start,” you warned softly.
“I didn’t say anything,” he replied.
You pushed yourself up enough to let him move.
Jack tied off the condom, wrapped it in a tissue from the small box beside the futon, then carried it through the cabin to the bathroom trash.
You found your shirt while he was gone.
When Jack returned, you were pulling it over your head.
His gaze lingered.
“Jack,” you warned.
He lifted his eyes to yours.
“I’m looking,” he admitted.
You tried not to smile.
“We’re supposed to be getting dressed,” you reminded him.
Jack reached down and retrieved your sleep shorts from the floor.
“I am,” he replied.
He held them toward you.
You accepted them and pulled them on while Jack found his own clothes.
Jack pulled on his pants while you gathered the blanket from the floor.
The porch looked almost normal again once the clothes were collected and the pillows returned to the futon.
Almost.
Jack picked up the textbook from where it had fallen near the wall. You retrieved your paperback from beside the futon. Neither of you mentioned that the books had been abandoned for most of the evening.
You settled against the wall at one end of the futon and opened yours again. Jack sat beside you. His shoulder pressed against yours.
For a few minutes, you both pretended to read.
You made it through half a page before realizing you had no idea what it said. Beside you, Jack had not turned a page at all. You glanced toward the diagram open across his lap.
“Learning anything?” you asked.
Jack looked down at the textbook.
“Not anymore,” he admitted.
You smiled and returned your attention to your book. Jack shifted beside you. His arm settled behind your shoulders. You leaned into him without looking up.
The movement felt easy.
Too easy for something that was only supposed to last the summer.
Jack’s hand rested against your upper arm while you read. His thumb moved slowly over your skin, tracing the same small path again and again.
The porch had cooled around you.
Beyond the screens, the lake moved softly against the shore. Insects hummed beneath the trees, and the occasional breeze stirred the pages resting across your lap.
Your eyes began to grow heavy. You lowered your book. Jack looked down at you.
“Tired?” he asked.
You rested your head against his chest.
“No,” you answered.
Jack glanced toward the book hanging loosely from your hand.
“You look awake,” he said.
You closed the book and placed it beside you.
“I am awake,” you insisted.
Jack set his textbook aside. “Of course,” he replied.
You looked up at him.
“That sounded sarcastic,” you said.
Jack pulled the thin blanket over your legs.
“I would never,” he replied.
You smiled and settled more comfortably against him.
Jack stretched out along the futon, guiding you down with him until your cheek rested over his heart.
One of his arms remained around your waist. Your leg slipped between his beneath the blanket. You drew a slow line over his shirt with your fingertip. Jack’s hand moved along your back.
Neither of you spoke.
His heartbeat gradually slowed beneath your ear.
You intended to stay awake until Robby came home.
Jack intended to wake you before that happened.
Neither of you said so.
The warmth of his body and the steady movement of his hand made it difficult to remember why you needed to move at all.
Your fingers went still against his chest.
Jack looked down.
Your eyes had closed. He brushed his knuckles softly along your cheek.
You shifted closer in your sleep.
Jack’s mouth curved.
He rested his chin against the top of your head.
A few minutes later, his own eyes closed.
Sometime after one in the morning, headlights moved through the cabin windows.
A car door shut outside.
Footsteps crossed the porch steps. The front door opened quietly. Robby stepped into the cabin carrying his shoes in one hand and his keys in the other.
He closed the door behind himself and set the keys on the table.
The cabin remained dark. Robby started toward the kitchen. Then he noticed the porch door standing partly open.
He slowed.
Jack lay on his back beneath the thin blanket.
One arm was wrapped securely around you.
You were curled against his chest, your leg tangled between his and your hand resting over his heart.
Both of you were fully dressed.
That did very little to help.
Robby stared at the futon.
Then he looked toward your empty bedroom.
His gaze returned to the two of you.
“Absolutely not,” Robby said.
Jack’s eyes opened.
For one disoriented second, he stared toward the screened ceiling.
Then he saw Robby standing in the doorway.
Jack went completely still.
Robby folded his arms. The sharpness in his voice woke you.
You shifted against Jack and lifted your head.
“What’s wrong?” you murmured.
Jack kept his eyes on Robby.
“Your brother’s home,” he answered quietly.
You turned toward the doorway.
Robby’s expression promised that no one would be going back to sleep soon. You pushed yourself upright.
“Michael,” you said.
Robby pointed toward you.
“Do not Michael me from his chest,” he replied.
Jack pressed his lips together. You looked down at him.
“Don’t laugh,” you warned.
Jack’s expression remained carefully neutral.
“I’m not,” he said.
Robby’s gaze moved between you.
“How long?” he asked.
You pulled the blanket over your lap.
“Since the carnival,” you answered.
Robby looked toward Jack.
“You leave in August,” he said.
The last traces of sleep disappeared from Jack’s face. He sat up beside you.
“I know,” Jack replied.
Robby’s gaze shifted to you.
“Does she?” he asked.
Your stomach tightened.
“I’m sitting right here,” you said.
Jack’s hand found yours beneath the blanket. His fingers closed around yours.
“She knows,” he answered.
Robby noticed your joined hands. The anger in his expression did not disappear, but concern settled beneath it. He looked back at Jack.
“I’m too tired and too pissed off to do this right now,” Robby said.
You opened your mouth. Robby lifted one hand.
“We’ll talk in the morning,” he added.
Then he turned and disappeared down the hallway.
His bedroom door closed.
The cabin became quiet again.
Jack’s hand remained wrapped around yours. You stared toward the dark hallway.
“That could have gone worse,” Jack said carefully.
You turned toward him.
“Do not,” you warned.
Jack nodded once. “Right,” he replied.
Neither of you lay back down.
The warmth of the evening remained around you.
But something colder had entered the porch with Robby’s question.
August.
For the first time all night, neither of you could ignore that it was coming.
Summary: A carnival. An ugly bear. A Ferris wheel. One summer neither of you is supposed to take too seriously.
Warnings: Fluff, mutual pining, young Jack Abbot, summer romance, kissing, emotional conversations about impending separation, brief suggestive make-out scene, Reader is Robby’s sister
Author’s Note: Welcome to the carnival date, lovelies. Featuring: young Jack Abbot spending entirely too much money on an ugly bear, one emotionally loaded Ferris wheel ride, fireworks by the lake, and the photograph that changes everything. And yes, Jack keeps the photo strip. Thank you @hellcatxspngld for the lovely idea for the carnival date!
Xoxo, Del
| Prologue | Chpt. 1 | Chpt. 2 | Chpt. 3 |
The carnival came into view before the lake did.
Colored lights flickered between the trees, bright against the deepening blue of the evening sky. Music drifted across the road in uneven bursts, tangled with distant laughter and the metallic creak of rides turning somewhere beyond the boardwalk.
You sat forward in the passenger seat, one sneaker braced against the floor.
You had changed before leaving the club, trading your work polo and tennis skirt for jean shorts and the worn band T-shirt you had stuffed into your bag that morning.
At the time, it had only been about getting comfortable for the ride home.
Now, with Jack freshly showered beside you and carnival lights appearing through the trees, you were suddenly very glad you had.
“You really meant carnival,” you said.
Jack glanced toward you.
“I told you I did,” he replied.
You looked through the windshield at the Ferris wheel rising above the trees.
“I thought it would be smaller,” you admitted.
Jack turned the Jeep into the gravel parking lot.
“We can still leave,” he offered.
You looked toward him.
“Do you want to?” you asked.
Jack’s hand paused on the steering wheel.
“No,” he answered.
The single word sent warmth creeping into your cheeks.
You reached down for your bag.
“Good,” you said. “I’m hungry.”
Jack’s mouth curved.
“That doesn’t surprise me,” he replied.
You looked at him.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” you asked.
Jack guided the Jeep into an open space near the edge of the lot.
“You’ve mentioned food three times since we left the club,” he explained.
You counted backward in your head.
“I mentioned dinner once,” you argued.
Jack shifted the Jeep into park.
“You mentioned dinner, fries, and whether the gas station still sells those chocolate-covered pretzels,” he reminded you.
You opened your door.
“That was one ongoing conversation,” you insisted.
Jack shut off the engine.
“It lasted fifteen minutes,” he pointed out.
You climbed out of the Jeep and swung your bag over one shoulder.
“It was an important conversation,” you said.
Jack came around the front of the Jeep to join you.
“I could tell,” he replied.
The carnival spread along the edge of the lake, crowded with food stands, game booths, and rides that looked only slightly more secure than they sounded.
Strings of lights hung above the boardwalk. Children darted between adults with prizes clutched beneath their arms, and music from three different rides competed over the noise of the crowd.
You slowed near the entrance.
Jack stopped beside you.
You reached into your bag for your wallet.
“How much are the tickets?” you asked.
Jack had already pulled out a few bills. “I’ve got it,” he said.
You looked toward him.
“You don’t have to pay for me,” you reminded him.
Jack stepped toward the booth.
“I know,” he replied.
The attendant glanced between you before accepting Jack’s money.
“How many?” the attendant asked.
“Ten, please,” Jack replied.
The attendant counted them out and slid them beneath the window.
Jack split the tickets into two even stacks and handed you five.
“Thank you,” you said.
“You bought me lunch all week,” Jack reminded you.
You folded the tickets into your palm.
“That was mostly stolen,” you admitted.
Jack nodded once. “Then we’re even.”
You stepped away from the booth with him.
The crowd had thickened around the entrance. A family stopped directly in front of you to reorganize three children and an overloaded stroller.
You moved to step around them.
Jack’s hand settled against your lower back. The touch was light at first, meant only to guide you around the stroller and into the narrow opening beside him.
Then it stayed.
His palm remained warm through the thin fabric of your T-shirt as he steered you closer to his side.
You looked toward him.
Jack kept his attention on the path ahead. He did not seem to realize he was still touching you.
Or he realized and had decided not to move.
You faced forward before he could catch you staring.
A ride swung high above the crowd nearby, turning its passengers upside down before dropping them toward the boardwalk.
You tipped your head back to watch it.
Jack followed your gaze.
“I’m not getting on that,” he said.
You turned toward him.
“I didn’t ask you to,” you pointed out.
Jack studied the ride.
“You were thinking about it,” he replied.
“I was watching,” you corrected.
Jack guided you around another group of people, his hand shifting slightly against the curve of your back.
“That thing arrived on the back of a truck yesterday,” he said.
You laughed.
Jack glanced toward you.
His attention lingered long enough that his expression softened. His hand remained exactly where it was.
A few steps later, you nodded toward the Ferris wheel turning slowly over the lake.
“What about that one?” you asked.
Jack looked toward the enclosed cars.
“That one isn’t trying to throw anyone into the water,” he replied.
You smiled. “Is that a yes?”
Jack looked back at you.
“That’s a yes,” he confirmed.
You turned toward the boardwalk again.
A lemonade stand sat just ahead, its painted sign promising drinks large enough to require two hands.
You slowed.
Jack noticed immediately.
“Already?” he asked.
You pointed toward the enormous cups lined across the counter.
“Walking is thirsty work,” you explained.
Jack’s mouth twitched.
“We’ve made it twenty feet,” he replied.
You looked at him.
“And I’ve done very well,” you said.
Jack shook his head, but his hand slid from your lower back only so he could reach for his wallet again.
You caught his wrist before he could pull it free. “I’m buying the lemonade.”
Jack looked down at your hand around his wrist.
“You can buy something later,” he said.
You tightened your fingers slightly.
“You already bought the tickets,” you reminded him.
Jack looked back at you. “And now I’m buying the lemonade,” he replied.
You pulled his hand away from his pocket.
“That is not how taking turns works,” you argued.
Jack’s mouth curved. “We’re taking turns?”
“We are now,” you decided.
Jack let you keep hold of his wrist as the two of you stepped into line.
“Good to know,” he said.
The vendor leaned across the counter.
“What can I get you?” the vendor asked.
You looked toward the row of cups.
“One large lemonade, please,” you ordered.
Jack glanced at the size of the cup pictured on the sign.
“One?” he asked.
You looked toward him.
“You planning to drink an entire one by yourself?” you asked.
Jack folded his arms. “I could.”
You smiled.
“I believe you,” you said.
The vendor filled a clear plastic cup with ice and pale yellow lemonade before pressing a lid into place.
“Two straws?” the vendor asked.
You looked toward Jack.
Jack was already looking at you.
“Two, please,” you answered.
The vendor pushed both straws through the lid and held the cup across the counter.
You paid before Jack could interfere and accepted the lemonade with both hands.
Jack watched you take the first drink.
“Well?” he asked.
You swallowed and considered it. “It tastes like sugar with a lemon nearby.”
Jack held out one hand.
“Let me try,” he replied.
You passed him the cup.
Jack bent toward the second straw and took a drink while you continued holding it. His face remained carefully neutral. You studied him.
“You hate it,” you said.
Jack straightened. “I didn’t say that,” he replied.
“You made a face,” you accused.
Jack looked toward the cup.
“It’s aggressive,” he decided.
You laughed.
“It’s lemonade,” you said.
Jack took the cup from you and carried it in one hand.
“It’s syrup,” he corrected.
“You’re still drinking it,” you pointed out.
Jack leaned toward his straw again.
“I’m making sure you didn’t waste your money,” he said.
You stared at him.
“That is very generous of you,” you replied.
Jack took another drink.
“Thank you,” he said.
You accepted the cup and fell into step beside him.
The crowd pressed close again as you moved deeper onto the boardwalk.
Jack’s hand returned to your lower back without hesitation.
You took another drink from your straw.
Jack leaned toward the other at the same time.
Your shoulders bumped.
Both of you stopped.
Your faces hovered over the lid, close enough that you could feel his breath beneath the sharp sweetness of the lemonade.
Jack’s eyes lifted to yours.
For one suspended second, neither of you drank.
A child darted between you and the nearby booth, knocking lightly into Jack’s side.
Jack caught the lemonade before it tipped.
You stepped back, laughing under your breath.
“That was close,” you said.
Jack’s eyes stayed on yours.
“Was it?” he asked.
Jack’s mouth curved.
He kept his hand against your back as the two of you continued down the boardwalk.
The boardwalk opened ahead of you in a blur of blinking signs, spinning rides, and game attendants calling out promises neither of you believed. You carried the lemonade between you. Jack leaned down for his straw whenever he wanted another drink, forcing you to slow so the cup would not tilt.
Each time, his shoulder brushed yours.
Each time, you became a little more aware of how close he was.
The smell of fried dough reached you before you saw the stand.
You stopped walking.
Jack nearly bumped into you. He followed your gaze toward a paper plate disappearing beneath a cloud of powdered sugar.
“That?” he asked.
You nodded without looking away. “That,” you confirmed.
Jack reached for his wallet.
“My turn,” he said. “We’re taking turns, remember?”
You looked toward him.
“I’m glad you’re learning,” you replied.
Jack’s mouth curved.
He stepped up to the counter while you found an empty bench near the railing.
The lake stretched beyond the boardwalk, darkening beneath the last streaks of evening light. The carnival lights reflected across the surface in broken trails of red, yellow, and blue.
Jack returned with one funnel cake buried beneath far too much powdered sugar.
You shifted over to make room for him.
Jack sat beside you, close enough that his thigh pressed against yours immediately.
Neither of you moved away.
He balanced the plate across both your knees and set the lemonade beside him.
You tore off a piece of funnel cake and took a bite.
The dough was still warm, and powdered sugar scattered across your fingers.
You reached for another piece.
Jack reached toward the plate at the same time.
Your hands brushed. Both of you paused. You looked down at the piece already pinched between your fingers, then toward Jack.
“Here,” you offered.
You held the piece toward him. Jack looked at your hand. Then he looked at you.
“What?” you asked.
Jack’s mouth curved slightly.
“Nothing,” he replied.
He leaned closer and took the bite from your fingers.
His lips brushed your fingertips.
You forgot to pull your hand away.
Jack noticed. His eyes lifted to yours as he sat back.
Neither of you spoke.
His thigh remained pressed against yours. Your fingertips tingled where his mouth had touched them. You lowered your hand slowly.
Jack reached for the lemonade, but his attention stayed on you.
You looked out toward the lake before he could see how badly one small touch had affected you.
The boardwalk moved around you.
A ride rattled overhead. Someone won a game nearby, and a bell rang through the noise. Jack took another piece of funnel cake from the plate.
You glanced toward him.
He was still sitting close. His arm rested behind you along the back of the bench, not quite touching your shoulders.
The thought that had followed you from the Jeep pressed against the back of your teeth.
You tore a small piece from the edge of the funnel cake.
“Is this a date?” you asked.
Jack’s expression shifted. Not much. Just enough. His eyes remained on yours while the carnival carried on around you.
“Does it feel like one?” he asked.
You glanced at the shared lemonade, the powdered sugar across both your hands, and the way his thigh remained pressed firmly against yours.
“Yes,” you answered.
Jack nodded once.
“Then I guess it is,” he said.
Warmth climbed into your face.
You looked toward the lake again.
Jack gave you a few seconds to recover before he reached for another piece of funnel cake.
Neither of you mentioned the word again.
You did not need to.
By the time the plate held nothing but powdered sugar and a few broken pieces of dough, the sky had deepened from blue to violet.
Jack gathered the empty plate and stood.
You reached for the lemonade and took the last drink.
Jack held one hand toward you.
You looked at it for half a second before placing yours in his.
He helped you to your feet.
You tossed the empty cup into the nearest trash can.
The practical reason for touching ended as soon as you were standing.
Jack did not let go.
His fingers shifted around yours instead, fitting between them as the two of you stepped back into the crowd.
You looked down at your joined hands.
Jack’s thumb moved once across your knuckles.
You tightened your fingers around his.
A few booths later, you spotted a striped cart with clouds of pink and blue cotton candy turning slowly behind the glass.
A soft, delighted sound escaped you before you could stop it.
Jack stopped immediately. “What happened?” he asked.
You pointed toward the cart. “Cotton candy,” you said.
Jack followed your finger. The concern left his face.
“That was the emergency?” he asked.
You looked toward him.
“I haven’t had it in years,” you explained.
Jack’s mouth curved as he led you toward the cart. The vendor pulled a fresh paper cone from beneath the counter.
“Pink or blue?” the vendor asked.
“Both, please,” you answered.
Jack looked toward you.
“You couldn’t choose?” he asked.
You shook your head.
“They don’t taste the same,” you explained.
Jack glanced at the sugar spinning inside the machine.
“They’re both sugar,” he pointed out.
You looked at him sharply.
“That is an incredibly uninformed opinion,” you said.
Jack folded his arms.
“I’m willing to be educated,” he replied.
The vendor built the cotton candy into a large, uneven cloud, blue on one side and pink on the other. Jack reached for his wallet before you could open your bag.
“It’s my turn,” you reminded him.
Jack looked toward you. “Not after that noise,” he said.
You stared at him. “What noise?” you asked.
Jack’s smile widened. “The happy one,” he replied.
Heat climbed into your face.
“I did not make a noise,” you insisted.
Jack handed the vendor a few bills.
“You did,” he said.
You accepted the cotton candy with both hands.
“You imagined it,” you argued.
Jack stepped closer.
“I liked it,” he admitted.
Heat rushed into your face before you could stop it. You looked down at the cotton candy, suddenly far too interested in the way the blue side had begun to pull apart in the warm evening air.
Jack did not say anything else. He did not have to.
You pinched off a piece and held it toward him.
“Try this,” you told him.
Jack looked at the sugar between your fingers.
“I know what cotton candy tastes like,” he said.
You moved the piece closer. “Not this one,” you insisted.
Jack glanced from the cotton candy to you.
“What’s different about it?” he asked.
“Blue tastes better than pink,” you explained.
Jack’s eyebrows lifted.
“They’re the same flavor,” he said.
You frowned at him. “They absolutely are not,” you argued.
Jack looked amused, but he leaned down and took the blue cotton candy from your fingers. The sugar dissolved almost immediately. You watched his face.
“Well?” you asked.
Jack considered it with more seriousness than the question deserved.
“It tastes blue,” he decided.
Your smile widened.
“Exactly,” you said.
Jack looked toward the pink side of the cotton candy.
“I should probably compare them,” he said.
You pinched off a piece of pink. “For accuracy?” you asked.
Jack nodded solemnly.
“For accuracy,” he confirmed.
You held it toward him.
Jack took that piece from your fingers too, his lips brushing your fingertips just enough to send the memory of the funnel cake rushing back through you.
He noticed the way your hand paused. His eyes lifted to yours. You swallowed.
“Well?” you asked.
Jack remained close.
“You were right,” he admitted. “Blue is better.”
You smiled in triumph.
“I knew it,” you said.
Jack took the paper cone from you before reaching for your hand again.
His fingers threaded through yours as the two of you continued down the boardwalk. He carried the cotton candy in his free hand, holding it between you whenever you reached for another piece.
Every few steps, you tore one off and offered it to him.
Every time, Jack leaned down and accepted it.
The game booths began a few yards ahead.
Brightly painted signs promised oversized prizes for deceptively simple tasks. Stuffed animals hung from every awning, most of them cheap, lopsided, and aggressively colorful.
You stopped so suddenly that Jack nearly walked into you.
“Oh my God,” you breathed. “Look at him.”
Jack followed your gaze.
A stuffed animal dangled from the corner of a ring-toss booth. It might have been a bear. Its eyes were sewn so far apart that they appeared to be looking in opposite directions. Its nose sat strangely high on its forehead, one ear folded forward, and its arms were two different lengths.
Jack stared at it. “Yeah,” he said slowly.
You turned toward him.
“Isn’t he perfect?” you asked.
Jack looked back at the animal. “What is he?”
You frowned at him.
“He’s obviously a bear,” you said.
Jack tilted his head.
“Is he?” Jack asked.
You looked toward the prize again.
The bear’s uneven eyes stared vaguely past both of you.
“He’s trying his best,” you defended.
Jack’s mouth twitched. You stepped closer to the booth.
“Look at his little face,” you said. “He’s so ugly.”
Jack reached into his back pocket. You glanced toward him. He was already pulling out his wallet.
“Jack,” you said.
Jack handed the cotton candy to you before passing a few bills to the attendant.
“What?” he asked.
“You don’t have to play,” you told him.
Jack accepted three rings from the attendant.
“I know,” he replied.
You looked from the rings to him.
“You don’t even like him,” you pointed out.
Jack glanced toward the crooked bear.
“I don’t know what he is,” he corrected.
You laughed.
Jack looked at you, his expression softening at the sound.
“You like him,” Jack added.
The answer made your smile turn quieter.
Jack faced the bottles before you could respond. The attendant slid the bottles into place. Jack picked up the first ring and turned it between his fingers. You stepped beside him, still holding the cotton candy.
“This is completely rigged,” you warned.
Jack narrowed his eyes at the bottles.
“Probably,” he agreed.
“You could stop now,” you told him.
Jack adjusted the ring between his fingers.
“You said he was perfect,” he reminded you.
You looked toward the bear. “He is,” you said.
Jack threw the first ring.
It bounced off the neck of a bottle and landed on the floor. Jack reached for the second. The ring clipped another bottle and skittered away. You pressed your lips together. Jack glanced toward you.
“Don’t,” he warned.
You lifted both hands, the cotton candy wobbling between them.
“I didn’t say anything,” you replied.
“You were about to,” Jack said.
Jack picked up the final ring. The cheap little bear swayed above him in the lake breeze. Jack looked at you once. Then he threw. The final ring struck the neck of a bottle, spun around the glass, and dropped to the floor.
You winced.
Jack stared at the bottles. The attendant gathered the rings without looking remotely surprised.
“Another round?” the attendant asked.
Jack reached toward his wallet. You caught his wrist.
“No,” you told him. “He’s not worth your entire paycheck.”
Jack looked toward the misshapen bear.
“He’s barely worth what I’ve already spent,” Jack agreed.
You laughed and tugged gently at his arm.
“Come on,” you said. “You tried.”
Jack let you lead him away from the booth.
He looked back at the bear once.
You did not notice. A few booths farther down, a bell rang sharply above the crowd. You turned toward the sound. A tall wooden high striker stood at the edge of the boardwalk, its painted ruler stretching toward a brass bell at the top. A heavy wooden mallet rested beside the metal platform at its base. Jack stopped walking. You felt his hand leave yours.
“No,” you said immediately.
Jack looked toward you.
“I didn’t say anything,” he replied.
“You stopped,” you pointed out.
Jack glanced back at the high striker.
“I was looking,” he said.
“You were thinking about it,” you corrected.
Jack’s mouth curved slightly. “Maybe,” he admitted.
The attendant lifted the mallet and rested it across the counter.
“Ring the bell and pick any prize,” the attendant announced.
Your eyes moved toward the prizes hanging behind him.
The crooked bear dangled from one of the hooks.
You looked at Jack.
Jack was already reaching for his wallet.
“You cannot be serious,” you said.
Jack glanced toward the crooked bear.
“You wanted the bear,” he reminded you.
“I also wanted you to stop spending money,” you pointed out.
Jack passed a few bills to the attendant.
“I’m not leaving without it,” he said.
The attendant pushed the mallet toward him.
Jack wrapped both hands around the handle and tested its weight.
You tightened your fingers around the cotton candy.
He rolled his shoulders once, then pushed the sleeves of his faded T-shirt higher along his arms. That was unnecessary. It was also extremely distracting. Jack glanced toward you.
“You all right?” he asked.
You dragged your attention back to his face.
“Fine,” you answered.
Jack’s mouth twitched. He knew you were lying. He stepped onto the platform and spread his feet beside the metal plate. The attendant gestured toward the bell.
“You’ve got one swing,” the attendant explained.
Jack adjusted his grip on the mallet.
“Only need one,” he replied.
Your stomach dipped.
Jack said it without looking at you, his attention fixed on the striker as he adjusted his stance.
That somehow made it worse.
Or better.
Definitely better.
“You’re very confident for someone who just lost at ring toss,” you called.
Jack looked over his shoulder at you. “This one makes sense,” he said.
He turned back toward the striker and lifted the mallet over his shoulder.
Then he swung.
The wooden head struck the plate with a crack that vibrated through the boardwalk.
The metal puck shot up the painted ruler.
It hit the bell hard enough to send the sharp ring across the carnival.
You startled, then laughed.
Jack straightened slowly and looked toward you. The satisfaction on his face was immediate and completely unguarded.
The attendant pointed toward the prizes.
“Pick one,” the attendant instructed.
Jack did not look at the display. He pointed straight toward the crooked bear.
“That one,” Jack said.
The attendant stared at him.
“The bear?” the attendant clarified.
Jack nodded. “The ugly one,” he confirmed.
You pressed your lips together, failing to contain your smile.
The attendant unhooked the bear and handed it to Jack.
Up close, it looked even worse. One eye sat noticeably higher than the other. Its nose had been sewn almost between its eyebrows, and one arm hung lower than the other. Jack held it in front of himself and studied its face.
“I think it got worse,” he said.
You stepped closer. “He’s beautiful,” you insisted.
Jack looked from the bear to you. Then he held it out.
“He’s yours,” Jack said.
You accepted it carefully, tucking the crooked creature against your chest. The cheap fur scratched faintly beneath your chin.
You looked up at Jack.
“Thank you,” you said.
Jack watched your face rather than the prize. His expression softened.
“Worth it,” he replied.
Your smile widened.
You tucked the bear beneath one arm while Jack took the nearly empty cotton-candy cone from you.
He pulled off the last piece of blue and held it toward your mouth.
You accepted it, smiling as the sugar dissolved against your tongue.
Jack crumpled the empty paper cone and dropped it into a nearby trash can.
His hand returned to your lower back as the two of you stepped into the crowd.
The Ferris wheel rose above the boardwalk ahead, its lights reflecting across the lake.
You looked toward it.
Jack followed your gaze.
“Still want to go?” he asked.
“You said that one was safe,” you reminded him.
Jack studied the cars turning slowly overhead. “Safer,” he corrected.
You smiled. “Good enough.”
Jack pulled two tickets from the strip and handed them to the attendant.
The attendant opened the door to the next car and gestured for you to get inside.
You stepped onto the platform with the bear tucked against your chest. The car shifted beneath your weight. Jack caught your elbow.
“I’ve got you,” he said.
You looked down at his hand around your arm.
“I thought this was the safe one,” you teased.
Jack steadied the car while you slid across the bench.
“Safer,” he corrected.
You settled the bear in your lap. Jack climbed in beside you, and the attendant lowered the metal bar across your legs. The car rocked as the wheel began to move. You gripped the bar with one hand. Jack looked toward you.
“You scared?” he asked.
“No,” you answered too quickly.
Jack glanced at your fingers wrapped around the bar.
“Right,” he said.
You loosened your grip. “I’m adjusting,” you explained.
Jack stretched one arm across the back of the seat behind you.
“To the safe ride?” he asked.
You turned toward him.
“You’re being very smug for someone who refused to ride anything that moves faster than walking speed,” you pointed out.
Jack looked toward the boardwalk below.
“I know my limits,” he replied.
The car climbed higher. Beneath you, the carnival shrank into strings of colored lights. The music softened, swallowed by the wind and the slow mechanical creak of the wheel. Beyond the boardwalk, the lake stretched dark and quiet beneath the last traces of sunset. You rested your arms over the bear. For a moment, both of you looked out across the water.
“What made you decide to enlist?” you asked.
Jack’s attention remained on the lake. He was quiet long enough that you wondered whether the question had been too personal.
“Because of what comes after,” he finally said.
You turned slightly toward him.
“What comes after?” you asked.
Jack rubbed his thumb along the edge of the seat.
“Medical school,” he answered.
Your eyebrows lifted.
“You want to be a doctor?” you asked.
Jack glanced toward you.
“Eventually,” he replied.
You studied him. The answer should have surprised you. It did not.
“You’d be good at it,” you said.
Jack’s expression shifted with faint amusement.
“You got all that from watching me lose at ring toss?” he asked.
You smiled.
“I know you,” you replied.
The amusement faded from his face. Jack held your gaze. Something warmer replaced it.
“You think you do?” he asked.
“I do,” you said.
Jack looked out over the lake again, but the corner of his mouth lifted.
“The Army will help pay for school,” he explained. “I figured I could do both.”
You nodded slowly.
“So you leave at the end of August,” you said.
Jack’s jaw tightened slightly.
“Yeah,” he answered.
The Ferris wheel carried you higher.
You looked down at the bear in your lap.
“That’s not very far away,” you said.
“No,” Jack agreed.
You turned toward him.
“Then we better stop wasting time,” you said.
Jack went still. His eyes searched yours. For one suspended second, neither of you moved. Then his gaze dropped to your mouth. Your breath caught. Jack leaned closer. Slowly enough that you knew what he was doing. Slowly enough that you could have moved away. You stayed exactly where you were. His hand shifted from the back of the seat. His fingers brushed the side of your neck.
The Ferris wheel jolted.
The car swung sharply beneath you.
You grabbed the bar.
The bear slipped from your lap.
Jack caught it by one uneven arm before it fell through the gap beside the seat.
You stared at him.
Jack stared at the bear dangling from his hand.
“He almost didn’t make it,” Jack said.
You pressed one hand against your chest.
“That would’ve been tragic,” you replied.
Jack pulled the bear safely back into the car.
“After everything I went through?” he said. “Yes, it would’ve been.”
You laughed.
Jack settled the bear in your lap again.
His hand covered yours for a beat longer than necessary. The wheel resumed its slow turn. Neither of you mentioned the kiss that almost happened. Jack’s knee remained pressed against yours for the rest of the ride. His arm returned to the seat behind you. This time, his fingertips rested lightly against your shoulder.
The wheel completed another slow turn before your car reached the platform.
Jack stepped out first.
He tucked the bear beneath one arm, then held his free hand toward you as the car shifted beneath your feet. You placed your hand in his. Jack helped you onto the platform. His fingers remained wrapped around yours after you were standing.
Neither of you acknowledged it.
The boardwalk felt louder after the quiet at the top of the wheel. Music spilled from the rides. Bells rang from the game booths. Children darted through the crowd with glowing bracelets wrapped around their wrists.
Jack guided you past the line, keeping the bear tucked securely against his side. You glanced toward it.
“He survived,” you said.
Jack looked down at the bear. “Barely,” he replied.
You smiled.
Jack’s thumb moved once across the back of your hand. The two of you continued past the last row of game booths and away from the brightest carnival lights. The crowd thinned as the boardwalk gave way to a paved path that followed the edge of the lake.
Behind you, the carnival continued in a blur of music and color.
Ahead, the path disappeared between trees and stretches of open grass along the shoreline. The lake was darker here. Only the distant glow of the rides reached the water, breaking into faint streaks whenever the breeze moved across the surface.
Jack slowed beside you.
His shoulder brushed yours as you walked. Neither of you mentioned what had nearly happened on the Ferris wheel.
At first, the silence felt easy.
Your hand remained in his. The bear swung slightly beneath Jack’s other arm with each step. You could still feel the ghost of his fingers against the side of your neck. After another minute, you glanced toward him.
Jack’s gaze stayed fixed on the path ahead. The smile he had worn on the ride had faded. His thumb had stopped moving over your hand. You watched him for a few more steps.
“Are you okay?” you asked.
Jack looked toward you. “Yeah,” he answered.
You waited. Jack looked ahead again. You squeezed his hand.
“You got quiet,” you said.
Jack released a slow breath.
“I’m thinking,” he admitted.
You tilted your head. “About what?” you asked.
Jack was silent for another few steps. His hand tightened slightly around yours.
“Leaving,” he answered.
The word settled between you. You looked toward the water.
“At the end of August,” you said.
Jack nodded once. “Yeah,” he replied.
You kept walking, but the silence had changed. It no longer felt easy. Jack glanced down at your joined hands.
“And about starting something with you when I already know I’m going,” he added.
You slowed. Jack stopped with you near the edge of the path. The carnival lights were faint from here, softened by the trees and reflected in broken streaks across the lake. You turned toward him.
“You think that means we shouldn’t?” you asked.
Jack shifted the bear beneath his arm.
“I think it means I should be careful,” he said.
“With me?” you asked.
Jack lifted his eyes to yours. “Yeah,” he answered.
You studied his face. He looked more serious than he had all evening.
“You did say this was a date,” you reminded him.
Jack looked down at your joined hands.
“I did,” he agreed.
“And you’re still holding my hand,” you added.
Jack’s thumb moved once across your knuckles. “I am,” he said.
You stepped a little closer.
“So maybe you’ve already started something,” you said.
Jack lifted his eyes to yours. His expression softened, but the worry did not leave it.
“That’s what I’m afraid of,” he admitted.
You tightened your fingers around his.
“You don’t know how it finishes,” you said.
Jack’s jaw shifted.
“I know I leave,” he replied.
“And I go back to school,” you said. “Neither of those things changed tonight.”
“No,” Jack agreed.
You held his gaze.
“But you knew that when you asked me out,” you reminded him.
Jack looked down at your joined hands.
“I did,” he admitted.
“So you must think tonight is worth something,” you said.
Jack lifted his eyes to yours.
“It is,” he answered.
His certainty made your chest tighten.
“Then let it be worth something,” you said.
Jack’s grip tightened around yours.
“I don’t want you thinking I’m promising something I can’t give you,” he said.
“I’m not asking you to promise me anything,” you replied.
Jack held your gaze.
“No,” he said quietly. “You’re not.”
A firework cracked above the lake before either of you could say more.
You startled and looked toward the sky. A burst of gold opened over the water, its reflection trembling across the dark surface before fading. Another followed almost immediately, blooming red above the shoreline. People farther down the path began moving toward the lake. Jack glanced toward the open stretch of grass near the water.
“Come on,” he said.
He kept hold of your hand as he guided you off the path. The grass sloped gently toward the shoreline, far enough from the boardwalk that the carnival music had softened beneath the fireworks. Jack lowered himself onto the ground and set the bear beside him. He held one hand up toward you.
“Here,” he said.
You placed your hand in his and let him guide you down beside him. Jack shifted closer almost immediately. His arm settled behind you, his hand resting lightly against your waist. You looked down at it. Jack’s fingers flexed once against your side.
“Okay?” he asked.
You leaned into him.
“Yeah,” you answered.
Jack’s arm tightened around your waist.
You rested your head against his shoulder. Neither of you spoke. Fireworks opened above the lake in bursts of red, blue, and gold. Each one lit the water for a few seconds before dissolving into smoke.
Jack’s thumb moved slowly against your side. Your hand found his where it rested at your waist. You threaded your fingers through his. The bear sat crookedly beside Jack, one uneven arm resting against his leg. You glanced toward it.
“He likes the fireworks,” you said.
Jack followed your gaze.
“He doesn’t know where to look,” he replied.
You laughed softly. Jack’s shoulder moved beneath your cheek. When you lifted your head, he was watching you instead of the sky. The next firework burst behind him, outlining his face in gold.
Jack did not look away.
Neither did you.
His hand remained warm at your waist. Your fingers stayed linked over it. The conversation about August was still there.
It had not disappeared.
For the moment, neither of you asked it to.
You rested your head against his shoulder again. Jack leaned his cheek lightly against the top of your head. The fireworks continued above the lake.
By the time the final burst faded, the air had cooled and the crowd along the shoreline had begun to move again. Jack lifted his head.
“You ready?” he asked.
You looked toward the dark water one last time.
“Not really,” you admitted.
Jack’s mouth curved.
“Me neither,” he said.
He stood first, then offered you his hand. You placed yours in his. Jack pulled you carefully to your feet. The bear remained where he had set it. You looked down at it. Jack followed your gaze.
“He made it through another crisis,” he said.
You bent to pick it up.
“He’s resilient,” you replied.
Jack took the bear from you and tucked it beneath one arm. His free hand found yours again.
Together, you started back toward the carnival lights.
The boardwalk grew louder with every step. Music drifted through the trees. Ride machinery rattled overhead. Attendants called out from the game booths as the crowd folded around you again. Jack kept the bear tucked beneath one arm. His other hand stayed wrapped around yours. You were passing the edge of the midway when you spotted the photo booth wedged between an arcade game and a stand selling caramel apples.
You stopped.
Jack took another step before your joined hands pulled him back. He turned toward you.
“What?” he asked.
You nodded toward the booth.
“We need evidence,” you said.
Jack followed your gaze. “Of what?” he asked.
You smiled.
“The best first date I’ve ever had,” you answered.
Jack looked back at you.
For one quiet beat, he said nothing. Then the corner of his mouth lifted.
“That’s a lot of pressure for four pictures,” he said.
“You survived ring toss,” you reminded him. “You can handle it.”
Jack glanced down at the crooked bear beneath his arm.
“Barely,” he replied.
You pulled him toward the booth.
The faded curtain hung half-open, and the narrow bench inside looked barely wide enough for one person, let alone two. Jack stopped at the entrance.
“You first,” he said.
You ducked beneath the curtain and slid across the bench. Jack handed you the bear before squeezing in beside you. His thigh pressed firmly against yours. His shoulder filled most of the remaining space. You settled the bear across both your laps while Jack pulled the curtain closed. The carnival disappeared behind the thin fabric. The booth suddenly felt much smaller. Jack looked toward the screen.
“How does this work?” he asked.
You pointed toward the coin slot.
“You put money in,” you explained.
Jack reached for his wallet. You caught his wrist.
“No,” you said.
Jack looked down at your hand.
“Your turn?” he asked.
You released him and opened your bag.
“My idea,” you replied.
Jack leaned back against the wall.
“Fair,” he said.
You fed a few bills into the machine.
The screen flashed. A countdown appeared. You straightened quickly.
“What are we doing?” Jack asked.
You turned toward the camera as the numbers dropped.
“Just follow my lead,” you instructed.
The first flash went off as you stuck out your tongue.
Jack laughed beside you.
The screen reset. A second countdown began.
You looked toward him.
“That was terrible,” Jack said.
“You laughed,” you pointed out.
“I was caught off guard,” he argued.
The second flash went off.
You faced the camera. Jack did not. He was looking at you. The screen reset again. You glanced toward him.
“What?” you asked.
Jack blinked, as though he had forgotten where he was.
“Nothing,” he replied.
The third countdown began. You smiled. Before Jack could turn toward the camera, you leaned over and pressed a kiss to his cheek.
The flash went off.
Jack went completely still.
You drew back just far enough to see his face.
His eyes found yours.
The booth seemed to shrink around you.
The final countdown began.
Neither of you looked toward the screen.
Jack’s gaze dropped to your mouth.
Your fingers tightened around the bear.
He turned toward you.
He did not say anything.
He simply leaned in and kissed you.
The bear slipped from your lap and landed facedown on the floor.
You barely noticed.
Your hand caught the front of Jack’s shirt as his mouth moved against yours.
The first touch was careful. Warm. Almost cautious.
Then you kissed him back.
Jack’s hand slid to the side of your neck, his thumb settling beneath your jaw.
His other hand found your waist and pulled you closer across the narrow bench.
The fourth flash filled the booth with white light.
Neither of you stopped.
Your fingers curled more tightly into his shirt.
Jack angled his head and kissed you deeper, the careful restraint disappearing as soon as he felt you lean into him.
Your knee pressed between his.
His hand tightened at your waist.
The booth was too small. The bench was too narrow. Neither of you seemed to care.
The machine whirred loudly beside you.
Jack slowed the kiss, but he did not pull away completely.
His forehead rested against yours.
Both of you were breathing harder than the moment should have warranted.
The photo strip dropped into the tray with a soft click.
Neither of you moved.
Someone knocked against the outside of the booth.
“You done in there?” a voice called.
Jack closed his eyes briefly.
“Apparently,” he answered.
You bit back a laugh.
Jack opened his eyes and looked at you.
His thumb moved once along your jaw before he finally let you go.
You looked down.
The bear lay facedown between your feet. Jack followed your gaze. He bent and picked it up by one uneven arm.
“After everything I went through,” he muttered.
You took the bear from him and straightened its crooked ear.
“He saw too much,” you said.
Jack reached toward the tray.
“He can keep a secret,” he replied.
Jack pulled out the warm photo strip.
You leaned closer to look.
The first picture caught you with your tongue out and Jack laughing beside you.
In the second, you were looking at the camera.
Jack was looking at you.
The third captured your mouth against his cheek and the startled stillness in his face.
The fourth showed Jack kissing you, one hand at your neck and the other already reaching for your waist.
Your stomach turned over.
“Evidence,” you said softly.
Jack’s eyes stayed on the last photograph.
“Of the date?” he asked.
You looked toward him.
“Of the best one,” you answered.
Jack ran his thumb carefully along the edge of the strip.
“I’m keeping this,” he said.
You blinked. “You are?” you asked.
Jack met your eyes. “Yeah,” he replied.
Jack slid the photo strip carefully into his wallet. Then he looked at your mouth again.
A second knock struck the outside of the booth.
Jack glanced toward the curtain.
“We should probably go,” he said.
You looked down at the bear tucked against your chest.
“He ruined the moment,” you whispered.
Jack reached for the curtain.
“He’s had a difficult night,” he replied.
You laughed as Jack pushed the curtain aside.
He stepped out first, then held one hand back toward you.
You placed your hand in his.
Jack helped you out of the booth, his fingers closing around yours as soon as your feet reached the boardwalk.
The carnival had begun to thin.
Some of the younger families were already heading toward the parking lot. Vendors wiped down counters between customers, and the lines for the rides had shortened beneath the glowing signs.
Jack looked toward the path leading away from the midway.
“You ready to head back?” he asked.
You glanced over your shoulder at the Ferris wheel, the game booths, and the distant edge of the lake.
“We probably should,” you admitted.
Jack’s thumb brushed over your knuckles.
“You don’t sound convinced,” he said.
You looked up at him.
“I don’t want the date to be over,” you confessed.
Jack’s expression softened.
“It’s not over yet,” he replied.
He kept hold of your hand as the two of you walked toward the parking lot.
The bear remained tucked beneath your free arm.
Every few steps, your shoulder bumped against Jack’s.
Neither of you apologized.
By the time you reached the Jeep, most of the carnival noise had faded behind you. Jack opened the passenger door. You settled the bear on the seat before climbing in. Jack rested one hand against the top of the door.
“He gets the seat?” he asked.
You pulled the bear into your lap.
“He’s emotionally fragile,” you explained.
Jack looked at its uneven face.
“He’ll recover,” he said.
You smiled.
Jack closed the door and walked around the Jeep.
The drive back to the cabin was quieter than the drive there.
Not awkward. Just full. The radio played low beneath the sound of the tires moving over the road. The bear sat between you on the bench seat, its crooked head leaning against your leg. Jack kept one hand on the wheel. His other rested near the gearshift.
For several miles, you watched the dark road move through the windshield.
Then you let your hand fall beside his.
Your little finger brushed his.
Jack glanced down. He turned his hand over without taking his eyes from the road. You slipped your fingers through his. Jack’s hand closed around yours.
Neither of you spoke.
The cabin came into view through the trees too soon.
Jack pulled into the drive and shut off the engine. The radio disappeared. The sudden silence settled around you. Neither of you reached for the door. Jack looked toward the dark windows of the cabin.
“Robby’s still at the club,” he said.
You nodded. “For another hour, probably.”
Jack looked down at your joined hands.
His thumb moved across yours. You turned toward him. Jack lifted his eyes. The distance between you felt smaller than it had in the photo booth.
You looked at his mouth.
Jack noticed.
He leaned across the seat and kissed you.
There was nothing cautious about it this time.
Your hand caught the front of his shirt as his mouth pressed firmly against yours.
Jack’s hand slid behind your neck, drawing you closer.
The bear tipped sideways between you.
You pushed it out of the way without looking.
Jack made a quiet sound against your mouth.
You climbed closer across the seat, one knee pressing against his thigh.
His free hand found your waist.
The kiss deepened immediately.
All the restraint from the photo booth disappeared.
Jack kissed you like he had been thinking about it for the entire drive home.
You kissed him back just as hard.
Your fingers moved into the curls at the nape of his neck.
Jack’s grip tightened at your waist.
He pulled you closer until the gearshift pressed awkwardly between you.
You broke the kiss with a breathless laugh.
Jack rested his forehead against yours.
“This Jeep is not helping,” you whispered.
Jack glanced down at the gearshift.
“No,” he agreed.
You laughed again.
Jack kissed the corner of your mouth.
Then his expression changed.
The hunger remained, but something more careful returned beneath it.
You felt it before he spoke.
Jack’s hand stayed at your waist.
“I leave in August,” he said.
You held his gaze.
“I know,” you replied.
Jack’s thumb moved against your side.
“And you go back to school,” he added.
“I know that too,” you said.
Jack looked down for a moment.
When he met your eyes again, the carefulness in his expression remained.
“So what are we doing?” he asked.
You glanced toward the bear lying facedown near the passenger door.
Then you looked back at Jack.
“We have the summer,” you said.
Jack’s jaw shifted.
“Just the summer?” he asked.
You knew what he was offering.
A boundary.
An ending decided before either of you had the chance to want more.
You also knew you were not ready to walk away.
“That’s what we’re saying,” you replied.
Jack watched you carefully.
“Just the summer,” he repeated.
You nodded once.
“Just the summer,” you agreed.
Neither of you sounded convinced.
Jack’s hand slid from your waist to the side of your neck.
He kissed you again.
And this time, he kissed you like the summer had already started running out.
Summary: We’re going back to the summer that started it all. Long before Carter’s matchmaking scheme, you, Jack, and Robby spent one life-changing summer together at the family cabin, and we finally begin to see how you and Jack fell in love and why the two of you never ended up together.
Warnings: age gap, mutual pining, brother’s best friend, references to Jack joining the Army, protective Robby, mild jealousy, flirting, nostalgic young love, eventual heartbreak, Reader is nineteen, and Jack is twenty-one
Author’s Note: Surprise! Flashback chapter! We’re stepping away from the present for a few chapters so we can finally experience Jack and Reader’s summer together instead of only hearing about it. This is where everything began: the cabin, the country club, the Jeep, and two people falling much harder than either of them intended. And yes, we are finally going to learn why they aren’t together now.
Xoxo, Del
| Prologue | Chpt. 1 | Chpt. 2 |
The Robinavitch cabin appeared between the trees at the end of a narrow gravel road, exactly as you remembered it.
Small. Weathered. Slightly crooked.
The dark green shutters needed repainting, one corner of the screened porch sagged lower than the other, and the wooden steps leading to the front door had faded silver beneath years of sun and lake water.
Beyond the cabin, the lake flashed between the trees.
You leaned closer to the passenger-side window as Robby slowed the car.
“Home sweet structural hazard,” Robby announced.
You glanced toward him.
His dark hair had grown long enough to fall across his forehead, and the beard he had cultivated during the semester made him look older, right up until he opened his mouth.
“You say that like you haven’t been talking about this summer for months,” you said.
Robby kept his attention on the gravel road.
“I was talking about the lake,” he clarified. “The cabin remains a death trap.”
You looked into the back seat.
Two suitcases, a duffel bag, several grocery sacks, and an unreasonable number of Robby’s textbooks had been wedged together with no recognizable system.
“You packed your entire pre-med program,” you observed.
Robby pulled into the clearing beside the cabin.
“I’m trying not to forget everything before fall,” Robby explained.
“You brought three anatomy books,” you said.
Robby shifted the car into park.
“One is physiology,” he corrected.
“That does not improve the situation,” you replied.
Robby removed the keys from the ignition and looked toward you.
“You mocked me when I failed my first organic chemistry exam,” he reminded you.
You unfastened your seat belt.
“I mocked you because you said carbon had a personal vendetta against you,” you corrected.
“It did,” Robby insisted.
You opened your door and stepped into the warm afternoon air.
The smell reached you first.
Sun-warmed pine. Damp earth. Lake water. The faint, familiar trace of old wood baking beneath the summer heat.
For the first time since finishing your final exams, something inside you loosened.
You closed the car door and looked past the cabin toward the narrow dock.
The aluminum fishing boat was still tied beside it, knocking gently against one of the posts.
“You think the boat runs?” you asked.
Robby climbed out on the other side of the car.
“It barely ran last summer,” he answered.
“So no,” you concluded.
Robby opened the back door.
“I didn’t say that,” he argued.
“You didn’t have to,” you replied.
Robby pulled one of the grocery boxes toward him. The bottom immediately bowed. He tightened his grip around it.
“You could help,” he suggested.
You walked around the car and reached for your suitcase.
“I’m emotionally supporting you,” you told him.
“The pasta sauce is about to fall through the bottom,” Robby warned.
“You should have packed better,” you replied.
Robby stared at you over the roof of the car.
“You’ve been here thirty seconds,” he said.
“And I’ve already identified the problem,” you pointed out.
Robby adjusted the box against his chest.
“I’m going to make you sleep outside,” he threatened.
You pulled your suitcase free.
“You need me,” you reminded him.
Robby started toward the porch.
“For what?” he asked.
You dragged your suitcase over the gravel behind him.
“Someone has to make sure you eat something besides bar peanuts and whatever the kitchen sends back,” you explained.
Robby glanced over his shoulder.
“I survived an entire school year without you,” he argued.
“You called me because you forgot how long chicken lasts in the refrigerator,” you reminded him.
Robby stopped at the bottom step and turned toward you.
“It smelled fine,” he defended.
“It was gray,” you said.
“That doesn’t automatically mean bad,” Robby replied.
“It was chicken, Michael,” you emphasized.
Robby pointed one finger at you.
“Do not use my government name before we’ve even unpacked,” he warned.
You smiled and pulled the suitcase toward the porch.
The front screen door stood open behind him.
You stopped.
It had always scraped against the porch floor, usually requiring one hard pull and a carefully placed shoulder to open. Now it hung straight in the frame.
“You fixed the door?” you asked.
Robby glanced back at it.
“No,” he answered.
You looked along the porch.
Several of the loose boards had been replaced. The steps no longer tilted beneath Robby’s weight, and the path leading around the side of the cabin had been cleared of the branches that had fallen during the spring.
“The railing too?” you asked.
Robby climbed the first step.
“Jack’s been here since Monday,” he explained.
Your hand tightened around the suitcase handle.
You tried to make the reaction invisible.
Robby looked back at you.
It had not been invisible.
“Don’t,” he warned.
You frowned at him.
“Don’t what?” you asked.
Robby shifted the grocery box against his chest.
“Whatever your face just did,” he answered.
“My face didn’t do anything,” you argued.
Robby stared at you.
“You’re nineteen now,” he said. “This has to stop eventually.”
You pulled the suitcase toward the porch.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” you replied.
“You’ve known exactly what I’m talking about since you were sixteen,” Robby said.
“I don’t have a crush on Jack,” you said, passing him on the steps.
Robby followed you onto the porch.
“You asked whether he was coming before you agreed to spend the summer here,” he reminded you.
“I asked who was staying at the cabin,” you argued.
“You asked about Jack specifically,” Robby countered.
“Because you two are attached at the hip,” you said.
“We are not,” Robby replied, pushing the screen door open with his shoulder.
“You study together even though he isn’t in school yet,” you reminded him.
“He wants to be prepared,” Robby said.
“He wants free tutoring,” you corrected.
Robby stepped into the cabin.
“Same difference,” he replied.
You followed him inside as he placed the grocery box on the small kitchen table.
The cabin had not changed much.
The kitchen still occupied one corner of the main room, its cabinets painted the same dull cream they had been for years. The living room held an old plaid couch and two mismatched chairs facing the wall of windows overlooking the lake.
Sunlight spilled across the worn wooden floor.
A hallway beside the kitchen led to the two small bedrooms and the bathroom. Through the living room, the screened porch stretched across the back of the cabin, its door propped open to let in the breeze.
A dark duffel bag sat beside the porch futon.
A pair of work boots had been lined neatly beneath the small table beside it.
Jack’s paperback lay facedown on one of the cushions.
You looked toward the porch.
“He’s sleeping out there?” you asked.
Robby began unloading cans from the grocery box.
“When the weather’s good,” he answered.
“And when it isn’t?” you asked.
Robby nodded toward the faded couch.
“That pulls out,” he explained.
You looked at the cushions.
“That thing has a mattress?” you asked.
“Technically,” Robby replied.
“You invited someone to sleep on that?” you questioned.
“He volunteered,” Robby said.
“Why?” you asked.
Robby set a jar of pasta sauce on the counter.
“He likes the porch,” he answered.
You looked through the screens toward the water.
The futon faced the lake. A standing fan occupied one corner, and several clean work shirts hung over the back of a chair beside the screen door.
It already looked like Jack’s space.
Not temporary. Not as though he had come up for a weekend.
He was living here.
With you.
For the entire summer.
Robby opened another grocery sack.
“You’re doing it again,” he said.
You turned toward him. “Doing what?”
“Thinking too loudly,” Robby answered.
You picked up a box of cereal.
“I’m wondering why you bought this,” you said.
Robby looked at the brightly colored cartoon printed across the front.
“It was on sale,” he explained.
“You’re twenty-four,” you pointed out.
“I’m saving for medical school,” Robby replied.
“That is not a nutritional defense,” you said.
Before Robby could answer, the sharp strike of a hammer sounded from behind the cabin.
You looked toward the open porch door.
Another strike followed. Then came the scrape of wood against wood.
Robby continued unpacking.
“He’s fixing the railing by the dock,” he explained.
“Jack?” you asked.
Robby looked toward you.
“No, the other man living on our porch,” he replied.
You ignored him and crossed the living room.
The screened porch was several degrees cooler than the rest of the cabin. Lake air moved through the mesh walls, carrying the sound of water against the shore.
You pushed through the outer door and stepped onto the narrow deck.
The hammering stopped. Footsteps sounded below.
Then Jack came around the side of the cabin.
He was shirtless.
Faded work pants sat low on his hips, one knee streaked with dirt. His dark curls were damp from the heat and flattened slightly where he had pushed his hand through them. A hammer hung loosely from one hand, and his discarded gray T-shirt had been tucked through the back of his waistband.
The summer had already begun settling into his skin, darkening his shoulders and the bridge of his nose.
You had spent most of your first year of college convincing yourself that your crush on Jack Abbot had been a teenage affliction.
It returned before he reached the porch.
Jack looked up.
His steps slowed.
For one quiet second, he simply stared at you.
Not through you. Not past you toward Robby.
At you.
His eyes moved over your face before dipping briefly toward the rest of you. The look was quick enough to remain polite, but not quick enough to miss.
Something shifted low in your stomach.
Jack stopped at the bottom of the steps. His mouth curved.
“Hey, Robinavitch,” he greeted.
You tightened your fingers around the porch railing.
“Hey, Abbot,” you replied.
Jack rested the hammer against his shoulder.
“When did you get here?” he asked.
“About five minutes ago,” you answered.
Jack glanced toward the open door behind you.
“And Robby already made you unload the car?” he asked.
“He’s very committed to traditional gender roles when boxes are heavy,” you explained.
Robby’s voice carried from inside the cabin.
“I can hear you,” he called.
Jack looked past you.
“That sounds like a personal problem,” he called back.
Robby appeared in the porch doorway.
His gaze moved from you to Jack. Then down to Jack’s bare chest. Then back to you.
Robby closed his eyes.
“No,” he said.
Jack frowned at him. “No what?”
Robby opened his eyes and pointed toward him.
“Put a shirt on,” he ordered.
Jack looked down at himself.
“It’s ninety degrees,” he replied.
“I don’t care,” Robby said.
You folded your arms.
“He’s working outside,” you pointed out.
Robby turned toward you.
“You stay out of this,” he told you.
Jack’s eyebrows lifted.
“She’s been here five minutes,” he observed.
Robby looked between the two of you.
“That is already five minutes too long,” he replied.
You stared at your brother.
“You are being incredibly weird,” you said.
Robby stepped onto the porch.
“I’m preventing an incident,” he explained.
Jack lowered the hammer.
“What incident?” Jack asked.
Robby looked toward you.
“She once walked into a door because you took your shirt off,” Robby answered.
You pointed toward him.
“I was sixteen,” you argued.
Robby folded his arms.
“And the door was visible,” he replied.
Jack’s mouth twitched.
You looked toward him.
“Don’t encourage him,” you warned.
“I haven’t said anything,” Jack replied.
“You’re smiling,” you accused.
Jack held your gaze.
“I’m happy to see you,” he said.
The words came easily. Too easily.
Your pulse stumbled.
Robby looked toward the ceiling of the porch as though requesting patience from a higher power.
Jack glanced toward your suitcase near the front door.
“You need help bringing things in?” he asked.
“I can carry my own bags,” you replied.
Jack stepped onto the first stair.
“I know,” he said.
He passed close enough that his shoulder nearly brushed yours. You caught the faint scent of lake water, cut wood, and sweat. Jack reached the porch and looked down at you. Up close, he seemed broader than you remembered.
Or maybe you had simply never allowed yourself to notice before.
He nodded toward the cabin.
“Show me which bags are yours,” he said.
Robby made a strangled sound behind you.
Jack looked toward him.
“What?” he asked.
Robby pointed toward Jack’s discarded shirt.
“Put that on before you say another sentence,” he ordered.
Jack pulled it from his waistband.
“You’ve gotten strange,” he observed.
“You’ve gotten shirtless,” Robby replied.
“It’s summer,” Jack pointed out.
“It’s my sister,” Robby countered.
You covered your face with one hand.
Jack stared at Robby. Then his gaze shifted toward you again. His smile returned, quieter this time.
“Glad you’re here, Robinavitch,” he said.
You lowered your hand.
The lake glittered behind him. The porch screens hummed faintly in the breeze. Somewhere inside, Robby muttered under his breath about regretting the entire arrangement.
You looked at Jack.
“Thanks,” you replied.
You had been there less than ten minutes.
You were already in trouble.
By the end of the afternoon, your clothes had been folded into the narrow dresser in your childhood bedroom, Robby’s textbooks had consumed half the kitchen table, and Jack had repaired another two boards along the dock.
He had also remained shirtless.
Robby had complained three more times.
Jack had ignored him three more times.
Dinner came from a pot of pasta balanced between Robby’s flashcards and a stack of unopened mail their father had left on the counter.
Jack sat across from you, one arm resting along the back of his chair. He had finally put on a faded T-shirt, although the sleeves had been cut away so thoroughly that Robby’s efforts felt largely symbolic.
Robby stabbed his fork into his pasta.
“Grounds starts at five tomorrow,” Robby told Jack.
Jack reached for the parmesan.
“Four-thirty,” Jack corrected. “We’re finishing the back nine before the members come in this weekend.”
You looked toward him.
“You start work at four-thirty in the morning?” you asked.
Jack shook parmesan over his plate.
“I start regretting my choices at four-thirty,” Jack clarified. “Work starts at five.”
Robby pushed one of his textbooks aside to make room for his glass.
“He volunteered for it,” Robby told you.
Jack looked toward him.
“I volunteered for a paycheck,” Jack corrected.
You rested your forearms against the table.
“How long have you been working there?” you asked.
Jack set the parmesan between you.
“Since Monday,” Jack answered. “They bring grounds in early to get everything ready.”
Robby gestured vaguely toward the lake with his fork.
“He’s been coming back here and fixing this place after every shift,” Robby explained.
Jack glanced toward the loose cabinet hinge beside the sink.
“Someone had to,” Jack replied.
Robby pointed his fork toward him.
“You’re supposed to be resting,” Robby reminded him.
Jack looked at the anatomy book beside Robby’s elbow.
“You brought homework on vacation,” Jack pointed out.
Robby straightened in his chair.
“I’m not on vacation,” Robby argued. “I’m working.”
Jack leaned back.
“You make drinks beside a lake,” Jack said.
Robby narrowed his eyes.
“You cut grass beside the same lake,” Robby countered.
Jack lifted one shoulder.
“I also fix things,” Jack replied.
You smiled into your glass.
“Is this what the last three days have been like?” you asked.
Jack turned his attention toward you.
“Quiet, mostly,” Jack answered.
Robby leaned back in his chair.
“And now she’s here,” Robby added.
You pointed your fork at him.
“You invited me,” you reminded him.
Robby looked toward Jack.
“I’m beginning to question several of my decisions,” Robby said.
Jack’s mouth curved.
You caught the expression before he lowered his gaze to his plate.
The three of you ate for another moment while the last sunlight stretched across the kitchen floor.
You looked at Jack again.
“What are you doing after summer?” you asked.
Jack’s fork paused against his plate.
Robby’s attention shifted toward him.
Jack set the fork down.
“I leave for basic training in August,” Jack answered.
You stared at him.
“You enlisted?” you asked.
Jack nodded once.
“A few months ago,” Jack replied.
The answer should not have surprised you. Jack had been working since high school, taking whatever jobs he could find while trying to decide how to afford the future he wanted.
Still, the thought of him leaving settled heavily in your chest.
“For how long?” you asked.
Jack leaned back in his chair.
“Basic is a few months,” Jack explained. “After that, it depends where they send me.”
You looked down at your plate.
“And then medical school?” you asked.
Jack rubbed his thumb along the edge of his fork.
“That’s the plan,” Jack answered.
Robby reached for his glass.
“The Army will help pay for it,” Robby explained.
Jack glanced toward him.
“If I survive basic without punching anyone,” Jack added.
Robby took a drink.
“That remains a significant concern,” Robby replied.
You looked back at Jack.
“When were you going to tell me?” you asked.
Jack held your gaze.
“I just did,” Jack answered.
You frowned at him.
“You know what I mean,” you said.
Jack’s expression softened.
“I haven’t seen you since Christmas, Robinavitch,” Jack reminded you.
The quiet way he said your name made it difficult to stay irritated.
You lowered your eyes to your plate.
“Well, now you’re stuck with me all summer,” you said.
Jack watched you for one long beat.
“There are worse things,” Jack replied.
Robby dropped his fork against his plate.
The metal struck the ceramic with a sharp clatter.
You looked toward him.
“What?” you asked.
Robby reached for the fallen fork.
“Nothing,” Robby muttered. “I’m just realizing how long summer is.”
By ten the next morning, you had learned three things about being the country club’s newest beverage-cart girl.
The cart pulled sharply to the left.
The club polo trapped heat like punishment.
And the little white tennis skirt earned significantly better tips than the khaki shorts folded inside your locker.
You had just finished restocking the cooler when the beverage manager handed you a cash box and pointed toward the course.
“Follow the paved path, stay clear of the greens, and check in after the ninth hole,” she instructed. “The grounds crew is still finishing a few areas, so listen if they tell you not to drive somewhere.”
You slid your sunglasses onto your face.
“Understood,” you replied.
Ten minutes later, you turned onto the path beside the fourth fairway and found Jack waiting near a maintenance cart.
His work shirt was already damp at the collar. Dirt marked his forearms, and a shovel rested against one shoulder.
Jack’s gaze found you first.
Then it dropped to the tennis skirt.
The beverage cart veered toward the grass.
You corrected the wheel sharply.
Jack’s mouth curved.
You stopped beside him and folded your arms over the steering wheel.
“Not one word,” you warned.
Jack rested one hand against the roof of the cart.
“I didn’t say anything,” Jack replied.
“You were about to,” you accused.
Jack looked down at the tires.
“You’re driving crooked,” Jack observed.
You tightened your hands around the steering wheel.
“It pulls to the left,” you insisted.
Jack lifted his eyes to yours.
“Maybe you got distracted,” Jack suggested.
You stared at him.
Jack’s smile deepened.
The summer had officially begun.
You reached into the cooler and pulled out a bottle of water.
“Do you want one?” you asked.
Jack shifted the shovel against his shoulder.
“Are you offering?” Jack asked.
You held the bottle against your chest.
“You have money,” you pointed out.
Jack rested one forearm against the roof of the cart.
“You’re charging the grounds crew?” Jack asked.
You looked toward the maintenance cart behind him.
“Do I get free rides?” you asked.
Jack glanced at the empty passenger seat.
“Maybe,” Jack replied.
You extended the bottle toward him.
“Then maybe this is free,” you said.
Jack reached for it. His fingers closed around yours instead.
The contact lasted only a second.
It still sent a warm jolt up your arm.
Jack felt it too.
You knew because his eyes lifted sharply to yours.
Neither of you moved.
A groundskeeper shouted Jack’s name from farther down the fairway. Jack released your hand.
“Coming,” Jack called over his shoulder.
You pulled your arm back into the cart. Jack twisted the cap from the bottle.
“Thanks, Robinavitch,” Jack said.
You reached for the steering wheel.
“You owe me,” you told him.
Jack took a drink.
“I’ll think of something,” Jack promised.
You drove away before he could see the effect that had on you.
The cart still pulled to the left.
That was the only reason you nearly clipped the edge of the path.
It had nothing to do with Jack watching you leave.
At least, that was what you told yourself.
By the end of your first week, you had learned the route well enough to drive it without thinking.
You had also learned exactly where Jack’s crew would be working each morning.
He was usually somewhere between the fourth and seventh holes when you made your first round. By the second, he had dirt on his shirt and sweat at his temples. By the third, he was hungry enough to accept whatever sandwich you had managed to steal from the clubhouse kitchen.
You never admitted that you began packing an extra one.
Jack never asked why you always had his favorite.
On Friday afternoon, you found him kneeling beside a sprinkler head near the sixth green.
His sleeves were rolled above his forearms, and the back of his work shirt had darkened beneath the afternoon sun.
You slowed beside him.
Jack looked up at the sound of the engine.
His gaze moved over you slowly enough to make the heat feel worse.
“You’re late,” Jack said.
You stopped the cart beside him.
“You’re not on my schedule,” you reminded him.
Jack sat back on his heels.
“You came through here at one-fifteen yesterday,” Jack said.
You checked the small watch on your wrist.
“It’s one-twenty,” you pointed out.
Jack looked at you.
“Late,” Jack repeated.
You opened the cooler.
“I could keep driving,” you warned.
Jack stood. Water darkened the knees of his work pants, and a smear of soil crossed one side of his jaw.
“You won’t,” Jack said.
You pulled out a bottle of sports drink.
“You sound confident,” you observed.
Jack stepped closer to the cart. His faded work shirt clung slightly across his chest, darkened by the afternoon heat. Dirt streaked his forearms beneath the rolled sleeves.
“You packed me lunch,” Jack replied.
You glanced toward the wrapped sandwich beside the cash box.
“That could be for anyone,” you argued.
Jack reached past you and picked it up. His arm brushed yours.
“You hate turkey,” Jack said.
You looked at him.
“You remember that?” you asked.
Jack’s expression changed. The teasing softened into something warmer.
“I remember things about you,” Jack answered.
Your hand tightened around the bottle.
For one dangerous second, neither of you looked away.
A golf cart approached along the path behind you.
The man driving it slowed when he saw you. He was young for a club member, probably not much older than Jack, with expensive sunglasses and the kind of confidence that came from never being told no.
“There she is,” the golfer called. “I was starting to think you were avoiding us.”
You turned toward him.
“I’m making my rounds,” you explained.
The golfer rested one arm across the steering wheel.
“You could make an extra stop at the clubhouse when we finish,” he suggested.
Jack went still beside you.
You had already dealt with three versions of this conversation that morning. You gave the golfer the same polite smile you had given the others.
“I’ll make sure the bar knows you’re coming,” you replied.
The golfer grinned. “I was thinking you could join me,” he clarified.
Jack stepped closer to the beverage cart.
“She’s working,” Jack said.
The golfer looked toward him.
“I wasn’t talking to you,” the golfer replied.
Jack folded his arms across his chest. “I noticed.”
You looked between them.
“I can handle it, Jack,” you told him.
Jack kept his attention on the golfer.
“I know,” Jack replied.
The golfer glanced at the tools scattered beside the sprinkler.
“You should probably get back to the grass,” he told Jack.
Jack’s jaw tightened.
You reached over and placed one hand against his forearm. The muscle shifted beneath your palm. Jack looked down at your hand. Then he looked at you.
“I’m fine,” you assured him.
Jack held your gaze for another beat.
“All right,” Jack said.
You turned back toward the golfer.
“I’m not interested,” you told him.
The golfer lifted both hands from the wheel.
“Worth a try,” he replied.
He drove away.
You watched until his cart disappeared around the bend. Then you looked toward Jack.
“You scared off a paying customer,” you said.
Jack picked up the sandwich.
“He’ll live,” Jack replied.
“You were glaring at him,” you accused.
Jack peeled back the paper around his lunch.
“He was bothering you,” Jack said.
“I was handling it,” you reminded him.
Jack looked at you.
“I know,” Jack repeated.
You folded your arms over the steering wheel.
“You do that for every beverage-cart girl?” you asked.
Jack took another bite of the sandwich.
“Do what?” Jack asked.
You tipped your head toward the disappearing golf cart.
“Scare off anyone who asks her out,” you clarified.
Jack looked down at the sandwich.
“He wasn’t taking the hint,” Jack replied.
You smiled.
“Was that bothering me,” you asked, “or was it bothering you?”
Jack pointed the sandwich toward the path.
“You have other customers,” Jack reminded you.
You started the cart.
“You’re jealous,” you said.
Jack’s eyes narrowed slightly.
“You’re Robby’s sister,” Jack replied.
You leaned one elbow against the steering wheel.
“That wasn’t a denial,” you pointed out.
Jack stared at you.
You smiled and pressed the accelerator.
This time, when you drove away, the cart stayed perfectly centered on the path.
By the time you reached the next hole, your pulse still had not settled.
Neither had Jack’s.
You knew because when you glanced back, he was standing exactly where you had left him.
Still holding the sandwich.
Still watching you.
It should have embarrassed you.
Instead, you smiled for the rest of your route.
Over the next few days, the sixth hole quietly became your longest stop.
Jack began appearing beside the path before you reached it, usually with some excuse about needing water or checking the cart’s unreliable front tire. You started keeping an extra sandwich beside the cash box without admitting who it was for.
Neither of you mentioned the golfer again.
You did not have to.
Jack watched every cart that slowed beside you.
You watched for him around every bend.
By Friday, you knew what time his crew reached the back nine.
Jack knew when you made your final round.
Robby knew neither of those things.
You preferred to keep it that way.
That afternoon, you pulled alongside the maintenance cart and found Jack alone, loading tools into the back.
Jack glanced toward the beverage cart.
“You’re almost done,” Jack observed.
You rested your arms across the steering wheel.
“You memorized my schedule?” you asked.
Jack placed a wrench inside the toolbox.
“You drive past me four times a day,” Jack replied.
“That wasn’t my question,” you pointed out.
Jack closed the toolbox and looked at you.
“You’re almost done,” Jack repeated.
You smiled despite yourself.
“In twenty minutes,” you answered.
Jack leaned one hand against the side of your cart.
“Robby closes tonight,” Jack said.
“I know,” you replied.
Jack held your gaze.
“I can take you back,” Jack offered.
You looked down at the cash box and straightened the bills inside it.
“You could leave when your shift ends,” you said.
Jack’s fingers tapped once against the cart.
“I could,” Jack agreed.
You lifted your eyes to his.
“But you’re going to wait?” you asked.
Jack’s mouth curved.
“Looks that way,” Jack replied.
You pressed your lips together, trying to hide your smile.
“You’ll be waiting twenty minutes,” you warned.
Jack picked up the toolbox.
“I know,” Jack said. “I’ll be out front.”
You pressed the accelerator before your smile could become humiliating.
Twenty minutes later, you stepped through the employee entrance and found Jack waiting beside the Jeep.
He had showered.
That was the first thing you noticed.
His grounds-crew shirt was gone, replaced by a faded gray T-shirt and clean jeans. His dark curls were still damp, drying unevenly in the evening heat.
Jack pushed away from the driver’s door when he saw you.
“Ready?” Jack asked.
You adjusted the strap of your bag over your shoulder.
“You cleaned up,” you observed.
Jack glanced down at himself.
“I was covered in dirt,” Jack explained.
You looked at his damp hair.
“You washed your hair,” you pointed out.
Jack opened the passenger door.
“It was also covered in dirt,” Jack replied.
You tried not to smile as you stepped closer.
“Very thorough,” you said.
Jack rested one arm along the top of the open door.
“I take hygiene seriously,” Jack told you.
You climbed into the Jeep and placed your bag at your feet.
“I’m learning so much about you,” you replied.
Jack’s mouth curved.
He closed your door, walked around the hood, and climbed behind the wheel.
The Jeep rolled away from the country club with the windows down and warm evening air moving through the open cabin.
You settled into the passenger seat as Jack turned onto the familiar road toward the cabin.
For several minutes, neither of you said much.
Jack drove one-handed, his wrist loose over the steering wheel.
You tried not to notice his forearm.
You failed.
Jack reached the intersection that led back to the cabin.
Then he drove straight past it.
You looked over your shoulder at the disappearing turn.
“You missed it,” you told him.
Jack kept his attention on the road.
“I know,” Jack replied.
You turned toward him.
“Where are we going?” you asked.
Jack shifted his hand along the steering wheel.
“There’s a carnival at the boardwalk,” Jack explained. “I thought we could get something to eat.”
You stared at him for a moment.
“The carnival?” you repeated.
Jack glanced toward you.
“Unless you’d rather go back and wait for Robby to bring home bar food,” Jack added.
You felt warmth rise into your cheeks.
“The carnival sounds better,” you decided.
Jack’s gaze lingered on your face before returning to the road.
“Good,” Jack said.
You looked through the windshield before he could see your smile deepen.
Neither of you called it a date.
Jack had not asked you on one.
You had not agreed to one.
But he had showered, changed his clothes, waited for your shift to end, and driven straight past the turn home.
It was a date.
And you were already wondering whether he planned to kiss you.
divider by: @cafekitsune & @strangergraphics
word count: 7.6k
synopsis: Paul Lahote was born to hate vampires. Unfortunately for him, the universe had other plans.
a/n: I have finally wrote something after over a month! A little different from my usual fandoms but I've been feeling nostalgic lately.
You always found the steady drizzle of the Pacific Northwest to be comforting. But after three centuries of wandering the earth as a nomad, a quiet exhaustion had settled deep into your cold bones. Lately, life had become entirely lacklustre. Staring out at the monotonous, heavy grey skies and the permanently drenched terrain, the magic of the endless forest had faded. Everything mostly just felt damp and dreary.
As a nomadic vampire, you didn't belong to a coven. You preferred the absolute freedom of the open road, answering to no one but yourself, though you shared the strict "vegetarian" lifestyle of your "cousins," the Cullens and the Denalis. Because you chose to abstain from human blood, you occasionally dropped by the rainy town of Forks to hunt the abundant wildlife and exchange pleasantries with Carlisle and Esme, who always welcomed you with open arms.
But even a welcome guest had to respect the rules. Because of the ancient treaty established between the Cullens and the local shape-shifters, you knew the exact layout of the boundary lines down to the millimetre. You stayed strictly on the Cullen side of the Hoh River whenever you came to visit, and you never tried to push your luck. You had lived for three hundred years by being smart, and poking a pack of giant wolves was never on your itinerary.
Until this particular grey afternoon.
You had been tracking a particularly meaty mountain lion for miles, the thrill of the chase briefly cutting through your dark, existential boredom. The large cat was fast, and the adrenaline of the hunt sent you tearing through the brush, matching its speed stride for stride. But your excitement had made you careless. The chase pushed you entirely too close to the treaty line, and just as you braced your legs to spring and make the kill, the mountain lion panicked. It bolted straight across the invisible border line, disappearing into the forbidden Quileute territory.
You skidded to a sudden halt right at the edge of the tree line, the damp earth groaning under the sudden force of your boots. Your bright topaz eyes, glowing with the hunger of a vegetarian vampire who hadn't fed in days, tracked your escaped meal as it vanished completely into the dense, foggy thicket of the reservation.
You let out a long, irritated sigh, crossing your arms tightly over your chest. As hungry as you were, you weren't about to instigate a problem over a snack. Carlisle would be disappointed, and honestly, you just didn't want to deal with the headache of fighting off a pack of wolves.
But just as you turned on your heel, preparing to leap back into the mossy canopy and find another trail, the heavy air shifted.
The wind blew from the west, and a sudden, overwhelming scent hit you like a physical blow. It was thick, intoxicating blend of woodsmoke, crushed cedar, and the distinct, muskiness of a wet dog. It was a smell so strong, it was nearly overwhelming, making your long dead heart give a strange, phantom twitch.
Before your brain could even fully process the frantic, heavy snapping of thick branches, the underbrush exploded.
A massive, silver-grey wolf burst from the thicket, its colossal paws tearing up the damp earth as it skidded to a violent halt just feet away from you, right at the precipice of the treaty line. The beast was easily the size of a horse, its powerful muscles bunching beneath a thick coat of silver fur. Its dark lips were pulled back in a vicious, terrifying snarl, exposing a row of razor-sharp, dagger-like teeth. A lethal, vibrating growl rumbled deep within its chest, a sound so low and resonant that it caused the small pebbles by your boots to tremble against the dirt.
You didn't flinch or stumble back, like most would when faced with such a creature. You were a three-hundred-year-old vampire; fear wasn't really a concept that existed in your emotional vocabulary anymore. Instead of fleeing, you merely tilted your head to the side, your bright topaz eyes sweeping over the creature with genuine, unbothered fascination.
So, the shape-shifter legends Carlisle mentioned are actually real, you thought to yourself, a spark of true interest finally breaking through the dull boredom that had plagued you for years.
You knew, conceptually, that beneath the wild, predatory exterior of the animal laid a human man. But looking at the wolf before you, you couldn't deny that he was truly majestic, a perfect specimen of raw nature and power. As your awe-struck, curious gaze lifted to meet his, you watched a sudden, inexplicable shift overtake the beast.
The wolf froze instantly, locking up as if he had been turned to solid stone.
The low, menacing growl died abruptly in his throat, cutting off into a sudden silence. The fierce, dark eyes dilated so completely that the irises nearly swallowed the whites. The massive beast stumbled backward a step, his front legs buckling slightly beneath his weight as if he had just taken a physical, crushing blow directly to the center of his chest. He stared at you, his chest heaving with shallow, ragged breaths. Even trapped in a wolf's form, he was particularly expressive, and you watched in utter fascination as the blinding, lethal hostility completely melted away, replaced by a look of profound, paralyzed shock.
You raised a single, perfect eyebrow, entirely unaware of the ancient, cosmic magic taking place right in front of you. You had no idea that the universe had just snapped its fingers, or that this boy’s entire world had just re-centered itself around the very breath in your lungs. You just thought he looked incredibly confused.
"Did I break a rule just by looking across the river, puppy?" you asked, breaking the heavy silence. Your voice came out as a smooth, melodic, if not slightly taunting purr, that rang clearly through the damp forest air.
The sound of your voice seemed to snap the wolf out of his trance instantly. A violent, chaotic shudder ripped through his massive frame from head to tail, his fur bristling in a sudden panic. He gave you one final, deeply conflicted glare before he whirled around with a desperate burst of speed, tearing back into the deep woods and vanishing into the fog as quickly as he had arrived.
You stood alone at the riverbank for a moment, listening to the distant, frantic thudding of his heavy paws fading into the distance.
"Well," you muttered softly to yourself, a slow, entertained smirk finally tugging at the corners of your cold lips as you looked back toward the empty tree line. "That was interesting."
The moment Paul’s paws hit the damp earth in a frantic, desperate sprint, his mind exploded.
He was running blind, tearing through the thick underbrush of the Quileute forest, his powerful chest heaving as he tried to put as much distance as humanly possible between himself and the treaty line. Between himself and you.
But he couldn't run from his own head. The second his focus cracked, the pack telepathy slammed back into his consciousness, loud and overwhelming and too chaotic for Sam and Jared to make of.
“Paul?! What the hell is going on? Paul, answer me!” Jared’s voice echoed in his mind, sharp with sudden panic.
Paul didn't answer. He couldn't. His thoughts were a chaotic, swirling vortex of images he couldn't control, and because of the pack bond, Sam and Jared were seeing every single one of them.
Through Paul’s eyes, they saw the flash of flawless skin. They saw the curtain of hair catching the dim forest light, the impossibly graceful tilt of a head, and worst of all, the striking, brilliant glow of topaz eyes.
“Is that... a leech?!” Jared shouted mentally, his thoughts recoiling in disgust. “Paul, did a bloodsucker cross the line? Did you fight—?”
“No!” Paul roared back in his mind, a deafening, mental snarl that made Jared wince within the bond.
“Then why does your head feel like it’s imploding? Let me see, Paul,” Sam commanded, pushing past Paul’s chaotic mental walls.
Sam didn't just see the memory; he felt the echo of what had happened to Paul the exact millisecond his eyes had locked onto the vampire. The sudden shift of Paul's universe. The way the gravity of the earth had suddenly detached from the center of the world and re-anchored itself entirely to a beautiful, cold monster standing across the river.
The telepathic link went dead silent.
“Oh shit,” Jared breathed, his voice dropping into a shocked, hushed whisper. “Oh, man. No way. Paul…”
“It’s not happening!” Paul screamed internally, his paws digging viciously into the mud as he pushed himself to run faster, trying to outrun the literal laws of physics. “It’s a mistake! She’s a parasite! She’s dead! I don't—I don't feel anything!”
But he was lying, and the pack knew it. They could feel the terrifying, absolute devotion that had just taken root in Paul's soul. They could hear the echo of her voice ringing in his head like a beautiful chime, “Did I break a rule just by looking across the river, puppy?” and they could feel the agonizing, furious heat of Paul’s humiliation and desire.
“Paul, calm down. Come to the clearing by the old mill,” Sam ordered, his mental voice surprisingly gentle now, filled with a heavy sympathy that only made Paul angrier. “We need to talk about this.”
“Get out of my head!” Paul snarled mentally, severing his conscious thoughts from them as best as he could, locking himself behind a wall of pure, unadulterated rage.
He didn't go to the mill. Instead, he tore toward a secluded, deeply wooded ravine near his house where he knew he’d be alone. His silver-grey form was a blur of frantic motion until he finally collapsed into a dense thicket of ferns, his massive body trembling violently.
A choked, human sound forced its way out of the wolf’s throat. With a horrific, echoing crack of shifting bones, Paul forced himself to change back—a feat that nearly surprised him considering how volatile his emotions currently were. His body convulsed, muscles snapping and reshaping, fur retreating into skin until he was lying face-down in the wet dirt, entirely human, gasping for air as if he had been drowning.
He dragged himself up against the trunk of a massive cedar tree, still shivering—not from the cold, but from the raw, terrifying power of the imprint. He reached into a hollow in the tree roots, pulling out a pair of beaten-up denim shorts he kept cached there, shaking as he pulled them on.
His skin was burning hot, a fever pitching through his blood. He buried his face in his hands, his fingers gripping his short, dark hair so tightly his scalp ached.
He could still smell you. Even miles away, the scent of the forest seemed completely devoid of meaning compared to the memory of her. He could still see her perfect, mocking smile, could still hear that slightly taunting purr that had completely dismantled his entire existence in a matter of seconds.
"Damn it," Paul choked out into the empty forest, his voice shaking with a mix of fury and absolute helplessness. He slammed his fist into the dirt, leaving a deep crater. "Damn it, no."
He was a protector of his tribe. He was meant to hunt the cold ones, to rip them to shreds and burn the pieces. He was Paul Lahote, the pack's muscle, the one who hated them most.
And now, by some sick, cosmic joke, his soul belonged to a leech.
Two days later, you found yourself lounging on a thick, mossy branch near the treaty line, idly tossing a pinecone up and down in your pale hand. Ever since you had encountered the massive silver wolf, you had been dying to see him again. The lingering curiosity had been humming beneath your skin for forty-eight hours, until finally, the temptation was simply too much to resist.
You had only been waiting for about ten minutes when the sharp sound of approaching footsteps reached your ears. They were human steps, not the heavy, padded thuds of a four-legged beast, but the scent cutting through the rain was unmistakably the same—that scorching, intoxicating blend of woodsmoke, cedar and wet dog.
A few moments later, a tall, powerfully muscular boy stormed through the trees. He was wearing nothing but a pair of torn denim shorts despite the chilly Pacific Northwest rain, his bronze skin radiating a visible steam, due to his abnormally high internal temperature. His chest was heaving with erratic breaths, and his jaw was clenched so tight you could literally hear the bone grinding from twenty yards away.
Your head tilted much like it had the first time you saw him, but this time, you were studying his human form. He was remarkably handsome—not like vampires, who possessed a flawless, frozen perfection, but in a way that was entirely wild and rugged.
He stopped dead at the edge of the treaty line, glaring up at you in your tree with dark eyes full of fire.
"You," he spat, his voice dropping an octave into a gravelly, dangerous threat. "Leech."
The corners of your lips twitched into the ghost of a smirk, instantly amused by his explosive temper. "You must be the dramatic puppy from Tuesday," you said, your voice a smooth, melodic purr that drifted down from the canopy. "Are we jumping straight to pet names, or shall we make a proper introduction?"
He looked like he wanted to rip your head off right then and there, but beneath the mask of his fury, there was a bizarre, frantic desperation bleeding into his eyes that completely contradicted his aggressive posture.
"You need to leave," he commanded, his voice shaking with a strange, ragged intensity. "Leave Forks, leave Washington. Get out."
You leaned forward and leapt down from the branch, dropping through the damp air with absolute weightlessness. You landed soundlessly on your feet just inches away from him, separated only by the invisible boundary of the treaty line. Cocking your head, you met his blazing stare with an unbothered, glittering gaze.
"Why?" you asked, your tone light and conversational. "As far as I can see, I'm breaking no laws. I haven't hunted on your side, and Carlisle says I'm perfectly within my rights to be here."
"I don't care what Carlisle says!" he growled, the words tearing out of his throat.
A sudden tremor ran through his broad shoulders, and you felt the temperature in the small clearing instantly spike. The air around him grew incredibly hot, heavy with the suffocating warmth of a furnace as his body vibrated on the verge of a physical shift.
"You're a monster," he hissed, his chest heaving as he fought a losing battle against his own skin. "A parasite. You shouldn't exist, and you damn sure shouldn't be... shouldn't be doing this to me!"
Your brows furrowed slightly as you tried to piece together exactly what you could have done to him. Yet, absolutely nothing came to the forefront of your mind. He was the one who had hunted you down, after all. But naturally, seeing how easily he was unraveling, you decided to push his buttons.
“Well, that’s a little rude," you murmured, adjusting your stance and letting your lips form a perfect, exaggerated pout. "And here I thought this modern age was all about acceptance and inclusivity. Where are the manners, puppy?"
"Shut up!" he barked, the sound echoing like a gunshot through the quiet woods. His hands curled into tight, white-knuckled fists at his sides.
A dangerous, rhythmic ripple passed directly under his skin—the telltale sign of a shape-shifter on the precipice of exploding into a giant beast. The sheer heat radiating off him was making the damp mist around his bare chest evaporate into wisps of steam.
"Don't tempt me, leech," he threatened, his jaw locking so hard a muscle jumped in his cheek. "I'll tear you to pieces, treaty or no treaty."
"I'd love to see you try," you dared softly, stepping a fraction of an inch closer to the invisible boundary line.
You flashed him a dazzling, flawless vampire smile, your perfect teeth glinting like polished porcelain in the dim, grey light of the forest canopy. You let your eyes trail slowly down his trembling, muscular frame before bringing your gaze back up to lock with his burning stare.
"I haven’t had a good tussle in a while," you purred, a wicked, teasing spark igniting in your topaz eyes. "And you know, they say hate sex is particularly appealing after a brawl. I’d be more than interested to try it if you are. Being mortal, biological enemies would certainly make it an interesting night to remember, don't you think?"
Paul choked on his own breath, the dark bronze of his skin rapidly darkening into a furious, deep crimson at your shameless offer but unlike him you were centuries old, shame was also another thing no longer in your emotional vocabulary.
"You—you fucking psycho," Paul stammered, his gravelly voice cracking under the sheer weight of his humiliation. He stared at you, his eyes wide and completely unhinged by your shameless teasing. "You think this is a joke?"
"Oh, come now," you laughed, the sound a bright, chiming cadence that mocked the heavy gloom of the forest. You shifted your weight, leaning hip-first against a massive, moss-covered boulder right at the water's edge, entirely comfortable in your own skin. "Don't tell me a big, bad wolf is afraid of a little experimentation. I'm just offering a creative solution to all that pent-up aggression you're carrying around. If you’re gonna hate me, we might as well make it fun with some benefits.”
"Get bent," he spat, though his eyes involuntarily flicked down to your lips before snapping back up to your eyes with a look of pure self-loathing. He took a sharp step backward, away from the tempting, intoxicating scent of your proximity. "I'd rather eat glass, leech. Keep your disgusting, cold mouth away from me."
"Your loss, puppy," you chirped, giving him a little wave of your fingers. "But if you change your mind, you know exactly where to find me. Clearly."
Paul let out a final, furious yell of pure frustration, turned on his heel, and stormed back into the dense foliage. He kicked a rotting fir log so hard the damp wood exploded into a shower of splinters and moss, his heavy, angry stomps echoing through the valley until he finally phased somewhere deep in the reservation.
You leaned your back against a cedar tree, a breathless, musical laugh escaping your chest. He was a puzzle, an explosive, dangerously hot puzzle, and for the first time in three centuries, you found yourself entirely cured of your boredom.
Oh, yes. Poking the wolf was going to be an exceptional way to pass the time.
Over the next three weeks, your little routine escalated into what could be considered an art form.
You quickly learned that Paul Lahote—the name belonging to your delightfully angry wolf—possessed the shortest fuse of anyone you had ever encountered in your three hundred years of existence, with the singular, spine-chilling exception of Caius Volturi himself. But unlike the ancient, genocidal Italian ruler, Paul’s wrath was loud, expressive, and incredibly fun to provoke. You made it your personal mission to light that fuse as often as humanly possible, finding a wicked thrill in watching how quickly his composure could disintegrate under the weight of a single, well-placed taunt.
As the days blurred together, you weren't the only ones attending these strange, borderline theatrical standoffs. The other wolves—the stoic, deeply burdened Alpha, Sam Uley, and the taller, lankier one you’d come to know as Jared—started showing up in the brush occasionally. They never crossed the line, and they never spoke a single word to you, keeping their distance. Instead, they would stand just inside the Quileute tree line, watching Paul's explosive, vein-popping tantrums with expressions of deep, utterly exhausted sympathy. They looked at Paul the exact way a tired parent looks at a toddler having a meltdown in the middle of a crowded grocery store. More than once, as Paul's body would begin to violently blur on the precipice of an involuntary phase, Sam would step forward, placing a heavy, grounding hand on Paul's shaking shoulder. You could practically feel the invisible weight of the Alpha's command cutting through the air, forcing the younger boy to forcibly calm his racing blood before he caused a catastrophic, treaty-breaking international incident.
And then, of course, there was Paul himself.
Despite his endless growling for you to leave, his colourful vocabulary, and his daily, incredibly detailed promises to rip you to shreds and burn the pieces, he never missed a single day. Not once. You started testing him, purposely showing up ten or fifteen minutes late to your usual spot on the riverbank just to see what would happen. Without fail, every single time you delayed, you would find him already there, pacing the muddy bank of the opposite side like a caged wolf. His dark, wild eyes would be scanning the high mossy canopy with a frantic, almost desperate urgency, his chest heaving as if he were physically suffocating.
But the exact millisecond your feet touched the branch, the very moment his eyes locked onto yours, the change was staggering. The borderline manic panic tightly gripping his chest would visibly ease, his shoulders dropping a fraction of an inch as a heavy wave of relief washed over his features. A beat later, he would remember himself, instantly settling back into his usual, comfortable mask of defensive rage and snap an insult across the water to cover up his slip.
You weren't stupid. You were an old, highly perceptive predator who had survived three centuries by reading the hidden motives of both humans and monsters alike. You knew with absolute certainty that whatever was truly happening between the two of you, it wasn't just simple, straightforward hatred. There was a tether. A thick, invisible cord pulled completely taut across the rushing waters of the Hoh River, binding your cold, unmoving, timeless existence directly to his scorching, vibrant, and fiercely chaotic life force. You weren’t entirely sure of the exact terminology or the ancient magic behind it, but you knew with a supernatural certainty that it had everything to do with the nature of the wolf beneath his skin.
You probably could’ve asked Carlisle for some clarity, but Edward was currently throwing a massive fit because some human girl in town happened to be his bloodsinger. The whole ordeal was causing an absurd amount of tension throughout the entire Cullen house, so you had been giving them a wide berth while they sorted out their dramatic coven issues.
"You know, for someone who hates me, you sure spend a lot of time staring at my mouth," you teased one evening, sitting gracefully on a moss-covered boulder right at the edge of the river.
Paul, who had been pacing like a caged animal on the opposite bank, froze dead in his tracks. In the dimming twilight, you watched the dark bronze of his face flush a deep, dark red. "I'm watching your fangs, monster," he snapped, his voice rough and defensive. "Making sure you don't try anything."
"Mhm. Sure," you murmured, a playful hum vibrating in your throat. "But there's just one little problem with that, puppy. We don’t actually have fangs. As someone who hunts vampires, shouldn’t that be a fairly crucial detail for you to know?"
You teased him ruthlessly, shifting your weight to slide down from the boulder and move even closer toward the invisible boundary line. Your eyes locked onto the rhythmic trembling of his broad shoulders. "You're shivering, Paul. And definitely not from the cold."
"I don't get cold," he growled, though his chest gave a heavy heave as his breathing suddenly became shallow and restricted.
You tilted your head, looking at him properly this time. Really looking at him. Beneath the layers of explosive anger, the harsh, venomous words, and the desperate masculine bravado, you could see the sheer, crushing exhaustion etched into every line of his face.
The relentless desire to poke the wolf suddenly evaporated, completely replaced by a strange, foreign pang of genuine concern deep inside your cold, unbeating heart.
“Are you alright?” you asked softly.
Paul blinked, completely caught off guard by your sudden, drastic change in tone. The venom vanished from his eyes for a split second, and he looked down at the rushing water separating the two of you, his rigid shoulders sagging just a fraction before he caught himself. His jaw tensed immediately. “I’m fine.”
“I’m over three hundred years old, darling. I’m filled with life experiences," you scoffed playfully, trying to ease the heavy, suffocating tension that had settled over him. "I’m practically offering you free therapy right now."
Paul let out a sharp, bitter breath that wasn't quite a laugh, but it lacked his usual venom. He didn't look back up at you, keeping his eyes firmly glued to the swirling eddies of the river.
"I don't think you have a license for that," he muttered, his voice barely carrying over the sound of the water.
You watched him silently, your supernatural vision effortlessly picking up the subtle, persistent tremor in his hands and the way the muscles in his neck were strained to the point of snapping. The teasing, lighthearted facade you usually wore around him began to feel inappropriate, slipping away to reveal the ancient, deeply observant creature beneath. You stepped right up to the very edge of the riverbank, the damp earth shifting slightly under your weight, your perfect posture loosening into something genuinely receptive.
"No license, but I have an infinite amount of time on my hands," you said softly, your voice cutting through the damp forest air like a soothing melody. "Come on, Lahote. What's eating you? Besides me, obviously."
Paul's jaw worked. For a tense second, you thought he was going to turn on his heel, shatter another log, and storm away into the fog like he usually did when his emotions overwhelmed him.
"I don't need therapy from a leech," he grumbled, though the insult felt half-hearted, lacking any real sting. It was an instinctual shield, a habit he was clinging to because he didn't know what else to do.
"Suit yourself," you said, crossing your arms and leaning your hip against a sturdy birch tree. "But 'fine' doesn't usually involve looking like you haven't slept since the turn of the century."
He lifted his head, his dark eyes burning into yours with a sudden intensity that made your playful banter die instantly on your tongue. The defensive anger was still there, but it was incredibly thin, cracking open right before your eyes to reveal the staggering weight he was carrying underneath.
The truth was, Paul’s life was a chaotic storm, and he was completely drowning in it.
When the shape-shifter gene had finally activated in his blood a few months ago, it had felt like an explosion. Out of the three shifters currently running the forests of La Push, Paul had supposedly taken to the wolf the easiest. Where Sam and Jared had deeply struggled with having to abruptly cut off and ignore the people in their lives to keep the tribal secret, Paul didn’t have that struggle. Phasing into a massive, silver-grey beast felt almost natural to him because he had spent his entire life carrying a baseline of nuclear-level rage. To Sam and Jared, he appeared to effortlessly embrace the unbridled, primal power of the spirit-warrior.
But the reality was a living nightmare. He was a teenage boy who had been abruptly stripped of his normalcy, forced into a supernatural pack bond that offered absolutely zero privacy. Every dark thought, every flash of insecurity, and every bitter memory of his failures was broadcast directly into the minds of his pack mates whenever they were in wolf form.
In truth, inheriting a sacred tribal legacy didn't magically erase the wreckage of his human life. It only magnified it.
His home life was its own quiet, miserable war zone. His father was a deeply bitter, abusive drunk—a man who spent his days drowning his own failures in cheap whiskey and his nights taking his frustrations out on whatever, or whoever, was within arm's reach. Before Paul phased, he had spent years taking those hits, absorbing the venom and building up a dark reservoir of hatred that threatened to swallow him whole. Now that he was a protector, now that he possessed the supernatural strength to tear a car in half with his bare hands, the dynamic at home had become a precarious tightrope. Every time his father stumbled home, slurring and swinging, Paul had to physically lock his entire body down. He would grip the edges of the kitchen counter until the wood threatened to snap beneath his fingers, utterly terrified that if he lost his temper for even a fraction of a second, he would accidentally murder his own father.
Because of that suffocating terror, he barely spent any time at home anymore. He practically lived on the run from his own house, taking refuge at Sam and Emily's place just to have a safe haven. On the nights when the shame and embarrassment of overstaying his welcome grew too heavy, he wouldn't even stay in a house at all; he would sleep out in the dirt and the damp woods as a wolf, letting the wild weather numb him.
He was entirely, utterly exhausted. He was so tired of the total lack of privacy between him and the pack, so tired of the lingering trauma of his childhood, and deeply weary of carrying the thankless burden of protecting a tribe that ultimately viewed him and the other boys as nothing but delinquent, good-for-nothings. He was a walking powder keg, and his hair-trigger temper felt like a bomb ticking away in his chest, waiting for the spark that would blow his entire world to pieces.
And then, to make a total mockery of his entire existence... there was you.
Paul ran a rough hand over his face, pushing his damp, dark hair away from his forehead. He looked at you—at your perfect face, the gentle curve of your mouth, and the bright gold of your eyes. He stared at how you seemed to stand so peacefully across the river, utterly unaffected by the biting rain, the freezing cold, or the crushing misery of the modern world. You were a creature of frozen grace, a timeless masterpiece carving a quiet space into his chaotic nightmare.
He hated how much he needed to be near you. He loathed the primal desperation that gripped his throat every single hour he spent away from this riverbank. But more than anything, he hated the terrifying truth that the endless, agonizing thoughts in his head—the fury at his father, the pack's telepathic intrusion, the burden of the tribal legacy— completely stopped the moment he was right here, standing across a river from a creature he had been born to kill. Your presence was an oasis of escape in his loud, violent world.
"You don't get it," he muttered, his jaw tightening so hard the bone beneath his bronze skin looked sharp enough to cut. He looked down at his own trembling hands, watching them clench and unclench into tight fists as if he were trying to physically hold his sanity together.
"I'm supposed to hate you," he whispered, his voice cracking violently under the staggering weight of the confession. He didn't look up, his gaze glued to his hands. "I try so hard to hate you. I can't sleep. I can't think. Every time I close my eyes, my head is full of your voice, your face, your stupid, mocking smile. I’m supposed to want to rip you to pieces. I’m supposed to want to kill you. Instead, I’m spending every single second of my day fighting my own body, making sure I don't cross this goddamn river just to be near you. It's making me lose my mind."
You stared at him, your ancient mind rapidly recontextualizing every single interaction you’d had over the last three weeks. The pacing, the panic when you were late, the heavy, sympathetic looks from Sam and Jared. You knew there was some kind of bond, but you didn’t realize how hard it had been on him. You didn’t know it was an all consuming need that his biology had forced upon him, and he was tearing himself apart trying to fight it.
A heavy, suffocating silence descended on the riverbank, save for the wild, rushing water churning over the jagged rocks below. For the first time in three hundred years of wandering the earth, through every empire you had seen fall and every coven you had seen break, you felt completely, utterly speechless. The wit that usually defined you, the clever, taunting armour you wore to keep the lacklustre world at bay, dissolved into nothingness.
"Paul..." you started, your voice barely louder than a whisper, stripped entirely of its usual taunting edge.
"Don't," he choked out, his fists clenching tight at his sides. He looked at you one last time, a look of profound defeat and agonizing longing warring on his rugged features, before he turned sharply and vanished back into the shadows of the Quileute woods.
You stood entirely frozen, staring at the empty tree line as the first heavy droplets of a gathering storm began to fall through the canopy, the cold rain washing over you as the echo of his confession rang in your ears.
"Paul..." you started, your voice barely louder than a whisper, carrying a soft, aching weight you hadn't felt in centuries.
"Don't," he choked out, his fists clenching so tight that his entire body began to tremble with that dangerous, pre-shifting heat. He lifted his head and looked at you one last time—a look of profound defeat, raw exposure, and agonizing, heartbreaking longing warring on his rugged features—before he turned sharply on his heel. With a desperate burst of speed, he vanished back into the deep, unforgiving shadows of the Quileute woods.
You stood entirely frozen, your immortal body locking into the stillness of stone as you stared at the empty tree line. The silence of the forest rushed back to fill the void he left behind, and the first heavy, freezing droplets of a gathering storm began to pierce through the high canopy, splashing unnoticed against your cold skin.
The turning point came on a night when the storm was loud enough to drown out the very sound of the forest. Thunder clapped in deafening, rolling waves, and the rain fell in thick sheets, blurring the world into a chaotic haze of grey and green. You were hunting a few miles out, tracking a deer, when the air suddenly carried something that made your entire body lock up—blood. Intoxicating, heavy, human blood, followed instantly by the sweet scent of a rogue vampire having moved through the area.
Your predatory instincts flared, but it wasn't hunger that seized you despite how tempting the human blood smelled. It was a cold, paralyzing jolt of panic. As you tore through the woods, tracking the fast-moving scent trail, you realized with growing horror that the vampire had already went straight across the Hoh River. The nomad had most likely attacked the hiker directly onto Quileute land.
And your very first, consuming thought went to Paul.
You crossed the river without a second thought, your feet barely skimming the rushing water as you launched yourself deep into the forbidden territory, driven by a desperate, frantic need to ensure he was safe.
By the time you burst into the hidden clearing, the brutal reality of the hunt was already unfolding. The human hiker was gone, likely fled or worse, but the clearing was a battleground. A massive, silver-grey wolf was locked in a horrific, snarling grapple with the red-eyed nomad. They were a blur of teeth and claws, tearing up the mud, but the rogue had gained the upper hand, pinning the giant wolf beneath his weight. In his pale, stone-like hand, the nomad gripped a heavy, jagged rock, raising it high and aiming it straight for the wolf's eye with lethal force.
A primal, deafening screech tore from your throat. You didn't think. You just launched your body across the clearing, tackling the rogue vampire off of Paul a split second before the rock could descend. The blinding velocity of your collision threw the nomad violently through the air, sending him crashing into a massive, ancient cedar tree with a force that cracked the thick trunk right down the middle.
Before the nomad could even hit the ground, you dropped into a low, lethal crouch directly in front of Paul. Your clothes were soaked, your posture was entirely feral, and your topaz eyes seemed to shine in the darkness as you shielded the silver wolf with your own body.
"Don't touch him," you hissed, the words vibrating with a venomous, unyielding threat that rang clearer than the storm.
The nomad scrambled to his feet, rubbing his chest where you had struck him. He straightened up to his full height, his dark crimson eyes darting from your protective stance to the panting, bleeding wolf behind you. A look of profound, sickening disgust contorted his pale features.
“You’re defending a mutt from your own kind?” he spat, his voice laced with utter disbelief.
Behind you, Paul let out a low, ragged rumble. He was struggling to push himself up, his heavy paws slipping in the slick, blood-stained grass. You could feel the intense, furnace-like heat radiating from his massive body, practically baking the skin of your back. Even injured, his instinct was to push past you, to put himself between the danger and his imprint. But you didn't give him an inch. You stood like a wall of solid marble, unyielding and fierce.
The rogue nomad narrowed his red eyes, assessing the situation. He looked at the cracked cedar tree, then at your lethal posture, and finally at the massive silver-grey beast snarling behind you. He was fast, but he wasn't stupid. He was outnumbered, outmatched, and facing a vampire who looked entirely ready to tear him limb from limb.
“Disgusting parasite,” the nomad hissed, backing up a step into the shadows of the ferns. “You’re a disgrace to our kind.”
With a sudden, fluid movement, the rogue whirled around and launched himself high into the canopy, vanishing into the blinding sheets of rain as he fled, tearing away from the reservation.
You pulled your phone out of your pocket, your cold fingers moving with supernatural speed to send a quick text to Jasper. You gave him a brief heads-up on the runner's description and where he seemed to be headed, knowing with absolute certainty that the Cullens would handle the rest. They wouldn’t want dangerous rogues hunting anywhere near their territory and drawing unnecessary human attention.
Silence descended on the woods, save for the heavy, laboured panting of the giant wolf behind you.
You turned around slowly, your vampire grace suddenly feeling incredibly clumsy. Paul was already shifting back, the gruesome, rapid sound of cracking bones echoing in the quiet night. He quickly pulled a pair of shorts from a hidden cache in a hollow tree and stepped into them.
You waited for him to yell at you. Your cold muscles tensed as you stood your ground, bracing for the inevitable explosion. You had broken the treaty. You had crossed the river. By all rights and laws of his tribe, he could try to kill you right now.
Instead, Paul walked right up to you. The anger that usually defined him was completely gone, replaced by a fierce, burning intensity. He stopped inches from you, his body heat radiating off him like a furnace, pushing away the damp chill of the night.
"You crossed the line," he whispered.
"He was going to take your eye out, Paul," you said defensively, crossing your arms over your chest as your chin tilted up to meet his gaze. "I couldn't just stand across the river and watch."
You looked at him, truly looked at him, and for the first time in three centuries, you felt a lump form in your throat. You swallowed hard, a purely human reflex that you hadn't needed in a regular conversation for a very long time, and shifted your gaze away from his. You couldn't bear the raw, bleeding exposure in his eyes. There was something about this shape-shifter, something about the searing warmth of his presence and the terrifying depth of his devotion, that made you feel human again. It was a feeling you had thought lost to time, a dangerous, beautiful spark breaking through the timeless numbness of your nomadic life.
“I broke your law," you murmured quietly, the words feeling heavy and hollow on your tongue. "If you want me to leave Forks and never come back… I will.”
It was all he’d been yelling at you to do since the exact moment you two had met. For three weeks, he had growled, demanded, and threatened you to disappear, and you were finally offering him exactly what he wanted on a silver platter. You figured that maybe with you gone, he might finally get some peace of mind.
The silence that followed your offer was deafening, stretching out between you even as the thunder rumbled overhead and the heavy rain continued to batter the ancient canopy. You kept your eyes trained on the muddy ground, watching the steam rise off his bare feet where they sank into the earth. You were bracing for the relief you expected to feel from him, the agreement that he wanted you gone.
But the relief never came. Instead, the air between you grew impossibly hotter, thick with a sudden, sharp spike of panic that was so potent you could practically taste it.
Paul felt his chest gave a sharp, violent heave, a ragged breath tearing out of his throat as if your words had physically struck him.
Instead, what you expected never came, he reached out. His large hand was trembling slightly, as he slowly, hesitatingly, rested his warm, calloused palm directly against your cold, wet cheek.
You gasped, a phantom shudder ripping through your unmoving veins. Your eyes snapped back up to his, wide and startled. His skin felt like liquid fire against your ice, a contrast so sharp, it nearly felt as if you were being burned, but it didn't hurt. In fact, it made you feel undeniably, beautifully alive. For three hundred years, you had walked the earth feeling nothing but the same boring cycle of a world that couldn't touch you. But right now, under the pressure of his hand, your entire universe shrank down to the singular point of his warmth.
“No. I’ve been an asshole to you," Paul muttered, his voice cracking as he forced the words past the tight knot in his throat. His dark eyes searched yours with an open, bleeding sincerity that laid him entirely bare. His thumb moved slowly, gently tracing the smooth, porcelain line of your cheekbone, wiping away the cold raindrops. "Every single day since I met you, I've done nothing but scream at you. I called you a monster. I called you a leech. And you just crossed the treaty line and risked your life to save mine."
Looking up at him now—completely exposed, completely stripped of the defensive, hot-headed bravado he used to shield himself from the wreckage of his life—the familiar, playful spark finally flickered back into your topaz eyes. You couldn't help it. The wit was your defence mechanism, your own way of handling the terrifying weight of what seemed to be blooming between you two.
"I told you before, Lahote," you whispered, your voice a soft, melodic purr that leaned into his warm touch just a fraction of an inch. "I like poking the wolf. I can't exactly let a rogue nomad break my favourite toy."
A breathless, genuine laugh broke from Paul's lips—the first real, untainted sound of amusement you had ever heard from him. It made his eyes crinkle at the corners, the harsh, severe lines of his face softening into something so breathtakingly handsome it made your dead heart ache.
"You are infuriating, you know that?" he murmured, the corners of his mouth lifting into a small, wry smile as he leaned his head down, resting his forehead gently against yours. Ice met fire in the middle of the dark, rain-slicked forest, and for the first time, there was no war.
"I've been told I have a certain charm," you replied softly, your pale, slender hands tentatively rising to rest against his bare, broad chest. Beneath your palms, you could feel the frantic, heavy thumping of his heart, a rapid, fiercely alive rhythm that seemed to echo in the empty space of your own chest.
"Yeah," Paul sighed, closing his eyes as he finally let go of the anger, the guilt, and the fear that had been tearing him apart for weeks. He wrapped his strong, trembling arms securely around your waist, pulling your cold body flush against his furnace-warm chest and you couldn’t help but relax into him. He held you like you were the only solid thing left in a world that was constantly shifting beneath his feet. "Maybe you do."
The storm raged on around you, the thunder shaking the earth and the rain washing the blood from the clearing, but as you stood there in the forbidden territory, wrapped in the arms of the boy who had been born to kill you, the dull grey of the world finally began to fade away.
summary: After years of silence and carefully maintained distance, nothing has ever truly changed between you and your ex-husband - Dr. Jack Abbot. You’ve mastered the art of civility, keeping the past buried beneath routine shifts and professional courtesy. But when a long-forgotten connection begins to surface, both of you are forced to confront what you left unresolved years ago.
tags: +18, SMUT, NSFW, divorcees, lovers to enemies to lovers, cheating, mutual pining, fluff, widowed jack abbot, age gap (undefined)
MAIN MASTERLIST | AO3 | WATTPAD
CHAPTER INDEX:
chapters 1-16 available only on ao3 and wattpad
chapter 17, chapter 18, chapter 19
Summary: Jack wins by one point. Unfortunately, he knows exactly what to do with it.
Warnings: 18+ only, minors dni, explicit sexual content, unprotected sex, birth control mention, oral sex, fingering, overstimulation, praise, teasing, consensual control, “do what the winner says” dynamic, check-ins, no condom by mutual choice, emotional vulnerability, first “I love you,” Jack being devastatingly patient, Reader being a menace, academic rivals to lovers, established relationship.
Author's Note: Alternate ending because Jack winning by one point deserved its own consequences.
For one second, you only saw numbers. Your score. His score.
Then your brain did the math.
One point. One. Single. Perfect. Point.
Jack beat you by one point.
Your mouth fell open.
Jack looked at the papers. Then at you. Very slowly.
You inhaled.
A long, slow inhale.
Then another one.
Jack watched you carefully.
You nodded once. “Okay.”
His brow lifted. “Okay?”
You folded your receipt with extreme precision. “I am going to be very mature about this.”
Jack’s mouth barely moved. “Are you?”
“Yes,” you said.
His eyes stayed on yours. “That sounded mature.”
“Thank you,” you said.
You creased the receipt again. Very carefully.
Very aggressively.
Because Jack would be good about it.
That was the problem.
If you had won, he would have sat there and let you gloat. He would have rolled his eyes, maybe. He would have made one dry comment about your lack of grace. But he would have smiled through it because he would have been proud of you.
Jack glanced at the receipt in your hand. “You’re folding that very hard.”
You looked down.
The receipt was already creased into a tiny, furious square.
You looked back at him. “Respectfully.”
Jack’s mouth twitched.
You pointed at him. “Do not smile.”
“I’m not,” Jack said.
“You’re thinking about smiling,” you said.
“I’m thinking a lot of things,” he said.
Your pulse jumped.
That was worse.
You narrowed your eyes. “You won by one point.”
Jack glanced at his score again, then back at you. “I did.”
“The one point,” you said.
His mouth curved slowly. “Apparently.”
You stared at him.
You opened your eyes. “Congratulations.”
Jack went still.
Only slightly.
But you saw it.
His expression changed, the smugness easing into something softer.
You swallowed. “You did really well.”
Jack looked at you for a long second.
Then his voice came quieter. “So did you.”
Your throat tightened.
Jack set his schedule on the coffee table beside your aggressively folded receipt.
“Dinner choice,” Jack said.
Your eyes narrowed. “Don’t.”
“Movie choice,” he said.
You groaned. “Abbot.”
“Laundry,” Jack said.
You pointed at him. “I will fold everything badly.”
His mouth barely moved. “I know.”
Your breath caught when his gaze moved over you, slower now.
“And one night where the loser has to do what the winner says,” Jack said.
The air changed. Immediately. Your pulse jumped in your throat.
You swallowed. “Within reason.”
Jack’s eyes softened, but his voice stayed low. “Within reason.”
For a second, neither of you moved.
The bet had sounded dangerous before.
It sounded different now.
Because Jack had won.
Because he was looking at you like he had every intention of being patient.
Like he was already deciding exactly how to use that patience against you.
You lifted your chin. “You’re enjoying this too much.”
Jack stood from the couch. Slowly.
Your stomach flipped.
“I’m enjoying it the correct amount,” he said.
You stared at him. “That is not a real measurement.”
“It is now,” Jack said.
You narrowed your eyes. “Do not invent terminology while I’m vulnerable.”
His eyes warmed. “You don’t look vulnerable.”
“I am academically wounded,” you said.
Jack stepped closer. “You agreed to the terms.”
“I agreed under the assumption that justice existed,” you said.
His mouth barely moved. “That was your first mistake.”
You stared at him. “What was my second?”
Jack stopped in front of you, close enough that you had to tip your head back.
His hand lifted, slow enough that you could move away.
You did not.
His fingers touched your chin. Barely.
“Thinking I wouldn’t enjoy this,” Jack said.
Your breath caught.
Jack heard it.
His thumb moved once along your jaw. “Still okay?”
You nodded.
His gaze held yours. “Words.”
You swallowed. “Yes. I’m okay.”
His expression softened for half a second. Then his mouth curved.
“Good,” Jack said.
Your stomach dropped.
He knew exactly what he was doing.
You narrowed your eyes. “I hate you.”
Jack’s mouth barely moved. “No, you don’t.”
“No,” you admitted. “I don’t.”
For one second, he only looked at you.
Then his face changed.
Barely.
Like something had landed before he could stop it.
“I love you,” Jack said.
The apartment went quiet.
Your breath caught.
Jack went still.
Not like he was taking it back.
Like he had surprised himself with the timing and nothing else.
You stared at him. “You’re saying that now?”
His mouth twitched, faint and helpless. “Apparently.”
“I just lost,” you said.
“I know,” Jack said.
“I was aggressively folding a receipt,” you said.
“I noticed,” Jack said.
“I said I hated you,” you said.
“You corrected it,” Jack said.
A laugh broke out of you, sharp and disbelieving, and your eyes burned at the same time.
Jack’s hand slipped from your chin to your cheek. “Sorry.”
You shook your head quickly. “Don’t apologize.”
His expression steadied. “Okay.”
You looked at him, your heart beating too hard. “You love me?”
Jack’s eyes softened. “Yes.”
Oh.
Your lips parted, but nothing clever arrived in time to save you.
Jack did not push.
He just stayed there, hand warm against your cheek, eyes steady on yours, letting the words exist between you.
You stepped closer.
Jack’s breath caught.
You touched the front of his shirt, fingers curling lightly in the fabric.
“I love you too,” you said.
Jack went very still.
Then his hand slid around your waist, pulling you into him, and he kissed you.
Not carefully.
Not at first.
He kissed you like the words had broken something open in him.
Jack pulled back just enough to look at you.
His eyes were darker now. Softer too.
“Just to be clear,” you said, breathless, “I am still handling this maturely.”
Jack huffed a laugh and dropped his forehead briefly to yours. “Of course.”
“You won by one point,” you said.
“I did,” Jack said.
“You are being very calm about it,” you murmured.
His hand moved slowly at your waist. “I’m not calm.”
Your pulse jumped.
You swallowed. “No?”
Jack lifted his head. His eyes stayed on yours.
“No,” he said.
For a second, neither of you moved.
Then you touched his jaw. “So?”
Jack’s brow lifted slightly. “So?”
You tried to make your voice steady. “What are you going to do with your prize?”
His thumb moved once at your waist. Slow. Thoughtful. Terrible.
“Go put on my shirt,” Jack said.
Your pulse jumped.
You stared at him. “What?”
“The navy one,” he said.
Your breath caught.
The faded navy T-shirt.
The old battalion medic course shirt.
The one he had given you after the first night you slept together.
The one he remembered too.
“That’s your first demand?” you asked.
Jack’s mouth curved. “You complaining?”
“No,” you said.
His brows lifted slightly.
You lifted your chin. “I’m preparing.”
Jack’s gaze darkened. “For what?”
You stepped back, smiling now. Slowly. Dramatically. Dangerously.
“Defeat,” you said.
Jack watched you.
The corner of his mouth moved. Barely. But enough.
“My room after,” he said.
Your stomach dropped.
You tried to recover by narrowing your eyes. “That’s it?”
Jack’s eyes stayed on yours. “For now.”
You pointed at him. “I am handling this beautifully.”
His mouth curved. “Of course.”
“No commentary,” you said.
Jack stayed exactly where he was. “Wouldn’t dream of it.”
He absolutely would.
You turned and walked into your bedroom before he could see exactly how much his first command had gotten to you.
You changed in your room with the door mostly closed.
Not fully.
Mostly.
The faded navy T-shirt slipped over your shoulders, soft from age and too many washes, the cracked lettering stretched faintly across your chest.
It fell low on your thighs.
Loose enough to feel casual if you ignored the lace underneath.
You did not ignore the lace underneath.
Then you walked across the hall.
His door was open.
Jack was sitting on his bed, back against the wall, one knee bent, one leg stretched out.
Casual.
Relaxed.
Patient.
Then his eyes lifted to you.
And he stopped looking casual.
You leaned against the doorframe. “That is not fair.”
Jack’s brow lifted slightly. “What isn’t?”
You gestured at him. “That.”
His mouth barely moved. “Me sitting?”
“You sitting like that,” you said. “Like you didn’t plan this.”
Jack’s eyes stayed on yours. “I did plan this.”
Your breath caught.
He watched it happen.
You narrowed your eyes. “You are playing dirty.”
His mouth curved, slow and private. “I won.”
You hated how much that worked.
You hated it so much you stepped farther into the room.
Jack’s gaze dropped again. Briefly. Deliberately.
Then his eyes came back to yours.
“You put on the shirt,” he said.
You glanced down at yourself. “You told me to.”
“I did,” Jack said.
You shrugged a shoulder. “You didn’t specify pants.”
His jaw shifted.
You smiled.
Jack looked at you for one long second.
Then he lifted one hand from his thigh and held it out.
“Come here,” he said.
Your stomach flipped.
You walked to him slowly, with as much dignity as a person could have while wearing no pants and losing a bet.
When you reached the bed, Jack’s fingers closed around your hand.
Warm. Firm. Gentle enough to remind you that you could stop this at any second.
That almost made it worse.
His thumb moved once across your knuckles. “Still okay?”
You looked down at him. “Yes.”
Jack nodded once.
Then he pulled you closer.
You expected him to tug you into his lap.
You expected a kiss.
You expected slow, because that was the entire problem with Jack Abbot when he had time and permission and a point to prove.
Instead, he moved.
One second, you were standing between his knees.
The next, Jack had turned you onto your back against the mattress, one hand braced beside your head, the other at your waist, his body hovering over yours.
Not rough. Not careless.
Just immediate. Controlled. Certain.
Your breath left you all at once.
Jack looked down at you. His face was close enough now that you could see the warmth in his eyes beneath all that focus.
“You were saying?” Jack asked.
You stared up at him. “That was rude.”
His mouth curved. “Was it?”
“Yes,” you said. “I was being dignified.”
Jack’s hand moved slowly at your waist, thumb brushing the hem of the shirt. “Were you?”
“I was attempting dignity,” you corrected.
His eyes dropped to your mouth. “How was that going?”
“Beautifully,” you said.
Jack leaned down, stopping just before his mouth touched yours. “You’re lying.”
You swallowed. “You’re smug.”
“I won,” he said.
You opened your mouth to argue.
Jack kissed you before you could.
Slow.
Deep.
Devastatingly patient.
Like he had all night and every intention of making you feel each second of it.
At first, you let him.
Mostly.
His mouth moved over yours with maddening control, his hand still braced beside your head, his other hand low at your waist beneath the hem of his shirt. His thumb dragged once over your skin, and your whole body answered before you could stop it.
Your hips lifted. Just slightly. Enough to chase him. Enough to look for pressure.
Jack felt it immediately.
His mouth paused against yours.
You froze.
Jack lifted his head just enough to look down at you.
“You’re rushing,” he said.
Your breath came out unevenly. “I am responding.”
His mouth barely moved. “You’re rushing.”
You narrowed your eyes. “That sounds subjective.”
Jack’s hand moved from your waist to your hip, pressing you gently back into the mattress.
The pressure was not enough. That was the problem. It was nowhere near enough.
“Jack,” you said.
His eyes stayed on yours. “What?”
You swallowed. “You’re being difficult.”
“I won,” Jack said.
You sighed. “You keep saying that like it excuses everything.”
His thumb moved once over your hip. “Tonight it excuses a lot.”
Your pulse jumped.
You hated how much you liked that.
You reached for him.
Not even subtly.
Your fingers slid up his arm, searching for his shoulder, his neck, the back of his shirt, anything solid enough to pull him down where you needed him.
Jack caught your wrist before you got very far. Gently. Immediately.
Your breath caught.
His eyes did not leave yours.
“Hands up,” Jack said.
Your stomach flipped.
You stared at him. “What?”
He guided your wrist above your head and laid it against the pillow.
Not forced. Placed.
Like he was giving you time to decide if you wanted to leave it there.
“Both of them,” Jack said.
Your mouth went dry.
“You’re serious,” you said.
His gaze flicked over your face. “Yes.”
You lifted your other hand slowly and set it beside the first.
Jack’s eyes darkened. Just a little. Enough.
He wrapped his fingers around both of your wrists, holding them there with one hand while his other palm settled warm against your ribs beneath the shirt.
“These stay here,” Jack said, voice low, “until I say so.”
Your breath caught hard.
The room seemed to shrink around him. Around his hand. Around the weight of his body over yours.
“You’re enjoying this,” you whispered.
Jack’s thumb brushed once over the inside of your wrist. “Yes.”
Your stomach dropped.
The honesty hit worse than teasing would have.
Jack leaned down again, but he did not kiss your mouth.
He kissed the corner of your jaw instead.
Soft.
Then lower.
Your throat.
The place beneath your ear that made your fingers curl helplessly against the pillow.
You shifted beneath him.
Jack’s hand tightened lightly around your wrists.
Not enough to hurt.
Enough to remind.
You exhaled through your teeth.
Jack noticed.
His mouth moved lower, slow against the side of your neck, then to the hollow beneath your throat. He kissed you there once, open-mouthed and warm, before his teeth grazed lightly over your skin.
Your hips tried to lift again.
Jack pressed them down with his thigh.
You made a sound you would have denied under oath.
His mouth curved against your collarbone.
“Jack,” you said, strained.
He lifted his eyes without lifting his mouth. “What?”
“You are taking forever,” you breathed.
His gaze stayed steady on yours. “I know.”
You narrowed your eyes. “You know?”
“Yes,” Jack said.
Then he kissed lower.
Over the faded lettering on his own shirt.
The cracked navy fabric shifted beneath his mouth as he moved down your chest, kissing through cotton like the shirt itself deserved attention. Like he remembered exactly what it meant. Like seeing you in it had done something quiet and irreversible to him.
Your hands flexed above your head.
Jack saw that too.
“Keep them there,” he said.
Your breath hitched. “I am.”
His mouth brushed lower. “Good.”
You closed your eyes.
“That word,” you said.
Jack kissed the soft curve beneath your breast through the shirt. “What about it?”
“You’re weaponizing it,” you replied.
His hand slid from your ribs to your waist, pushing the shirt up slowly.
Inch by inch.
“Am I?” Jack asked.
You opened your eyes and glared down at him.
Or tried to.
It was difficult to glare at a man who was kissing your stomach like he had made a study of it.
“Yes,” you said.
Jack’s mouth touched bare skin just above your navel.
Your sentence disappeared.
He kissed there once.
Then again. Then lower. Slow enough to be cruel. Careful enough to make the cruelty feel like devotion.
Your back arched despite you.
Jack’s hand moved immediately to your hip, grounding you, holding you still while his mouth kept traveling lower.
“Jack,” you breathed.
He looked up from your stomach. “Still okay?”
Your hands curled into the pillow.
“Yes,” you said. “I’m okay.”
His eyes held yours for one steady second.
Then his mouth lowered again.
He kissed across your hip, over the edge of lace, then to the inside of your thigh.
Your knees shifted.
Jack’s hand slid to one of them, opening you wider with slow, patient pressure.
“You’re very quiet,” Jack said against your thigh.
You swallowed hard. “I am trying not to lose my mind.”
His mouth curved against your skin. “How’s that going?”
“Poorly,” you said.
Jack kissed higher.
You squirmed, and he stopped immediately.
You made a frustrated sound. “Why did you stop?”
Jack’s eyes lifted to yours. “You moved your hands.”
You looked up.
One of your hands had slipped halfway down the pillow.
Betrayal.
You put it back.
“There,” you said.
His gaze stayed on yours. “Thank you.”
That should not have worked.
It did.
Jack’s mouth moved higher again, dragging slow warmth along your thigh until your hips shifted, chasing anything he would give you.
His palm pressed flat to your lower stomach.
“Slow,” Jack said.
Your breath broke. “I can’t.”
“Yes, you can,” Jack said. “You’re going to let me take my time.”
Jack waited.
Of course he waited.
You swallowed. “Yes. I’ll let you take your time.”
His fingers hooked into the lace at your hip.
“Still okay?” Jack asked.
You nodded quickly. “Yes.”
His fingers stopped.
You swallowed. “Yes. I’m okay.”
Jack’s eyes stayed on yours. “Can I?”
“Yes,” you said. “Please.”
That did something to him.
You saw it in the slight shift of his jaw before he eased the lace down your legs with that same maddening patience.
When he settled between your thighs again, your breathing had already gone uneven.
His hands moved slowly up your legs until you let them fall open for him.
“Good,” Jack said quietly.
Your hands twisted in the pillow. “You’re doing it again.”
His eyes lifted. “Doing what?”
“You know what,” you said.
Jack kissed the inside of your knee. “Use your words.”
Your stomach flipped.
“You are impossible,” you said.
His mouth moved higher. “You said that already.”
“I meant it,” you said.
Jack’s smile brushed your thigh.
Then his mouth followed.
Slow.
Warm.
Higher.
Your breath caught hard when he finally kissed you where you wanted him.
Not enough.
Barely enough.
“Oh,” you breathed.
Jack’s hand slid over your hip, holding you down before you could chase more.
He looked up at you. “Hands.”
Your fingers had left the pillow again.
Barely.
Just enough.
You made a helpless sound and put them back.
Jack waited until both hands were above your head.
Then he lowered his mouth again.
This time, he did not stop at barely.
His tongue moved slow and deliberate, giving you just enough to make your back arch before he pulled back and kissed the inside of your thigh again.
Your breath broke.
Your fingers twisted in the pillow.
You kept them there.
Barely.
Jack’s eyes lifted to yours. “Good.”
The word hit low.
“Jack,” you said, voice breaking.
His mouth paused against your thigh. “What?”
You swallowed hard. “Please.”
Jack’s expression changed. “Please what?”
Your breath caught.
He knew.
Of course he knew.
“Please let me touch you,” you said.
Jack went still.
Then his mouth softened.
“Yeah,” Jack said. “You can touch me.”
Your hands left the pillow immediately.
Jack’s mouth curved. “Fast.”
“You said yes,” you said.
“I did,” Jack said.
Your fingers slid into his hair.
Finally.
His eyes closed for half a second like he had been waiting for that too.
Your chest pulled tight.
“Oh,” you whispered.
Jack opened his eyes. “What?”
You tugged lightly at his hair.
His breath changed.
Your pulse jumped. “You like that.”
Jack’s jaw shifted. “Yes.”
The honesty ruined you.
Completely.
Then his mouth lowered again.
This time, when your hands tightened in his hair, he let you keep them there.
He worked you slowly at first, patient enough to feel almost cruel, giving you just enough, then more, then more again.
A sound slipped out of you before you could stop it.
Jack paused just enough for you to feel the absence.
Your eyes opened. “No.”
His gaze lifted to yours. “No?”
Your fingers tightened in his hair. “Don’t stop.”
Jack’s mouth curved faintly against you. “Then don’t hide from me.”
Your breath caught hard.
Then his mouth returned.
You broke slowly after that.
A little more with every pass of his tongue, every careful press of his mouth, every sound he drew out of you and rewarded with more.
“Jack,” you said, breathless.
His hand flexed against your thigh.
So you said it again.
Softer this time. “Jack.”
His breath changed against you.
Then he gave you more.
Your back arched off the bed.
“There,” you gasped.
Jack’s hand moved to your stomach, pressing you back down with steady warmth while his mouth kept its rhythm.
You stopped trying to stay quiet.
You said his name again, then something less coherent, then his name once more.
“That’s it,” Jack said against you, voice rough. “Let me hear you.”
Your whole body clenched.
Your hands tightened in his hair. “Jack.”
“I’ve got you,” he said.
You believed him.
That was what did it.
Your breath broke.
“Jack,” you gasped.
His hand pressed flat against your stomach.
Steady.
Grounding.
There.
“Come for me,” Jack said.
You did.
Hard.
With his name caught in your mouth and your fingers locked in his hair, your body arching into his hold while he kept you exactly where he wanted you.
Jack did not stop immediately.
He worked you through it slowly, softer now, until you were shaking beneath him and tugging weakly at his hair.
“Jack,” you said, wrecked.
He lifted his head at once.
His mouth was soft.
His eyes were darker than before.
“Too much?” Jack asked.
You shook your head, still trying to remember how breathing worked.
His thumb moved once over your hip. “Words.”
You swallowed. “No. Not too much.”
Jack’s expression softened.
Then he kissed the inside of your thigh, gentle now.
“You are terrible,” you said.
Jack’s mouth curved against your skin. “You were very loud for someone having a terrible time.”
Your hand slipped from his hair to cover your face. “I hate you again.”
Jack kissed your hip. “No, you don’t.”
“No,” you said from behind your hand. “I don’t.”
Jack kissed your hip once more.
Then he pushed himself up slowly, moving over you again until his body covered yours and his face hovered above yours.
You lowered your hand from your face.
His eyes moved over you. Soft. Dark. A little wrecked now, despite all that control.
You liked that. Probably too much.
Jack brushed his thumb along your waist beneath the hem of his shirt. “Still with me?”
You exhaled. “Yes. I’m with you.”
Jack’s mouth curved faintly. “Good.”
Your eyes narrowed. “You are abusing that word.”
His mouth brushed yours. “I know.”
You kissed him before he could look too pleased with himself.
Jack let you.
For a second, he let the kiss turn hungry, let your hands slide from his hair to his shoulders, let your fingers grip the fabric of his T-shirt like you had been waiting all night for permission to touch him properly. Then you tugged once. Jack lifted his head.
Your fingers stayed twisted in his shirt. “Can I?”
His eyes searched yours. “Can you what?”
You pulled lightly at the hem. “Take this off.”
Jack went still for half a second. Not hesitation. Attention. Like the question mattered because you had asked it.
“Yeah,” Jack said. “You can.”
Your chest warmed.
You pushed at his shirt, and Jack sat back on his knees to help you drag it over his head. His hair caught in the collar for one ridiculous second, already mussed from your hands, and you almost smiled.
Almost.
Then the shirt cleared his head. And you forgot what was funny. Jack looked down at you from between your thighs, bare-chested now, his jeans low on his hips, his hair a mess, his mouth still soft from you.
Your throat went dry.
He noticed.
His brow lifted slightly. “Problem?”
You swallowed. “You are very annoying.”
Jack’s mouth barely moved. “That’s not what you were thinking.”
“No,” you said. “But it is what I’m willing to say out loud.”
His eyes warmed.
You sat up before he could answer, pushing yourself onto your knees in front of him. The movement brought you close enough that your shirt brushed his stomach.
His shirt. Still on you. Jack’s gaze dropped to the cracked lettering across your chest.
His jaw shifted once.
You saw it. You loved it.
Your fingers went to the button of his jeans. “Can I?”
Jack’s eyes returned to yours. “Yes.”
Your breath caught at how simple he made it.
No joke. No smug comment. Just yes.
You worked the button open, then the zipper, slower than necessary because his attention had gone quiet and focused in a way that made your pulse misbehave.
Jack did not stop you. He only watched.
When your fingers hooked into the waistband, you glanced up at him. “Still okay?”
Something in his expression softened.
Then his hand came up, brushing your hair back from your face with maddening tenderness.
“Yes,” Jack said. “I’m okay.”
You nodded.
Then you eased his jeans down.
Jack shifted to help you, careful and practical even now, lifting his hips when you needed him to, moving when you guided him. The prosthetic came next, handled with the same familiar privacy you had learned belonged to him and trusted you enough to share.
You did not make it a moment.
You did not look away like it was something to avoid.
You just helped him the way he let you. Steady. Quiet. Together.
Jack watched your face the whole time.
By the time he was bare beneath you, your breathing had changed again.
His had too.
You looked at him. “What?”
Jack shook his head once. “Nothing.”
You lifted your brows. “That was not nothing.”
His hand settled at your waist, thumb brushing the hem of his shirt. “I like watching you take care of me.”
Your chest tightened. That was unfair. Deeply unfair.
You looked down, because looking at him directly suddenly felt dangerous. “You won. I’m supposed to be doing what you say.”
Jack’s hand slid to your hip. “You are.”
You looked back at him. His eyes stayed on yours.
Then he shifted back against the pillows, stretching out beneath you like he had all the time in the world. Like he had not just said something that made your heart ache. Like he was not still completely in control.
You stared at him. “What are you doing?”
Jack settled one hand behind his head, the other resting low on your thigh. “Enjoying my win.”
Your stomach flipped.
“You’re lying down,” you said.
His mouth barely curved. “I noticed.”
You narrowed your eyes. “That does not look like enjoying your win.”
His hand tightened once on your thigh. Not hard. Enough.
“It will,” Jack said.
Your breath caught.
Then his gaze moved over you slowly.
“I want you on top,” Jack said.
Your breath stopped. For one second, you only stared at him.
Then your eyes narrowed. “That sounds like work.”
Jack’s gaze moved over you slowly. “You’re very capable.”
“I can barely hold myself up,” you said.
Jack’s hands settled at your hips. “I’ve got you.”
Your pulse jumped.
“That is not the point,” you said.
His mouth barely moved. “It’s part of the point.”
Oh.
Your breath caught.
“You planned this,” you said.
Jack’s eyes stayed on yours. “I won.”
You stared at him.
Then his hand slid up your thigh, slow and warm, stopping at your hip.
“I’m still going to make you go slow,” Jack said.
Your pulse jumped.
There it was. The win. The trap. The terrible, patient point of him.
You looked down at him, trying very hard to appear unaffected while wearing his shirt and no underwear in his bed.
“You are enjoying this,” you said.
Jack’s eyes stayed on yours. “Yes.”
Your fingers curled against your own thighs.
His gaze dropped to the movement.
Then lifted again.
“Come here,” Jack said.
Your breath came out unevenly. “You keep saying that.”
His mouth barely moved. “You keep listening.”
That was unfortunately true.
You moved over him, one knee on either side of his hips, careful as you settled your weight above him. Jack’s hands came to your thighs immediately, warm and steady, grounding you before you could even pretend you did not need it.
You looked down at him.
He looked up at you.
For one second, neither of you moved.
Then Jack’s thumb brushed over your hip beneath the hem of his shirt.
“Still okay?” Jack asked.
You nodded. “Yes.”
His brow lifted slightly.
You exhaled. “Yes. I’m okay.”
Jack’s expression softened.
Then his hands settled more firmly at your hips.
“Good,” he said. “Slow.”
Your breath caught.
Then his hand stilled. His eyes stayed on yours. “Condom?”
The word cut through the heat just enough to make you pause. You looked down at him, your hands braced lightly against his chest.
“I’m on the pill,” you said.
Jack’s expression did not change. “That wasn’t what I asked.”
Your throat tightened. Of course. Careful, even now. Especially now.
“I know,” you said.
His thumb moved once against your hip. “What do you want?”
You swallowed.
You could feel him beneath you. Warm. Still. Waiting. Not moving until you answered him.
“I want you,” you said.
Jack’s jaw shifted. “Without one?”
Your pulse jumped. You nodded.
His hands stayed exactly where they were. “Words.”
You exhaled. “Yes. Without one.”
Jack watched you for a long second.
Long enough that your nerves started to flicker beneath the want.
“You’re sure?” Jack asked.
You nodded again. “I’m sure.”
His gaze stayed steady. “If that changes, we stop.”
Your chest tightened. You touched his jaw. “I know.”
Jack’s voice stayed low. “Say it.”
You swallowed. “If that changes, we stop.”
Only then did his hands move again. Slow over your hips. Steady. Warm.
His eyes never left yours.
“Okay,” Jack said.
Your breath caught at the simplicity of it.
At the trust inside it.
At the way he could make one word feel like a promise.
Then his hands guided you closer.
Your breath caught as he lined himself up beneath you, one hand steady at your hip, the other firm around your thigh.
He did not pull you down.
He waited. Of course he waited.
You looked down at him.
Jack’s eyes stayed on yours. “Slow.”
Your pulse jumped.
“You really are going to make everything slow,” you said.
His thumb moved once against your hip. “Yes.”
You swallowed hard.
Then you sank down onto him. Slowly. Inch by inch.
Because his hands held you steady. Because his eyes never left yours. Because rushing suddenly felt impossible with him beneath you, watching every breath you took.
Your mouth parted.
Jack’s jaw tightened. Just enough.
You saw it. Felt it. Loved it.
When you finally settled fully against him, your hands spread over his chest, your body trembling with the effort of staying still.
Jack’s hands flexed at your hips. Not pulling. Not rushing. Holding. Waiting.
“Still okay?” Jack asked.
You nodded, breathless. “Yes.”
Jack’s expression softened. Then his thumb brushed once over your hip.
“Good,” he said. “Now move.”
Your breath caught.
That should not have sounded like praise.
It did.
You tried to move like a person with dignity. Slowly. Carefully.
Like you were in control of yourself.
Like Jack was not lying beneath you, bare and warm and watching you with the kind of focus that made your thoughts scatter before they had a chance to form.
The first roll of your hips made your hands press harder into his chest.
Jack’s breath left him through his nose. Controlled. Barely.
You saw that too. Your mouth curved. “You’re very quiet.”
Jack’s hands tightened once on your hips. “So are you.”
You were not, actually. Not really. But you were trying. That counted for something.
You rolled your hips again, a little less steady this time, and Jack’s jaw shifted beneath you.
There. That was better. Your pride came back for approximately half a second.
Then you tried to move faster.
Jack stopped you immediately. Both hands firm at your hips. Your body stilled above his.
You stared down at him. “Jack.”
His eyes stayed on yours. “Slow.”
“You said move,” you said.
“I did,” Jack said.
Your breath came out unevenly. “You are impossible.”
His thumb moved once over your hip. “And you’re impatient.”
You narrowed your eyes. “I am responsive.”
Jack’s gaze dropped to where his hands held you. Then back to your face.
“You’re rushing,” Jack said.
“I am enthusiastic,” you said.
His eyes warmed. “You’re rushing.”
You huffed out a breath, but your body obeyed before your mouth could argue.
You moved again. Slower this time. A careful lift. A controlled sink. A rhythm so unhurried it made you feel every inch of him, every drag of your body against his, every small flex of his fingers when he had to remind himself not to take over yet.
Your eyes nearly closed. Jack’s hand slid up your side beneath his shirt.
“Look at me,” Jack said.
Your eyes opened. He was still watching you.
You swallowed hard. “You’re making this very difficult.”
His palm spread warm over your ribs. “I know.”
“You keep admitting things,” you said.
Jack’s mouth curved faintly. “I’m not hiding either.”
Your next breath caught.
“You are infuriating,” you said.
Jack’s hand slid back down to your hip. “You said impossible.”
“I’m expanding the list,” you said.
His smile came slow. Then his hips shifted beneath you. Just slightly. A controlled upward press that changed the angle enough to make your whole body jerk.
“Oh,” you gasped.
Jack went still. Your fingers dug into his chest. He watched your face. Too closely. Far too closely.
“There?” Jack asked.
Your mouth opened. Nothing came out.
His hands tightened at your hips. “Words.”
You swallowed hard. “Yes.”
Jack’s eyes darkened. “There.”
You nodded quickly. “There.”
Something in his expression settled. Like he had found the answer he wanted. Then he did it again. Slow. Precise. His hips lifted into you at the same angle, and his hands guided you down to meet him. Your arms nearly gave out.
“Jack,” you said, voice breaking.
His hand slid to your waist, steadying you. “I’ve got you.”
You believed him.
That was the problem.
You believed him so completely your body forgot how to brace against it.
He helped you move again, and this time his rhythm joined yours more fully.
Still slow. Still controlled. But deeper now.
Each careful thrust up met the downward roll of your hips until you could not tell which one of you had started moving first. Only that he was guiding it. Only that he knew exactly what he was doing. Your breathing turned shallow. Your thighs started to shake.
Jack noticed immediately. His hands moved to your hips, holding you more securely. “Stay with me.”
You nodded, but your body was already losing the fight.
“I’m trying,” you said.
“I know,” Jack said.
His voice was rougher now. Less calm.
That almost ruined you by itself.
He thrust up again, hitting that same spot, and your head dropped forward with a broken sound.
Jack’s hand came up to the back of your neck, warm and steady.
“Look at me,” he said.
You lifted your head with effort.
His eyes held yours. Dark. Focused. Barely controlled now.
“Good,” Jack said.
Your body clenched around him.
Jack’s breath caught. There. Finally. A crack.
You felt it move through him, quick and sharp, before he recovered.
Your mouth curved, breathless and shaky. “You felt that.”
His jaw shifted. “Yes.”
“You liked it,” you said.
Jack’s hands tightened at your hips. “Yes.”
Your pulse jumped.
Then he thrust up again, harder this time. Not rough. Not careless. Just enough to steal the next breath out of your lungs. Your hands slipped against his chest. Jack caught you before you could collapse fully forward. His arm came around your waist.
You breathed against his mouth. “Done going slow?”
Jack looked at you for one long second. Then his mouth brushed yours.
“Almost,” he said.
Your stomach flipped.
Almost.
The word barely had time to settle before he moved.
One second, you were above him, shaking and breathless, your hands braced against his chest.
The next, Jack had turned you beneath him, his arm firm around your waist, his other hand cradling the back of your head so you never hit the pillow too hard.
Your breath left you all at once.
Jack hovered over you, still inside you, his body covering yours, his eyes locked on your face.
“Still with me?” Jack asked.
You nodded quickly.
His gaze sharpened. “Words.”
“Yes,” you said, breathless. “I’m with you.”
His expression softened for half a second. Then his mouth lowered to yours.
“Good,” Jack said against your lips.
And then he took over.
The first thrust made your hands fly to his shoulders.
Jack let you hold on.
More than that, he seemed to want it.
His body moved over yours with a rhythm that was still controlled, still careful, but no longer patient in the same way.
The slow restraint shifted into something deeper. Hotter. More certain.
He had made you wait. He had made you ask. He had made you feel every second of it.
Now he was letting you have him.
Your fingers dug into his shoulders as he moved, and Jack’s mouth found your jaw, your throat, the corner of your mouth.
Not staying anywhere for long.
Not gentle enough to let you recover.
Every kiss landed like proof that he was still with you. Still watching. Still holding you through every breathless sound you made.
“Jack,” you gasped.
His arm slid beneath you, pulling you closer. “I know.”
“You don’t,” you said, voice breaking.
His mouth brushed your ear. “I do.”
Then his hips shifted again. That angle. That exact, devastating angle. Your whole body went tight beneath him. Jack felt it immediately.
His forehead dropped against yours. “There?”
You could barely nod.
His voice was rough. “Tell me.”
“There,” you said, almost helpless. “Right there.”
Jack’s breath changed.
Then he gave it to you. Steady. Deep.
Again and again until the room narrowed to his body over yours, his hand at your hip, his mouth at your throat, the old navy shirt pushed high between you but still on, still his, still somehow part of the whole unbearable intimacy of it.
You were shaking now. Not a little. Not subtly.
Jack’s hand moved to your thigh, lifting it higher against his side, and the change made your back arch hard off the mattress.
“Jack,” you cried.
His mouth found yours. “I’ve got you.”
Your nails pressed into his shoulders.
“I can’t,” you said.
His hips slowed immediately. Not stopping. Checking.
His eyes found yours. “Can’t what?”
You swallowed around a breath that would not settle. “I can’t stay quiet.”
Jack’s expression changed. Slowly. Dangerously. Then his mouth curved, faint and wrecked.
“I didn’t ask you to,” he said.
Your body clenched around him again.
Jack’s control slipped for one visible second. His head dropped. His breath left him rough against your neck.
You felt the satisfaction of that somewhere deep and vicious and warm.
Then he lifted his head.
“Let me hear you,” Jack said.
That was all it took.
Your restraint snapped.
You stopped swallowing the sounds. Stopped trying to make them pretty. Stopped trying to make any of it manageable.
Jack rewarded it immediately.
A harder thrust. A deeper one. His hand tightening at your hip, his mouth catching yours, his body pressing you into the mattress like he wanted to feel every bit of what he was doing to you.
“There you go,” Jack said, voice low.
Your eyes squeezed shut.
His mouth brushed yours. “No hiding.”
You forced your eyes open.
He was right there. Close. Focused. Yours.
You touched his face with shaking fingers. “I love you.”
Jack went still for half a beat.
Then his expression broke open in the smallest way. Like the words still hit him fresh. Like they always would.
“I love you too,” Jack said.
Then he kissed you.
And the kiss was what undid you.
Not just the rhythm. Not just the angle. Not just the way his body moved into yours with all that careful, devastating certainty.
It was the kiss.
The hand at your hip. The words. The fact that he had won by one point and somehow used it to make you feel wanted beyond reason.
Your breath caught. Your body went tight.
Jack felt it. His voice dropped. “That’s it.”
Your hands clutched at him.
“Jack,” you said, wrecked.
“I’ve got you,” he said again.
You came apart beneath him.
Hard.
Shaking.
Loud enough that you would have been embarrassed if you had any room left in your body for anything except him.
Jack held you through it, his rhythm slowing but not stopping, his mouth pressed to your cheek, your temple, your jaw. He kept you grounded with one hand at your hip and the other braced beside your head, giving you somewhere to fall without ever letting you feel like you were falling alone.
When the last wave pulled through you, you sagged into the mattress, breathless and boneless beneath him.
Jack stilled. Immediately. His forehead rested against yours.
“Too much?” Jack asked.
You shook your head weakly. “No.”
His gaze held yours. “Words.”
You dragged in a breath. “No. Not too much.”
His thumb moved once at your hip. “You okay?”
You nodded. “Yes.”
Jack’s eyes searched your face.
You lifted one shaking hand to his hair. “Don’t stop because of me.”
His jaw tightened. There it was again. That crack in his control.
“You sure?” Jack asked.
You nodded, fingers curling in his hair. “Yes.”
His voice dropped. “Tell me if that changes.”
“I will,” you said.
Jack kissed you once. Soft. A promise more than a kiss.
Then he moved again.
Slow at first. Careful. Like he was giving you time to come back to yourself before he let go of the rest of his control.
Your fingers tightened in his hair. “Jack.”
His breath left him unevenly. “I know.”
This time, he sounded less certain. Less in command.
That did something terrible to your heart. You lifted your hips to meet him, still trembling, still sensitive, still wrapped around him in every possible way.
Jack’s forehead dropped to yours. His rhythm faltered once. Then again.
Your hand slid from his hair to the side of his neck. “It’s okay.”
His eyes opened. Dark. Unsteady.
“You’re sure?” Jack asked.
You nodded, your thumb brushing his jaw. “Yes, I want you.”
Jack’s control broke on the inhale.
Not all at once. Not carelessly. But enough that you felt the shift everywhere. His hand tightened at your hip. His mouth found yours.
And this time, when he moved, it was not slow.
It was deep. Focused. A little desperate. Still Jack. Still careful. But no longer pretending patience was easy.
Your arms wrapped around his shoulders.
His body pressed yours into the mattress, the old navy shirt caught between you, pushed high over your ribs but still on.
Still his.
Still yours now too.
Jack’s mouth left yours only because he needed to breathe. His face buried against your neck. You felt every rough exhale against your skin. Every break in his rhythm. Every place where his control tried to hold and failed by inches.
Your fingers slid into his hair again. “Jack.”
His hips stuttered.
Your breath caught.
You pressed your mouth near his ear. “I love you.”
Jack broke.
Immediately.
His hand tightened hard at your hip. His mouth pressed to your shoulder, and your name left him in a rough, wrecked sound as he came. No warning. No slow unraveling.
Just that.
Your voice.
Those words.
And Jack losing the last of his control like he had been holding himself together by a thread and you had cut straight through it. You held onto him as his rhythm faltered, his body tense over yours, every rough breath buried against your skin. Your fingers stayed in his hair. Your cheek pressed to his.
You whispered his name once. Then again. Softer the second time.
Jack shuddered against you. Not loudly. Not dramatically. But completely. Enough that you felt it everywhere. In the grip of his hand. In the tremor through his shoulders. In the way he stayed close, like pulling away too quickly might undo him all over again.
You kept holding him until the tension finally started to leave him.
Slowly. Piece by piece. Jack stayed over you afterward, breathing hard, careful not to let his weight settle fully even though you could feel how badly he wanted to.
Still careful. Always careful.
You turned your face and kissed his temple.
His eyes closed.
For a while, neither of you said anything.
The room was warm. Quiet. Too quiet after all of that.
Jack’s thumb moved once against your hip. Then again. Like he was checking that you were still there. Like he needed the reminder too.
You brushed your fingers through his hair. “You okay?”
A breath left him. Almost a laugh.
Jack lifted his head enough to look at you. “You’re asking me?”
You smiled faintly. “You looked a little ruined.”
His mouth barely moved. “I was.”
You touched his jaw. “Good.”
Jack’s eyes softened. Then narrowed slightly. “That’s my word.”
You smiled. “I won it in the divorce.”
His brow lifted. “What divorce?”
“The academic one,” you said.
Jack stared at you for one second.
Then he laughed. Quiet. Warm. Still breathless.
The sound went straight through you. You smiled up at him, unbearably pleased with yourself.
Jack shook his head once, but his mouth stayed soft.
“You’re ridiculous,” he said.
“You love me,” you said.
His expression changed. Not dramatically. Not enough to make the room tilt again. Just enough.
“Yes,” Jack said. “I do.”
Your smile softened.
He leaned down and kissed you.
Slow this time. Gentle. Almost unbearably tender after everything else.
When he pulled back, his eyes searched yours again. “Still not too much?”
You shook your head. “No.”
His gaze stayed on yours.
You exhaled. “No. Not too much.”
Jack nodded once.
Then he kissed your forehead and shifted carefully, easing away from you with a low breath.
The loss of him made you shiver.
Jack noticed immediately.
His hand settled on your thigh. “Cold?”
You looked back at him. “I am many things right now.”
Jack’s mouth curved faintly. “Cold was the question.”
You sighed. “A little.”
He pulled the blanket over you before you could make a joke about him being bossy.
You made it anyway.
“Bossy,” you murmured.
Jack tucked the blanket around your side. “Responsive.”
He moved over the bed and came back to you.
The mattress dipped under his weight.
You shifted closer before he had even settled.
His arm came around you immediately. Warm. Solid. Yours.
You tucked your face against his chest.
Jack’s hand moved over your back beneath the blanket, slow and steady, like he could smooth you back into yourself by touch alone.
For a while, that was enough.
Then you smiled against his skin.
Jack’s hand paused. “What?”
You lifted your head. “You still have to pick dinner.”
His mouth barely moved. “I do.”
“And the movie,” you said.
“Yes,” Jack said.
“And I have to do laundry,” you added.
His eyes warmed. “Badly, apparently.”
You nodded solemnly. “Terribly.”
Jack’s thumb moved once along your back. “I’ll supervise.”
You stared at him. “That is not part of the prize.”
“It is now,” Jack said.
You narrowed your eyes. “You are becoming drunk with power.”
His mouth curved. “I won by one point.”
You groaned and dropped your face back against his chest. “I hate the one point.”
Jack kissed the top of your head. “No, you don’t.”
Summary: A day at the pool leaves you and Jack looking a little too much like a family. Later, Carter’s craving for “exceptional breadsticks” somehow brings Jack directly to the restaurant where you’re having a date. Pure coincidence, obviously.
Warnings: Fluff, romantic tension, meddling nine-year-old, mutual pining, jealousy, references to Jack’s prosthetic, Reader goes on a date with someone else, Carter weaponizes breadsticks, Jack Abbot being deeply incapable of hiding his feelings.
Author's Note: A quick universe note before we begin: Jack is not a widower in this fic. This is an alternate canon created to make his romantic history with Reader work within the story. Thank you for all the love on Chapter One! I hope you enjoy The Breadstick Incident.
Xoxo, Del
| Prologue | Chpt. 1 |
Morning settled quietly over Robby’s house.
You woke before Carter, slipped out of the guest room, and padded downstairs in sleep shorts and an old T-shirt. Pale sunlight stretched across the kitchen floor, and for the first time since you had arrived, the house was completely still.
You filled the coffee maker, pressed the button, and leaned against the counter while it sputtered to life.
Footsteps sounded in the hallway behind you.
You glanced over your shoulder and found Jack standing in the kitchen doorway.
His gray hair was flattened on one side, his glasses sat low on his nose, and a dark T-shirt hung loosely over a pair of sweatpants.
You looked him over.
“You look comfortable,” you said.
Jack dragged one hand through his hair as he entered the kitchen.
“That sounded judgmental,” he replied.
You reached into the cabinet and pulled out two mugs.
“It was observational,” you corrected.
Jack’s mouth curved as he stopped beside the island.
“I’m glad you’re learning,” he said.
You poured the first mug and pulled the creamer from the refrigerator.
Jack watched you add it to your coffee.
“So I remembered correctly,” he observed.
You glanced at the bottle before looking back at him. “You seem very proud of yourself.”
Jack reached for the second mug and slid it toward you.
“I value accuracy,” he replied.
You held the coffee pot above his cup.
“Still black?” you asked.
Jack nodded.
“Still,” he confirmed.
You filled his mug and returned the pot to the machine.
“That remains deeply unpleasant,” you said.
Jack lifted the coffee and took a careful sip. “It’s coffee.”
You carried your mug toward the island.
“It’s punishment,” you corrected.
Jack followed and took the stool beside yours. For a moment, neither of you spoke.
The silence was not awkward. It was simply noticeable without Carter filling it with questions, schemes, or increasingly suspicious observations.
Jack rested both hands around his mug.
“Did you sleep okay?” he asked.
You tucked one leg beneath you on the stool.
“Better than expected,” you answered. “How was the futon?”
Jack stared into his coffee.
“Hostile,” he said.
A laugh slipped out of you.
“You said you’d slept in worse places,” you reminded him.
Jack turned his head toward you.
“I have,” he replied. “That doesn’t make the futon good.”
You smiled into your mug.
“You once slept three hours in a lawn chair with a paperback over your face,” you reminded him.
Jack’s brows lifted.
“That was different,” he said.
You leaned one elbow against the island. “How?”
Jack took another sip of coffee. “I was comfortable.”
You stared at him. “Your neck was bent at a ninety-degree angle.”
Jack lowered the mug. “I was twenty.”
You grinned. “You also had the book stuck to your forehead when you woke up.”
Jack’s mouth tightened as he tried not to smile. “It was hot.”
You laughed softly. “You had the words printed across your face.”
Jack looked at you over the rim of his mug. “And you still took a picture.”
Your smile widened. “Of course I did.”
Jack shook his head. “You were a menace.”
You lifted your mug toward him. “You liked me.”
Jack held your gaze for a beat.
“Yeah,” he said quietly. “I did.”
The photograph from the night before slipped into your thoughts.
Jack with dark hair. Your head resting on his shoulder. Every letter you had written still sitting somewhere inside his house.
You traced one finger around the edge of your mug.
“You really kept all of them?” you asked.
Jack lowered his coffee. The amusement softened out of his face.
“Yeah,” he answered.
You looked down at the pale swirl of cream inside your cup. “Even the terrible ones?”
Jack leaned his forearms against the island.
“Especially the terrible ones,” he replied.
You looked back at him. “Why?”
Jack held your gaze. His lips parted, but a door opened down the hallway before he could answer.
Small footsteps shuffled toward the kitchen.
Carter appeared in the doorway with his blanket wrapped around his shoulders and his hair sticking up in several directions.
He stopped when he saw the two of you sitting together.
Then he smiled. You narrowed your eyes.
“Don’t,” you warned.
Carter’s smile disappeared with suspicious speed.
“I didn’t do anything,” he replied.
Jack lifted his mug toward him.
“You woke up,” he pointed out. “That’s something.”
Carter crossed the kitchen and climbed onto the empty stool beside you.
“What were you talking about?” he asked.
You lifted your mug toward Jack.
“The time Uncle Jack fell asleep in a lawn chair with a book over his face,” you answered.
Carter’s face lit with recognition. “I saw that picture.”
Jack closed his eyes. “Of course you did.”
Carter pulled the blanket tighter around his shoulders. “It was in the box in the garage.”
You smiled into your coffee. “It’s a good picture.”
Jack opened his eyes and looked at you. “You let me sleep like that.”
You shrugged. “You looked tired.”
Carter looked between you. “How long was he asleep?”
“Three hours,” you answered.
“It was not three hours,” Jack argued.
You turned toward Carter. “He missed dinner.”
Carter’s eyebrows rose. “You didn’t wake him up?”
You took another sip of coffee. “I put a towel over his legs.”
Jack gave Carter a solemn look. “That was the extent of her compassion.”
You bumped your shoulder against his. “You survived.”
Jack’s gaze lingered on you. “Barely.”
You glanced toward your nephew. “What do you want for breakfast, bud?”
Carter pulled the blanket tighter around himself.
“Pancakes,” he answered.
Jack looked toward the pantry.
“Do we have pancake mix?” he asked.
Carter nodded.
“Dad keeps it above the cereal,” he explained.
You started to slide off the stool, but Jack stood before you could.
“I’ve got it,” he said.
Jack crossed to the cabinet and reached above the cereal boxes.
You watched him pull down the box.
“You know how to make pancakes?” you asked.
Jack glanced back at you.
“I’m a grown man,” he replied.
You lifted your mug. “That wasn’t an answer.”
Jack set the box on the counter. “I can follow directions.”
Carter leaned forward on the island.
“Can we go to the pool today?” he asked.
You glanced toward the bright sunlight filling the kitchen.
“That could be fun,” you answered.
Carter turned toward Jack. “Will you come too?”
Jack opened the box and studied the instructions.
“I thought that was implied,” he replied.
Carter’s face brightened. “All three of us?”
You looked across the kitchen at Jack. Jack met your eyes over the top of the box.
“Looks like it,” you said.
Carter threw off the blanket and slid from his stool.
“I’m getting my swim stuff,” he announced as he hurried toward the hallway.
You watched him disappear.
“He’s very invested in all three of us doing everything together,” you observed.
Jack pulled a mixing bowl from the cabinet.
“He’s subtle about it,” he replied.
You laughed as you carried your coffee toward the counter. “Painfully.”
Jack measured the pancake mix into the bowl.
“Pool, then your date tonight?” he asked, keeping his attention on the box.
You leaned your hip against the counter beside him. “That’s the plan.”
Jack added water to the bowl. “What time?”
You watched him begin stirring the batter. “Seven.”
Jack nodded once. “You know this guy well?”
A smile tugged at your mouth. “You’re asking a lot of questions.”
Jack glanced at you over the top of his glasses. “I’m allowed to be curious.”
You took a sip of coffee. “About my date?”
Jack returned his attention to the bowl. “About your evening.”
You smiled slowly. “That sounded careful.”
Jack kept stirring. “It was meant to.”
Carter’s footsteps thundered down the hallway before you could push any further. He returned carrying his swim trunks, goggles, and one flipper. You looked down at the collection in his arms.
“Where is the other flipper?” you asked.
Carter glanced at the single flipper. “I don’t know.”
Jack set the whisk down.
“We haven’t even finished breakfast,” he said. “How have we already lost equipment?”
Carter looked toward the hallway. “It might be in my room.”
You pointed after him with your mug. “Go find it before breakfast.”
Carter turned and hurried away again.
Jack watched him disappear. Then he looked back at you.
“Seven?” he asked.
You smiled into your coffee. “Still curious?”
Jack picked up the whisk again. “Apparently.”
By the time you reached the pool, Jack had been turned into a pack mule.
He carried the cooler in one hand and a canvas bag stuffed with towels in the other. Carter’s goggles dangled from two fingers, and the inflatable basketball had been wedged beneath his arm. You walked beside him carrying the sunscreen. Jack glanced down at the bottle in your hand.
“Glad we divided the responsibilities evenly,” he said.
You held the sunscreen up between two fingers.
“This is essential equipment,” you replied.
Jack adjusted the cooler against his leg. “I’m carrying everything we own.”
You looked him over. “You seem capable.”
Jack caught the way your gaze moved over him. “Careful, Robinavitch.”
You smiled as you followed Carter through the gate. “Just appreciating the help, Abbot.”
Jack watched you walk ahead of him.
“That didn’t sound like appreciation,” he muttered.
Carter chose a cluster of chairs near the shallow end and immediately dropped his bag onto the concrete.
“I’m going diving,” he announced.
You caught the back of his shirt before he could escape.
“You’re putting on sunscreen first,” you told him.
Carter’s shoulders slumped. “I put it on at home."
Jack deposited the cooler beside one of the chairs.
“That was almost two hours ago,” he reminded him.
Carter looked between the two of you. “You both sound like Dad.”
Jack lowered himself onto the edge of a chair. “That is the most hurtful thing you’ve said to me all weekend.”
You squeezed sunscreen into your palm. “Stand still, bud.”
Carter reluctantly turned his back to you.
While you rubbed sunscreen over his shoulders, Jack removed his sunglasses and placed them carefully inside the cooler bag’s front pocket. Then he caught the hem of his T-shirt and pulled it over his head. You looked up at exactly the wrong moment.
The years had changed him, but not nearly enough to make looking harmless. His shoulders were still broad. His chest was still solid, his body carrying the natural strength of someone who used it rather than sculpted it for display.
You dropped the sunscreen bottle. It struck the concrete beside your foot.
Jack looked toward it. “You okay?”
You bent quickly and picked it up. “Slippery.”
Jack glanced at the dry bottle in your hand. “Right.”
You narrowed your eyes at him. “Put your sunscreen on.”
Jack’s mouth twitched. “Yes, ma’am.”
You finished with Carter before straightening and slipping your cover-up over your head.
Jack had just opened the cooler. His hand stopped inside it.
You pretended not to notice his gaze catch on you.
Jack cleared his throat and looked deeper into the cooler as though something critically important had happened among the water bottles.
“We have water,” he announced.
You placed your cover-up over the back of the chair. “Excellent work.”
Jack pulled out one bottle. “And juice.”
You nodded once. “Remarkable.”
Carter pushed his goggles over his eyes and looked between you. “Why are you both acting weird?”
Jack twisted the cap off the water bottle.
“Heat,” he answered.
You nodded gravely. “Very dangerous.”
Carter studied you for another second before apparently deciding the pool was more interesting than either of you.
“Come watch me dive,” he ordered.
Jack pointed toward the walkway. “No running.”
Carter immediately slowed to an exaggerated march.
“I’m not running,” he replied.
“You were about to,” Jack said.
Carter continued his dramatic march toward the deep end. “You can’t prove that.”
Jack followed him. “I saw you.”
Carter glanced over his shoulder. “That’s not proof.”
You fell into step beside Jack. “He might have a future in law."
Jack looked down at you. “He has a future in prison.”
Carter climbed onto the diving board and turned to face you both.
“Watch this!” he called.
You raised one hand. “We’re watching.”
Carter bounced twice before jumping, tucking his knees against his chest and hitting the water with an enormous splash. He surfaced several feet away.
“Did you see it?” he asked.
Jack folded his arms over his chest. “No. Do it again.”
Carter’s mouth dropped open. “You were looking right at me!”
Jack shrugged. “I blinked.”
Carter scrambled toward the ladder. “You can’t blink that long.”
You leaned closer to Jack. “That was cruel.”
Jack watched Carter climb from the pool. “He needs the exercise.”
Carter performed the same dive three more times before deciding he needed a new audience activity. He swam toward the edge and pushed his goggles onto his forehead.
“Race me,” he told Jack.
Jack looked down at him. “That seems unfair.”
Carter gripped the edge. “Because you’re old?”
You pressed your lips together. Jack slowly turned his head toward you.
“Don’t,” he warned.
“I didn’t say anything,” you replied.
Jack looked back at Carter. “I meant unfair to you.”
Carter pushed away from the wall. “You’re scared.”
Jack stepped into the pool. “I’m reconsidering every nice thing I’ve ever done for you.”
Carter paddled toward the lane markers. “First one to the other side and back wins.”
You sat on the edge and lowered your feet into the water. “Try not to humiliate him.”
Jack looked over his shoulder. “Which one?”
You smiled sweetly. “Dealer’s choice.”
Carter and Jack lined up against the wall.
You lifted one hand. “Ready?”
Carter lowered his goggles. “Ready.”
Jack braced one foot against the wall. “Whenever you are.”
You dropped your hand. “Go!”
They launched forward. Jack stayed beside him for the first few strokes before gradually pulling ahead. He touched the opposite wall, turned smoothly, and started back while Carter scrambled into his own turn behind him. Jack reached your side of the pool first and caught the edge beside your knee. Carter arrived several seconds later, slapping one hand against the wall before surfacing with a gasp.
“That didn’t count,” he declared.
Jack wiped water from his eyes. “You lost by half the pool."
Carter pushed his goggles onto his forehead. “You have a secret robot foot.”
Jack stared at him.
“I have a prosthetic,” he corrected. “It does not make me swim faster.”
You slipped into the pool and moved to Carter’s side.
“Can you prove that?” you asked.
Jack turned toward you. “You’re encouraging him.”
You studied Jack’s prosthetic beneath the rippling water. “I’m asking important scientific questions.”
Carter pointed toward Jack’s leg. “It could have a motor.”
Jack looked down at it. “Where would I put the batteries?”
Carter considered the question. “In your pocket,” he answered.
Jack spread both hands. “I’m wearing swim trunks.”
Carter nodded with complete confidence. “A waterproof pocket.”
A laugh escaped you. Jack looked between the two of you. “This is ridiculous.”
You shifted closer to Carter. “We may need to inspect the equipment.”
Jack immediately backed through the water. “You’re not inspecting anything.”
Carter grinned. “That sounds suspicious.”
Jack pointed toward him. “You lost the race.”
Carter lifted his chin. “Because of the robot foot.”
You held out your hand. “I think we have grounds for an appeal.”
Carter slapped his palm against yours.
Jack stared at your joined hands. “I’m surrounded by criminals.”
Carter’s attention shifted toward the basketball hoop at the other end of the pool.
“Let’s play basketball,” he suggested.
Jack glanced at the floating hoop. “Fine.”
Carter retrieved the ball and tucked it against his chest.
“Me and Auntie against Uncle Jack,” he announced.
Jack lifted his eyebrows. “Two against one?”
You moved decisively to Carter’s side. “You have the robot foot.”
Jack closed his eyes. “I’m never going to hear the end of this.”
Carter smiled. “Probably not.”
Jack opened his eyes and pointed between you. “No holding. No scratching. No trying to drown me.”
You took the ball from Carter. “You take all the fun out of sports.”
Jack moved backward toward the hoop. “I know how both of you operate.”
Carter leaned closer to you. “I’ll distract him,” he whispered.
Jack stopped. “I can hear you.”
Carter lowered his voice further. “No, you can’t.”
Jack rubbed one hand over his face. “This is going to be a disaster.”
It was. Carter attached himself to Jack’s right arm while you slipped around his other side with the ball. Jack tried to free himself without sending Carter underwater, giving you enough time to shoot. The ball struck the rim and bounced back toward Jack. Jack caught it one-handed.
“That was holding,” he said.
Carter continued hanging from his arm. “No, it wasn’t.”
Jack looked down at him. “You are currently holding me.”
Carter released him. “Not anymore.”
You snatched the ball from Jack’s hand and swam away.
Jack stared after you. “That was theft.”
You cradled the ball against your chest. “You were distracted.”
Jack’s eyes widened. “By the child physically restraining me.”
Carter swam to your side. “That sounds like an excuse.”
Jack pushed his wet hair away from his forehead. “You two deserve each other.”
You passed the ball to Carter. “Thank you.”
Carter threw it toward the hoop. The ball bounced against the rim before dropping through. Carter shouted and threw both arms into the air. You caught him around the middle and lifted him partly out of the water.
“That’s my nephew!” you cheered.
Carter pumped one fist. “We’re winning!”
Jack looked toward the nonexistent scoreboard. “You have one point.”
You lowered Carter into the water. “And you have zero.”
Jack’s eyes narrowed. “Fine.”
You recognized the expression immediately. Carter edged closer to you.
“What does that face mean?” he whispered.
You kept your eyes on Jack. “It means we made a mistake.”
Jack took the ball from beneath the hoop. “You have.”
The next several minutes were ruthless. Jack blocked Carter’s first attempt, stole the ball from you, and scored before either of you reached the other end. When Carter tried to hang from him again, Jack lifted him beneath the arms and deposited him several feet away.
“You can’t move players,” Carter protested.
Jack caught the returning ball. “I just did.”
You lunged for it. Jack moved the ball out of reach.
“You’re cheating,” you accused.
Jack held it above his head. “I’m taller.”
You frowned. “That’s not a skill.”
Jack shrugged a shoulder. “It’s working.”
You splashed water directly into his face.
Jack recoiled and brought one hand to his eyes. “That was a foul.”
You stole the ball from his other hand. “Prove it.”
Jack glared at you. “It was water in my eyes.”
Carter swam beside you. “It’s a pool.”
Jack wiped his face. “That doesn’t make it legal.”
You backed toward the hoop. “Are you going to complain or defend?”
Jack began moving toward you. “I can do both.”
You twisted away, but Jack caught you around the waist before you could reach the hoop.
Your back met his chest.
His arm settled firmly across your middle, warm even beneath the cool water. The laughter caught somewhere inside your throat. For one suspended second, neither of you moved. Jack’s breath touched your temple.
“Got you,” he said quietly.
Your fingers curled around his forearm. “That feels like holding.”
Jack loosened his grip, but he did not release you immediately.
“You were cheating,” he murmured.
You turned your head enough to catch the edge of his profile. “You were losing.”
A wave of water hit both of you. Jack released you as Carter surfaced beside you.
“Are we still playing?” Carter asked.
Jack blinked and cleared his throat. “Apparently.”
You passed the ball directly to Carter. Carter shot while Jack was still recovering. The ball sailed neatly through the hoop. You and Carter erupted.
Jack stared at the basket. “That shouldn’t count.”
You slapped your palm against Carter’s. “It counts twice.”
“Why would it count twice?” Jack demanded.
Carter grinned. “Because you were holding her.”
Jack looked at you as though this were somehow your fault.
You shook your head. “He has eyes.”
Jack pointed toward the stairs. “Both of you. Out of the pool.”
Carter laughed as he swam away. “You’re not the boss.”
Jack followed him. “I have delegated authority.”
You trailed behind them. “Not at the pool.”
Jack looked over his shoulder. “Especially at the pool.”
By the time the three of you returned to the chairs, Carter was exhausted, and Jack had accepted that he had officially lost under whatever rules you and Carter had invented. Carter dropped onto the end of one lounger and reached for a towel.
“We won,” he announced.
Jack handed him the towel. “You committed multiple crimes.”
Carter dried his face. “Still won.”
You sank onto the neighboring chair. “Scoreboard, Abbot.”
Jack picked up his water bottle. “There was no scoreboard.”
“Then you can’t prove we lost,” you replied.
Jack stared at you. “I watched it happen.”
You smiled. “That isn’t proof.”
Carter looked toward you with open admiration. “That’s what I said earlier.”
Jack lowered himself onto the chair between you and Carter. “This alliance needs to end.”
An older woman passed with a small girl walking beside her. She slowed when Carter leaned across Jack to steal a bottle of juice from the cooler. She smiled warmly at the three of you.
“You have a beautiful family,” she said.
You went still. Jack’s hand stopped halfway to his water bottle.
“Thank you,” Carter answered brightly.
The woman continued toward the shallow end before either adult managed to speak. Silence settled over the chairs. You looked toward Jack. Jack stared straight ahead. Carter pushed the straw into his juice pouch.
“She thought we were a family,” he observed.
Jack finally picked up his water. “We heard her.”
Carter took a drink. “She said we were beautiful.”
You reached for your towel. “She was being polite.”
Carter looked at Jack. “She didn’t have to say anything.”
Jack unscrewed the cap from his bottle with unnecessary focus. “Drink your juice, Carter.”
Carter leaned back against the chair, entirely too pleased with himself.
You glanced toward Jack again. His sunglasses hid his eyes now, but the faint color climbing the side of his neck was much harder to conceal. You rubbed the towel over your arms.
“She probably says that to everyone,” you said.
Jack took a long drink. “Probably.”
Carter looked between you. “You’re both being weird again.”
Jack lowered the bottle. “Heat,” he replied.
You nodded solemnly. “Very dangerous.”
The three of you smelled like chlorine by the time you made it back to the house.
Carter abandoned his pool bag just inside the door and started toward the hallway. Jack caught the strap before it hit the floor.
“Absolutely not,” Jack said.
Carter turned around. “What?”
Jack lifted the dripping bag. “You are not leaving this here.”
Carter looked toward you for support. You removed your sunglasses and pushed them onto the top of your head.
“He’s right,” you told him. “Take it to the laundry room.”
Carter’s mouth pulled into a pout. “You’re both bossy.”
Jack handed the bag back to him. “You had plenty of opportunities to choose less responsible adults.”
Carter dragged the bag toward the laundry room. “I didn’t get to choose.”
Jack watched him go. “That explains a lot.”
You laughed and carried the empty water bottles toward the kitchen. Jack followed with the cooler.
“Go get ready,” he said as he placed it beside the sink. “I’ll deal with this.”
You glanced toward the clock above the stove. “I have time.”
Jack opened the cooler and began pulling out the remaining drinks. “You also have pool hair.”
You touched the damp strands near your neck. “Are you saying I don’t look good?”
Jack’s hand paused inside the cooler. You waited. Jack slowly turned his head toward you.
“I’m saying you have somewhere to be,” he answered carefully.
You smiled. “That was not the question.”
Jack looked back into the cooler. “Go shower, Robinavitch.”
You laughed as you headed for the hallway. “Coward.”
Jack pulled out a melting ice pack. “Correct.”
By the time you came back downstairs to retrieve your purse, freshly showered and wrapped in a robe, Carter was lying across the living-room couch with his arms folded. You stopped at the bottom of the stairs.
“What’s wrong with you?” you asked.
Carter looked toward you. “You’re leaving.”
You crossed the room and sat beside his legs. “For a few hours,” you reminded him.
Carter shifted farther into the cushions. “We were supposed to hang out.”
“We spent the entire day together,” you reminded him.
Carter frowned. “That was before.”
You lifted his feet and placed them across your lap. “Before what?”
Carter frowned at the television. “Before you had to go somewhere.”
You rubbed one hand over his shin. “You’re going to be here with Uncle Jack.”
Carter looked toward the kitchen, where Jack was rinsing the cooler in the sink. “That’s not all three of us.”
Something pinched softly inside your chest. You squeezed Carter’s ankle. “I’ll be back tonight.”
Carter remained unconvinced. “How late?”
“I don’t know yet,” you answered.
He studied your face. “Where are you going?”
You glanced toward the kitchen. Jack had his back to you, one hand braced against the counter while the faucet ran.
“Bellini’s,” you answered.
Carter’s pout eased. “The Italian place?”
You nodded. “The one downtown.”
Carter sat up. “The one with the breadsticks?”
You laughed. “Yes, the one with the breadsticks.”
Carter hugged the cushion against his stomach. “Can you bring me some?”
You rose from the couch. “I’ll see what I can do.”
Carter followed you toward the stairs. “And dessert?”
“You’re not coming upstairs,” you told him.
Carter’s brow furrowed. “I’m not.”
You looked at him over your shoulder. “You’re following me.”
“I’m going to my room,” Carter answered.
You stopped. “Your room is downstairs.”
Carter stopped at the first step.
Jack leaned against the kitchen doorway. “She’s got you there.”
Carter looked back at him. “You’re supposed to be on my side.”
Jack dried his hands and shrugged.
You started up the stairs. “Stay down here, bud.”
Carter watched you disappear around the landing before moving to the living room. Jack stood near the kitchen island, sorting through the takeout menus Robby kept shoved into one of the drawers. Carter sat on the couch with his knees pulled up beneath him.
“Can we go to Bellini’s?” Carter asked.
Jack looked over. “Why?”
Carter shrugged. “I like the breadsticks.”
Jack studied him. “You’ve been there?”
Carter nodded. “With Dad. They have really good breadsticks.”
He paused, then added, “And cheese pizza.”
Jack narrowed his eyes slightly. “You are making a very passionate case for bread and cheese.”
Carter lifted one shoulder. “I’m hungry.”
Jack looked toward the ceiling, then back at him. “Maybe.”
Carter brightened. “Really?”
Jack pointed one finger at him. “I said maybe.”
Carter settled back into the couch, visibly pleased with the progress he had made. Jack returned his attention to the menus.
“You’re being weird,” he said.
Carter picked up the remote. “I’m being hungry.”
Before Jack could answer, footsteps sounded on the stairs. Carter turned first. You came down with your purse over one shoulder, your phone in your hand, and your shoes clicking softly against the floor. Carter’s face lit up.
“You look really pretty, Auntie,” he said.
Your expression softened. “Thank you, bud.”
Jack looked up. For one quiet second, he forgot what he was doing. His hand remained pressed against the open drawer, one menu caught beneath his fingers. The dress fit you in a way that made looking away feel strangely difficult. Your makeup was finished, your earrings caught the light when you moved, and you looked entirely too good to be leaving with someone else. You glanced toward him. Jack lowered his gaze to the menu. Then immediately looked back at you.
You adjusted the strap of your purse. “Everything okay?”
Jack cleared his throat. “Yeah.”
Carter watched him with open interest. You crossed the room and bent to kiss the top of Carter’s head.
“I’ll be back later,” you told him.
Carter looked up at you. “Bring back dessert.”
You straightened. “I’ll see what I can do.”
Carter grinned, satisfied. Jack closed the drawer and carried the menus into the living room while you adjusted your purse and started toward the door.
Carter lifted one hand. “Bye, Auntie.”
You reached for the doorknob.
“Hey, Robinavitch,” Jack called from the living room.
You paused and looked over your shoulder. Jack stood beside the couch, one hand resting on the back cushion. This time, he let himself look at you without pretending otherwise. The corner of his mouth lifted.
“You still got it,” he said.
The words landed low and warm beneath your ribs. You rolled your eyes before either of them could see it. “Devastatingly romantic, Abbot.”
Jack’s smile deepened. “I wasn’t trying to be romantic.”
“Good,” you replied as you opened the door. “Because you failed.”
Carter looked up at Jack from the couch.
“I thought it sounded romantic,” he said.
Jack glanced down at him. Carter held up one hand. Jack hesitated for only a second before slapping his palm against Carter’s.
You stared at them from the doorway. “Really?”
Carter grinned. “It was romantic.”
You shook your head as you stepped onto the porch. “Goodnight, boys.”
Carter waved from the couch. “Bye, Auntie.”
Jack’s expression softened. “Have fun.”
You looked back at him. “I’ll try.” You closed the door behind you.
Carter waited until your footsteps faded down the walkway. Then he looked up at Jack. “So Bellini’s?”
Jack kept his eyes on the closed door for another second.
“You are really committed to this,” he said.
Carter nodded. “The breadsticks are really good.”
Jack studied him. “You’ve mentioned.”
Carter leaned forward on the couch. “And the cheese pizza.”
Jack sighed and looked down at the T-shirt he had worn home from the pool. “Let me clean up first.”
Carter’s face brightened. “So that’s a yes?”
Jack pointed toward him. “That is a ‘go put your shoes on while I shower.’”
Carter jumped from the couch. “That sounds like a yes.”
Jack watched him hurry toward the hallway. “It sounded like instructions.”
Carter called back from around the corner. “I’m getting my shoes!”
Jack glanced once more toward the front door. Then he rubbed one hand over his face and headed upstairs. “This better be exceptional pizza.”
Bellini’s was warm, busy, and louder than you expected for a Saturday night.
The dining room carried the low hum of conversation beneath soft music, punctuated by silverware against plates and the occasional burst of laughter from the bar. Strings of small lights glowed above the exposed brick walls, making the restaurant feel intimate without trying too hard. David had arrived before you and was already waiting near the host stand when you walked in. He smiled as soon as he saw you.
“You look beautiful,” David said.
You adjusted the strap of your purse and returned the smile.
“Thank you,” you replied. “You clean up pretty well yourself.”
David glanced down at his button-down shirt.
“I wore the one without a hospital logo,” he said.
You nodded approvingly. “A bold choice.”
The host led you toward a booth near the center of the dining room. David waited for you to slide in before taking the seat across from you.
So far, there was nothing wrong with him. That was almost the problem. David was kind. He was easy to talk to. He asked questions and listened to the answers instead of waiting for his turn to speak. He had a pleasant smile, a stable job, and apparently no secret history involving your brother, a summer twenty years ago, or a box of letters hidden inside his house.
It should have been relaxing. Instead, you kept thinking about Jack standing beside Robby’s couch. You still got it. You reached for your water. David glanced up from the menu.
“Have you been here before?” he asked.
You shook your head. “No, but my nephew seemed very invested in the breadsticks.”
David smiled. “Smart kid.”
A server appeared beside the table carrying a basket lined with white paper.
“These are dangerous,” she warned as she placed it between you.
David reached for one. “I’m willing to take the risk.”
You laughed and tore a piece from another.
“I promised to bring some home,” you explained. “So I’m going to need a second basket before we leave.”
David lifted his eyebrows. “Already making demands?”
“My nephew is nine,” you said. “His disappointment can be devastating.”
“I have nieces,” David replied. “I understand.”
The conversation moved easily from there.
David told you about a scheduling disaster involving three departments reserving the same conference room. You told him about Robby leaving you in charge of Carter for the weekend and conveniently failing to mention that Jack would be there too. David paused with his glass halfway to his mouth.
“Jack?” he asked.
You reached for another piece of breadstick. “Old family friend.”
The description felt technically accurate and completely inadequate.
David took a drink before setting the glass down. “The uncle your nephew kept mentioning at work?”
You looked at him. “Carter mentioned him to you?”
David smiled. “When I stopped by the unit last week, he was waiting for your brother. He gave me a detailed ranking of every adult in his life.”
You leaned back against the booth. “Should I ask where I placed?”
David shook his head. “You were first.”
You smiled. “That’s correct.”
David reached for another breadstick. “Uncle Jack was a very close second.”
You exhaled a laugh. “That sounds right.”
David studied you for a moment. “He seems important to him.”
“He is,” you replied.
The answer came without hesitation. David nodded, but something thoughtful passed over his expression before he looked down at the menu again. The server returned to take your orders. David chose chicken parmesan. You ordered pasta and asked for an extra basket of breadsticks to take home.
When the server walked away, David rested his forearms against the edge of the table.
“So your brother left you with his son and Uncle Jack for the weekend?”
You smiled. “Carter arranged the Uncle Jack part.”
David’s eyebrows rose. “He arranged it?”
You tore off another piece of breadstick. “He’s nine and apparently developing a dangerous interest in logistics.”
David laughed. “Should I be worried?”
You looked across the table at him. “About Carter?”
David nodded. “He sounds formidable.”
You reached for your water. “Only when he wants something.”
The conversation moved on, but it never quite found the rhythm it had before. David was still easy company. You still enjoyed talking to him. But there was a carefulness now, a quiet awareness sitting between you that neither of you named. You were telling him about a ridiculous argument you and Robby had once had over a family recipe when a familiar voice carried across the dining room.
“Auntie!”
Your eyes closed. Across the table, David stopped with his fork suspended above his plate.
You slowly turned your head.
Carter stood several tables away, his entire face glowing with a level of surprise no child had ever performed convincingly. Jack stood behind him. He had changed into clean jeans and a dark button-down with the sleeves pushed to his forearms. One hand rested firmly on Carter’s shoulder. Jack looked directly at you. Mortification spread across his face.
Carter lifted one hand and waved with enormous enthusiasm.
“Auntie! Hi!” he called. “I didn’t know you were here!”
Jack closed his eyes. You stared at your nephew. David looked from Carter to Jack, then back to you. You did not take your eyes off Carter. Carter slipped free of Jack’s hand and hurried toward the table. Jack caught the back of his shirt after two steps.
“No,” Jack said firmly.
Carter looked over his shoulder. “I’m saying hi.”
Jack shook his head. “You said hi.”
Carter frowned. “She might not have heard me.”
“The entire restaurant heard you,” Jack replied.
Several people at nearby tables were now openly watching. Carter smiled at them. Jack tightened his grip on the back of Carter’s shirt and gave you a helpless look across the room. You knew that look. I swear I did not know.
Carter twisted in Jack’s hold. “Can I go hug her?”
Jack stared down at him. “You can sit at our table and reconsider your choices.”
Carter pointed toward you. “But Auntie’s right there.”
Jack looked toward your table again. “Yes,” he said. “I am painfully aware.”
David pressed his lips together, but you caught the beginning of a smile. Carter ducked beneath Jack’s hand and made it three more steps before Jack caught him around the middle.
“Carter,” Jack warned.
Carter’s legs continued moving uselessly above the floor. “I just want to say hi.”
You finally lifted one hand. “Let him come over before you dislocate something.”
Jack looked at you. “I am trying to remove him.”
“You’re carrying him through a restaurant,” you replied.
Carter grinned as Jack reluctantly set him down. The second his shoes touched the floor, Carter hurried toward you.
“Auntie,” he said brightly as he reached the booth. “What a surprise.”
You looked at him. “Is it?”
Carter’s smile faltered. “A little?”
Jack arrived behind him and shoved both hands into his pockets.
“Hi,” he said.
You held his gaze. “Hi.”
Jack glanced toward David. Then back at you. “For the record,” he said carefully, “I was promised exceptional breadsticks.”
Carter nodded. “They are exceptional.”
You looked down at your nephew. “You knew exactly where I was.” Carter’s mouth opened.
Jack pointed toward him. “Think very carefully before you answer.”
Carter closed his mouth again. David set his fork beside his plate.
“You must be Uncle Jack,” he said.
Jack’s expression tightened almost imperceptibly before he held out one hand.
“Jack Abbot,” he introduced himself.
David shook it. “David Mercer.”
Jack nodded once. “Nice to meet you.”
The words were polite. His grip, you suspected, was equally polite. Carter looked between the two men.
“David is the date,” he explained.
You closed your eyes. “Thank you, Carter.”
David’s smile returned.
Carter turned toward Jack. “Uncle Jack used to be Auntie’s boyfriend.”
Your eyes opened. “No, he didn’t.”
“That was a long time ago,” Jack replied at the same time.
David looked between you. Carter brightened. “See?”
You stared at Jack. “You are not helping.”
Jack rubbed one hand over his face. “I’m sorry.”
David leaned back in the booth. “This is significantly more interesting than the conference-room story.”
Jack looked toward him. “I am so sorry.”
David smiled. “I’m not.”
Carter rested both hands on the edge of the table. “They kissed too.”
Jack placed one hand over Carter’s face. “That’s enough.”
Carter’s voice came muffled beneath his palm. “I’m just explaining.”
Jack looked down at him. “You have explained nothing useful.”
You glanced around at the neighboring tables. Several people were still listening.
“Take him to your table,” you told Jack.
Jack nodded immediately. “That was the plan.”
Carter pulled Jack’s hand away from his mouth. “Can Auntie sit with us?”
“No,” you and Jack answered together.
David laughed. Carter frowned. “Why not?”
Jack placed both hands on Carter’s shoulders and turned him around. “Because she is on a date.”
Carter looked back at you. “Still?”
Jack began steering him away. “Keep walking.”
Carter twisted enough to call over his shoulder. “We’re over there!”
You watched Jack guide him between the tables. Jack glanced back once. He mouthed, I’m sorry. You shook your head, but you could not stop the smile pulling at your mouth. Across from you, David picked up his water.
“So,” he said, “I shouldn’t be worried?”
You looked toward the booth where Carter was already pointing excitedly at something on the menu while Jack stared at him with the exhausted expression of a man reconsidering every decision that had led him there. Then Jack looked up. His eyes found yours from across the restaurant. You turned back toward David.
“It’s complicated,” you admitted.
David’s expression softened. Not offended. Not surprised, either. Just understanding. He glanced once toward Jack’s table before returning his attention to you.
“I had a feeling,” David said.
You looked down at your hands. “I’m sorry.”
David shook his head. “You didn’t do anything wrong.”
You gave him a small, apologetic smile. “I went on a date with you while apparently being emotionally complicated.”
David leaned back against the booth. “That describes most adults.”
A laugh escaped you. David smiled, then looked toward Jack again.
“He matters to you,” he said.
You followed his gaze before you could stop yourself. Jack was listening to Carter explain something with both hands, but his attention kept drifting toward your table.
“He’s been part of my life for a long time,” you answered.
David nodded slowly. “That sounds complicated.”
“It is,” you admitted.
David reached for his water. “For what it’s worth, I’ve had a good time.”
“So have I,” you told him honestly.
David smiled faintly. “But there isn’t any chemistry.”
You exhaled in relief. “No. There isn’t.”
David’s mouth curved. “Good.”
Your eyebrows rose. “Good?”
David laughed. “I was trying to find a polite way to say it.”
You pressed one hand to your chest. “And here I was preparing to feel terrible.”
“You can still feel a little terrible,” David offered. “For my ego.”
You smiled. “I’ll schedule five minutes.”
David lifted his glass toward you. “Appreciated.”
You raised your own glass and tapped it lightly against his. “To absolutely no chemistry.”
David nodded solemnly. “To a very pleasant administrative dinner.”
You laughed, and the last of the tension left the table. By the time the server returned with the check, the date had shifted into something easy again. David paid for your dinner despite your attempt to argue, and you gathered the bag of extra breadsticks and the boxed slice of chocolate cake you had promised Carter. David stood beside the booth and reached for his jacket.
“Do you need me to walk you out?” he asked.
You glanced toward Jack and Carter’s table. Carter was already watching you. Jack noticed him watching and followed his gaze. His eyes landed on the takeout bag in your hand, then moved to David standing beside you. You looked back at David.
“I took a car here,” you explained. “I’ll order another one.”
David nodded toward the other booth. “I suspect you may have transportation.”
You followed his gaze again. Carter immediately waved. Jack caught Carter’s wrist and lowered his hand.
You sighed. “I suspect you’re right.”
David smiled. “Good luck.”
You exhaled. “With the nine-year-old or Jack?”
David considered the question. “Yes.”
You laughed as you stepped away from the table. David leaned in and gave you a brief hug.
“It was nice getting to know you,” he said.
“You too,” you replied.
David pulled back and nodded toward the takeout bag. “Protect the breadsticks.”
You held the breadstick bag against your side. “With my life.”
David headed toward the front doors. You watched until he disappeared into the crowd, then turned toward the other side of the restaurant. Carter immediately sat up straighter. Jack looked as though he would prefer to be anywhere else on earth.
You crossed the dining room and stopped beside their booth. Carter looked up from his plate. The breadstick in his hand slowly lowered toward his plate.
“Hi, Auntie,” Carter said carefully.
You folded your arms. “Having a nice dinner?”
Carter glanced toward Jack. Jack immediately shook his head.
“Do not involve me,” Jack warned him. “You did this entirely by yourself.”
Carter turned back toward you. “The pizza is really good,” he offered.
You looked pointedly across the restaurant toward the table you had just left. “What an incredible coincidence that it happened to be here.”
Carter took a small bite of his breadstick. “Pittsburgh isn’t that big.”
Jack stared at him. “That is your defense?”
Carter chewed slowly. “It’s true.”
You held out one hand. “Move over.”
Carter blinked. “You’re sitting with us?”
“For a minute,” you clarified.
Carter immediately scooted toward the wall. Jack watched you slide into the booth beside him, his expression shifting from mortification to cautious curiosity.
You looked toward Jack. “You really didn’t know?”
Jack’s expression shifted immediately. “No,” he said. “I swear.”
You studied him for a moment. The mortification on his face was too genuine to fake.
You let out a breath. “Okay.”
Jack’s shoulders loosened slightly. Then his gaze moved toward the front doors.
“Is David waiting for you?” he asked.
You shook your head. “We had a nice time, but there wasn’t any chemistry.”
Jack went very still. For one brief second, relief threatened to show on his face. Then he pressed his lips together, lowered his eyes to the table, and reached for his water with the careful focus of a man attempting to conceal excellent news. Carter watched him over the top of his breadstick. You watched him too.
“You’re working very hard not to look pleased,” you observed.
Jack lowered the glass and arranged his expression into something sympathetic.
“I’m sorry it didn’t work out,” he said.
You stared at him. “That was terrible.”
Jack’s mouth twitched before he could stop it. “I’m doing my best.”
Your eyes narrowed. “Your best looks suspiciously happy.”
Jack glanced toward Carter. “I’ve had a difficult evening.”
Carter bit down on his breadstick to hide his grin.
You sighed and let your gaze move over Jack. “Looks like you’re taking me home, Abbot.”
Jack’s hand stopped halfway to the check. Carter’s eyes moved immediately to him. Jack cleared his throat and picked up the check.
“Apparently I am,” he said, working very hard not to look pleased for the second time in under a minute.
You caught the faint pull at the corner of his mouth. “Try to contain yourself.”
Jack looked at you. “Robinavitch, I’m exercising extraordinary restraint.”
Carter smiled into his breadstick. You pointed toward him. “Not one word.”
Carter swallowed and lifted both hands. “I didn’t say anything.”
Jack reached for his wallet. “He doesn’t have to,” he muttered.
You looked down at Carter. “You knew exactly what you were doing.”
Carter lowered his hands and studied the remains of his pizza.
“I really did want to eat here,” he said.
Jack slid his card into the check holder.
“That does not make bringing me here under false pretenses acceptable,” Jack told him.
Carter twisted his napkin between his fingers.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
You held his gaze. “For what?”
Carter sighed. “For bringing Uncle Jack here because I knew you were here,” he answered.
Jack lifted one finger. “And?”
Carter frowned at him. “There’s more?”
Jack raised his eyebrows.
Carter sighed again. “And for yelling across the restaurant.”
You nodded. “Thank you.”
Carter studied your face. “Am I grounded?”
Jack picked up the check holder. “That is a conversation for your father.”
Carter’s expression brightened. “So no?”
Jack slid from the booth. “That was not what I said.”
You picked up the breadstick bag and balanced the cake box beneath your arm. Jack immediately held out one hand.
“Give me that,” he said.
You tightened your grip on the bag. “I can carry bread.”
Jack looked at the purse hanging from your shoulder, the cake box balanced beneath your arm, and the bag in your hand.
“Clearly,” Jack said.
You surrendered the bag. “Bossy,” you muttered.
Jack tucked it against his side. “Efficient,” he corrected.
Carter climbed out of the booth and glanced toward the front of the restaurant.
“So you’re done with the date?” he asked.
You looked down at him. “Yes.”
Carter nodded slowly.
“Because there wasn’t a spark?” he asked.
You stopped walking. Jack’s hand went still between Carter’s shoulder blades. You and Jack looked at him.
“Where did you learn that?” you both asked at the same time.
Carter glanced between you.
“TV,” he answered.
Jack resumed guiding him toward the exit.
“You have reached your question limit,” Jack told him.
Carter walked reluctantly beneath his hand.
“I only asked one,” he argued.
Jack steered him around another table. “You’ve asked enough for the entire restaurant.”
You followed them through the dining room and out onto the sidewalk. Carter hurried several paces ahead and began searching the rows of cars.
“Where’s the truck?” he called.
Jack pointed toward the far end of the lot. “Under the light.” Carter started to run.
“Walk,” Jack ordered.
Carter slowed without turning around.
“I am walking,” he called back.
You and Jack continued across the parking lot behind him. After several steps, you glanced at Jack’s clean shirt and dark jeans.
“You cleaned up nicely,” you said.
Jack looked down at himself. “You sound surprised.”
“You spent the afternoon being accused of swimming with a motorized foot,” you reminded him.
Jack nodded.
“It was a difficult recovery,” he said.
You smiled.
“The button-down helped,” you added.
Jack looked toward you. His gaze lingered for one quiet beat.
“That dress helps too,” he said.
The teasing response you had prepared disappeared. You looked ahead.
“Careful, Abbot,” you warned.
Jack opened his mouth, but Carter tugged impatiently at the rear door handle.
“It’s locked!” Carter called.
Jack lifted the keys. He unlocked the truck, and Carter climbed into the back seat. Jack reached the passenger side before you did and opened the door. You stopped beside him.
“I can open a door,” you said.
Jack kept one hand on the handle. “I know.”
You looked at him. “Then why are you doing it?”
Jack glanced toward the open cab.
“Because I got here first,” he answered.
You narrowed your eyes but climbed inside. Jack placed the breadsticks carefully on the floor near your feet before closing the door. By the time he rounded the hood and slid behind the wheel, Carter had already leaned forward between the seats.
“Can I have a breadstick now?” Carter asked.
Jack inserted the key into the ignition.
“No,” Jack answered.
Carter looked toward you. “Auntie?”
You buckled your seat belt. “You heard him.”
Carter dropped back against the seat.
“You’re supposed to be nicer,” he complained.
Jack started the engine.
“She’s learning,” Jack said.
You looked toward him.
“I am not,” you replied.
Jack pulled out of the parking space.
“Denial is the first stage,” he said.
Carter was quiet for a moment in the back seat. Then he leaned forward between the seats.
“I’m sorry I ruined your date, Auntie,” Carter said.
You turned slightly in your seat to look at him.
“You didn’t ruin it,” you assured him.
Carter frowned. “I yelled across the restaurant.”
“You definitely did that,” you agreed.
Jack glanced at Carter through the rearview mirror.
“At an impressive volume,” Jack added.
Carter sank lower against the seat. “So I did ruin it.”
You shook your head. “No. David and I probably weren’t going on a second date anyway.”
Jack’s mouth curved before he could stop it. You caught the smirk from the corner of your eye.
“Don’t,” you warned him.
Jack looked toward the road with exaggerated innocence. “I didn’t say anything.”
Carter leaned forward again. “You look happy.”
Jack checked the mirror. “You have lost your observation privileges.”
Carter smiled. “That’s not a real thing.”
Jack adjusted his grip on the steering wheel. “It is now.”
You settled back into your seat. “He’s right, though.”
Jack glanced toward you. “Whose side are you on?”
You smiled. “The truth.”
Carter lifted one hand from the back seat. You reached behind you and slapped your palm against his.
Jack stared straight ahead. “Unbelievable.”
Carter dropped back into his seat, apparently satisfied. The truck grew quiet as Jack drove away from the restaurant. Several minutes passed before Carter spoke again.
“Can I have one of the breadsticks when we get home?” he asked.
You looked over your shoulder. “Tomorrow.”
Carter groaned and rested his head against the window. “That’s forever.”
Jack glanced at him in the mirror. “You’ll survive.”
“I might not,” Carter mumbled.
“You’ve had pizza and three breadsticks,” Jack reminded him.
Carter closed his eyes. “I’m still growing.”
By the time Jack turned onto Robby’s street, Carter’s breathing had evened out. You glanced behind you.
“He’s asleep,” you said softly.
Jack checked the mirror. “Scheming is exhausting.”
You nodded. “He had a busy evening.”
Jack pulled into the driveway and switched off the engine. You reached for the breadstick bag and cake box while Jack looked toward the sleeping child in the back seat.
“You’ve got the food,” Jack said as he opened his door. “I’ll get Carter.”
You looked pointedly toward his prosthetic. “Good plan. You do have a secret robot foot.”
Jack stared at you over the roof of the truck. “Get out, Robinavitch.”
You laughed as you climbed down. Jack opened the back door and carefully unbuckled Carter. Carter stirred as Jack lifted him, one sleepy arm winding around Jack’s neck.
“Did Auntie come home?” Carter mumbled.
You stepped around the truck. “I’m right here, bud.”
Carter’s eyes barely opened. “Good.”
Jack adjusted Carter against his chest. “Glad we cleared that up.”
Carter rested his cheek against Jack’s shoulder. “Uncle Jack took you home.”
You met Jack’s eyes over Carter’s head.
“He did,” you confirmed.
A faint, sleepy smile crossed Carter’s face before his eyes closed again. You unlocked the house and held the door while Jack carried him inside. The two of you moved through the quiet hallway without needing to discuss what came next. You switched on Carter’s bedside lamp. Jack lowered him onto the mattress. You pulled back the blanket while Jack removed his shoes.
Carter stirred when you covered him.
“Breadsticks,” he murmured.
You brushed one hand over his hair. “Tomorrow.”
“And cake?” he whispered, his eyes still closed.
“Tomorrow,” you repeated.
Carter sighed against the pillow. “Okay.”
Jack switched off the lamp, and you followed him into the hallway. You pulled Carter’s door nearly closed behind you.
“He’s going to wake up at six demanding carbohydrates,” Jack whispered.
You started toward the kitchen. “That sounds like your problem.”
Jack followed with the restaurant bag. “How did this become my problem?”
You shrugged. “You agreed to the breadstick expedition.”
“I was deceived,” Jack replied.
You clicked your tongue. “You were outsmarted by a nine-year-old.”
Jack set the bag on the kitchen counter. “I preferred deceived.”
You placed the cake in the refrigerator while Jack leaned one hip against the counter. For the first time since leaving the restaurant, the house was completely quiet. You closed the refrigerator.
“Thank you for bringing me home,” you said.
Jack folded his arms. “We were coming here anyway.”
You nodded, suddenly unsure what to do with your hands. “Still. And thank you for handling Carter.”
Jack glanced toward the hallway. “I’m not sure handling is the word I’d use.”
You smiled. “You tried.”
Jack looked back at you. “I’m sorry he put you in that position.”
“I know,” you said. “It’s okay.”
Jack held your gaze. The silence stretched just long enough to become noticeable.
You stepped toward the hallway, then paused beside him.
“For the record,” you said.
Jack turned his head. “What?”
You let your gaze travel deliberately over the clean button-down before returning to his face.
“You still got it too.”
Jack went very still.
You smiled before he could recover. “Goodnight, Abbot.”
You walked toward the stairs.
Behind you, Jack cleared his throat. “Goodnight, Robinavitch.”
At the foot of the stairs, you glanced back.
Jack stood where you had left him, one hand resting against the counter and the faintest hint of a smile at the corner of his mouth.
Heat climbed into your cheeks. You shook your head and continued upstairs.
Jack remained in the kitchen beside a bag of contraband breadsticks.
The evening had not gone exactly according to Carter’s plan.
He had been caught. He had been lectured.
He was almost certainly going to hear about it from his father.
But Auntie’s date was over. Uncle Jack had been jealous. And they had come home together.
Carter would have called the breadstick incident a success.
Summary: You asked Jack Abbot for honesty. That may have been ambitious. After the pathology score reveal, the bet, and one very dangerous cliffhanger, you pick up exactly where you left off: on the couch, with too much pride, too much tension, and absolutely no intention of behaving normally about any of it. Someone won. Someone lost. And neither of you is getting out of this with your self-control intact.
Warnings: 18+ only, minors dni, explicit sexual content, oral sex, mutual oral sex, fingering, praise, teasing, power play, winner/loser dynamic, consensual control, established boundaries, check-ins, “do what the winner says” language, soft dom Jack undertones, Reader being a menace, Jack losing his composure, his old shirt, lacy underwear, couch activities, post-sex aftercare, takeout, romcom snuggling, feelings, emotional vulnerability, established relationship, no penetrative sex in this chapter.
Author's Note: Lovelies. Welcome back to the couch. Part one ended with the reader asking for honest Jack, which was bold of her considering Honest Jack Abbot is somehow even more dangerous than Controlled Jack Abbot. This bonus has the payoff of the bet, reader continuing to be a menace in his old battalion medic shirt, Jack being careful and absolutely not fine, a lot of couch-related consequences, and the softest little takeout/romcom aftermath because these two deserve to be stupidly happy for a minute.
You had won the exam score by one point. You had gotten Jack Abbot onto the couch. You had made him put his hands where you told him to put them. You had come out wearing his faded navy T-shirt with the cracked lettering from his old battalion medic course and watched him lose several layers of composure without technically moving from his seat.
You had stretched out beside him.
You had teased him.
You had made him admit it.
Then he had looked at you and asked if you wanted controlled or honest.
You had said honest.
Now you had to survive it.
Jack stayed where he was, hands still braced against the couch cushions, eyes locked on yours. He had not moved closer. He had not touched you. He had not broken the rule.
Somehow, that made it worse.
You were kneeling beside him on the couch, one hand still resting against his chest, his shirt loose on your body, the hem high enough now that you knew he could see the lace underneath if he let himself look.
He did not.
Not yet.
His eyes stayed on your face.
Patient. Careful. Honest.
Terrible.
You swallowed. “How much?”
Jack’s jaw shifted. “How much what?”
You leaned closer, because you were brave and victorious and apparently determined to make both of those things everyone’s problem. “How much is it working?”
His hands flexed once against the cushions.
There.
Your pulse jumped.
Jack’s voice stayed low. “You sure you want me to answer that?”
You smiled, even though your stomach had started doing something deeply unhelpful. “I won.”
His eyes moved over your face. “You keep saying that.”
You smiled wickedly. “Because it keeps being true.”
Jack’s mouth barely curved. “It does.”
You touched his jaw, thumb brushing the place where his control always seemed to gather first. “Answer me.”
His gaze dropped to your mouth.
Then back to your eyes.
“It’s working enough that I’m sitting here with my hands on the couch because you told me not to touch you,” Jack said. “And all I can think about is how badly I want to.”
Oh.
Your breath caught.
Jack heard it.
His mouth curved faintly, but there was strain at the edge of it now.
Not smug. Affected. Honest.
Your chest went tight.
Jack’s eyes flicked to your mouth.
You forced yourself to smile. “Careful, Abbot.”
His brows lifted slightly. “Careful?”
“You’re supposed to be losing,” you said.
Jack’s gaze stayed steady on yours. “I am.”
Your pulse jumped.
“You asked,” he said.
“I did,” you said, less steadily than you wanted.
His voice dropped. “You wanted honest.”
You swallowed. “I didn’t say I was prepared for it.”
His eyes softened for half a second. “Still okay?”
Your heart tripped.
Still asking. Still careful. Even like this.
You nodded. “I’m okay.”
Jack’s hands stayed where they were. “Yeah?”
You looked down at them, spread open against the couch cushions, obedient because you had asked him to be.
Your stomach flipped.
Then you looked back at him.
“Yeah,” you said. “But you’re not allowed to be sweet yet.”
His mouth twitched. “Yet.”
You shifted closer. “I’m busy.”
Jack watched you. “Doing what?”
You moved closer until your knee pressed against his thigh. “Winning.”
Jack’s eyes darkened. “Thought you already did that.”
“I’m thorough,” you said.
His breath changed when you climbed into his lap.
Barely.
But you felt it.
You felt it in the way his body went still beneath yours, in the way his hands stayed locked to the couch even though every line of him looked like restraint. You settled over his thighs slowly, one knee on either side of him, the hem of his shirt riding higher as you moved.
Jack looked at you.
Then lower.
Only for a second.
This time, he let himself.
His jaw shifted.
Your pulse went bright and sharp.
“There,” you whispered.
His eyes lifted back to yours. “You like that.”
You smiled. “I like a lot of things right now.”
“I noticed,” Jack murmured.
You settled more fully against him, and Jack’s fingers curled into the couch cushions.
You saw it.
Your smile widened.
“Still not touching?” you asked.
Jack’s voice came rougher. “You said not yet.”
The fact that he remembered your exact words did something awful to you.
Wonderful.
Awful.
You leaned in and kissed him.
Slowly at first.
Just enough pressure to make him respond. Just enough to feel the shape of his mouth soften under yours. His hands stayed down, but everything else about him shifted toward you.
His breath. His chest. The faint lift of his chin when you pulled back too soon.
You smiled against his mouth. “You’re very good at following directions.”
His head tipped back a fraction, giving you room when your mouth moved along his jaw, then lower, to the spot beneath his ear that had made him go still before.
You kissed him there.
Then again.
Slower.
Jack’s fingers tightened against the couch.
“Still working?” you asked against his skin.
His breath left him through his nose. “Yes.”
You smiled. “Good.”
Jack’s voice dropped. “Careful with that.”
You lifted your head. “With what?”
His eyes opened, dark and steady on yours. “Using my words against me.”
Your stomach flipped.
You rocked against him once, just enough to make his control pull tight beneath you.
Jack’s jaw clenched.
You saw it.
You felt it.
Every careful inch of it.
“Oh,” you said softly.
His gaze sharpened. “What?”
You touched his jaw again. “You really are trying.”
Jack looked at you for one long second.
Then he said, “Yes.”
No joke. No deflection. Just yes.
Your teasing faltered.
Only for a second.
But Jack caught it.
His expression softened, and that was dangerous too, maybe more dangerous than the heat.
You put a finger against his mouth before he could ask.
“No,” you said.
His eyes stayed on yours.
“You’re not allowed to check on me again yet,” you said.
His mouth moved against your finger. “Yet?”
“Yes,” you said. “I’ll tell you when.”
His hand twitched against the couch.
You felt the movement beneath you.
Then you lowered your hand from his mouth to the collar of his shirt.
The one he was wearing.
Not the one on you.
The one still separating you from more of him.
You tugged once.
“Off,” you said.
Jack’s brow lifted. “That an order?”
You smiled. “That is the whole point of the bet.”
His mouth curved, but his hands stayed on the couch. “You told me not to touch.”
You paused.
Then glared, because he was right and that was deeply inconvenient.
Jack’s smile got worse.
“You are enjoying a loophole,” you said.
“I’m following directions,” he said.
You narrowed your eyes. “Smug.”
“Controlled,” Jack said.
You leaned closer, your mouth hovering over his. “Not for long.”
His breath caught.
There.
You smiled.
Then you sat back just enough to look down at him, still straddling his lap, still wearing his shirt, still holding every bit of power he had willingly handed you.
“You can touch me now,” you said.
Jack did not move right away.
Your pulse jumped.
His eyes searched yours. “You sure?”
Your chest tightened.
“Yes,” you said. “I’m sure.”
His hands left the couch immediately.
Not rough. Not frantic. But immediate.
Like he had been waiting on a held breath and had finally been allowed to exhale.
One hand settled at your waist beneath the faded hem of his shirt. The other found the outside of your thigh, warm and firm, fingers spreading over bare skin.
Your breath caught.
Jack noticed.
His thumb moved once at your waist. “Still okay?”
You looked at him.
His control had not vanished.
That was the thing.
It had changed.
He was touching you now, but he was still watching. Still careful. Still Jack.
And somehow that made the wanting worse.
You nodded. “Still okay.”
His hand tightened once on your thigh.
“Good,” Jack said.
Your stomach dropped.
He knew exactly what he was doing.
You kissed him before he could look too pleased about it.
Jack responded immediately, his mouth opening under yours, his hand tightening once at your waist. Not taking over. Not yet. But present now, warm and firm beneath the hem of the faded navy shirt.
You shifted closer in his lap.
His breath caught.
Good.
You kissed him harder.
Jack’s hand slid up your side beneath the shirt, palm dragging slowly over your ribs, careful enough to make you ache and steady enough to remind you that he was still letting you lead.
You pulled back just enough to breathe. “You’re still behaving.”
Jack’s eyes stayed on your mouth. “Barely.”
The honesty went straight through you.
You tried to smile. “Good.”
Jack’s thumb brushed higher along your side.
Your breath hitched.
His gaze lifted to yours immediately. “Still okay?”
You nodded, your fingers tightening in his hair. “Still okay.”
His thumb moved again, slow and deliberate. “Good.”
You hated how much that worked on you.
You hated it enough that you rocked against him again, just to watch his jaw tighten.
Jack’s fingers flexed against your side. “You’re enjoying yourself.”
You kissed the corner of his mouth. “I won.”
Jack’s eyes lifted to yours. “You keep saying that.”
You smiled against his jaw. “You keep reacting to it.”
His breath left him in a quiet, controlled exhale when your mouth moved down his neck.
There.
You kissed the spot again.
Jack’s head tipped back against the couch.
His hand tightened on your thigh, not pulling, not pushing, just holding on.
You smiled against his skin. “There?”
Jack’s voice came rough. “Yes.”
Oh, you liked that.
You liked it too much.
You dragged your mouth back up to his ear. “I like when you answer me.”
Jack’s hand slid higher on your thigh. “I noticed.”
You pulled back and looked at him.
His eyes were dark.
Not composed now.
Not fully.
His control was still there, but it had gone thin enough that you could see the want through it. In his hands. His breathing. The rigid line of his shoulders. The way he kept looking at you like he was waiting for permission and fighting himself for patience.
You touched his jaw. “You’re very pretty like this.”
Jack blinked.
Then his eyes narrowed slightly. “Pretty?”
You nodded solemnly. “Devastatingly.”
Jack’s jaw shifted. “That’s not usually what people call me.”
You smiled. “Then people lack imagination.”
Jack’s hand pressed once into your thigh. “You’re dangerous when you win.”
You leaned in until your mouth hovered over his. “You should let me win more often.”
Jack’s eyes stayed on yours. “I’ll take that under advisement.”
You kissed him again before he could say anything else too reasonable.
This time, when his hand moved up your back, you let him. When his fingers found the hem of the shirt, you felt him hesitate.
Jack paused.
Your pulse jumped.
His eyes lifted to yours. “Can I?”
Your throat tightened.
The shirt suddenly felt heavier than it had a second ago.
Not because you wanted it off.
Because it was his. Because he knew that too.
You swallowed. “Not yet.”
Jack’s hands stopped immediately. No hesitation.
“Okay,” he said.
The word was soft. Simple. Devastating.
You looked down at him, your hands still caught lightly in his hair, your knees bracketing his thighs, his shirt loose around you.
“You’re making it really hard to seduce you dramatically when you keep being decent,” you said.
Jack’s mouth curved, small and warm. “Sorry.”
You narrowed your eyes. “You’re not.”
Jack’s smile deepened. “No. I’m not.”
You laughed once, breathless, and kissed him again.
The kiss softened for half a second.
That was dangerous.
Soft was always dangerous with him.
So you fixed it.
You slid backward off his lap and down between his knees.
Jack went still.
Completely.
His hand caught gently at your wrist before you could go any farther. “You don’t have to.”
You looked up at him from between his knees. “I know.”
His throat moved.
You turned your wrist in his hold until your fingers linked briefly with his.
“I want to,” you said.
Jack’s grip loosened, but he did not let go right away.
His eyes searched your face. “You’re sure?”
You squeezed his hand. “I’m sure.”
Jack exhaled slowly.
Then he let you go.
The trust in it hit you harder than you expected.
You had wanted to make him lose control.
Instead, he kept handing it to you.
Carefully. Willingly. Like it mattered that you were the one holding it.
Your chest tightened.
You leaned forward and kissed the inside of his wrist.
Jack’s breath changed.
You looked up at him. “Hands on the couch again.”
His jaw shifted.
Then he obeyed.
Both hands flat against the cushions.
Open.
Visible.
Yours to ruin.
You smiled.
“There,” you said.
Jack’s voice was rough. “You like giving orders.”
You reached for the button of his jeans. “I like when you listen.”
His hands flexed once against the couch.
“I’m listening,” Jack said.
Oh.
That was going to kill you.
You smiled up at him. “Good.”
Jack’s hands stayed flat against the couch cushions.
Open. Visible. Obedient.
You liked that more than you were prepared to admit.
You liked the way his shoulders had gone rigid. The way his jaw kept working like he was trying to keep every reaction behind his teeth. The way his eyes stayed on you, dark and intent, like looking away was no longer an option.
You touched the button of his jeans.
Jack’s breath caught. Not much, but enough.
You looked up at him. “Still okay?”
His mouth curved faintly, but the strain at the edge of it gave him away. “Now you’re asking?”
You tilted your head. “I’m allowed.”
Jack’s eyes softened for half a second. “I’m okay.”
You liked that too.
You liked making him say it.
You liked making Jack Abbot, who always watched, always measured, always decided what the room needed before the room knew itself, sit there with his hands on the couch and answer you because you asked.
You undid the button slowly.
Jack’s fingers flexed against the cushions.
You smiled. “You’re doing very well.”
His eyes narrowed slightly. “Don’t patronize me.”
You dragged the zipper down. “I’m praising you.”
“That was not praise,” Jack said.
You looked up at him through your lashes. “You want praise?”
Jack went still.
Oh. Interesting. Very interesting.
You paused with your fingers hooked lightly at his waistband.
His eyes stayed on yours.
You smiled slowly. “Abbot.”
Jack’s jaw tightened. “Don’t.”
You widened your eyes. “I didn’t say anything.”
His voice dropped. “You thought it.”
You laughed softly and leaned forward, pressing a kiss just above the open waistband of his jeans.
Jack inhaled sharply.
There.
You kissed him there again.
Slower.
Then you glanced up. “You’re very pretty when you’re trying to behave.”
Jack closed his eyes for half a second. “You are never going to let that go.”
“No,” you said. “Probably not.”
His eyes opened again when your fingers slid beneath the edge of his waistband.
You moved carefully. Slowly. Not because you were unsure.
Because you wanted to watch him survive it.
His hands stayed on the couch.
His breathing did not.
You noticed.
You leaned in and pressed your mouth to the inside of his thigh through the fabric.
Jack’s fingers curled hard into the cushion.
You smiled against him. “Still behaving?”
His voice came rough. “Barely.”
Your pulse jumped.
You liked honest Jack. You liked him too much.
You worked his jeans lower, just enough, and Jack lifted his hips because you guided him to.
Not taking over. Not rushing. Just helping because you asked. You eased the denim down over his hips, then paused when your fingers found the waistband of his underwear.
Jack’s hands stayed on the couch.
You looked up at him. “Still okay?”
Jack’s jaw shifted. “Yes.”
You held his gaze. “Still want this?”
His eyes stayed locked on yours. “Yes.”
Your fingers curled lightly into the waistband. “Then lift for me.”
Jack exhaled once. Then he did.
You drew the fabric down slowly, watching his control pull tight with every inch.
That was somehow worse. The trust of it. The ease.
The fact that he was letting you have this, letting you decide the pace, letting you turn his patience into something thin and strained and beautiful.
You swallowed.
Jack saw it.
His voice softened immediately. “Hey.”
You looked up at him.
His hands stayed exactly where you had put them, even though his eyes had gone careful.
“Still with me?” Jack asked.
You nodded. “I’m with you.”
His gaze moved over your face. “Yeah?”
“Yes,” you said. “I just—”
You stopped.
Jack waited.
You looked down, then back up at him, suddenly aware of the faded navy shirt loose on your body, the cracked lettering from his old battalion medic course stretched over your chest, the couch beneath your knees, the laundry basket abandoned beside you.
The day. The score. The words.
I love you.
Your voice came quieter. “I like this.”
Jack’s expression changed. Softened. Opened.
“You do?” he asked.
You nodded, your fingers resting at his hip. “I like that you let me.”
His throat moved.
For a second, neither of you said anything.
Then Jack’s voice came low and steady. “I trust you.”
Oh.
That went through you harder than anything else had.
Your fingers tightened slightly against him.
Jack noticed.
“You okay?” he asked.
You swallowed and nodded. “Yes.”
His eyes stayed on yours. “Tell me what you need.”
You smiled faintly. “You to stop being sweet before I lose my dramatic momentum.”
Jack’s mouth curved. There he was.
“There it is,” he said.
You leaned forward. “What?”
His eyes darkened again. “You.”
That almost ruined you.
So you kissed him before it could.
You kissed his hip. His stomach. The edge of his waistband.
You took your time because you could, because he let you, because the bet had become something warmer and sharper than a game. His breath changed with every kiss. His fingers stayed locked against the couch. His restraint was everywhere now, in every still line of him.
And you wanted to reward it.
You wanted to ruin it.
Both.
You looked up at him. “Hands stay there.”
Jack’s gaze dropped to your mouth. Then back to your eyes.
“Yes,” he said.
You smiled. “Good.”
His jaw shifted at the word.
You saw it.
Then you lowered your mouth to him.
Jack’s reaction was immediate.
His head tipped back against the couch, and the sound he made was low, rough, dragged out of him before he could swallow it.
Your stomach flipped.
Oh.
You wanted to hear that again.
You moved slowly at first, learning what made his breath catch, what made his hands flex, what made his composure fracture by tiny, satisfying degrees. Jack stayed exactly where you had put him, but his whole body gave him away.
The tight line of his throat. The tension in his shoulders. The way his hips wanted to move and did not.
You pulled back just enough to breathe and looked up at him.
Jack was already looking down at you. His eyes were wrecked. Still careful. Still there. But wrecked.
You smiled. “You’re quiet.”
Jack’s laugh came out rough and disbelieving. “Am I?”
You ran your hand along his thigh. “Too quiet.”
His fingers curled harder into the couch. “I’m trying not to rush you.”
Your chest tightened.
God. Him. Always him.
You kissed the inside of his thigh again, softer this time.
“I know,” you said.
Jack’s gaze stayed on yours.
You leaned closer. “You can make noise.”
His breath caught.
You smiled. “That’s also an order.”
Jack’s mouth parted.
For a second, he looked like he wanted to argue.
Then you took him into your mouth again, and whatever he had been about to say disappeared into a broken sound that made heat curl low in your stomach.
There. Better. Much better.
You settled into the rhythm slowly, your hands braced against his thighs, the hem of his shirt brushing your skin every time you moved. Jack’s breathing grew rougher. Less even. Less controlled.
Every time he made a sound, your confidence came back stronger.
Every time his hands twitched and stayed put, you felt it like a victory.
Not the exam. Not the point.
This.
This impossible, careful man coming apart because you asked him to.
Jack said your name. Roughly. Almost a warning.
You pulled back enough to look at him. “What?”
His chest rose and fell beneath his T-shirt. His hands were still on the couch. Barely.
“You’re good at this,” Jack said.
The words landed hot and low.
Your mouth curved. “At this?”
Before he could answer, you lowered your mouth again, just enough to make his fingers dig hard into the cushion.
Jack’s head tipped back. His breath left him rough and broken.
You pulled back, pleased. “That?”
His eyes opened, dark and wrecked.
“At making me lose my fucking mind,” Jack said.
Oh.
Your fingers tightened on his thigh.
Jack noticed.
His mouth curved faintly despite everything. “You like that.”
You narrowed your eyes. “Do not sound smug while I’m winning.”
His breath left him in something close to a laugh. “Sorry.”
“You’re not,” you said.
“No,” Jack admitted. “I’m not.”
You smiled.
Then you leaned back in, because you wanted him too affected to be smug. You wanted the rough sound that left him when your mouth closed over him again. You wanted the way his head tipped back, the way one of his hands lifted half an inch from the cushion before he forced it back down.
You saw that. You stopped.
Jack went still. His eyes opened.
You looked pointedly at his hand. “Abbot.”
His hand settled flat again. Immediately.
Jack swallowed. “Sorry.”
Your heart flipped.
You sat back on your heels and looked up at him.
His apology was not playful. Not performative. He meant it.
You softened despite yourself.
“You can ask,” you said.
His throat moved.
You held his gaze. “You can ask to touch me.”
Jack looked at you for one long second.
Then his voice came low. “Can I touch you?”
Your pulse jumped.
You tried to keep your smile slow. Victorious.
It almost worked.
“Where?” you asked.
His eyes darkened.
Your breath caught before he even answered.
Jack’s voice was rough. “Your face.”
That was not what you expected. For some reason, it hit harder.
You nodded. “Yes.”
Jack’s hand left the couch slowly, like he was giving you time to change your mind.
Then his fingers touched your cheek. Gentle. Almost reverent. His thumb moved once near the corner of your mouth.
Your chest tightened so fast it almost hurt.
“You’re killing me,” Jack said. Quietly. Honestly.
Your eyes lifted to his.
The room went soft around the edges for half a second. Then you turned your head and kissed his palm. Jack’s breath caught.
“You’re very dramatic,” you said.
His mouth curved faintly. “Learned from the best.”
You smiled against his hand. “Good answer.”
Then you guided his hand back to the couch.
His eyes stayed on yours.
You leaned forward again.
This time, when you took him into your mouth, his voice broke on your name.
Not loud. Not polished. Just honest.
Exactly what you had asked for.
And you decided, with all the grace and dignity of someone who had won by one point and then abused the privilege immediately, that you loved the sound of Jack Abbot losing control.
You loved it when his breathing changed.
You loved it when his fingers dug into the couch.
You loved it when he said your name like he was asking, warning, and surrendering all at once.
You loved it when he finally said, rough and low, “Wait.”
You pulled back immediately.
Jack’s eyes were closed, his chest rising hard.
You sat back. “Too much?”
His eyes opened at once. “No.”
You watched him carefully. “No?”
Jack’s gaze dropped to your mouth, then returned to your face. “I’m close.”
Your stomach flipped.
You smiled before you could stop yourself.
Jack saw it.
His eyes narrowed slightly. “Do not look that pleased with yourself.”
You lifted your chin. “I’m extremely pleased with myself.”
“I noticed,” Jack said.
You moved closer again. “Do you want me to stop?”
Jack went still. His throat moved. Then he looked at you. Really looked.
“No,” he said.
Your pulse jumped.
His voice roughened. “But only if you want to keep going.”
You smiled softly. Still careful. Still Jack. Still yours.
“I do,” you said.
Jack’s hand flexed against the couch again, but he kept it there. “Then yes.”
You leaned in and kissed his thigh. “Yes what?”
His jaw tightened. You waited. Jack’s eyes stayed on yours.
“Yes,” he said, voice low and wrecked. “I want you to keep going.”
There. You smiled.
“Good,” you said.
And then you did.
You kept going.
Slow at first, because you liked making him wait. Because you liked the way his body seemed to forget what control was supposed to look like one piece at a time. His breathing broke first, roughening with every careful movement of your mouth, every pass of your tongue, every press of your hands against his thighs.
Jack’s hands stayed on the couch.
Barely.
His fingers dug hard into the cushions, the tendons in his forearms standing out beneath his skin. His head tipped back once, then lifted again, because apparently even now, even like this, he could not stop watching you.
That did something to you.
Something warm and powerful and dangerous.
You looked up at him.
Jack’s eyes were already on yours. Wrecked. Focused. Trying.
You pulled back just enough to breathe. “Still okay?”
Jack’s laugh came out rough and almost helpless. “Yes.”
Good.
You liked that. You liked him answering you. You liked him obeying. You liked that this man, this careful, controlled, impossible man, was sitting there with his hands exactly where you had told him to keep them while you took him apart.
So you leaned in again.
Jack’s breath caught hard.
There. You wanted that sound again.
You worked him slowly, then deeper, then slower again when his hips went tense beneath your hands. He did not move into you. He did not rush you. He only made a low sound in his throat and pressed his hands harder into the couch like the cushions were the only thing keeping him still.
Jack’s voice was strained. “I’m close.”
Your pulse jumped.
You pulled back with a soft breath.
You looked up at him.
His chest rose and fell hard beneath his T-shirt, his mouth parted, his eyes locked on yours with a kind of focus that made the whole room feel smaller.
“I’m close,” Jack said again, rougher this time.
You nodded once, your hand still moving slowly over him.
Jack’s jaw tightened.
Then his eyes sharpened, careful even through the wreckage.
“Where do you want me?” Jack asked.
The question hit low in your stomach.
Not because he asked it crudely.
Because he asked it like it mattered. Like even now, even this close, even when he looked like restraint had become a physical effort, he was still giving you the choice.
Your mouth went dry.
Jack watched your face. “Tell me.”
Your fingers tightened against his thigh.
You swallowed.
Then you leaned closer, your voice softer than you meant it to be.
“In my mouth,” you said.
Jack went still. Completely.
For one second, he looked like the words had knocked the last of the air out of him.
His hands flexed against the couch. His eyes dropped to your mouth. Then back to your face.
“Jesus,” Jack said, voice wrecked.
Your stomach flipped.
You smiled, because you could not help it. “You asked.”
Jack’s jaw shifted hard.
“I did,” he said.
You held his gaze. “And that’s what I want.”
Something in him snapped.
Not his care.
But the last thin thread of composure he had been using to pretend he was fine.
Jack’s head tipped back against the couch, his breath leaving him in a broken exhale as you lowered your mouth to him again.
This time, you did not tease him with almost.
You gave him exactly what he had asked for.
Exactly what you had said you wanted.
Jack said your name. Rough. Low.
Gone.
His hands stayed on the couch, but his whole body gave him away. His thighs tensed under your palms. His breathing turned uneven. His voice broke again, quieter this time, your name pulled out of him like he could not keep it back.
You stayed with him.
And when he came apart, it was because you had asked for it.
Because he had asked where. Because you had answered. Because wanting him like that had been enough to ruin whatever control he had left.
For a few seconds after, neither of you moved.
Jack’s head stayed tipped back against the couch, his chest rising hard beneath his T-shirt. One hand was still curled into the cushion like he had forgotten how to let go.
You sat back slowly, your own breathing uneven now.
The room felt warm.
Quiet.
Completely changed.
Jack opened his eyes.
They found yours immediately.
Still wrecked. Still careful. Still Jack.
“Come here,” Jack said.
You lifted your brows, trying very hard to look smug and not affected. “Bossy for someone who lost.”
Jack’s hand left the couch at last, reaching for you slowly enough that you could refuse if you wanted to.
“I know,” he said, voice rough. “Come here anyway.”
You went.
Of course you went.
Jack caught you the second you climbed back onto the couch, one hand finding your waist, the other sliding along your thigh as you settled beside him. His mouth found yours before you could say anything clever.
The kiss was different now.
Deeper. Hungrier. Less controlled in places, like he had been patient for so long that being allowed to touch you had become its own kind of relief.
You smiled against his mouth.
Jack felt it. His hand tightened at your waist. “What?”
You pulled back just enough to look at him. “My turn.”
Jack went still. Only for half a second.
Then his eyes darkened in a way that made your pulse jump.
“Finally,” Jack said.
Your breath caught.
That was all the warning you got.
Jack moved.
One second you were beside him, smug and pleased and trying to look like you had not been completely wrecked by the sound of his voice. The next, he had guided you beneath him against the couch cushions, one hand braced beside your head, the other at your hip.
Not rough. Not careless. But immediate. Hungry.
Like he had been waiting for permission and permission had finally become a starting gun.
Your back hit the couch, and Jack kissed you hard.
Your fingers flew into his hair.
He made a low sound against your mouth when you pulled, and that sound alone almost made you forget you were supposed to be the winner.
Almost.
Jack’s hand slid beneath the faded navy shirt, palm warm against your side.
You gasped into his mouth.
He pulled back at once, eyes searching yours. “Okay?”
You nodded quickly.
Jack’s gaze stayed locked on yours. “Words.”
Your chest rose hard beneath his shirt. “Yes. I’m okay.”
Something in his expression steadied.
Then his mouth was on yours again. Hard. Deep.
Thorough enough that your thoughts scattered, one by one, until there was nothing left but his weight over you, his hand under your shirt, his mouth moving like he had every intention of making sure winning felt exactly like this.
You arched beneath him.
Jack’s hand tightened at your waist.
“There,” he murmured against your mouth.
You swallowed a sound. “Don’t sound so pleased with yourself.”
Jack kissed the corner of your mouth. “I’m not.”
“You are,” you said, breathless.
His mouth moved to your jaw. “Maybe a little.”
You tried to glare at him.
It did not work, because his lips found the spot beneath your ear, and your eyes closed before you could stop them.
Jack noticed. His mouth curved against your skin.
You felt it.
“You are not allowed to be smug,” you said.
Jack kissed your neck. “I lost.”
“Yes,” you said, your fingers tightening in his hair. “Exactly.”
His hand moved slowly over your ribs beneath the shirt. “Then I’m doing what I was told.”
Your stomach flipped.
Oh. That. That was a problem.
Jack’s mouth traveled lower, over your throat, then to the stretched collar of the faded navy T-shirt. He paused there, breath warm against the cracked lettering from his old battalion medic course.
For one second, the heat shifted.
Softened.
His fingers touched the worn cotton like he was remembering the morning he had given it to you.
Your breath caught for a different reason.
Then he kissed the shirt.
Right over the faded, cracked letters.
Your chest tightened so fast it almost hurt.
“Jack,” you whispered.
His eyes lifted to yours.
He stayed there, mouth against the shirt, one hand at your waist, his body warm over yours.
“What?” he asked.
You swallowed.
You did not have an answer.
Not one that would not expose too much.
Jack waited anyway.
You touched his hair. “Nothing.”
His expression softened. “That wasn’t nothing.”
You managed a faint smile. “I’m still seducing you dramatically.”
Jack’s mouth curved. “From underneath me?”
You narrowed your eyes. “Do not critique my process.”
His smile deepened. Then he kissed lower.
Over the shirt. Down your sternum. Past your ribs.
Slow enough to make you squirm, deliberate enough to make you understand exactly what he was doing. He did not take the shirt off. He worked around it. With it. His hands slid beneath the hem, pushing it up only as far as you let him, his mouth following the path of exposed skin inch by inch.
Your breathing changed.
Jack felt it beneath his hands.
His eyes flicked up to yours. “Still okay?”
You nodded. “Yes.”
His fingers stilled at your waist.
You swallowed hard. “Yes, Jack. I’m okay.”
His thumb moved once against your skin. “Good.”
The word hit low.
You hated him for it. You loved him for it. You still had not recovered from that, either.
Jack kissed your stomach.
Your fingers tightened in his hair.
He did it again, lower this time, his mouth warm against the sensitive skin beneath your navel. The hem of his shirt bunched beneath his hand, the faded navy cotton soft against your ribs.
You looked down at him.
Big mistake.
Jack was looking up at you from between your thighs, his mouth against your stomach, his eyes dark and focused and so intent that your breath caught in your throat.
His hand slid to your hip.
The lace of your underwear shifted beneath his fingers.
You went still.
Jack noticed immediately. He stopped.
His eyes stayed on yours. “Can I?”
Your pulse jumped. You nodded, then remembered who you were dealing with.
“Yes,” you said. “You can.”
Jack’s hand moved again. Slowly. His fingers traced the edge of the lace at your hip, not taking, not rushing, just touching like he had all the time in the world and every intention of using it against you.
Your head tipped back against the couch.
Jack’s mouth brushed your lower stomach. “You’re quiet.”
You let out a breath that barely qualified as a laugh. “I am trying to maintain authority.”
His mouth curved against your skin. “How’s that going?”
You looked down at him. “Do not get cocky.”
Jack’s fingers hooked lightly at the lace. He did not pull. Not yet.
His eyes stayed on yours. “Tell me what you want.”
Your stomach flipped. There it was again. That steady, devastating patience.
Like he could be hungry and still careful. Like he could want you and still make room for you to choose.
You swallowed. “I want your mouth.”
Jack’s expression changed. Barely. But you saw it.
His eyes darkened. “Yeah?”
Your fingers tightened in his hair. “And your fingers.”
Jack’s thumb pressed once at your hip. Then he nodded.
“Okay,” he said.
Simple. Steady. Absolutely devastating.
He pressed one more kiss to your stomach. Then another, lower.
Your breath caught.
Jack looked up at you. “Tell me if you want me to stop.”
You nodded quickly. “I will.”
His gaze held yours. “Promise.”
The word landed softly. Serious. Very Jack.
Your chest tightened.
“I promise,” you said.
Jack’s expression steadied.
Jack’s mouth lowered again, and whatever remained of your victory speech disappeared completely.
At first, he kissed you through the lace.
Slow. Careful. Mean, actually.
Because he had asked what you wanted, and you had told him, and now he was taking his time like he had misunderstood the entire point of the request.
Your fingers tightened in his hair. “Jack.”
His eyes lifted to yours. “What?”
You swallowed hard. “That is not your mouth.”
His mouth curved against the lace. Oh, he was absolutely smug now.
“You sure?” Jack asked.
You glared down at him. “Do not make me regret letting you touch me.”
His hand pressed once at your hip, warm and steady. “Not the goal.”
“Then prove it,” you said.
Jack’s eyes darkened.
For one second, he only looked at you. Then he hooked his fingers into the lace at your hips and paused.
“Still okay?” Jack asked.
Your breath caught.
“Yes,” you said. “Still okay.”
His gaze held yours. “Tell me if that changes.”
“I will,” you said.
Jack nodded once.
Then he drew the lace down your thighs. Slowly. So slowly you almost hated him.
You lifted your hips to help, and his hand slid beneath you, supporting you with irritating competence while he eased the fabric lower. He did not rush. He did not fumble. He was careful with you in a way that made the heat worse, because you could feel the wanting under it.
You could see it in his face when he settled back between your thighs.
Jack Abbot, who had just come apart under your mouth, who had looked wrecked enough to make you feel powerful for the rest of your life, was staring at you now like he had not even started.
Your stomach flipped.
“That is a look,” you said.
Jack’s hand moved slowly along the outside of your thigh. “Yeah?”
You nodded, trying for steady and landing somewhere else entirely. “A concerning one.”
His mouth brushed the inside of your knee. “You asked for my mouth.”
Your breath caught when he kissed higher.
“I did,” you said.
Jack kissed higher again. “And my fingers.”
Your thighs shifted around him before you could stop them.
His eyes flicked up.
You lifted your chin, even from your deeply compromised position. “Are you reciting the terms?”
His mouth curved against your skin. “Making sure I understand the assignment.”
You stared at him. “You are such a medical student.”
Jack kissed the inside of your thigh. “You love me.”
Your heart tripped.
The words were too new. Too warm. Too devastating for him to just put them there while his mouth was moving up your thigh.
You looked down at him. “You are not allowed to use that against me.”
His expression softened, but his eyes stayed dark. “Wasn’t using it.”
“No?” you asked.
Jack shook his head once. “Just liked saying it.”
Your breath left you.
That was unfair. Completely unfair.
You covered your face with one hand. “You are ruining my authority.”
Jack’s mouth pressed to the inside of your thigh, close enough now that your whole body went still. “I can stop.”
Your hand dropped immediately. “Don’t you dare.”
His mouth curved. You saw it.
“You’re enjoying this,” you said.
Jack’s hand tightened once at your hip. “I am.”
The honesty did something to you.
Something sharp and helpless.
Then his mouth finally moved where you wanted him, and the thought disappeared.
Completely.
Your head tipped back against the couch.
“Oh,” you breathed.
Jack’s arm slid under your thigh, anchoring you gently, keeping you open for him without forcing you there. His other hand stayed at your hip, thumb moving once like he was reminding you he was there.
As if you could forget.
His mouth was warm and deliberate and devastatingly patient. Not rushed. Not proving a point.
Learning you.
Again.
Your fingers found his hair, sliding into the soft strands at the back of his head. You did not pull at first. You just held on.
Jack made a low sound against you.
Your hips shifted.
His arm tightened slightly around your thigh.
“There?” he asked, voice rough against your skin.
You nodded quickly. “There.”
His mouth returned immediately.
Your fingers tightened in his hair this time.
Jack noticed.
He did it again, the same way, and your knees drew in around his shoulders before you could stop them. He did not seem to mind. If anything, his hand slid from your hip to your stomach, pressing you gently back into the couch when your body tried to follow him.
You let out a broken breath. “Jack.”
His fingers spread against your stomach beneath the faded navy shirt. “I’ve got you.”
That should not have made it worse. It did. Of course it did.
You tried to stay quiet.
Mostly because you were still pretending to have some control over the situation.
Jack clearly took that personally. His mouth slowed.
Your eyes opened immediately.
You looked down at him. “Why did you stop?”
Jack’s eyes stayed on yours. “You got quiet.”
You stared at him. Then you realized.
“Oh, you are unbelievable,” you said.
His brow lifted slightly. “Am I?”
“You are withholding because I’m not making enough noise?”
Jack’s mouth curved faintly. “I’m checking.”
“You are negotiating,” you said.
His hand moved once over your stomach, slow and steady. “Tell me what you want.”
You swallowed.
He was impossible. Terrible.
Perfect.
“I want you to keep going,” you said.
Jack’s gaze stayed locked on yours. “Then don’t hide from me.”
Your pulse jumped.
The words landed with heat and weight and that old, impossible thing between you.
No hiding. Not anymore. Not with his hand on your stomach and his mouth between your thighs and his shirt bunched beneath your ribs.
You nodded. “Okay.”
His expression softened for half a second. “Okay?”
Your fingers tightened in his hair. “Okay, Jack. Please.”
That did it.
His eyes darkened.
Then his mouth was on you again, and this time, you did not try to be quiet.
You could not.
Jack made sure of that.
He learned every reaction like it was something he intended to remember. The angle that made your breath break. The pressure that made your hips lift. The rhythm that made your fingers twist in his hair and your knees pull tighter around him.
Then his hand moved lower.
You felt him pause before he touched you. Even now. Especially now.
“Can I?” Jack asked.
You nodded, breathless. “Yes.”
His fingers slid through you slowly. Your whole body went tight.
Jack watched your face. “Still okay?”
“Yes,” you said quickly. “God, yes.”
His mouth curved against your thigh. “Good.”
You barely had time to hate him for it before his fingers moved again.
Your back arched off the couch.
Jack’s arm held you steady.
His mouth returned to you as his fingers worked in slow, careful strokes, and that was when your control finally gave up entirely. It did not break dramatically. It just left. Quietly. Rudely. Without consulting you.
You said his name. Once. Then again.
Jack answered with his mouth, with his hand, with the steady pressure of his palm against your stomach when you started to squirm.
You tugged at his hair. “Don’t stop.”
His fingers curled. Your breath caught hard.
“That wasn’t a request,” you managed.
Jack’s mouth moved against your thigh. You felt him smile.
“I know,” he said.
Then he did not stop.
He kept you there, pinned by nothing but his mouth and fingers and the unbearable steadiness of his attention. He did not rush you toward it. He did not drag it out to be cruel. He just listened to your body with the same focus he brought to everything else, and somehow that was what undid you.
The couch disappeared. The laundry. The scores. The stupid one point.
All of it narrowed down to Jack between your thighs, his hand beneath his own shirt on your stomach, his mouth giving you exactly what you had asked for.
You came with his name in your mouth and your fingers locked in his hair.
Jack stayed with you through it.
Steady. Careful. Unfairly good.
He softened the pressure slowly, easing you down instead of letting you drop. His hand moved over your stomach, then your side, then your hip, grounding you while your breathing tried to remember how to work.
For a few seconds, you could not move.
You stared at the ceiling.
The room was quiet except for your uneven breaths and the faint sound of traffic outside.
Then Jack pressed one last kiss to the inside of your thigh.
Your eyes closed.
“Too much?” he asked.
You let out a breathless laugh. “I think you know it wasn’t.”
His mouth curved against your skin.
You turned your head and looked down at him.
He was still between your thighs, hair mussed from your hands, mouth soft, eyes dark and careful and pleased in a way that should have been illegal.
You swallowed.
“No,” you said. “Not too much.”
Jack’s thumb moved once against your hip. “Good.”
You pointed weakly at him. “You have got to stop saying it like that.”
His brow lifted. “Like what?”
“Like you know it ruins me,” you said.
Jack’s smile came slow. Warm. Private. Devastating.
“I do know,” he said.
You groaned and covered your face with one hand. “I regret winning.”
Jack kissed your hip. “No, you don’t.”
“No,” you said from behind your hand. “I don’t.”
The takeout containers were open on the coffee table.
The laundry was still unfolded.
The movie was already halfway over, which was fine, because Jack had missed the entire setup and still somehow had questions about the plot.
You were tucked into his side on the couch, warm and loose and thoroughly pleased with yourself. Your underwear was back on, though Jack’s faded navy battalion medic shirt still hung loose over your body, the cracked lettering soft against your chest.
Jack’s arm rested around your waist.
His hand moved absently over your hip beneath the hem.
Not trying to start anything.
Just touching.
Like he could.
Like he was allowed.
Like he liked remembering that.
On the screen, the heroine stormed out of a restaurant after overhearing half of a conversation and apparently deciding that was enough information to ruin her life.
You pointed your fork at the television. “See, this is why communication matters.”
Jack looked at the screen. “That is what you’re taking from this?”
You glanced up at him. “Do you disagree?”
His mouth barely moved. “I think if they communicated, the movie would be twenty minutes long.”
You nodded once. “Efficient.”
“Boring,” Jack said.
You stared at him. “Are you admitting you’re emotionally invested?”
Jack looked down at his noodles. “No.”
“You asked if the sister knew he was lying,” you said.
Jack’s jaw shifted. “Plot clarification.”
You gasped softly. “Oh my God.”
His eyes flicked to yours. “What?”
“You care,” you said.
Jack set his container on the coffee table. “I care about narrative consistency.”
You pointed your fork at him. “That is worse.”
His mouth curved despite himself.
You laughed and curled closer into his side, your legs folding beneath you. Jack’s hand settled more securely at your waist, thumb moving once beneath the shirt.
The room felt soft now.
Quieter than it had earlier.
The kind of quiet that came after too much laughter, too much heat, too much feeling. The score slips were still on the table, partly hidden under a napkin and a carton of noodles. Proof of the one perfect point that had started all of this.
You looked at them.
Then at the laundry basket.
Then at Jack.
His hair was still a mess from your hands. His mouth was soft. He looked tired and warm and almost too pleased with himself for someone who had technically lost.
Your chest went tight in the sweetest way.
Jack noticed you looking at him.
His chin tipped down toward you. “What?”
You shook your head. “Nothing.”
His eyes stayed on yours. “That wasn’t nothing.”
You let out a slow breath and rested your head against his shoulder.
For once, you did not dodge.
You were too tired.
Too happy.
Too in love with him to make it a fight.
“This is probably the best day ever,” you said quietly.
Jack went still beside you.
Just enough that you felt him hear it.
Then his arm tightened around you. “Yeah?”
You nodded against his shoulder. “Yeah.”
His hand moved slowly over your side. “Because you won?”
You smiled. “Partly.”
“By one point,” Jack said.
“The one point,” you corrected.
His chest moved under your cheek with a quiet laugh.
The movie kept playing.
The takeout went lukewarm.
The laundry remained deeply, impressively unfolded.
Jack’s mouth pressed softly to the top of your head.
“And the rest?” he asked.
Your fingers curled lightly in his shirt.
You thought about the bulletin board.
The walk home.
The couch.
The way he had looked at you when you were celebrating.
The way he had said it.
Like your happiness had made him careless.
Like he had no interest in taking it back.
You tipped your face up to look at him.
Jack was already looking down at you.
Your throat tightened, but this time, you let it.
“The rest is you,” you said.
Jack’s expression softened.
You swallowed and held his gaze. “Because you told me you love me.”
For a second, he just looked at you.
Warm. Private. A little stunned, still, like hearing you say it back to him in pieces was something he had not figured out how to survive.
Then his thumb brushed once over your waist.
“I did,” Jack said.
Your chest warmed.
You smiled faintly. “I love you.”
Jack went still.
Only for a second.
Only long enough for the words to land again.
Then his arm tightened around you, pulling you closer into his side.
“I love you too,” he said.
You settled against him, overwhelmed and warm and still somehow victorious.
His mouth pressed to your forehead.
The movie kept playing.
The takeout went lukewarm.
The laundry remained deeply, impressively unfolded.
You had beaten Jack Abbot by one point.
Somehow, he still looked like the one who had won.
Summary: The pathology scores are posted, and naturally, you and Jack turn it into a competition. After agreeing to a bet with very specific terms- bragging rights, dinner, movie choice, laundry, and one night where the loser has to do what the winner says- the two of you go to check the results. Neither of you handles what happens next with anything resembling emotional regulation.
Warnings: 18+ series, minors dni, sexual tension, suggestive content, teasing, power play, betting/winner-loser dynamic, “do what the winner says” language, established consent/boundaries, academic rivalry, competitive flirting, dramatic exam score reveal, victory dance, emotional vulnerability, feelings confession, Jack being patient until he very much is not, handholding, kissing, his shirt, lacy underwear, no explicit smut in this chapter, cliffhanger ending.
Author's Note: Lovelies. The poll has spoken, the scores are posted, and somebody is about to become absolutely insufferable. This bonus has academic rivalry nonsense, a dangerous bet, handholding while trying not to commit grade-related crimes, laundry as punishment, Jack’s old shirt, and the reader discovering that making Jack lose control is both fun and extremely dangerous.
Also: feelings happen. At the worst possible time. As they should.
Part two will pick up exactly where this leaves off.
The problem with Jack Abbot was that he was very good at distracting you.
Which was unfair, because historically, that had been your job.
You were supposed to be the distraction. You were supposed to make sharp comments from across lecture halls, steal his pens, argue over margins in shared notes, and say things that made the careful line of his mouth falter by half a centimeter.
That had been the system.
A good system.
A reliable system.
Then Jack had apparently decided to retaliate by kissing you against the kitchen counter before nine in the morning.
And, unfortunately, he was very good at that too.
Your coffee sat abandoned beside the sink, going cold in its mug. Jack’s hands were at your waist, warm beneath the hem of your shirt, his thumbs moving slowly over bare skin in a way that had made your entire argument about leaving on time collapse somewhere around minute two.
You were supposed to be going to the pathology department.
Scores were being posted at nine.
The final pathology scores.
The final pathology scores that would determine, once and for all, which one of you had performed better on the exam you had both pretended not to care about with the least convincing lies ever told.
You knew that.
You remembered that.
Mostly.
Then Jack’s mouth moved lower, brushing along the side of your neck, and your fingers tightened in his shirt.
“Jack,” you said, breath catching on his name.
His mouth paused against your skin. “Mm?”
You swallowed, your eyes half-closed. “What do you think you got on the exam?”
Jack went still.
Completely still.
For one second, the entire apartment stopped with him.
Then he lifted his head.
Slowly.
His eyes found yours, dark and disbelieving, his hand still under your shirt like he had forgotten where he’d left it.
“You cannot possibly be serious,” Jack said.
You blinked at him. “What?”
Jack stared at you. “What?”
You lifted your brows. “What?”
His hand flexed once at your waist. “You want to talk about pathology scores right now?”
You glanced down between you.
At his hand beneath your shirt. At the way he was standing between your knees. At the counter digging into the backs of your thighs.
Then you looked back at him.
“They post in twenty-three minutes,” you said.
Jack closed his eyes.
You smiled.
“Don’t do that,” he said, opening his eyes again.
You tilted your head. “Do what?”
Jack’s expression stayed flat. “Act like that was a normal thing to say.”
“It was relevant,” you said.
“I had my mouth on your neck,” Jack said.
You nodded once. “And I was very supportive of that.”
His jaw shifted.
You liked that. You liked it too much.
His hand moved once at your waist. “Were you?”
“Yes,” you said. “But I can be supportive and curious.”
Jack’s eyes narrowed slightly. “You are not curious.”
You frowned. “Excuse me?”
He leaned in slightly, his voice dropping. “You’re competitive.”
Your stomach flipped.
Absolutely not.
He did not get to use that voice and be correct at the same time.
You lifted your chin. “I am academically invested.”
Jack’s mouth barely moved. “You interrupted this for academic investment?”
“You make that sound like a bad thing,” you said.
His eyes dropped to your mouth. “It is a bad thing.”
Your pulse jumped.
Then his hand slid a little higher beneath your shirt, and for half a second, you forgot the entire endocrine chapter.
Which was dangerous.
So you put a hand against his chest.
Jack stopped immediately.
Of course he did.
His eyes came back to yours, attentive now beneath the heat. “You okay?”
That ruined you a little.
You nodded. “I’m okay.”
His thumb moved once against your side. “Yeah?”
“Yes,” you said. “I just think we need terms.”
Jack stared at you.
Then his expression shifted.
Not confusion anymore.
Recognition.
“No,” he said.
You smiled slowly. “No?”
His mouth flattened. “No.”
You widened your eyes. “You don’t even know what I’m going to say.”
Jack gave you a look. “I know exactly what you’re going to say.”
“You do not,” you said.
His hand stayed at your waist. “You want to make a bet.”
Your smile widened.
Jack exhaled through his nose. “Unbelievable.”
You pointed at him. “You’re smiling.”
“I’m not,” Jack said.
“You are,” you said.
“I was kissing you,” Jack said. “That is different.”
You glanced at his mouth. “Was.”
His eyes narrowed.
You felt triumphant for about half a second.
Then Jack leaned closer, one hand still at your waist, the other braced on the counter beside your thigh.
“What are the terms?” he asked.
Your stomach flipped.
You had expected more resistance.
Which was ridiculous, really.
Jack Abbot had never once backed down from a competition in his life.
You tried to look composed.
You probably failed.
“Winner gets bragging rights,” you said.
Jack nodded once. “Assumed.”
“And dinner choice,” you said.
His thumb moved idly against your side. “Fine.”
“And movie choice,” you added.
Jack’s brow lifted. “Dangerous.”
“You can handle it,” you said.
His mouth curved. “Can I?”
“You were a combat medic,” you said. “I believe in you.”
Jack’s expression warmed. “Generous.”
“And loser does laundry,” you said.
His eyes narrowed. “Now you’re getting ambitious.”
You smiled. “I’m negotiating.”
“You’re abusing power you do not currently have,” Jack said.
You leaned back on your hands, still sitting on the counter. “Yet.”
Jack looked at you for one long second.
Then his voice came lower. “Anything else?”
You swallowed.
The kitchen felt suddenly smaller.
His hand was still beneath your shirt, warm against your waist. His body was still between your knees. Your coffee was still going cold beside the sink. And in twenty-two minutes, your pathology score would be taped to a department bulletin board like a public attack.
You looked him dead in the eye.
“One night where the loser has to do what the winner says,” you said.
Jack went very still.
Not like before.
Not annoyed this time.
His eyes stayed on yours, steady and dark and careful enough to make your chest tighten.
“Within reason,” he said.
You nodded. “Within reason.”
Something in his face softened.
Only for a second.
Then the competitive edge came back.
“Deal,” Jack said.
You held out your hand.
Jack looked at it.
Then at you.
“You want to shake on it?” he asked.
“Yes,” you said.
His eyes dropped briefly to where he was still standing between your knees. “You’re sitting on the counter.”
“I’m aware,” you said.
Jack’s mouth twitched. “My hand is under your shirt.”
“I’m also aware of that,” you said.
He looked at your offered hand again.
Then he took it.
Warm.
Steady.
A handshake, technically.
Except you were still sitting on the kitchen counter, and he was still standing between your knees, and his thumb brushed once over your knuckles like he knew exactly what he was doing.
“Deal,” he said.
You squeezed his hand once. “Good.”
Jack’s eyes dropped briefly to your mouth.
Then back to yours.
“We have twenty-two minutes,” he said.
Your pulse jumped.
You stared at him. “We have to leave.”
His mouth curved faintly. “Eventually.”
“Jack,” you said, trying for warning and landing somewhere much less stable.
He leaned in, his mouth brushing just beneath your jaw.
“You brought up pathology,” he said against your skin. “Not me.”
Your eyes fluttered.
God.
You hated him.
You hated him so much.
“You are trying to distract me,” you said.
Jack’s mouth moved against your neck. “Is it working?”
You closed your eyes.
The answer was yes.
Obviously. Disastrously.
Then the kitchen clock ticked loudly enough to remind you that the pathology department existed and had chosen violence.
You pushed lightly at his chest.
Jack lifted his head, smug in the quietest possible way.
You pointed toward the hallway. “Shoes. Now.”
His brow lifted. “Now?”
“Scores first,” you said, sliding off the counter before you could make a bad decision. “Then victory.”
Jack caught your waist as your feet hit the floor, steadying you automatically.
His mouth curved. “You’re very confident.”
You looked up at him.
Then you smiled.
“I have to be,” you said. “You’re going to be insufferable if you win.”
Jack’s thumb moved once at your side. “And if you win?”
You stepped out of his hands and headed for your room to grab your shoes.
Then you looked back over your shoulder.
“If I win,” you said, “I’m going to be worse.”
Jack stared at you.
For one second, he looked like he believed you.
Then his smile started.
Slow and devastating.
“Good,” he said.
The hallway outside Dr. Singh’s office was already crowded when you and Jack got there.
Which was exactly what you had expected.
Half the second-year class had gathered around the bulletin board, shoulder to shoulder, everyone pretending not to care while very obviously caring more than they had cared about anything in weeks.
The pathology scores were taped to the board in a neat, devastating grid.
Exam numbers. Raw percentages. Curve-adjusted final grades.
A single sheet of paper with the power to ruin friendships, inflate egos, and make several sleep-deprived medical students start muttering math under their breath.
You stopped at the edge of the crowd. Jack stopped beside you. For one second, neither of you spoke.
Then Jack glanced down at you. “You ready?”
You looked at the bulletin board. “No.”
His mouth barely moved. “Good.”
You turned your head. “Good?”
Jack’s eyes stayed on the crowd. “Means you’re taking it seriously.”
You stared at him. “That is such an annoying answer.”
His mouth curved faintly. “Still true.”
You took a breath, then stepped toward the bulletin board before you could lose your nerve. Jack moved with you. Not touching. Not hovering. Just there.
The crowd shifted enough to let you in, and suddenly the page was right in front of you.
Student ID numbers on the left. Scores on the right.
You found your number halfway down the page.
Your raw score first.
Then your curve-adjusted grade beside it.
Your brain stopped.
Then restarted. Slowly. Dangerously.
Beside you, Jack had gone very still.
You did not look at him. He did not look at you.
Around you, someone swore under their breath. Someone else laughed too loudly. Two people immediately started arguing about the curve like the paper had personally attacked them.
You reached into your bag, pulled out a pen, and wrote your score on the corner of an old receipt.
Jack glanced at your hand.
You folded the receipt before he could see it.
His brow lifted.
You looked at him. “No hallway reveals.”
Jack’s mouth barely moved. “No?”
You shook your head. “No.”
His eyes stayed on yours. “Why not?”
You tucked the folded receipt into your palm. “Because I refuse to have this moment in public.”
Jack’s gaze sharpened slightly. “This moment.”
You lifted your chin. “You know exactly what I mean.”
His eyes held yours for one second too long.
Then Jack reached into his jacket pocket, pulled out a pen, and wrote something on the back of his folded class schedule.
You tried not to look. You failed a little.
Jack folded the paper once. Then again. Deliberately.
You narrowed your eyes. “That was unnecessary.”
His mouth twitched. “Security.”
You stared at him. “You think I’m going to cheat?”
Jack slid the folded paper into his pocket. “I think you’re going to try.”
You gasped. “I am wounded.”
He looked at you. “Are you?”
You paused. “No.”
Jack’s eyes warmed. “Didn’t think so.”
That warmth was rude. Entirely uncalled for. You clutched your folded receipt tighter.
Jack noticed.
His gaze dropped to your hand, then came back to your face. “Apartment?”
You nodded once. “Apartment.”
Neither of you spoke on the stairs.
Or outside the building.
Or for the first block.
Which was absurd.
You were adults.
You were medical students, at least, which implied some level of emotional regulation even if the evidence was inconsistent.
Still, you walked beside Jack with your score folded in your fist and your entire body buzzing like you were transporting state secrets.
Jack’s folded schedule was tucked in his jacket pocket.
You knew that because you had checked.
Jack glanced down at you. “You’re staring at my pocket.”
You looked straight ahead. “No, I’m not.”
“You are,” he said.
You tightened your grip on the receipt. “I’m observing.”
His mouth barely moved. “That word bothering you less now?”
You shot him a look. “Do not use my own language against me.”
Jack’s eyes stayed ahead, but the corner of his mouth gave him away. “It’s our language now.”
Your stomach flipped. Rude. Completely unnecessary.
You looked down at the sidewalk before he could see what that did to you.
That was when his hand found yours.
No question. No hesitation.
His fingers slid between yours, warm and familiar, and your entire body reacted like he had done something much worse than hold your hand.
For a second, neither of you said anything.
The tension did not break.
It changed shape.
Became warmer. Closer. Worse.
You looked down at your joined hands, the folded receipt still trapped between your fingers.
Jack’s thumb brushed once over your knuckles.
“You’re nervous,” he said.
You looked up at him. “You’re projecting.”
His mouth almost moved. “Am I?”
“Yes,” you said. “You’re terrified.”
Jack glanced at you. “Of you?”
You smiled. “Of losing to me.”
His thumb moved once over yours again. “That’s a very specific fear.”
“It should be,” you said.
His eyes held yours for half a second.
Then he looked ahead again.
You kept walking. Still holding hands. Still not knowing. Still both absolutely pretending that did not make the whole thing feel more dangerous.
By the second block, you could not take it anymore.
You glanced at him. “Are you going to ask?”
Jack kept his gaze forward. “No.”
You frowned. “No?”
His fingers tightened around yours. “We said apartment.”
You stared at him. “You are so annoying.”
His mouth curved faintly. “Disciplined.”
“Annoying,” you corrected.
“Disciplined,” Jack repeated.
You looked at his pocket again.
“Don’t,” he said.
You looked back up too quickly. “I didn’t do anything.”
“You thought about it,” he said.
You glared at him. “You don’t know that.”
Jack glanced down at you. “I know you.”
Your breath caught before you could stop it.
There it was again.
The unbearable intimacy of being known by the person you were actively trying to defeat.
You looked away.
Jack did not tease you for it.
That made it worse.
His hand stayed in yours all the way back to the apartment.
Through the last block. Up the stairs. Down the narrow hall. Even while he pulled his keys from his pocket, he did not let go of you until he had to.
And even then, he only released your hand long enough to unlock the door.
The apartment was quiet when you stepped inside, the kind of quiet that made every small sound feel dramatic. Jack’s keys landed on the counter. Your bag slipped from your shoulder. The old floor creaked beneath your shoes.
You still had your folded receipt clenched in one hand.
Jack still had his folded schedule tucked in his jacket pocket.
Neither of you spoke.
Then Jack glanced at the couch. “Sit?”
You looked at him. “Are you asking because you’re nervous?”
His mouth barely moved. “I’m asking because you look like you might fall over.”
You stared at him. “That is rude.”
Jack’s eyes dropped to the receipt in your hand. “Is it inaccurate?”
You opened your mouth. Then closed it. Irritatingly, he was not wrong.
You pointed toward the couch. “Fine. But only because I want you comfortable when you lose.”
Jack’s brow lifted. “Thoughtful.”
“I’m generous,” you said.
“You’re competitive,” Jack said.
You walked toward the couch. “I'm both.”
Jack followed you, his mouth almost curving. You sat on one end of the couch. Jack sat beside you, close enough that his knee nearly brushed yours. You tucked one foot beneath you and held the receipt against your knee.
Jack pulled the folded schedule from his pocket.
Of course it was still neat.
You hated him.
Jack looked at your receipt. “You folded yours badly.”
You looked down at the crumpled paper in your hand. “It has character.”
“It has structural damage,” Jack said.
You narrowed your eyes. “Sounds like something a loser would say.”
His eyes lifted to yours. “You haven’t won yet.”
You smiled. “I can feel it.”
“That’s still not evidence,” Jack said.
“It’s intuition,” you said.
“It’s arrogance,” he said.
You pointed the folded receipt at him. “Careful. In a minute, you might owe me laundry.”
Jack’s mouth curved faintly. “And dinner.”
“And the movie,” you added.
His gaze held yours. “And one night where the loser has to do what the winner says.”
Your pulse jumped.
The words landed differently now that you were sitting beside him on the couch.
Much differently.
You swallowed, but you did not look away.
“Within reason,” you said.
Jack’s expression softened by a fraction. “Within reason.”
For a second, the joke slipped. Not gone. Just quieter.
Jack’s knee brushed yours.
Your folded receipt sat between your fingers.
His folded schedule rested in his hand. Tiny pieces of paper. Ridiculous. Harmless.
Potentially catastrophic.
Jack watched you carefully. “You okay?”
You looked at him. “Do not be sweet to me right now.”
His mouth barely moved. “I’m asking.”
“I know,” you said.
His eyes stayed on yours. That made it worse.
You looked down at your receipt. “I’m okay.”
Jack nodded once. “Okay.”
You placed your folded receipt on the cushion between you.
Jack placed his folded schedule beside it.
The two pieces of paper looked absurd there. Like a tiny academic death match. You put your fingers on your receipt. Jack put his fingers on his schedule.
“On three?” you asked.
Jack nodded once. “On three.”
You took a breath. “One.”
His eyes stayed on yours. “Two.”
Your stomach flipped. “Three.”
You both flipped the papers open.
For one second, you only saw numbers. Your score. His score.
Then your brain did the math.
One point.
One.
Single.
Perfect.
Point.
You beat Jack Abbot by one point.
Your mouth fell open.
Jack’s eyes narrowed immediately. “Don’t.”
You looked up at him slowly. “Oh.”
“No,” Jack said.
“Oh, Abbot,” you said.
His jaw shifted. “It was one point.”
You picked up your receipt like it had become a sacred document. “The one point.”
Jack stared at you. “That is not a thing.”
“It is now,” you said.
His mouth flattened. “You’re going to be unbearable.”
You stood from the couch. “I am going to be historical.”
“Historic,” Jack said.
You froze and pointed at him with the receipt. “Losers don’t get to correct winners.”
Jack’s mouth twitched.
You saw it.
That made it worse.
You made a bright, delighted sound and jumped once, score slip clutched in your hand.
“I won,” you said.
Jack leaned back against the couch, arms crossing over his chest. “You did.”
“Against you,” you said.
His brows lifted. “I was there.”
“By one point,” you said.
“Yes,” Jack said.
“The one point,” you said.
Jack closed his eyes for half a second.
So you started dancing.
It was not graceful. It was not rhythmic. It was mostly you bouncing in front of the couch in your socks, waving your score slip like a flag while Jack watched you with a look that made the whole apartment feel warmer.
“I beat Jack Abbot,” you sang under your breath.
Jack opened his eyes. “That is not a song.”
“It is now,” you said.
His mouth curved despite himself. “You’re impossible.”
“I am victorious,” you said, spinning once.
The spin was a mistake.
You nearly clipped your shin on the coffee table. Jack reached out immediately, catching your hip before you could bump into it.
“Careful,” Jack said.
You froze, one hand still in the air, receipt crinkled between your fingers. Then you looked down at his hand on your hip. Then back at him.
“You’re not allowed to tell me to be careful,” you said. “I won.”
Jack’s thumb moved once at your side. His smile softened.
“Yeah,” he said. “You did.”
And there it was. Not teasing. Not competitive. Proud. So proud it almost ruined the whole thing.
Your victory dance faltered.
“Don’t,” you said.
Jack’s brow lifted. “Don’t what?”
You swallowed. “Look at me like that.”
His hand stayed at your hip. “Like what?”
“Like you’re proud of me,” you said.
Jack’s expression did not change.
“I am proud of you,” he said.
Your throat tightened. No. Absolutely not.
You could handle winning. You could handle gloating. You could handle Jack pretending to be devastated because you had beaten him by a single point.
You could not handle him looking at you like that from the couch, morning light on his face, your crumpled score still clutched in your hand.
You looked down at the receipt. “That’s manipulative.”
Jack’s mouth barely curved. “Being proud of you?”
“Yes,” you said. “I was about to be very mean.”
“You still can be,” Jack said.
“No,” you said. “Now I’ll feel guilty.”
His thumb moved once at your hip. “Good.”
You narrowed your eyes. “You did that on purpose.”
Jack looked at you for one long second.
Still smiling. Still holding your hip. Still looking at you like your joy had done something dangerous to him.
Then his face changed.
Like something had landed before he could stop it.
“I love you,” Jack said.
The apartment went quiet. Completely quiet.
Your breath caught.
Jack went still.
Not like he was taking it back.
Not like he regretted it.
Like he had surprised himself with the timing and nothing else.
Your hand lowered slowly, the receipt crinkling softly at your side.
“What?” you whispered.
Jack’s throat moved. His eyes stayed on yours.
“I love you,” he said again, quieter this time.
Your chest squeezed so hard it almost hurt.
“You’re saying that now?” you asked.
His mouth twitched, faint and helpless. “Apparently.”
“I’m being insufferable,” you said.
“I know,” Jack said.
“I was doing a victory dance,” you said.
“I saw,” Jack said.
“It was a bad victory dance,” you said.
“It was terrible,” Jack said.
A laugh broke out of you, sharp and disbelieving, and your eyes burned at the same time.
Jack’s hand tightened carefully at your hip.
“Sorry,” he said, softer now.
You shook your head quickly. “Don’t apologize.”
His expression steadied. “Okay.”
You looked down at him, your heart beating too hard.
“You love me?” you asked.
Jack’s eyes softened. “Yes.”
Your lips parted, but nothing clever arrived in time to save you.
Jack did not push. He did not ask. He just stayed there, hand warm at your hip, eyes steady on yours, letting the words exist between you.
You stepped closer.
Jack’s breath caught.
You touched the front of his shirt, fingers curling lightly in the fabric.
Then you looked at him.
“I love you too,” you said.
Jack went very still.
Then his hand slid fully around your waist, pulling you down into his lap, and the receipt crumpled between your fingers as he kissed you.
Not carefully.
Not at first.
He kissed you like the words had broken something open in him.
You settled over him and kissed him back, laughing once against his mouth because you were happy.
So happy it felt stupid.
So happy it felt impossible.
Jack pulled back just enough to look at you.
His eyes were darker now.
Softer too.
You lifted the crumpled receipt between you.
“Just to be clear,” you said, breathless, “I still won.”
Jack huffed a laugh.
Then he dropped his forehead briefly to yours.
“I know,” he said.
You smiled. “Say it.”
His mouth curved against yours. “You won.”
“And?” you asked.
Jack pulled back enough to meet your eyes.
“You’re brilliant,” he said.
Your heart tripped.
“And?” you asked, softer this time.
His gaze moved over your face, warm and devastating.
“And I love you,” Jack said.
Oh.
Well.
That was going to be a problem.
A wonderful, terrible, impossible problem.
You swallowed, then forced your chin up because you had a victory to preserve and feelings were not going to ruin your momentum.
“Good,” you said. “Now go fold laundry.”
Jack stared at you.
For one second, nothing happened.
Then his laugh broke free, low and surprised, and you grinned so hard your cheeks hurt.
Jack did, in fact, go fold laundry.
Which was good. It was just. It was fair.
It was also deeply annoying, because he did it competently.
He did not sulk. He did not argue. He did not pretend not to know how to fold a towel, which you personally felt was showing off. He simply gathered the clean clothes from the basket, sat on the couch, and started folding like a man accepting the terms of his defeat with irritating dignity.
You stood in the hallway and watched him for thirty seconds.
Jack looked up from the towel in his hands. “You supervising?”
You leaned one shoulder against the wall. “I’m enjoying my victory.”
His mouth barely moved. “From the hallway?”
You smiled. “I’m deciding how best to use my power.”
Jack’s hands paused around the towel. Only for a second. But you saw it.
His eyes lifted to yours. “Are you?”
You pushed off the wall. “Don’t sound nervous, Abbot.”
Jack went back to folding. “I’m not nervous.”
“You should be,” you said.
Then you turned and walked into your bedroom before he could answer.
You did not close the door all the way.
That was intentional.
You wanted him to know you had left it cracked. You wanted him to sit there on the couch, folding laundry like a responsible adult, knowing you were in your room deciding what to do with him.
That was your right. You had won by one point. The one point. The point, really.
You opened your drawer and found the shirt almost immediately.
His shirt.
The faded navy T-shirt with the cracked lettering from his old battalion medic course.
The one he had given you after the first night you slept together. The one he had told you to keep like either of you had been casual enough for that sentence to survive contact with reality.
You touched the fabric. Soft. Worn. Familiar.
Your confidence wavered for exactly one second.
Then you saw your score slip on the dresser, still crumpled from your victory dance.
Right. No fear. Only victory.
And maybe lace.
You changed before you could talk yourself out of it.
The shirt slipped over your shoulders, loose and soft, falling just low enough to brush the tops of your thighs. The cracked lettering stretched faintly across your chest, faded from years of washing, the navy cotton worn thin in places from use and time and whatever version of Jack had existed before you knew him.
The lacy underwear underneath made the whole thing worse.
Not obvious unless you wanted it to be.
You wanted it to be.
Eventually.
You looked at yourself in the mirror. Then you pointed at your reflection.
“Winner,” you whispered.
It helped. A little. Then you opened the door.
Jack was still on the couch.
Still folding.
Still pretending not to be listening for you.
You knew because his head lifted the second the hinges moved.
Then he stopped.
Completely.
The towel stayed half-folded in his hands.
His eyes moved over you once.
Then again.
Slower.
You leaned against the doorframe and let the moment stretch.
“Problem?” you asked.
Jack’s jaw shifted.
“That’s my shirt,” he said.
You glanced down at yourself. “You told me to keep it.”
His eyes came back to yours.
For one second, the room changed.
Not because of the lace.
Not because of your bare legs.
Because he remembered.
The morning after.
The shirt in his hands.
His voice telling you to keep it like that had not meant anything.
Like either of you had ever been good at that.
Jack set the towel down carefully.
Too carefully.
“I did,” he said.
You swallowed.
Then you forced your mouth to curve, because if you let the moment stay soft too long, you might lose your nerve.
“So technically,” you said, pushing away from the doorframe, “it’s my shirt now.”
Jack’s gaze dropped to the faded lettering.
Then the hem.
Your thighs.
The hint of lace that showed when you moved.
His breath changed.
Barely.
But you heard it.
His voice came lower. “Technically.”
Oh. Good. Very good.
You took one step into the living room. “How’s the laundry coming?”
Jack did not look at the basket. “Fine.”
You tilted your head. “You stopped folding.”
His eyes stayed on yours. “I noticed.”
You clicked your tongue. “That seems inefficient.”
Jack’s mouth barely curved. “You came out here dressed like that to discuss efficiency?”
You widened your eyes. “I came out here to check on your progress.”
His gaze moved over you again. “Did you?”
“Yes,” you said. “And to provide motivation.”
Jack leaned back against the couch.
Slowly.
Dangerously.
The towel stayed abandoned beside him.
“I’m motivated,” he said.
Your pulse jumped.
You tried very hard not to let it show.
You failed.
Jack noticed.
So you leaned down and picked up one of the clean shirts from the basket.
Slowly.
Unnecessarily slowly.
You made sure the hem of his shirt shifted higher when you bent.
Just enough.
Jack went very still.
You straightened and looked at him over your shoulder.
His eyes were on your face.
Very deliberately.
That made you smile.
“Very respectful,” you said.
Jack’s jaw shifted. “Trying.”
You folded the shirt badly and dropped it on the cushion beside him.
“You’re allowed to look,” you said.
His eyes darkened.
“You sure?” he asked.
Your stomach flipped.
Still asking.
Still careful.
Even now.
You nodded. “I’m sure.”
Jack’s gaze dropped.
The hem of his shirt.
Your thighs.
The lace.
Then back to your face.
He looked less composed when his eyes met yours again.
Not broken.
Not yet.
But affected.
You smiled. “There.”
Jack’s brow lifted. “There?”
“You’re getting less smug,” you said.
His mouth barely moved. “You think so?”
“I know so,” you said.
Then you climbed onto the couch beside him.
Not into his lap.
Not yet.
Just close enough that your bare thigh brushed his jeans.
Jack’s hand moved.
Instinctive.
Toward your knee.
You shifted away before he could touch.
Jack stopped.
His eyes lifted slowly.
You smiled at him. “No.”
His brow lifted. “No?”
“You don’t get to touch yet,” you said.
His expression sharpened.
Not upset.
Interested.
Very interested.
“That part of the bet?” Jack asked.
You tucked one leg beneath you and leaned back against the arm of the couch like you had all the time in the world. “It is now.”
Jack looked at you for one long second.
Then he settled back.
Both hands on the couch.
Open.
Visible.
Obedient.
Your stomach flipped so hard it almost ruined your performance.
You swallowed.
Jack noticed that too.
His mouth barely moved. “You okay?”
You pointed at him. “No being sweet. I’m seducing you.”
Jack blinked.
Then his eyes warmed in a way that made your entire plan feel suddenly, terribly fragile.
“You are?” he asked.
You glared. “Do not sound surprised.”
“I’m not surprised,” Jack said.
“You sounded surprised,” you said.
“I sounded interested,” he said.
Oh.
That was unfair.
You sat up straighter. “Well, you should be.”
Jack’s voice stayed steady. “I am.”
The answer came too honest.
You lost your train of thought for half a second.
Which was unacceptable.
You recovered by stretching out along the couch, slow and theatrical, one bare leg extending until your foot brushed his thigh.
Jack’s eyes followed the movement.
This time, he did not pretend not to look.
Good.
You pointed your toes against his leg. “You’re still very controlled.”
His hand flexed once against the cushion. “I’m trying to be respectful.”
You smiled. “I know.”
His gaze stayed on yours. “Is that a problem?”
“Yes,” you said.
Jack’s mouth twitched. “Respect is a problem?”
“Your control is a problem,” you said.
His eyes darkened.
You let your foot drag lightly along his thigh.
Just once.
Jack’s jaw shifted.
You smiled. “I’m trying to break it.”
His hands stayed exactly where they were, but his voice changed.
Lower.
Rougher.
“Careful,” Jack said.
Your pulse jumped.
You sat up slowly, then crawled closer until you were kneeling beside him on the couch.
“See,” you said, touching one finger to the center of his chest, “that would work better if I hadn’t won.”
His eyes dropped to your hand.
Then lifted back to your face.
“You did win,” Jack said.
You nodded solemnly. “I did.”
“By one point,” he said.
You smiled. “The one point.”
His mouth flattened, but the heat in his eyes ruined the effect.
You leaned in and kissed the corner of his mouth.
Not his lips.
Just the corner.
Then his jaw.
Then the spot beneath it that made his fingers curl into the cushion again.
Jack inhaled slowly through his nose.
Your smile widened against his skin.
“There,” you whispered.
Jack’s voice was rough. “There what?”
You kissed beneath his ear. “There you are.”
His whole body went still.
The callback landed.
You felt it.
You pulled back just enough to see his face.
His control was still there.
Of course it was.
Jack Abbot did not fall apart easily.
But it was thinner now.
Drawn tight.
Straining at the edges.
His eyes stayed locked on yours.
“You having fun?” he asked.
You smiled. “So much.”
His mouth curved, slow and dangerous. “Good.”
Your stomach dropped.
That one word still worked.
Even when you were supposed to be in charge.
Especially then, apparently.
Jack saw it.
His smile deepened by a fraction.
You narrowed your eyes. “You are not allowed to weaponize that right now.”
Jack’s brows lifted slightly. “I said one word.”
“You know what you did,” you said.
His eyes stayed on yours. “I know what you’re doing.”
You leaned closer. “Do you?”
His gaze dropped to your mouth. “Trying to make me lose control.”
You touched his jaw. “Is it working?”
Jack did not answer immediately.
That was answer enough.
You smiled.
Then he looked back at you.
Really looked.
“You want controlled,” Jack asked, his voice low, “or honest?”
Your breath caught.
The room went quiet around that question.
His hands were still on the couch.
Still not touching you.
Still obeying the rule you had made because you wanted to drive him wild and had somehow driven yourself there too.
You swallowed.
Then you smiled, because you were brave and victorious and possibly very stupid.
content warnings : 18+ MDNI, description of animal gore, religious trauma within the catholic church, friends to lovers, hidden feelings, some brief bullying, self hatred, troubled home life, time jumps, lots of smut, phone sex, car sex, couch sex, oral sex, p in v, switch!dennis, begging, cheating, happy ending teehee
summary : you and dennis had been inseparable since the start of high school, until one night dennis started feeling something more. fighting with his internal feelings and the teachings of the church, dennis struggled to face his true feelings.
authors notes : this is my first fic, please be gentle! dennis is catholic (i know he is most likely mormon but im working with what i know), his brothers names are totally made up!!, some part is set during covid but there is zero mention because i didn't feel comfortable. thank you for reading, love you lots and lots! p.s apologies for any misspellings or grammatical errors!
also on ao3 !!
9th March 2017
4:15pm, Broken Bow, Nebraska
“It’s rotting.” Dennis stood over a young buck, a wrinkle setting between his brows. Maggots squirmed where the eyes should've been, its flesh torn and destroyed by other animals, jaws hanging open. He lowered down and picked up a stick. As he leaned closer to exam how the neck bent, he wondered how it had been broken, morbid curiosity overwhelming his mind. “We should probably move it.”
You watched him gently jab the stick into its throat, shaking his head slightly. You cleared your throat, adjusting your footing awkwardly. “Where?”
“Off the road.” He stood up straight again, rubbing the back of his neck. The buck had been disembowelled, its’ viscera a fly breeding ground. The smell was unbearable, sweet rotten flesh, sour like milk, faeces so pungent it hurt your nose to inhale. Dennis walked around the corpse, eyeing it before flexing his hands over the antlers, seeing how they felt in his grip, sucking a breath in between his teeth. “I mean I could drag it.”
“This feels wrong.” You shuddered as he gave it a quick tug, the body dragging across the asphalt. The guts had fused with the ground, not willing to move with it.
“All creatures deserve a peaceful rest.” His voice was quiet and he didn’t look up, hands gripping tighter on the antlers as he dragged the poor animal towards the side of the road. You had no rebuttal. He used all his strength to get it on the grass by the road, frowning to himself.
Wildflowers and colourful weeds grew in abundance along the road, so you pulled as much as your hands could hold, and gave them to Dennis. He concealed the gore, placing the flora in every opening, butterfly weeds in the eye sockets, daisies in the ears, wild bergamot filling the stomach cavity. Once he was finished, he blessed himself and gripped your hand.
“May the Lord lead this poor soul to paradise, amen.” He whispered, letting out a sigh.
“Amen.” You said, gaze fixed on the animal.
He turned his head to you, “Let’s go.”
-
Dennis had never really been well liked by anyone. He didn’t fit in anywhere, he was quiet, shorter and skinnier than most kids, didn’t play sports anymore and didn’t seem interesting enough to attract any attention. Until high school, a bond with you formed under the strain of needing desperately to be liked. You were sat together in English, some sort of forced proximity that brought you two together, an unlikely pair but at the same time, the perfect duo. Since that day, you both hadn't really made a huge effort to make other friends, you only really needed each other. Dennis hated to admit it but he used to pray for a friend like you. Someone who he genuinely could be himself with.
-
“Runt!” His oldest brother, Stan, shouted as you both walked down toward the house. A rusty faded red truck was parked out front, his other two brothers, Elijah and Noah, were working on it.
“Thought you would at least wait for me.” Dennis slipped off his backpack, tossing it by the truck.
“We want this finished, like yesterday. I left work early for this and I have to pick my kid up from daycare at six.” Elijah grumbled before shooting a look at you, his expression softening, a dimple appearing on his cheek. “What’s the little lady doing here?”
“We have an assignment to work on.” Dennis brushed it off, watching you get yourself settled on the porch steps. Out of all his brothers, Elijah had a soft spot for you. He treated like you were family, even though you'd only known Dennis for about three years.
“Can we get moving?” Stan grunted, opening the bonnet. “We all got families here.”
Dennis and his brothers got to work on the truck, working while talking in a low mumble, while you sat off to the side and flipped through a book, eyes flickering between Dennis and the pages in front of you. Ever since Dennis was a kid, his brothers would call him Runt, the smallest and youngest Whitaker, but he worked harder than all of them combined. He seemed to be faster, more focused.
“Dennis has been working on this truck for weeks without any of your help and I think he did a pretty decent job.” You pointed out, realising when you got glares from his brothers that you probably shouldn’t have said a word.
“Of course you’d say that, according to you, Dennis shits rainbows.” Noah snapped, turning to look at you with a mocking smirk. Noah was only a year or so older, had a stinky attitude and even worse temper.
“Don’t talk to her like that.” Dennis’ gaze landed on Noah, fingers curling into his palm before relaxing.
“Cut the shit Noah, they’re kids.” Stan butted in, regretting that he even agreed to help.
“Dude, since when did you give a shit about them being kids?!”
Stan walked around the car, glaring at Noah.
“It was a joke, alright?” He scoffed.
A silence fell over them, Elijah looking at you with wide eyes and an awkward grin. His brothers could be nice when they wanted to be, the four of them together were really good friends but they bickered like no other. Dennis could take it but he hated it when Noah dragged you into it, which happened more than he liked.
Within an hour, they started packing up so you jumped up, fishing a small box out of your backpack and handing it to Dennis. He mindlessly took the box from your hand, not even looking at you, holding it in his grasp until he was finished.
“What is it?” He finally looked at the box and then turned his body to face you.
“It’s to make sure you drive safely.” You chewed on the inside of your cheek.
“My god, I think I’m gonna vomit!” Noah groaned, watching from the porch.
“Noah-” Dennis started, glancing at his brother who had his hands up, turning to go inside the house. Opening the box, there was a wooden rosary inside. His eyes met yours, smiling softly.
“Do you like it?” You asked shyly.
“Yea, I really do. Thank you.” He replied timidly, his expression so gentle as he wrapped an arm around your shoulder and pulled you into him.
“I’ll see you at the weekend, Denny.” Elijah called from his car, opening the driver side door before looking at you. “Have a nice evening, little lady.”
“Bye Eli!” You grinned, waving as he got into his car. Dennis removed his arm, getting into his car, hanging the rosary beads from his rearview mirror. He sat back and stared at them, head tilted and face scrunched up, before he adjusted them again.
-
Later that evening, the sun was setting, darkness slowly swallowing his bedroom.
“D’you know you’re the first person I think about when I wake up?” Dennis admitted casually, not lifting his eyes from the textbook laid out in front of him.
“Why?” You questioned, resting your chin in your palm and looking at him.
“Because I always have so much to tell you.” He spoke as if it wasn’t flattery, flipping the page before looking at you. “I kind of never run out of things to say to you.”
“Is that a good thing?”
“Hmm.” His gaze dropped to the textbook again. “Guess it is.”
-
14th April 2017
12:25pm, Broken Bow, Nebraska
A beetle scuttled across the lunch table, its little legs going as fast as they could. Dennis’ watched silently, inspecting as it zig-zagged and darted in different directions, going in an endless circle without even realising. It had trapped itself in a loop, out of fear or confusion, Dennis couldn’t say. He thought about helping it, but then he’d probably end up killing it. Would death be a better fate than to live the rest of your life in fear?
You sat beside him with a thud, sighing out of exhaustion. In your hands, you carried a collection of novels and textbooks. You were frazzled, sweat building on your brow, mind running over a million different things but all Dennis noticed was that you hadn’t got lunch.
“Why aren’t you eating?” He picked at his lunch, his stomach turning looking at it.
“Not hungry, too busy, too tired.” You dropped the books on the table, resting your head atop them, briefly closing your eyes. “Why are you just moving your food around?”
“Not hungry, too busy, too tired.” He mimicked you, resting his chin in his palm. “What’s got you so tired in the first place?”
You opened one eye, looking at him in a half scorn before closing it again. “Dragged into helping plan prom, I’m not even on the student board.”
“Can you eat something please before you pass out?” He turned to his backpack, digging through it and pulling out a grain bar. “Please.”
You looked at him then at the bar, staring at it as you felt your stomach groan. “Feed it to me?”
Dennis diligently obliged, opening the wrapped and bringing it to your mouth. You took a bite and chewed, eyes drifting closed again, humming in delight. You were busier than normal, Dennis had barely seen you the past couple weeks.
“Are you going to prom?” He asked very plainly, not expecting much from your answer.
“Probably…” You mumbled. “I’ll have to show my face.”
He brought the bar to your mouth again, letting you get a bite before dropping his hand once more. “Who are you gonna go with?”
You lifted your head and looked at him, chewing fast to get your words out. You frowned. “Who are you going with? We always go together to these things Denny.”
“O-oh I’m not saying I’m going with anyone! I just thought you might change your mind but we can go.” He was flustered, stammering over himself.
You groaned, resting your head down again. “You know there’s a guy planning on proposing at prom?”
“What? You’re kidding.”
“His mom caught him with a girl, apparently told him that they couldn’t do that unless they were planning to marry so he said they were.” Your eyes watched his face.
“Will the girl say yes?”
“Our Lord Jesus Christ only knows!” You grinned, sitting up straight. You reached forward and fixed Dennis’ hair, moving it out of his eyes. “How have you been?”
“I mean I’m alright. Noah’s being unbelievable, he just never stops.” He complained, rubbing his forehead. You frowned, rubbing his back gently. Then you spotted a guy, Zach Henry coming towards you and Dennis, a spring in his step as his eyes locked in on you, a sly grin pulling across his face. You went still. Dennis caught your expression, turning to see where your gaze was.
“Hey pretty girl.” He smiled smugly.
You felt your body go tense, gaze zoned in on him.
“Aww, is the pretty girl angry with me? I think you’ll wanna hear what I have to ask you, you’ll be so happy.” He didn’t acknowledge Dennis, he probably didn’t even realise he was there. You didn’t reply, just watched his face. “I bought two tickets to prom.”
“Okay?” You responded dryly.
“And I’m taking you, baby.”
You scoffed and stood up from your seat, gathering your books. “I’m leaving. I’ll see you later, Denny.”
“Baby please.” He trailed after you, mockingly pleading. “Gimme a chance.”
“Please, leave me alone.” You bit back, rushing away.
It made Dennis’ skin crawl; a rage built in his stomach that he didn’t know how to get out. You could defend yourself, he knew that but he was your friend, he should’ve been able to help you. Zach Henry was an asshole, and viewed you like a target, a girl he couldn’t get. It spurred him on, made him crave it more. He’d already fucked his way through most of the girls in Broken Bow and surrounding towns but he hadn’t had you. Dennis was a meek child growing up, letting people walk all over him but things felt different when you were involved, his chest would tighten and his head would feel light. He thought he deserved what he got from people but you didn’t.
After school, he drove him, still reliving it, thinking how he could’ve done better. He felt stupid and weak. You deserved a better friend than that.
When he got home, Noah was sitting on the porch, drinking a beer like he usually did after work, covered in cow shit and mud, stinking up the whole house. Dennis slowly approached him, hands shoved into his pockets, body almost shrivelled.
“What’s up with you?” Noah’s lip curled in disgust.
“What would you do if someone was bothering a friend of yours?” It slipped out faster than he wanted it to, words stumbling over each other.
“What do you mean?” He questioned, taking a swig of his beer.
Dennis explained what happened between you and Zach, and that he felt frozen, useless, like he couldn’t help you. Noah didn’t seem impressed.
“I don't know dude, smash his shit up.” He shrugged.
Dennis nodded, processing his words slowly before walking into the house.
-
His fingers tightened around the bat, eyes fixed ahead on the washed-out green pick-up parked outside the Dollar General. He felt anger simmering underneath his skin, his stomach twisting and aching. He steadied his breathing, chest tightening. He didn’t hesitate as he strode toward the truck. With a quick exhale, he lifted the oak baseball bat and slammed it down on the windscreen, the glass splintering off in different directions. His breath knocked out of him, but he kept going. Swinging the bat again, he hit the wing mirror, breaking it right off the car. His body felt hot, adrenaline pulsing through his blood as he pulled out a pocket knife, bending down and slashing the tires.
“Dennis?” He heard a voice, close enough that he sent a chill down his spine.
“Ah...” He blanched, standing up straight to see you staring in bewilderment with a grocery bag in hand. He tried to smile, a little lopsided grin that he thought would make you ease up but your face didn’t shift. “I’ve gotta go.”
“Wh-what? Why?” You stuttered, eyes dancing between him and the truck. “Whose car is that?”
“I’ll explain later.” He turned towards his truck but you followed, grabbing his hand tightly. He broke into a sprint and you struggled to keep up as he dragged you behind him. He stopped by the driver side and fumbled as he pulled out the keys and unlocked the car.
“Get in.” He muttered, opening the door and letting you in first before jumping in behind you. You slid across the bench seat, giving Dennis more room to get the engine started up. In his wing mirror, he could see Zach stood frozen in shock with car keys in hand.
“Is that who I think it is?” Your body went still when you caught a glimpse.
“He got this thing called karma.” Dennis stated matter of fact as he started driving, pulling out of the parking lot, his hands tightening around the steering wheel.
“He’ll know it was you.” Your mind was running wild with possibilities before you realised what had just happened. “Where are you taking me?”
“He didn’t see us, plus that Dollar General doesn’t have cameras.” He reassured before digging in his pockets, furrowing his brows together. “How did you get here?”
“My mom…” You went numb. Zach would know it was Dennis, or that it had something to do with you. A shiver ran over your body, it made you feel sick.
“Tell her you met me, and I’ll drive you home.” He was definitely speeding, your hands gripping the seat.
“Why did you do that?” You looked at him but he was staring ahead at the road.
“He was bothering you.” His voice lowered.
“Dennis…” You shrunk back into the seat.
“I should’ve said something yesterday.”
“It’s okay.”
“It’s not okay, I should be able to… back you up.”
“Well smashing up his truck probably wasn’t the brightest idea.” You let out a nervous laugh, waiting for Dennis to react but he stayed still.
“It was Noah’s.”
“You asked Noah for help?!” You gasped, jolting forward. “Oh my god, Noah? At least if you asked Eli, he might have actually helped.”
“I know.”
That sinking feeling consumed Dennis while he mindlessly parked outside your house. Not a word uttered to you as you got out of the car, your voice drowning in white noise.
-
A few days later, on a Monday evening, you heard a knock at the door. You jogged over quickly, opening it to reveal Dennis, hanging his head, blood trickling down his chin onto the porch floor. There was some blood soaking through his shirt and it was all over his arms. When he finally lifted his head, it was clear he had a black eye.
“Oh my god what happened?” You could already put the pieces together.
“I guess Zach found out who busted up his truck.” He forced out a laugh which dropped as soon as he saw the look on your face, you were glaring at him with a scowl.
As quickly as you could, you brought him inside, guiding him towards the bathroom where you could get a better look at him. You told him to sit on the edge of the bathtub, while you searched for the first aid box. Dennis lifted his shirt, looking at the fresh blood and cuts across his stomach and chest, fingers touching where they shouldn’t. Dennis had taught you how to treat stuff like this, he said it was a useful skill when you’re always around on the farm where it’s easy for a wound to get infected. You found the first aid, handing it to Dennis while you washed your hands, feeling rage building in your gut.
“Where did it happen?” You faced him, a hand gently moving his face to examine it.
“I was walking back to my truck after school. I stayed back to catch up on some stuff and they must’ve been waiting.” He winced, talking made the cut on his lip sting.
“They?” Your eyes met his. “How many?”
“Like four? I don’t remember.” He winced.
Dennis held the first aid kid on his lap, opened and ready for you. You stood in front of him, your fingers touching his face gently to see how bad the damage was, making a start on the cut on his lip. It wasn’t deep, but it had stopped bleeding unlike his busted brow or the cut on his forehead. He closed his eyes momentarily, while you cleaned the wound, using a cotton swab to dap some antiseptic cream on it. Releasing you needed to move closer, you took the first aid kit from Dennis, putting it on the sink.
“Can I stand between your legs? It’ll make my life a lot easier.” You asked.
He nodded, opening his legs enough so you could stand closer. You filled the gap, a hand holding the side of his head, guiding him to tilt it backwards. The cut on his brow was a lot deeper, it almost made your stomach turn with how fleshy it was. Blood still trickling down, dripping off his jaw. You took your time cleaning, holding some gauze against the wound to help stop the bleeding. A silence had fallen over you two, Dennis’ eyes opening to watch you.
“They really did a number on you.” You sighed, brushing his hair back from his forehead with your fingers.
“I probably deserved it.” He muttered.
“I don’t think so.” You lifted the gauze, finding the bleeding had stopped. “Thank you.”
“For what?” His hands were touching the back of your knees, eyes staring up at you.
“For looking out for me.” You whispered, cleaning the cut slowly.
“That’s what friends are supposed to do.” His thumb mindlessly stroked the side of your knee.
“I know but I can be thankful.” A small smile pulled on your lips while you applied paper stitches, eyeing your own handy work. “It ain’t too bad. We can get some ice for the bruises, lift your shirt.”
He obliged without hesitation, lifting it up. His ribs where badly bruised, tender to the touch and his stomach had a few cuts, but nothing too bad.
“Your mom might take you to the ER if she sees that.” You cleaned the wounds across his stomach, they were quick.
“It’ll be fine.” He groaned, lowering his shirt again. You stepped back, sighing at how he miserable he looked.
You held out your hand, wiggling your fingers. He took your hand, standing up slowly. His other hand held his stomach as he followed you out of the bathroom and towards the living room. You tapped a spot on the couch which Dennis filled, while you ran into the kitchen, coming back with a bag of peas wrapped in a towel. You sat beside him, tapping your lap with a small smile. Dennis shuffled around, turning to lay across the couch, head resting on your lap. He took the peas from you, holding them against his chest.
“I think God guided me to you.” He whispered, looking up at you.
“The lord gives us who we need.” You replied quietly, playing with his hair.
“I definitely needed you.” He admitted, staring a little too long. Fear swallowed him, he jolted up, clearing his throat and scrambling to get off the couch. "My mom is probably worried."
He was gone before you could call him back.
-
21st June 2017
11:46pm Broken Bow, Nebraska
Dennis' faded red truck pulled up by your house, his tired dishevelled body stumbling out the driver side, with a pizza box. You were already sitting waiting on your porch steps, smiling as he walked towards you, a limp grin pulling across his face.
“You’re up late.” He slotted himself beside you. “Were you waiting for me?”
“You have a pizza box.” You leaned into his arm, looking at him. “I told you I’d wait.”
Dennis was starting to look older, a late puberty one would say but you called it filling out. He was slightly taller than last summer, taller than you finally and he had decided to grow out his hair this summer and it had gotten so light in the sun and it was almost in soft ringlets. He had been picking up weekend shifts at a local pizza place, just a little extra money for his pocket and every weekend since, he'd come to you before going home. He met your gaze, a hand reaching to move hair from your face, tucking it behind your ear.
“I won’t stay long, you look tired.” His mouth lifted into a small smile before he opened the box, inside an already cold, beat-up cheese pizza. “Ah, it looks worse than I thought...”
“It’s the thought that counts, I like cold pizza.” You mumbled sleepily, taking a slice.
You started eating, a comfortable silence falling over you both, the gentle breeze rustling the trees near your house. You started rambling about what you'd done all day without him, running through every mundane task you completed, whether it be getting out of bed at three o’clock in the afternoon or making lunch all by yourself.
"You are very boring." He chuckled. "But you already know that though."
"Hey! I'm not boring. I am bored." You corrected him, smiling smugly.
"Oh, I forgot, I got you this." He pulled out your favourite soda from his hoodie pocket, handing it to you.
The following ten minutes were silence, eating and drinking with your eyes closed in bliss.
Once you had finished, he closed the pizza box, tossing it behind him. You unknowingly leaned closer to him, trying to steal his heat, uncontrollably shivering.
“Okay, now you’re tired. Let’s get you inside.” He patted your head, getting ready to stand up but you held his arm tight, pulling him back down.
“I want to stay out here with you.” You sluggishly murmured.
“How about a blanket?” He matched your tone mockingly. "That box is still here, right?"
You nodded with a hum.
He gently removed you from his arm, standing up to search your front porch. He eyed it sitting by the front door, quickly grabbing the biggest one in there and settling back down beside you, wrapping you both in it, his arm hugging you close to him. You snuggled into his side, feeling how warm he was. Without thinking, he placed a kiss on the top of your head, letting out a contented sigh while you listened to his heart beating in his chest.
"My hands are cold…" You murmured, rubbing them together. "I think I am tired."
He laughed softly, taking your hands in one of his. Dennis’ heart started to beat a little faster, his body almost tensing when your cold skin met his. He brought them closer to him, tucking them under his hoodie, a warmth enveloping your skin. Suddenly a fear consumed you, not wanting to look at him or move, not wanting to ruin it but curiosity won. You lifted your head and you saw he was already staring at you, his eyes filled with a defeated sadness, his eyebrows tugging together.
When your eyes meet, it’s like something exploded inside of you. A want you’d never felt before devoured you, every nerve in your body buzzing with anticipation. His gaze dropped to your lips and all thought disappeared, his mouth opened slightly, a breath leaving his lungs shakily. Everything you had known died the moment you placed your hand on his cheek and guiding him toward your lips. When he kissed you, your stomach twisted, your legs feeling almost weak and fussy. Dennis was kissing you like he’s been waiting forever, like he had been hiding it from you. His arms tightened around you and a warmth inside you slowly kindling. You let your hand move, fingers feeling his wispy hair. A sigh left his nose, shoulders relaxing as his tongue delved into your mouth. His hands splayed over your back, fingers hot like embers through your clothes. You broke away, there was a sudden fear of it getting out of hand. Dennis entered back into his body, looking at you with a frantic look in his eyes.
“Uh… I-I think I’d better go.” He shuttered, lifting his hands from you carefully.
“Y-yea, I’ll see you tomorrow?” The realisation of what you’d just done crashed into you and you slid away from him.
“Th-that… uh- Goodnight.” He stood up abruptly, his lips still glistening, face flushed red with embarrassment.
All you could get out was ‘yea’ before he was briskly walking back to his truck, leaving you on your porch steps alone.
-
Alone in his room, an unexplainable terror filling his entire body. He collapsed by his bed, hands clasped tightly as he thought of how to explain himself to God. He had convinced himself that these feelings only led to sin.
"Protect me from my mind." He rested his head against his hands, feeling the guilt weighing him down. He wiped it from his mind, telling himself he'd never do it again.
-
16th July 2017
9:20am, Sunday Mass, Broken Bow, Nebraska
“If you love me, keep my commands.” The priest read aloud, eyes never lifting to look at his parishioners. His voice felt like chalk in Dennis’ ears, making his back itch, and skin sweaty. As he droned on, reading gospel with a tongue of fire, Dennis grew more anxious. His fingers picked at the scab on his knuckle; he couldn’t leave it alone. The deafening sound of preaching consumed him, the sin of existing ripping him from the inside out. The harder he tried to zone out, the more guilt chewed on him. He brought his fingers to his mouth, biting on his flesh, a habit he had tried to drop before.
The past month, he fought himself, the thought of you a constant in his mind. The priest had turned to using scripture to condemn the actions of sinners in his usual hateful ramble. It was killing him, eyes aching when he looked up at the altar, the image of Christ staring down in disgust, or what Dennis believed to be disgust. Had God seen the things living in his mind? If God knew what he thought about, he’d surely never see heaven. He’d fall forever, skin flayed from his meat, organs cooked in the fires of hell. The impureness of his mind, his own perversions that he couldn’t get rid of. Dennis picked his skin harder, making himself bleed, it would never be punishment enough for his deplorable thoughts. It would rot inside him if he didn't confess to it, poisoning the good still left in him. Every waking moment he replayed you kissing him, thought of how it could've gone, how he could do it again and again and again.
He wished he could move on from it. You hadn't mentioned it, at all, acting like it hadn't done anything to change how you felt for him. He felt crazy. The mass drew to a close, his heart racing, his mind swirling with disgust and yet, he immediately searched for you.
-
25th August 2017
8:45pm, Broken Bow, Nebraska
"I bestow onto you," He mimicked the voice of Gandalf, a bad impression you'd say. His hands opening in front of you. "My faithful iPod nano."
"How old is this thing?" You jeered, holding back a laugh.
"It's not old." He frowned, dropping the act sadly. "Are you taking it or not?"
"Oh, right yes, thank you, the great wizard Gandalf!" You played the part of a faithful hobbit, taking his old iPod nano into your hands. You carefully placed it inside your bag, like it was a precious stone that would explode if handled wrong. "You have brought me great fortune! I will cherish this treasure for an eternity!"
The sun was beginning to set, you both sitting in the middle of a field, hidden by the long grass and weeds. You had been there all day, just talking, spending the last moments of freedom together before you left for college.
"Will you miss me?" He leaned back on his hands, head tilted back to the sky.
"Immensely." You smiled, lying back on the grass, not caring what creepy crawlies found their way to you. "You still set on Theology?"
"It's locked in." He murmured, closing his eyes. "Sometimes I wonder if I'm doing it for myself or my parents."
"Why?" Your head turned to look at him.
"They've never been proud of me. I'm the first in our family to even get into college and the only thing they're happy about is that I'm studying theology. I never got a congratulations for getting into Creighton, or getting a scholarship but once I mentioned studying God, then they were interested."
"Well, if they won't say they're proud of you, then I will. I am proud of you Dennis Whitaker, wherever life takes you, I will always be right behind you."
"Thank you, I'm proud of you too."
The sky grew darker, the darkness revealing flecks of gold as the moonlight spilled over you and him. He had laid beside you, leaning back on his arms, admiring the constellations above. Dennis would never tell you that he loved quiet moments with you, knowing you were there, knowing you wanted to be there, was enough for him. He didn't need you to speak, or do anything.
You let out a sigh, gaze shifting to him. He was contented, searching the sky, breathing slowly. Staring felt guilty, it felt wrong but you couldn't help it. You wouldn't see him for months, you were terrified that this friendship would fizzle out, that he'd find new people, more interesting people to be around. You were scared that he'd change, or worse you'd change and that you would be different together, an uncontrollable twist of fate that kept you up at night. But you didn't know he felt the exact same way.
-
14th July 2018
3:50pm, Broken Bow, Nebraska
The summer after freshman year, you both had come back to Broken Bow, you both said it was to see family, to get a break from college but you both were only looking forward to seeing one another. The last time you had seen him in person was Christmas, you had been calling him every week, keeping him updated with everything you'd been doing at college, and he did the same. You had walked to his house, gravel crunching beneath your feet as you walked towards the porch, the sound of raised voices spilling through the ajar door. Your eyebrows furrowed, climbing the steps before getting to the door. You could hear more than three voices and one was Dennis, apologising profusely. You shoved the door open, your blood pumping harder in your veins and then you saw him, head lowered in shame as his parents paced, shouting and ranting about everything and nothing. They saw you, faces scrunching up in disgust as Dennis lifted his head, eyes widening at the sight of you. It didn't take him long to decide to run to you.
"Dennis? What's going on?" You panicked, looking over him.
"Can we just go?" He walked by you, his pinky finger looping around yours. You didn't respond, just followed him out to his truck. You both into his truck, Dennis' lifeless eyes stared ahead, his breathing irregular as he started the engine, driving out to the main road.
"What happened?" You slid across the bench, touching his leg.
"I believed they'd be proud of me, even if I wanted to be somewhat progressive, at least it would be under God." He muttered, a tear rolling down his face. "They found a paper I wrote, a discussion on the teachings of Jesus. I took the route of progression, how Jesus fought for the minorities, the misfortunate, the homeless, the refugees. They, uh… called me a traitor."
"What?" You froze.
"Traitor to the glory of Christ, that I had fallen to the ways of sinners." He shrugged, the tears still spilling out, chin wobbling as he held back cries. "How… is the way of sinners?"
"It isn't…"
He shook his head, wiping his tears with the back of his hand, driving down a dirt road, toward a spot you both knew well. You stayed quiet, rubbing his leg in the weak attempt to comfort him. The rest of the drive was silent until he parked by the field. You both climbed out, your fingers laced with his as you walked into the field, the tall grass swallowing your lower half. When you both found a spot, you sat beside him, leaning into his arm knowing he just needed you there. His fingers clung to yours, bringing them to his chest.
"You are everything right with the church…" You whispered, just loud enough for him to hear you. "You are kind, and loving."
He turned his head, looking over your face.
"Your parents are wrong." You met his gaze. "You are good."
His gaze dropped, letting out a breath before lifting his eyes to yours again. "Do you really think that?"
"With all my heart," You felt a pull, your eyes falling to his lips. "Dennis."
His name on your tongue was all he needed, he leaned in and captured your lips, wrapping his arm around you. Your hand held his face, his lips moving against yours in fluid motions, your body tingling under his touch. It was tender, your heart pounded in your chest. His tongue dragged along your bottom lip, begging for more. You tilted his head, letting him explore you deeper, hands clinging to his shirt.
"We shouldn't…" You whispered against his lips, catching your breath.
"Mhmm, we shouldn't." He muttered before pulling you back into him, kissing you a little harder than before. The way he held you, the way his fingers slipped beneath your shirt, sprawling across your back. You let a moan slip out of your mouth, a hand finding his hair.
It was too much, you pulled away and looked at him, trying to catch your breath. The gold cross hanging from his neck, twinkled against the sun as it spilled through the clouds. He was breathing raggedly but he didn’t pull away, didn’t stop watching you. Nothing crossed your mind as you stared at his lips, wet and reddened. His dirty blond hair fell into his eyes, sweat making it cling to his forehead.
“I think I need to kiss you again.” He closed the gap. You inhaled him, kissing him eagerly, his moans pouring down your throat as he tugged you onto his lap, straddling his legs. You couldn't stop, even when you felt yourself getting wet as you brushed yourself against his growing erection. His lips broke from yours, finding your neck where he sucked and nipped, guiding your hips when you moved, aching for friction.
“Sh-shit.” He ripped himself away with his hands held up like he was at gunpoint. His hair was a mess, a bulge straining in his jeans. He said your name as if that would break you both out of it. “We have evening service."
-
His fingers brushed against to yours in the pews, the priest’s voice echoing throughout the church. His body felt your warmth radiate from your skin, nudging his foot against yours to get you to look at him. He was drawn to you even when he knew it was wrong, when he knew this would all build up. When you met his gaze, he smiled so sweetly as he let out a breath through his nose, shoulders settling. Sinful as it was, he couldn’t help but want you, in every way he could think of. In his arms, on his bed, in his truck. He wanted to be with you and to love you like you deserved to be. He wanted you to himself. He wanted a life with you, to move out of Broken Bow and never come back. As the priest droned on, he couldn’t look away from you. He knew he loved you; that wasn’t hard for him to figure out and it terrified him, his whole life ahead of his crumbling in his eyes.
Outside the church, the Priest lingered close by, eyeing you two, how you held each other’s fingers, smiling in such sappy childish admiration. He walked closer, tapping Dennis on the shoulder, telling him he needed a talk.
"Yes Father?" Dennis followed him, not worried in the slightest.
"The acts of the flesh are obvious, sexual immortality, impurity and debauchery…" He started, glaring coldly at Dennis. He continued on, "I warn you, as I did before that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God. Galatians, fifth chapter, verses nineteen through twenty-one."
"I don't understand." Dennis' whole body went cold, his heart feeling like it might shrivel up.
"I have watched that friendship, you have brought sin into the house of God." His words ripped right through Dennis' chest. "Imagine what your parents would say if they saw your actions within this church."
He shook his head, almost frantically, stumbling over his words. "N-no, I didn't do anything."
"If you wish to continue as part of the church, I recommend you face your truth with the lord. If you break that covenant, you can never turn back." He flippantly said before quoting Colossians. "Put to death therefore what is earthly in you."
Dennis stood in shock, heart racing now that he couldn't catch a breath, hands reaching up to grasp at his throat. It was all together hysterical, how his body felt as if it were shutting down, his skin burning when he saw you looking all worried and confused.
"Den?" You touched his arm feverishly.
He unclasped his cross necklace from around his neck, shoving it into your palm.
"I'm sorry, I have to go. I'll … see you later." He doesn't take a moment to think about how it felt for you, to have him look so disgusted, so disappointed as he turned away from you, striding away without looking back. He drove him in silence, throat tightening as he held back sobs. It was a blur, before he knew it, he was in his room, gasping for air, pacing back and forth while he broke down, sobbing harder than he ever had before.
"Lord, I would tear my throat out if that's what you wanted from, I'd cut myself and bleed for you. Why do you keep testing my faith in you? I am already embarrassed and tired. You wouldn't let me have her, she was all I had. How is it not pure when she is all I think about? She is good to me, please." He slowly lowered himself onto his bed, holding his head in his hands.
-
18th January 2019
11:45pm Chicago
It had been months since you heard from him. Once summer ended, you went back to college and he didn’t reply to your texts as often as he used to. The only way you knew he was alive was a really active social media that had posted him with about thirty other people, all celebrating their love for God through pilgrimages. It wasn’t out of character Dennis to be involved with the church but this felt forced. A video was uploaded, Dennis standing alongside others preaching about how God is good, how “God is the Truth”.
It was a Sunday night, middle of winter, you were wrapped in blankets trying to combat the chill. You had been rereading the bible, attempting to find what would’ve pulling Dennis back in, what appeal it had to take him. Your phone started buzzing, lighting up to reveal Dennis’ contact. You answered.
“Hello? Dennis?” You said, almost scared for what he might say.
“Hey.” His voice crackled over the line, then a silence settled over you both. It felt wrong speaking to him, like something would go incredibly wrong.
“Hey, how are you?” You let out a sigh. You had to admit that hearing his voice felt nice.
“I’m alright, if I’m honest, I’ve been missing our talks.” He sounded different, not that you could really put a finger on what it was, he was just different.
“Really?”
“Of course… What have you been up to?”
You hated that you couldn't answer him. You couldn't admit that you’d been rereading scripture, that you’d been attending church almost every day, searching for him in everything.
“You still there?” He broke you from your thoughts.
“Yea sorry, I’ve been… going to church…”
“Really?” He chirped excitedly.
“Every day, for about two months.”
“Wow…” Suddenly, his excitement dulled. “Why?”
“What?” You blanched.
“Why have you turned to God? Did something happen?” There was a noticeable shift in his voice.
“Nothing in particular, no.” You lied.
“You can tell me anything, you know what right?”
“Okay then, can I be honest?”
“Of course, always.”
“It makes me feel like I know you.”
He went quiet, the sound of your heart echoed in your ears.
“When I go to church, I feel like I can understand you.” You hated admitting it. It was humiliating to sit and confess to being so caught up with him.
“Th-that’s good.” His voice sounded like it was trembling. He was teetered too close to the edge, he knew he shouldn't have called you.
“I’m lost, you don’t talk to me anymore. I don’t know what I did to you.”
“I miss you.” His voice sounded like him when he whispered, his breathing shaky. It felt like he was changing the subject, it all felt wrong. “You have no idea. I think about you every day.”
“I miss you too.” You confessed.
A soft grunt echoed over the line, followed by a frustrated sigh. The pit of your stomach twinged, a satisfying buzz filling you. That simple sound from him made your head light.
“What are you doing Dennis?” You questioned, feeling the hairs on your arms standing on end.
“I miss you so much.” He breathed out, an almost muted moan following it.
You didn’t answer, almost frozen in fear.
“I never told you how much I needed you. I still do.” He was growing more confident, his voice not as faint.
You were scared to speak, scared you say the wrong thing, scared you'd send him running but your whole body was on fire.
“I-I’m so hard.” He admitted before immediately sobering. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I don’t know why I called.”
“You can touch yourself if you need to...” You snaked a hand down to your underwear, a weird feeling building in your gut. "Why did you call Dennis?"
“I can't…” He shuddered. "I can't tell you."
“I won’t tell, why did you call me?" You persisted.
"Needed to hear your voice, I’ve been thinking about you a lot. I missed you, I miss you." He panted out a groan.
"It's okay, you can touch yourself." You were already teasing yourself, lightly brushing a finger over your slit.
"It's sinful." His voice was barely audible.
"Your secret is safe with me." You whispered.
He breathed out a moan. “C-Can you watch me?”
“If that’s what you want.”
When his camera turned on, it was total darkness but he could see you, your features softened by the warm yellow light on your bedside table.
“So pretty…” He said, a small light illuminating his face, his cheeks already flushed. He started to set his phone up on the side, giving you a full view of him in bed. He was wearing a black hoodie and grey sweats, palming over his bulge as he made sure it was angled right. He sat facing his phone, back against the wall.
He pulled his sweats down just enough to get his cock out, gently stroking it in his hand, eyes staring at you on his phone. He started slow, cupping his balls and teasing himself.
“Every time… I think about you, it gets… so so hard.” He whimpered, looking down at his cock as he started pumping himself with his fist. “Is it turning you on?”
You nodded, a finger tracing along your slit.
“Show me.” He whined, head leaning back against the wall. “Show me how much I’m turning you on.”
You shimmied off your pants, pulled your underwear down to your ankles, panning the camera down to reveal how soaked you were already. He watched eagerly, his breathing shifted, fucking into his hand harder when you teased your hole with your middle finger.
“What do you want me to do?” You hovered your finger over your hole.
“F-Finger yourself…”
You slid a single finger in, breathing heavier as you curled it.
“Use your thumb to rub your clit.” His voice echoed from the phone and you followed his instruction. “Does it feel good?”
“Y-yea…”
“Do you wish it was me finger fucking you?”
You held back a moan. “I wish it was you Dennis…”
A bang echoed through his room, stopping him in his tracks. His eyes growing wider as he slowly looked toward his door.
“Shit, I have to go, I’m sorry.” He pulled his boxers back on and leaned forward, taking his phone. “I-I’ll call you tomorrow."
-
12th August 2020
2:30pm, Broken Bow, Nebraska
Sweat clung to the back of your neck, the humidity made everything feel claustrophobic, your whole body was sticky from the heat. You were back for a week to spend time with family but you were already growing bored. You had thought of visiting Dennis' parents, hoping deep down that he'd be there, hoping that you'd get some answers out of him but fear pushed you to stay put. He hadn't spoken to you since that night. A stupid thing that you would've looked past if he had asked you to. You had heard from his brothers that he'd been travelling across the country but he hadn't been home since Christmas last year. It was mean but keeping in contact with his brothers was the only way for you to know that Dennis was alive and not floating in a creek somewhere. Apparently, he was focused on remaining within the faith, wanting to teach the word of God.
You mindlessly played with the cross that hung around your neck, eyes closing as you felt a light breeze washing over you, cooling you down. The sound of an engine running grew louder followed the crackling of gravel on the road. You sat up, looking ahead at the truck pulling in front of your house.
"What the fuck?" You nearly jump out of your seat, the pit of your stomach sinking at the sight of a red truck. Your feet moved by themselves, carrying you towards the car as the driver killed the engine. The door swung open and he was almost unrecognisable. His gaze settled on you, startling backwards lightly.
"Hey." He managed to get out.
"No, no. This isn't happening." You felt sick but looking at him, how his eyes softened, how his lips parted to speak only to close again at your rage. "You disappear for a year and a half and then show up at my house?"
"I know, I had a lot to think about." He admitted, climbing out of the truck. "I can explain everything."
"How am I supposed to stand here and listen to you?" You felt tears coming and you hated it. He didn't look himself, his hair was short, eyes hollowed out like his soul had been sucked dry but he felt taller, more muscle on his bones, the way his white shirt hugged his arms, it was like he had hit a second puberty. You couldn't pull your eyes from him.
"I felt ashamed, I had to repent." He stepped closer to you.
"And that meant leaving me in the dark? Wondering for months about what I must’ve done to hurt you? Dennis, you called me that night!" You couldn't help it, the tears tripped you up, choking on your breath.
"I-I'm sorry. I'm really sorry." He muttered. "Can we go for a drive and talk?"
You wanted to laugh in his face, to shove him away, to tell him to get away from you and never come back. You hated him so much, but still felt yourself pulled toward him. He was your person which only made you feel worse. It felt impossible to say no so you said yes.
You climbed into his truck and it smelt the same as it always did. He started the engine and drove in the silence, not daring to look in your direction. He drove in silence for about twenty minutes, until he pulled into the side of the road. You both jumped out of the car, you made a beeline for the fence which led into a field, climbing over it while Dennis followed. It started awkward, an uncomfortable silence that you felt you couldn't break through. He stayed focused ahead, walking alongside you as if there was purpose behind it all.
"Put to death therefore what is earthly in you." He blurted out, staring ahead.
"What?" You glanced at him.
"He told me that two summers ago." His voice turned hoarse.
"Who did?" You stopped in your tracks, grabbing his arm to make him stay.
"The priest before our new one."
"What do you mean?"
"He watched us, thought we were impure, sexually. Told me I had brought sin into the house of God." He felt sick admitting it.
"Dennis…"
"I have repented…"
"There is nothing to repent for Dennis, we didn't do anything wrong."
He didn't respond to you, slowly walking on as you followed behind. It was silence again, as your feet dragged you back to the car. You both climbed back in, and sat staring out at the road, sitting with him felt uncomfortable, different in how the air shifted around you, how the words stuck in your throat when you tried to talk. He didn't move, staring into space. Suddenly, his hand inched closer, fingers brushing against yours but it was like he didn’t want to startle you. It was like hot and cold.
“It’s not the same anymore.” You whispered, misty-eyed. He turned to face you, eyes widening as you started weeping quietly.
“H-Hey...” His hand held your face, making you look at him, but you crumbled when you looked into his eyes, seeing how he became frantic.
“It’s all different, we’re not us anymore.” You cried, squeezing your eyes shut, scared to look at him anymore.
“We are, we are…” He reassured, wiping your tears with his thumbs.
“He has his pull on you. God convinced you that you had to change to be devout. You were always good. What happened to my Dennis?” You couldn’t catch your breath, uncontrollable sobs racking through your body. Dennis dropped his hands, staring at you as he inhaled a shaky breath. His heart split in his chest, fingertips growing numb. You composed yourself enough to look at him, noticing how his face morphed, your breathing unsteady, sliding across the bench closer to him. It was pathetic, how you touched his thigh, his body tensing.
“You were mine.” You got closer, searching his face, looking for something that wasn’t there anymore. It didn’t get through to him, even as your lips found his cheek, kissing along his jaw, messy and wet from tears. “You were my Dennis… Be my Dennis again, please.”
Tears spilled from his eyes, his voice weak, he whispered your name. “Please... Don’t do this.”
“You’re mine, p-please Dennis.” It repeated like an involuntary jerk out of you, kissing over his face in the childish attempt to bring him back to you. “You were always mine.”
He repeated your name like a mantra, telling you he couldn’t do it, that it wasn’t right but he didn’t push you away or stop you, even as your mouth found his neck, sucking and nipping. No matter how hard he devoted himself to God, he couldn’t turn away from you. He let you move closer, hands on his chest as you climbed onto his lap, strands of hair sticking to your face. He took his sleeve and wiped your face, delicate as it dragged over your cheeks. Your hands cupped his face, wanting so desperately to kiss him. He let his fingers rest against your tights, fear rising to the surface.
A sob slipped out of his lips, a force pulling it out of him before he could stop himself. He didn’t need to tell you how he felt, you could see it in his eyes, as they searched your face. The way his eyebrows twitched together, his lips parting slightly when his eyes looked over your face. He breathed out your name. Fear and pleasure washed over you, you’d never crossed this boundary with him, never opened yourself up for him, never showed him what existed in the depths of your mind.
You leaned closer, lips brushing against his. A soft sigh poured from his mouth. He caught your lips with his. He was so gentle, his fingers barely touching you as he held your waist awkwardly, whimpering when your hands slid into his hair. Each touch seemed to push you both further, testing with nods of consent and soft hums. A desperate ache filled your stomach as one of his hands held the back of your neck, holding you firm as his tongue swiped across yours. It was messy, childish but all consuming. The moonlight illuminated the cab of the truck, the movements between you two making it rock, the cross hanging from his rearview tapping against the windshield. He guided you, one hand gently rocking your hips against him. You felt him getting harder, high-pitched whines pouring into your mouth. You moaned out his name, feeling yourself getting wetter each time you grinded against the solid bulge in his shorts. He grew louder, messier when he kissed you, groaning when you tugged his hair.
It was hunger, the way his fingers slipped beneath your dress, finding your underwear, tugging them aside. Once you’d awkwardly shimmied them off, you watched his face as you pawed at his cock through his shorts.
He shuddered a moan, looking down as he pulled it out, throbbing and pink, so delicate. He couldn’t help but whine as he fondled with himself, precum trickling down his shaft, cock twitching. “N-nghh..”
You lifted his chin, kissing him again, this time harder and more desperate as you lifted your hips.
“O-oh…” His head fell back against the seat, his tip rubbing against your clit. You guided him to where you ached the most, nudging him into your cunt. Desire overrode your fear, your cunt stretching around him as you slowly swallowed his cock.
“Y-you feel… oh f-fuck, so good, so g-good.” His breath was knocked out of him, panting helplessly as he bottomed out inside you. His pupils dilated, never looking away from your face, even when you pulled down your dress straps, the fabric falling down your torso. His eager hands trailed up your back, clumsy fingers working to unclasp your bra. You continued hungrily grinding on his cock, feeling him stretch and fill you. The clasp of your bra unlatched and Dennis slid his hands over your shoulders, slowly taking it off, mouth hanging open as your tits laid bare for him. He brought his mouth to your hardened nipple, flicking his tongue over the sensitive nub before sucking gently. Your fingers sunk into his hair, tugging softly as you lifted your hips slightly, slamming back down on his dick. You kept going, bouncing as much as the space allowed, while he sobbed, whimpering incoherently while the sounds of your sloppy fucking filled the truck.
It didn’t take long until you were riding out your orgasm, head falling back as you choked out cries. Your cunt clenching as you came down from your peak. Dennis followed soon after, holding you in place as you leaned against him with your forehead on his shoulder exhausted. He fucked up into you, breathy moans filling the cab until he was filling you with cum, milking his cock with your pussy. He rested his forehead on your shoulder, both of you leaning against one another to gather yourselves. You sat up, pulling him out, feeling his cum spilling out of you.
He went silent, pulling his shorts back on as you sat back beside him, waiting for him to talk but he didn’t. His expression completely unreadable. You curled into yourself, pulling up your dress straps as quick as you could, feeling tears fill your eyes again.
“Are you angry?” You managed to get out. “Do you hate me?”
“No.” He shook his head, looking down at his hands. “I could never hate you.”
He started the engine, still trying to catch his breath, swallowing hard. He drove in silence, parking outside your house. You opened the door and jumped out, turning to face him with your hand still on the door.
“We shouldn’t see each other again.” He muttered, staring down at his hands.
“What? Why?” Your heart started racing.
“We’re not good. You deserve someone who can give you more.” He sighed, avoiding your gaze. You felt bile rising in your throat, tears spilling down your cheeks when you slammed the door, watching him start the engine and drive off.
-
Present Day
Omaha, Nebraska
You weren’t sure why you accepted the invite.
You were back in Nebraska, after what felt like a lifetime and having spent the last five or so years building a life for yourself in Boston. You were happy, secured with a flexible job that you loved, settled in a studio apartment that you made your own. You had friends, plenty of them, and you were seeing someone new. Perhaps you accepted the invite, in the hopes of seeing him and gloating about how great you were doing, but you wouldn’t admit to that.
You huffed, dragging your suitcase through a hotel lobby, sweat beating down your back. Familiar faces surrounded you at every turn, nearly half of Broken Bow had shown up and the thing that surprised you was that they’d actually travelled to Omaha. You finally got to the front desk, feeling like your legs might buckle from underneath you, and you told the receptionist that you had a reservation with the wedding party.
“Room 290 on the 2nd floor. Hope you enjoy your stay.” He smiled, handing over your room key. “If there are any issues with the room, don’t hesitate to dial 1 on the room phone and I’ll send someone to help.”
“Oh, thank you very much.” You nodded and made your way towards the elevators. You were exhausted from the journey and you just needed to lie down and turn off your brain. You took the elevator up to the second floor, dragged yourself to room 209 and started fumbling with the key card.
The door beside you opened and out walked a dark-haired woman, grumbling about being ‘in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by country bumpkins’ while rubbing her forehead. She glanced your direction, giving a less than friendly smile before turning around to face whoever was following her out of the room.
“It won’t be that bad. I’m surprised you even agreed to come to my brother’s wedding in the first place.” A voice you could pick out of a lineup spoke from inside the room. You turned your attention, hands frozen still. Dennis walked out of the room, arms folded across his chest, smiling smugly. You stared at him, feeling your bones turn to mush, your heart racing. He looked different, happy and healthy. You felt sick for wishing that he wasn’t. When his gaze caught you, his smile dropping instantly. His body turned to face you, his eyes reading like he wanted to talk to you, like he wanted to be near you. You started panicking, trying to unlock your door with no luck. You heard his friend muttering about him being weird before you slipped the key card into the slot and the door clicked open. You scrambled inside, slamming the door behind you. You muttered a curse to yourself, leaning against the door and decided to wipe it from your memory, and go for a nap before Noah’s rehearsal dinner.
-
The rehearsal dinner was as busy as you thought it’d be. You had been seated at your table for a while before any other guests were beginning to show up so you retreated into yourself, absorbed in your phone, responding to emails and messages.
“I think this is us.”
You lifted your head, seeing the dark-haired woman standing by, reading the table number with Dennis by her side. You wanted to die, shrinking into your seat with your phone as your shield. They took their seats, not noticing how you nearly slithered off your seat. Your skin felt clammy, heart pounding off beat as the seats slowly filled, the lights dimming. Dennis and his date seemed to be chatting each other’s ears off, while you sat watching. It was some sort of sick joke, seeing him so happy with someone, you wanted to peel your skin off. You kept your attention to Noah and his soon to be wife, who you hadn't had the fortune of meeting yet. The meal dragged on, courses and toasts, and more drinks, and more talking and more and more drinks. You zoned out for most of the meal, watched as servers came and went, the laughing of the soon to be married couple split through your mind before fizzling into nothing. It felt like an eternity, and he hadn't stopped watching you the whole time. His gaze bore into you even when his date rattled on, and you had tried to ignore it.
Once the food had stopped being served and it socially acceptable, you jumped out of your seat and went to say hello to Noah, hoping Dennis didn't get the same idea. They were chatting happily, until Noah's gaze landed on you, a childish grin pulling on his face.
"Are you enjoying your company?" He poked, his fiancée looking slightly confused.
"You sat me there on purpose?" You couldn't be hurt, Noah was an asshole.
"Thought it might bring you two back together." He shrugged.
"What's happened?" His fiancée butted in, a worried look washing over her face. "If you're uncomfortable, we can move you around for the reception tomorrow."
"Oh, don't worry, please." You shook your head, smiling at her. "I just came over to say congratulations, and that I’m happy for you both."
"Thank you! and I'm sorry about him, I had no idea." She subtly jammed him in the ribs with two fingers, smiling sweetly before turning her full attention to him. You slipped off, feeling like you'd been slapped by a ton weight of bricks. You wandered across the room, noticing Elijah and Stan with their families so you make yourself known to them, waving over to them with a big smile before turning to go back to your seat, only to see Dennis. He was coming towards you, striding towards you. It couldn't happen. Your eyes scanned the room, looking for an out, until you settled on slipping past and making a run for the door.
-
“So, you’re the ex-friend Huckleberry mentions all the time?” Dennis’ date smirked, her eyes almost twinkling with interest. The whole day had been a blur for you, the ceremony had come and gone, it was all beautiful but being near Dennis was messing with your head. How he stared at you every chance he got, even when he stood by the altar as Noah's best man, his eyes didn't break from you. Now you were sat at your table again, forced to be close enough to him and his date, forced to engage in conversations.
“A-ah who?” You looked at her, unsure if she was talking to you, glancing at Dennis, you could see he was sweating, diverting his gaze from you.
“You so are.” She looked at him, wanting to laugh. “God.”
“I’m really sorry.” He finally met your eyes, his voice low. You already wanted to leave but hearing him speak to you almost sent you off.
“I’m not! I have many questions and you have all the answers.” She scoots her chair over closer to you. “I’m Trinity by the way.”
You introduce yourself hesitantly. “Are you two um- “
“Ew! God no!” Trinity gagged, throwing a look of disgust back at Dennis. “Ew.”
“She’s my coworker… and roommate.” Dennis butted in from the other side of Trinity. "Just making that clear."
She glanced at him, rolling her eyes before turning her full attention back to you. Trinity asked about everything from his family, to his upbringing, to what he used to wear, the sports he played, the church he attended, how you two met. It edged on digging for something to laugh at but she was disappointed, you only gave shit short answers because you could see Dennis out of the corner of your eye, head in his hands, uncomfortable.
Dinner slowly passes, you ended up drinking a little too much, a fantastic attempt at distracting yourself and by 9pm, you were more drunk than you wanted to be, sitting by yourself with a glass of champagne still in hand. You had opted to sit off to the side, smiling as you watched people dancing with and celebrating the newlywed couple but then you saw him, standing by the doors, holding his drink and staring right at you. You had forgotten in that moment that you both hadn't spoken in years, you looked at him like you'd been waiting to see him, like you wanted to tell him something but you held back. You gulp the rest of your drink, abandoning the glass on a nearby table before you made a beeline out the door, aiming for the elevator, wanting this day over so you could go home. You rode the elevator up to your floor, and went to your room, slipping off your shoes as soon as you got in the door. There was a beat before there was a frantic knock on the door. You glanced through the peephole, seeing Dennis standing there with his head hanging low, so you tugged the door open.
“Wh-what are you doing here?” You stuttered, feeling like you might throw up.
He met your eyes, he looking at you as he whispered your name so quietly.
“No, no, you don’t get to do this.” You shook your head, going to close the door but he stopped it with his foot.
“Let me talk please.” He leaned against the door frame. “Please.”
You hesitated, grip tightening on the door handle as you fought yourself internally before you put your foot down. You sternly said, “No. You need to go…”
“I shouldn’t have left you that night.” He said, regardless of your objections. “I was scared but it doesn’t make up for the fact that I did it to you.”
You stayed quiet, your head feeling light and tingly.
“It was the greatest sin I’d ever committed and it freaked me out that I didn’t regret it. I couldn’t get you out of my mind, how it was with you. I was blinded, delusional in believing in God’s truth. I thought I was disgusting, or that I had ruined you in the eyes of God.” His chest heaved. "It's a shitty excuse but I was so..."
You opened the door, looking at him as he hung his head in defeat.
“I should've been up front with you, told you everything. Leaving you like that was the worst thing I could've done. Fuck, a better way would've been to ask you to marry me.” He tried to laugh it off, before his voice steadied. “I was so stupid.”
“You can’t say that." You flinched backwards, staring at him. "It wouldn’t have changed anything and you know that.”
“Why can't I? Would you have said yes?” Your reaction ignited something in him. He was looking at you now, focused on how you’d answer, if you even answered.
“Dennis… That's mean. You can't ask me that.” You stepped back, feeling your breath leaving your lungs, tears threatening to start. You didn't understand what he was doing.
“No, sorry, I can and I am.” He was stern, you'd never seen this side of him before.
“I’m not giving you an answer.” You mournfully muttered, bitting the inside of your cheek.
“Would you have married me?” He pleaded your name.
“Okay, yes.” It hurt you being honest, admitting you wasted all those years. “Is that what you want to hear? You fucking idiot!”
His body flinched, eyes welling up.
“I thought I had left this all behind. I was the one running after you while you pled your innocence to God who would never answer you.” You sobbed. You hated it so much. “I was real, I was right there Dennis, every single time! Now you come to me, asking me if I would've married you? Are you fucking crazy?”
He said your name, as tears fell down his face.
“Don’t. I was willing to give you everything and you threw it back in my face, please go.” You shook your head, trying to hold back your cries.
“Please, just...” He wept.
“Dennis, leave me alone.” You felt more tears, your chest tightening.
“I’m sorry, please.” He touched your arm. You jolted it back and then you looked at him. Messy blond-haired Dennis, staring at you like you were the only thing keeping him alive, floods spilling out of his eyes. “I-I’m sorry.”
“I can’t forgive you Dennis.” You choked out, wiping your face.
“I don’t expect you to, I need you to know that I’m sorry. Having feelings for you was the only real thing I had ever felt, I guess it outweighed the faith I had in God. You were everything to me and I fucked it, I’m sorry.”
“I can’t, Dennis.” You struggled to turn him away, it broke you.
He accepted your answer, nodding his head and turning to leave you.
You grabbed his hand to stop him, a word not spoken. He looked at you, glassy eyes. You gently tugged him towards you, stepping backwards slowly. He willingly followed you, closing the door behind him.
“What are you doing?” He whispered, watching you closely.
“I don’t know…” You let out a breath, tears filling your eyes as a quiet sob escaped your throat. “I don’t know Dennis, are you going to disappear again?”
He shook his head “Never… I want to make it up to you, I’ll do anything… everything for the rest of my life.”
He stepped closer, hand sliding it up your arm, goosebumps spreading across your skin.
You met his eyes, letting out a defeated breath. “I won't chase after you anymore…”
His breathing turned shaky, eyes flickering over your face, fingers burning against your skin. He didn’t push, didn’t dare move.
You stepped closer, body almost pressing against him, whispering, “I can’t...”
His gaze fell to your lips, leaning down closer to you. He murmured, “Then don’t…”
You leaned up, feeling your body move on its own, your nose brushing against his.
“I’m so sorry” He whispered, hands reaching up to hold your face. “I love you.”
You broke into a sob, “D-Don’t say that.”
“I’m sorry.” He started kissing your face, going down along your jaw, down your neck and onto your chest, whispering your name. He slowly lowered to his knees, forehead resting on your thighs, arms wrapped around you.
“I’m sorry.” He broke into a painful sob, shoulders shaking as he gripped your dress. You looked down at him, hesitantly letting your fingers go through his hair. His face was so close to your crotch, you could feel him brushing against you as he cried. You hated that it turned on, watching him kneeling in front of you, face buried in your dress.
You started breathing heavy. “D-Dennis? Get up.”
He looked up at you, face all wet, eyes red and puffy from crying, looking up at you like you hung the moon. He was so beautiful, you couldn’t help but stare at him. He slowly rose to his feet, hands cupping your face. He leaned close, his breath fanning over your lips. “Can I kiss you?”
You hesitated, your mind thinking about the last time you two kissed. His eyes begged you, his mouth so close to yours. Finally, you nodded and he kissed you. It was so gentle and tender. His lips were so soft, his body relaxing the moment you leaned into it. You could feel his breathing still stuttering, face still wet from crying. You slowly placed your hands over his, letting him break away to catch his breath every few seconds. He breathed out a moan, kissing you again desperately.
You stumbled backwards together, you hitting back against the wall behind you, his enclosing you between him and the wall. His hands moved to hold your waist while your arms wrapped around his neck, holding him close. You pulled back, gaze looking over his face, a thumb wiping his cheek. You took a few seconds, admiring him. Then you snapped back to reality.
“We can’t...” You breathed.
“Why?” He leaned back to get a good look of your face.
“I’m seeing someone…” You felt disgusting.
Dennis’ eyes meet yours again. “Who?”
“This guy in Boston.” You admitted, hands still on his body.
“Is he good to you?”
“Y-yea...”
Dennis nodded, his expression defeated. “And are you happy?”
“I think so” You nodded, forcing a pathetic smile.
He pulled away, backing up from you and then he held out his hand, “So, friends?”
“Yea, friends.” You took his hand, squeezing it tight.
“I won’t leave this time, I promise you. I’m happy you’ve met someone.” He took a breath and told you goodnight, leaving your hotel room.
The following morning, you found a note by your door.
forgot to give you my new number - dennis
-
Boston, Massachusetts
A couple months had passed since you last saw Dennis and you both were still in contact, chatting almost every day. He enjoyed sending you photos throughout his day, during work, after work, at the gym. He preferred it over typing out a response. You hadn’t had the chance to meet again, you both having busy lives and living in two completely cities. But, out of the blue, at 8pm on a random Tuesday night, he called.
“Hello?” You answered half scared, holding the phone between your cheek and shoulder while put away your laundry.
“Hey, so are you busy this weekend?” Dennis said casually.
“As busy as I usually am.” You sarcastically jabbed while folding clothes. “Why?”
“There is a medical conference in Boston on Friday, I’m going… and it’s super last minute but I was wondering if you maybe wouldn’t mind me spending the weekend with you?”
“They aren’t paying for your hotel, are they?” You smiled to yourself.
“Well that too, I’m not paying hundreds of dollars for a couple nights in a shitty hotel.” His voice was loud enough to crackle over the line.
“I’ll be here, I’ll send you the address.” You chirped. “I can't wait to see you!”
“Thank you, thank you. I really appreciate it, I can’t wait.”
-
Friday came around quick, Dennis told you he was heading straight to the venue and that he would be at your apartment by 7pm, which gave you enough time to get home and have your place looking as nice as it could be. At 7:12pm, the doorbell rang. You jogged over to the door, opening it to find Dennis standing in front of you, a small suitcase by his side. You immediately pulled him into a tight hug, feeling him hesitantly hugging you back.
“Did you find it okay?” You pulled back, smiling at him widely.
“Yea, it wasn’t too bad.” He nodded quickly.
“Come on in! It’s only a loft studio,” You stepped aside and let him come into the apartment, pointing at the stairs. “So, the bed is… up these stairs, you can have it. I’ll take the couch.”
“Oh god no, please don’t do that. I’m happy on the couch, please.” He looked almost upset with you for even offering.
You giggled a little and shook your head. “You’re a guest, I made it all nice for you.”
He didn't object a second time. You walked towards your kitchen, tucked underneath where your bed was. You spun around to face him, saying. “The restroom is just through that door. Shower can be temperamental but nothing too crazy.”
He watched you intently, leaving his suitcase by the stairs as he slowly dropped his backpack on the floor near the kitchen door. “It’s cozy in here.”
“It’s small, I know but it’s usually only me so,” You shrugged. “Are you hungry?”
“I, uh, ate at the conference. Flying makes me hungry so…” Dennis awkwardly shoved his hands in his pockets.
“Okay, well, want a drink?” You turned to face him, leaning back against the counter.
“What d’you got?” He slowly walked closer to you.
You opened the fridge, scanning it before glancing up at the shelves above it. “Water, milk, beer, orange juice, red wine… I got stuff to make a tequila sunrise.”
“A tequila sunrise?” He echoed.
You didn’t even bother answering, quietly making the drinks while he wandered around your living room, taking in all the little photos you had hanging all over your walls. He’d missed out on so much. There were photos of you in college, out partying with friends, New Years Eve, Halloweens, and then your boyfriend. His arm around you, kissing the side of your head while you grinned so wide, it looked like your cheeks might split. He could only be mad at himself, you had decided to leave that pain behind and you’d lived.
“Ta-da!” You announced, setting the drinks down on the coffee table. “Tequila sunrise!”
“Wow, it actually looks like a sunrise, cool straws too!” He chuckled, walking over toward you. “Is that...”
“I didn’t have any oranges to garnish with so I used banana... you can just take it off.” You waved your hand in the air.
“No, it’s nice.” He took a sip, slightly coughing. “Strong too.”
You sat beside him, getting yourself comfortable on the couch with a blanket before taking a sip of yours. “Oh, it is strong, sorry.”
“It’s good, I like it.” He was staring, not realising it then he froze, feeling uncomfortable in his own skin. “I’m gonna get changed.”
He left you sitting on the couch, flicking through different channels to find something interesting. By the time he came back, you had already drunk half your drink, looking at it with confusion. You noticed him coming back down the stairs so you smiled at him. “How’s work?”
“Stressful. Working in the ER is, um, a lot.” He answered, settling on the couch beside you.
“I can imagine. Are your coworkers nice?” You played with your straw, voice quieting.
“Oh yeah, for sure. You met Santos, uh Trinity... She’s probably not the best example but yea they’re all nice.” He laughed awkwardly.
You nodded, smiling sadly. “Feels like a whole life you’ve lived.”
“It does.” He sighed. “I feel the same with you.”
“Have you been home since?” You quickly changed the subject, avoiding his gaze, feeling your skin grow itchy.
He stayed silent for a bit, almost planning his answer before saying, “I couldn’t go back.”
You let out a sigh, drinking the rest of your drink before standing up. “Another one?”
-
Several hours and six tequila sunrises later, you and Dennis were still on the couch, talking about everything and nothing. The alcohol was getting to your head, your body warm and tingly, and your mind warped.
“How’s things with your man?” Dennis was leaned back against the arm of the couch, legs sprawled out in front of him haphazardly like they had a mind of their own. You sat opposite him, legs crossed as you nursed your drink.
“Meh.” You shrugged, scrunching your face up.
“What?” He laughed, sitting forward.
“He’s nice, don’t get me wrong but … real boring.” You sighed, bringing your straw to your lips.
“Why are you still with him?” He teased, a smirk pulling across his face as he shifted his sitting position.
“I’m not getting any younger.” You morbidly admitted.
“And what’s that supposed to mean?” His eyebrows furrowed, lips pursing together.
“I’m terrified of never settling down, guess I’m with him because it’s a sure bet.” As the words came out of your mouth, you realised how awful it sounded, how miserable you genuinely felt in your relationship. There was no excitement, no passion, no anything. He was an empty slate, you thought maybe you could mould but he never budged.
“What about me?” He was sitting up straight now, gaze zoned in on you.
“Dennis…” You shook your head. “No…”
“Come on, he’s not making you happy. I would leave it if he was genuinely good for you.”
“We can’t go there again, the night of the wedding was stupid of us.” You kept shaking your head as if it would make it all stop but the moment you met Dennis' gaze, he was staring at you, something indescribable behind his eyes. It was the alcohol, it had to be.
You needed out, so you stood up, only for him to catch your hand.
“Dennis, I’m serious.” You tried being stern but it fell flat.
“So am I,” He stood up, searching your face. “Try us.”
“You live in Pittsburgh.” There were so many reasons why you couldn't do it and yet, they all vanished from your mind.
“We can do long distance; the drive isn’t long. I’ll come to you when I can.” He was pleading, you needed to get away from him.
You laughed it off, tugging your arm back. “You’re drunk, fuck, I'm drunk.”
“Let me prove it to you.” His voice had dropped, it made your stomach clench.
“And what happens when you fuck it up?”
“I won’t, I promise, I’ll prove it to you. Do you want me to beg?” His pathetic voice whined.
“Don’t be ridiculous.” You turned away and walked towards the kitchen.
He followed behind you, leaning against the doorframe, eyes heavy from the alcohol. He called your name. “I can beg.”
“My god, you are such a light weight.” You scoffed, washing your hands in the kitchen sink to make yourself look busy. When you glanced back, he was lowering to his knees, blocking your exit.
“Please.” He whined.
“Jesus Christ.” You rubbed your forehead with the back of your hand, walking closer to him. “Get up.”
“Not until you say yes.” He bit his lip, staring up at you, his face all flushed.
“I’m not going to.” You inhaled a breath. “It wouldn’t work.”
He leaned his face lazily against your thigh. “I’d make it work for you.”
You mindlessly ran your fingers through his hair, chewing on your cheek and contemplating, your own boyfriend not even crossing your mind. With your hand still in his hair, you brought it down to his cheek, slowly sliding your thumb over his jaw and to his chin. His lips left a trail of kisses on your hand and thumb as they went past his mouth. Your thumb stopped by his lips, watching how his mouth opened for you. He took it in his mouth, gently sucking on it, tongue swirling around it as he whimpered. When you pulled it back out of his mouth, you ran it against his bottom lip.
He was so pathetically desperate. “I could make you happy.”
You let out a shaky breath.
“Let me prove it.” His hands crept up, holding the back of your legs.
You couldn't pull yourself away, watching him slide his hands to your waist, t-shirt rising, exposing a small sliver of your stomach. His lips pressed soft kisses on your skin. He brought his mouth lower, against the waistband of your pyjama trousers, teeth pulling the ties undone before looking up at you again. “Please.”
You were already so wet, you could feel it soaking through your underwear. You felt drunk with arousal, words almost slurring. “I-I… have a boyfriend.”
“Mhm.” He pressed a kiss right over your clothed pussy. “Yea, that boyfriend…”
A moan resonated in your throat, a hand reaching down to hold Dennis’s head. He tugged down your pants, letting you step out of them before he kissed your panties.
“So wet already, does he get you this wet?” He whispered against you, open mouth kissing the fabric.
You couldn’t admit that you’d never slept with him, he was traditional, waiting for marriage. You’d barely made out with him, he was so cautious, so normal, so fucking boring.
“Do you want me to stop?” He sat back, your eyes immediately spotting the erection straining against his sweats. He slowly got to his feet.
You shook your head, taking his face in your hands. Without a second thought, you kissed him so hungrily. He moaned into your mouth, his hands all over your body. You needed him, as much as he seemed to need you. His tongue filled your mouth, so messy as his hands slid down to your ass, causing you to yelp.
"Is that too much?" He whispered against your lips.
"N-no, I like it, just weird having your hand on my ass." You panted out a laugh through kisses before pulling away. You took his hand, guiding him upstairs, glancing back at him once you reached your bedroom.
You walked backwards until you got to the bed, sitting down with your legs spread slightly, chest heaving as you tried to steady your breathing. He closed the gap between you both, looking down at you.
"Lie back sweetheart…" He lowered to his knees, gently tugging you closer to the edge of the bed. He slowly slipped your underwear off, eyes connecting to your glistening cunt, so wet and aching for him. He lifted your legs so they were resting on his shoulders.
Dennis didn't take a beat, softly pressing his lips between your legs, savouring your taste with gently kisses and little licks. You whined, wanting more, so he gave you more, licking long strips up your pussy, before swirling his tongue around your clit. He sucked on the sensitive nub, then let his tongue flatten over it. Your body was awash with pleasure. He brought his hand up, fingers tracing along your slit, his eyes looking up at you, waiting patiently for your permission. He continued teasing, gathering up your juices and then you nodded, meeting his gaze.
"Please Dennis…" You cried, hips bucking for more pressure.
"Of course, baby…" He said, words muffled by your soaked pussy.
He split you with his fingers, gently inserting two, knowing you were ready for it. He took his free hand, and grabbed yours, moving it to tug on his hair, which you did happily.
He pumped his fingers into you, curving them to brush against your g-spot.
"Oh f-fuck..." You cried, holding his head in place as he added his tongue into the mix, slipping it in with his fingers. He was so gentle and tender. He took his free hand and started palming his erection, searching for some friction, some relief.
He brought his tongue back up to your clit, slowly massaging it as it grew firmer.
"I-I'm cumming, oh my god." You lifted your head, watching as his face moved between your legs, how he took your frantic movements and fluidly moved with them. You grinded against his face, riding out your orgasm as he lapped you up, letting himself sob moans into you. He lifted his head and watched your body twitch and squirm, a proud smile pulling on his lips.
“I’m so hard for you.” He whined, getting to his feet and pulling down his sweats, slipping a hand into his boxers and pulling out that pretty pink dick. You sat up, catching your breath. His cock was right in front of your face, your mouth salivating.
“Is this for me?” You softly pressed a kiss against his tip
“Sh-Shit, it’s yours. Fuck it’s all yours.” He watched as you wrapped your fingers around the base, tapping the tip against your tongue when you opened your mouth. He gasped out a moan, a hand coming up to hold the side of your face. “It’s all for you.”
You hummed contently, taking him inch by inch into your mouth. You swirled your tongue around him, sucking him in. He shuddered out a loud moan, watching you intently.
He caressed your cheek, mouth open, breathy whimpers spilling out uncontrollably. “S-so sweet to me.”
Pleasure started building in his lower stomach, causing him to gently pull himself out of your mouth.
“Can I fuck you now please?” He was dishevelled, lips swollen, hair messy, his cock covered in your saliva. “I’ll be good for you… I’ll make you feel so good...”
You moved up on the bed, leaning back on your elbows. “Y-yes, please...”
He pulled off his shirt, kicking off his sweats while you removed the last of your clothes then he climbed onto the bed, kneeling in front of you, stroking himself while admiring you, his gaze softening. “You’re so beautiful…”
He leaned over you, a hand either side of your head and kissed you again, slower than earlier, but more intense and passionate. He took a hand, pumped his cock a few more times before aligning himself up with your cunt, slowly sinking in, feeling how you stretched around him, you watching as his jaw tightened, eyes locked on yours. “Shit...you're so wet and so warm, baby.”
You held back a moan until he started moving, pulling back before slowly sinking back into you.
“Dennis…” You mewled, eyes glossed over as you held his face.
“Oh sweetheart, so needy for me huh?” He leaned down, taking one of your nipples into his mouth, grinding against you. His tongue swirled around the tight nub, gently tugging it between his teeth. Your back arched as you uncontrollably moaned. He pounded into you, loud wet slapping filling your apartment as he hid his face in your neck, whimpering out, “Is this okay? Does it feel good baby?”
“So good.” You drawled, your vision blurring as you clung onto his shoulders.
He pulled back a little, looking into your eyes, fucking into you slow and hard, watching as pleasure washed over you. He reached a hand down between you both, using his thumb to rub circles on your clit and his fingers to push against your lower stomach.
“F-fuck.” You cried, feeling tears pricking your eyes.
“Oh baby, you’re taking me so well…” His voice muffled against your skin, lips pressing slobbering kisses all over your shoulder and neck. “F-Fuck, I-I love… you…”
“I l-love you…” You sobbed, feeling your orgasm fast approaching, “I-I’m gonna cum again...”
“Not yet, hold it. You can last a little longer for me… what a pretty girl…” His forwardness was shocking you, Dennis had never been so confident. He held you with a hand and rolled his hips into yours. “This is all for me…do you like it like that?”
You roughly pulled him down, kissing him hard, bruising your lips while he fucked you through your orgasm.
"Fuck… fuck baby.” He felt you cum around his dick, your cunt clenching down. “That’s it...”
He fell over the edge, cumming hard soon after, hiding his face in your shoulder as tears spilled out of his eyes.
"Thank you, thank you baby...” He kissed all over your face, breathing out a sigh.
There was a second of silence and then he collapsed beside you breathing heavily. When you looked at him, he brushed your hair from your face, pressing a kiss on your nose. He wrapped you in his arms, pulling the blankets over you both. It didn't take long until you were both asleep.
-
By morning, you woke up alone to the sound of quiet music, pots and pans hitting together and Dennis' singing. Your body ached, eyes stinging against the daylight but you sat up anyways, stretching your limbs before standing up. You pattered downstairs, swinging around the kitchen’s doorframe. Dennis stood by the stove, dancing to himself as he cooked.
“Den?” You smiled, walking up behind him.
“Oh morning.” He looked over his shoulder at you, welcoming you into him with his free arm opened out. “How did you sleep?”
You stood by his side, snuggling into him while his arm hugged you close. “Good.”
“Is that right?” He shyly teased.
“I’m not drinking around you ever again.” You groaned, slapping his stomach, fingers lingering against him for a second longer than you should've. He leaned down, pulling you closer that you were squished against him, and then he kissed you, a big smooch.
"Go sit down, I’ll be in soon yea?" He planted another kiss on your lips before releasing you.
-
The weekend had been different but nice. You forgot what life you even had without him. That Saturday, you took him out sight-seeing, wandering through the city without a care in the world. He wanted to see the harbour, spend the day aimlessly walking. You took him to all your favourite bakeries, drank yourself silly on caffeine until you ended up back at your apartment, where you watched a movie, snuggled on the couch, finishing the day with his head buried between your legs. It was domestic, and it didn't scare either of you. By Sunday evening, it was impossible to let him go. He had his bags ready by the door, you felt like sobbing when he pulled his jacket on.
"I'm scared Dennis." You admitted as he turned to face him. "I don't want to throw away everything I've made here."
"I don't expect you to."
"I can't break up with him. What if it all goes to shit? What if we try this and it goes wrong?"
"I promise you, I will make this work." He brought his hands to your face. "I'll do the long distance, fuck I’ll transfer, I’ll move to Boston or you could come to Pittsburgh."
"You can't do that." You wanted to say yes, put your arms around him and never let go but you couldn't. Boston didn't have much for you, it didn't make you happy like it used to.
"I'd do it all for you. I'm not going anywhere."
-
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
The front door to his shared apartment with Trinity opened with a bang as he shoved it open with his foot, dragged his miserable self into the house, dark rings evident around his eyes.
“How was your lovers retreat?” Trinity joked, sprawled out on the couch, switching through channels on the TV. Dennis dropped his bag by the door, his gaze fixed ahead, almost glazed over as he walked in the living room. “Dude? You good?”
“Sorry.” He broke away from his thoughts, looking at her with bloodshot eyes.
“Did something happen?” She abruptly sat up, a slight smile on her face, focusing her attention on him.
“A lot happened and I’ve just sat and thought about it for hours.” He had to admit to himself that his brain was fried.
“You have to tell me. Leave no detail out, unless it’s something I don’t wanna know. Roommate privileges apply.” She was almost at the edge of the couch. “Please tell me you did something other than cry and talk.”
He shot her a look, sighing out his nose before plopping himself on the armchair. He rubbed his face with his hands, feeling exhausted.
“Hurry up and get talking.” She snapped.
“After the conference, I got to her apartment and she was…” He stopped and shook his head. “We talked for a couple hours and had a few drinks.”
“You’re shitting me. That’s not what happened.” Trinity didn't have much patience left.
“No, it isn’t. I think I got a bit too tipsy.”
“Keep going.”
“I… shit. I kind of…” He covered his face again with his hands. “I begged her.”
“You what?” She was stunned. “Begged her for what?”
“To give me and her a try but then-”
"Don't tell me ew… Then what?”
“I kinda started begging for her to let me... you know...”
She slowly covered her mouth. “Huckleberry, you dirty dog.”
“Okay forget I said anything.” He stood up, going red. “I never reacted when you told me about you and Garcia.”
She froze, glaring at him. “Do you want everyone to know what you begged for sex?”
“I didn’t beg for sex. I just… Alright yea.” He sighed defeated.
“And she said “ew get away from me” and you slept on the streets of Boston like a little sad rat, and then came home miserable." She joked, eyes rolling over her own lines.
His face darked redder, his mind flashing images of what you two had done.
“Oh, my fuck, she agreed?!” Never in her life did she think Dennis would actually get laid but here she was, jaw hanging.
He didn’t answer, just stood there.
“She did!” Trinity gasped. “I have to tell-”
He opened his mouth to speak but she shrunk back.
“I have to tell no one because your secret is safe with me, of course." She smiled as sweetly as she could before continuing professionally, "So, you had sex?”
“We did, yea.”
“Okay, go Huckleberry!” She pumped a fist in the air.
“But she’s got a boyfriend.”
“No Huckleberry." She brought her fist down, eyes widened. "She cheated on her boyfriend with you?! Fuck dude, what powers you got there?”
He didn't enjoy opening up to Trinity but this moment felt like the right time. He admitted his true feelings, spilling out years of hidden emotions that barely made sense to Trinity but she listened, and that surprised him. He told her about God, the church, how it dragged him away from you, how he felt like he had been suffocated by faith. He'd spent years beating himself. He told her that he had only known the truth with you.
"You can't force her to make a decision. She'll decide what's right." She didn't sound sincere, or like she even really cared but Dennis knew her enough to know that was her best. He felt a weight lifting from his shoulders.
“Thanks, Trin.” His eyebrows softened, a small smile on his lips.
“Eww, don’t. Get away from me.” Her face scrunched up, jumping to her feet and making a beeline to her bedroom.
-
“Dennis had sex in Boston!” Trinity held her tongue for a record time of three minutes of the Monday morning shift, the words tumbling out of her mouth faster than her brain could comprehend, catching her breath once she’d spilled. “Oh my god, I couldn’t hold it any longer, I had to tell someone.”
“Jesus Christ.” Dennis muttered, dropping his head in shame, feeling his skin itch. Victoria stared with blank expressions, looking at Dennis confused while Trinity leaned against the front desk.
“Didn’t you go to that conference?” Victoria furrowed her brows, looking around the ER for the cameras because this had to be a joke. There was no way Dennis was getting laid.
“Yea, yep.” He needed this day to be over already, or more preferably, he wanted to drop dead.
“You had sex at a conference?” She enunciated, confused.
“No, I had sex in an apartment.” He corrected her, awkwardly grinning like he'd made a point before snapping back to reality. “Why am I telling you?”
“He went to her apartment and begged for it.” Trinity added, glancing at Victoria before looking up at the board for something juicy.
“Begged for it?” Victoria repeated with a look of disgust, before looking at Dennis and seeing his miserable expression. She shook her head. “Sorry. Why?”
“I didn’t beg.” He tried to save himself but he always already looking more pathetic.
“She has a boyfriend too.” Trinity added, tapping her chin with a pen. “Why is there nothing good? I need something teetering on dangerous.”
“Who has a boyfriend?” Robby appeared behind them, hands stuffed in his pockets. “And why are you all standing gossiping like we don’t have patients waiting?”
“Whitaker went to that conference in Boston and had sex in an apartment with someone who already has a boyfriend.” Victoria blurted out, before realising what she’d just done. “Oh my god, I’m so sorry.”
“Well congratulations Whitaker, we all have our needs but can this conversation happen outside of my ER?” He sternly said, looking at Dennis.
Dennis wanted the ground to swallow him whole, hanging his head in defeat. He muttered, “I’m going to south 12.” before leaving the conversation.
The day dragged on, he hadn’t heard from you since he left and he had spent every waking hour since rethinking what he could’ve done differently. He was distracted; he had to admit. He'd fucked up on the simplest procedures, mixed up patients and was completely out of it most of the day. He slipped out of a room, head buried in his phone, a small frown on his lips. You'd read his message but not replied. He didn't know what else to do. He'd already apologised, and apologised again and then apologised some more. He'd said everything he thought you wanted to hear, fuck he was going crazy.
-
A couple weeks went by. Dennis had tried contacting you every day but you had been giving him so little. A few short-worded responses, sometimes a photo or just an emoji. If he rang, you never picked up. It was driving him crazy so he booked a last-minute flight to Boston, the first flight out on a Saturday morning. By the time he landed and made the journey to you, it was already 10am. He knocked on the door, somewhat impatiently and stood tapping his foot while he waited for you to open the door. You seemed to take your sweet ass time and it made him even more irritated.
You finally opened the door, eyes widening at the sight of him. “Dennis?”
“What are you doing to me?” He deflated, his once fiery rage had shifted to a luke warm worry.
“What?” You looked confused.
“Ignoring my texts and calls? Giving me barely anything?” He stepped closer to you, hands reaching for yours.
“I’ve been dealing with something.” You baulked.
“You couldn’t spare a few minutes to tell me that?” His shoulders dropped, hands clinging to yours. "Are you done with me?"
"What? Dennis, no." You shook your head. "I actually um… I broke up with that guy."
"You did? Why?" He felt a rush of heat in his head. You just smiled, and it set him off, he manoeuvred his way inside and closed the door behind him. There were boxes all over your apartment, walls that used to be covered in photos, now bare.
“Oh, secrets over! I’m moving.” You grinned, gleefully.
“Where?” He looked at you, gaze trailing over you. He couldn’t help him himself. "Where are you moving?
“Where do you think?” You chewed the inside of your cheek. “Good thing I can work anywhere in the country, right?”
“You’re not…” He felt his stomach clench, his skin tingling. "Are you…?"
“Moving truck is coming tomorrow and then I’m driving my car.” You couldn’t hold back your excitement. “I was supposed to surprise you.”
“You’re really moving?” He felt the tears welling in his eyes.
“I want to try us and if we don’t work, well I’ve made a really dumb decision.” You furrowed your eyebrows, suddenly realising Dennis was actually in your apartment. "Wait, did you fly here?"
“God, I love you.” He stepped closer, hands holding your face before pulling you to meet his lips, kissing you softly while his thumb caressed your jaw.
"I love you too Den." You muttered, your lips smushed as he pushed your cheeks together, he kissed you over and over and over again. He grew passionate, sinking his tongue into your mouth as he took his time devouring you. It was slow, intense even until his movements grew frantic, desperate even, his hands gripping your hips and pulling you into his body.
"Dennis." You let a moan slip out, his lips kissing down towards your neck. "The moving van will be here in fifteen minutes."
"I can be fifteen minutes." He whispered against your skin, hands slipping under your dress to touch your thighs and ass. "This dress is so nice."
"We can't, what if they come early?"
"Please, I need you." He left sloppy kisses all over your collarbone, rubbing his hardening cock against you. "Please baby."
"We have to be quick, sit on the couch." You chewed on the inside of your cheek.
"W-wait really? Oh my god." He rushed over to the couch, unbuckling his jeans, watching as you followed, straddling his legs. His hands gripped your hips as you leaned down, taking his lips with yours, all tongues, messily making out while you reached out, pulling his dick out, stroking it slowly.
"I missed this." You drawled against his mouth.
"Fuck I missed you." He panted, feeling as your gently squeeze his cock with your fingers. "I-I need you, please."
You hummed, taking the same hand to push your underwear to the side, aligning him with your pussy, only to take your time brushing his tip against your lips.
"Sh-shit, you said quick." He whimpered, squeezing your hips. "You can't do this to me."
"Dennis..." You smiled against his lips, leaning back to see how his face reddened, how he desperately needed you to fuck him. "You're already so needy."
"Sh-shut up, please fuck me." He dropped his head back, his tip so sensitive against your clit before you sink down on him, swallowing his entire cock with your cunt, you weren't ready for it, but you savoured how you stretched around him, the sting turning you on more. "F-fuck!"
"Shh." You brought your fingers to his mouth, covering his mouth but Dennis took your fingers in his mouth, sucking and licking.
"F-fuck me, please." He tried to buck his hips up into you. You started pulling up until the head of his dick was kissing against your entrance before slamming back down. You were rough, riding him like he was a toy, using his cock to chase your orgasm.
"God, it's so good, it's so good baby." He mumbled with your fingers in his mouth, eyes half lidded as he watched you bouncing on his cock.
"Dennis, I'm close already." You grinded down on his cock, your clit rubbing against his pelvic bone,
"Y-You can cum, I can take it." He whispered, biting his lip as he held back moans. "I can take it."
"I want you to cum, can you cum for me Den?" You placed a kiss on his forehead.
"I-I can- Oh god." He whined, eyes watering as tears rolled down his cheeks, fingers bruising your hips as he fucked up into you. "I'll cum for you, I can do it, I can."
Suddenly, you burst, slamming down on last time before grinding out the rest of your orgasm, muffling your cries in his shoulder, immense pleasure consuming your entire body. He didn't slow down, moving you onto your back without letting you breath, and fucking your cunt without mercy. He was rabid, whimpering so loud as he snapped his hips back before ramming his cock back in. He was crying, you were crying, your clit so sensitive, you might cum again.
"I'm cumming, fuck baby," He moaned shakily, tears falling onto your face. "Can I cum inside? Please let me cum inside you, fuck I’ll do anything, please."
"Y-Yes, cum in me." You barely got out before he was using your clenching pussy to pump his cock, spilling hot cum in you. He sobbed into your shoulder, body shaking as he rode out the rest of his orgasm. You struggled to catch your breath, rubbing his back as he collected him. He lifted his head, eyes red and watery, lips swollen. You both lay there for a few seconds before Dennis leaned up on his hands, looking over your face under him.
"You're so beautiful, I love you so much." He whispered, kissing your forehead. He got up, offering you a hand which you took. "You can relax, get ready to leave and I'll deal with the movers."
-
The drive to Pittsburgh wasn't so lonely when Dennis offered to drive there with you, taking your car keys right out of your hand and sliding into the driver’s side. The trip passed in no time with him, how he'd kiss your cheek at red lights, his hand never leaving yours. In such a last-minute pinch, a few weeks ago, you were able to find a studio apartment with a six-month lease.
The moving van arrived not long after you, your boxes and large furniture brought up within a few hours, your stuff scattered across the floor.
You were unboxing the kitchen items, shoving pots and pans wherever they'll fit, when Dennis appeared behind you.
"Everything okay?" You glanced over your shoulder at him.
"Can you come sit with me?" His hands are tucked behind his back.
"I have to unpack…" You frowned, turning to face him.
"And I spent weeks in purgatory."
"Oh fine!"
He slumped on the couch, arms open with a small grin pulling across his face. "Come on baby."
"What are you doing? What are your motives?" You planted yourself beside him, eyeing him suspiciously as his arm wrapped around you.
He shrugged, looking confused and slightly offended. You rested your head against his chest, listening to his heart beating, his fingers tapping your skin. It was quiet and comfortable. To exist with you was a blessing, and if he played his cards right, he'd get eternity.
if you got this far, i hope you liked it! ₊✩‧₊˚౨ৎ˚₊✩‧₊
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