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[ilyahugs]

an exclusive sort of casualness

word count: 4,657 ship: Garrett Graham x reader rating: NC-17 (for smut and a slight praise kink) summary: You and Garrett aren't officially together, though it doesn't stop either of you from acting like it. notes: i have a masterlist now bc i've lost control of my life. big fan of garrett calling the reader me 'baby', in this essay-- notes2: gifs are from this gifpack :)

When you started at Briar U, you didn’t think you’d be able to successfully balance classes, an unpaid internship and finding a job. You were lucky to stumble upon Malone’s—actually, lucky for a few reasons. For one, you were lucky that it was a popular spot for Briar U students because the burgers are incredible and the milkshakes are always thick and syrupy; not to mention there’s always cool events happening there. Everything from fundraisers to live music. You were lucky that Della was hiring and that she was willing to work with your complex schedule, basically giving you shifts any time you squeezed free time out of the universe. And most importantly, you were lucky because that’s where you met Garrett Graham your sophomore year. 

It’s just one of those things where you kinda clicked the moment you met. Shared classes and study sessions became seeking one another out at parties, and late night french fry runs and milkshakes. You went to his games as often as he came to check out art you’d make for on-campus exhibits. And one drunken game of flip-cup became soft kisses shared in the morning, delicate and tentative like the touch might disappear in the afternoon sun. 

But it didn’t. 

You are well aware of the rumors that Garrett Graham doesn’t do girlfriends; he’s got more ‘important’ things to focus on and can’t weather the distraction. You have a feeling it goes a little deeper than that and whatever, to each their own. You’re not exactly trying to hook yourself a boyfriend either. Not exactly. Though you’re not going to pretend you haven’t thought about it. Garrett would be a great boyfriend—he’s thoughtful and kind and loyal, he’s funny and does this thing with his tongue that makes your toes curl in your shoes just thinking about it. 

You’re having fun together, things are casual, but…at the same time, neither of you are seeking other people out either. An exclusive sort of casualness that you’re not sure makes any sense. Most of the time, you’re able to ignore that twinge in the back of your mind that wants to talk about it. To bring words to something unspoken. But it always seems like the wrong time. 

And above all that, you’re scared. Why ruin something that’s been working? Garrett is probably someone you can easily call your best friend. You not only get to depend on him, to laugh with him, to feel his support and how much he cares, but you also get to kiss him and share intimate moments that make your body ache long after they’re done. 

What if trying to talk fucks everything up? 

Garrett’s hand comes down on your knee, squeezing, “Bumble,” He tips his head down to catch your gaze, a soft smile pulling the corners of his mouth, “You okay?” 

You blink, glancing out the driver’s window to see that he’s pulled up to Malone’s. Shaking your thoughts loose, you let out a breath of a laugh, “I really think it’s time for a new nickname.” 

He purses his lips, tapping his fingers distractingly on the inside of your thigh, “I dunno, did you stop dropping trays of orders in there?” He motions towards the big windows of the diner and bar. 

Your cheeks heat, “I hate you.” 

Alright so bumble did sort of make sense. The first time you met Garrett at Malone’s you fumbled with a tray full of drinks. Luckily it was nothing hot, but they spilled everywhere. Garrett likes to tease that it was because you were distracted by his good looks…and you’re not about to tell him he’s partly right. You had been taken by surprise by your instant attraction when you saw him, but you’re also a klutz. Having a restaurant job is probably one of the worst things you could do in that sense. 

Garrett turns a little in his seat to face you, a laugh rumbling out of his throat, “I see. You want me to call you something cute, like baby?” 

Jesus Christ. 

Something heated crawls under your skin like liquid honey and you hate that you actually like the sound of his voice wrapping around those syllables. That you, embarrassingly enough, want him to call you that. Realization dawns slowly on Garrett’s face, his hazel eyes sharp with amusement and banked heat, 

“Oh,” He says slowly, voice low and dipping into places you do not have time to explore, “You do like that.” 

Garrett leans across the divide, his lips brushing the shell of your ear, his hand moving from your knee to cup the side of your neck. His thumb drags over your quickening pulse point, “You’re gonna be late for work, baby.” 

You quickly squash down the urge to kiss him because that’s not going to help anything. Instead, you inch closer, dragging a hand down his chest before settling on his hip. His attention is sharp now, eyes darkening. 

“Don’t start something you can’t finish, Graham.” You whisper, your fingers grazing the front of his jeans where he’s definitely getting hard. He draws in a slow breath, licking his lips. You smile prettily, bringing your hand back up and tapping his cheek. 

“Pick me up from work.” 

He smirks, shaking his head as you grab your bag and open the Jeep’s door to slide out, “So bossy.” 

“I think you like it.” You add pointedly, raising your eyebrows. You blow him a kiss before disappearing inside Malone’s, that conversation (again) lingering for another day. 

—

Malone’s is packed tonight, which you suppose shouldn’t be too much of a surprise. It happens every so often, especially when there’s an upcoming hockey game, like the one this weekend. Fans pour in, players find places to have decent food, and the drink menu has specials that are too good to pass up for a college budget. You feel like you’ve been moving around the restaurant with hardly any breaks in-between. Cleaning tables, grabbing refills, carrying food trays (without dropping anything, thanks very much), and when you manage to look at the time, you’ve got a half of an hour to your shift left. 

The little bell goes off to signal someone else coming through the door and you smile as you spot Logan and some other Briar U hockey players here for a late night meal. Logan connects eyes with you, offering a small smile as he heads to a booth, 

“He’s doing some extra drills with the rookies.” He supplies, even though you didn’t ask about Garrett. 

God, are you that obvious? 

“It’s okay,” You tell him, “I still got time on my shift, so.” You draw in a breath, settling whatever nerves that are for some reason sputtering in your stomach like dying butterflies, “I’ll grab you guys some menus.” 

Wandering back over to the bar, you reach over the counter to grab the menus, turning to head to the booth Logan and the other hockey players are hovering at. A glass drops, drawing your attention over your shoulder. 

This doesn’t happen often at Malone’s, but it is a bar…so the occasional drunken fight is bound to happen. You have no idea who it’s between or what even started it, but insults are being thrown and more glasses are dropped and a full out brawl starts between two guys at the bar counter. 

“Shit,” You mumble. 

A few others try to jump in and separate the people throwing punches and your gaze snaps to another waitress you work with, Marie, caught against the bar, trying to avoid flailing arms. You move before thinking otherwise, Logan saying your name in the background. You manage to get to her, closing your hand around her forearm, and right when you turn someone’s elbow snaps back—

And hits you right in the face. 

You don’t remember falling onto the floor, only Logan coming up beside you and helping you up. Your head is spinning, vision a little blurry, and the pain is ridiculous along your cheekbone and…did you bite your lip? You touch your mouth, your fingers coming away with bright spots of red. 

Fuck. 

—

A soft sigh leaves your nose from your spot sitting sideways in one of Malone’s booths. The fight got broken up and unfortunately the police had to be called to get it all situated but…at least the night was sort of salvaged? Della bought a round of free appetizers for all the tables that stayed after the mayhem and, you look at the time, your shift is over. So that’s something. 

Glancing up as the door to the diner opens, you can feel Garrett before you see him. He’s got this presence about him that always fills up a room, usually with teasing smiles, flirtatious energy and infectious laughter. Right now, however? When he turns the corner and you get a good look at him, Garrett’s resembling a raincloud that hasn’t spilled open yet. Crackling thunder and unstable lightning. 

“She wouldn’t let us call anyone,” Logan is saying, right beside him. He must have been waiting outside for Garrett to arrive, intercepting him before he burst into Malone’s with the energy of a hurricane. 

You narrow your eyes at Logan, adjusting the ice pack against your face. Your gaze says it all—traitor, “I’m fine.” You insist, voice muffled. You didn’t need an ambulance called. Nothing is broken and you got the bleeding at your lip to stop. 

Garrett’s jaw clenches, his nostrils flaring a little as he crouches in front of you; barely restrained anger. But the tone of his voice and his fingers are soft as he reaches to touch the uninjured side of your face, 

“Let me see, baby.”

Your stomach drops like a stone falling into the ocean. You’re pretty sure that the pet name was unintentional. He’s too distracted for it to be used to throw you off balance, to get your walls to drop and—and this is altogether too many thoughts to be spinning around in your brain right now. A headache pulses along the back of your eyes. 

“I promise I’m fine.” 

Garrett is patient, his hands gentle as his other one squeezes your knee, “Your stubbornness is noted, c’mon.” 

Rolling your eyes, you pull the ice pack from your face. Garrett goes very still, like some sort of statue carved out of marble. Suddenly you’re glad those idiots who got into the bar fight are gone because if looks could kill…

Garrett swallows, moving his hand to touch your bruised cheek. He carefully presses his thumb against your cheekbone and when you wince, a soft apology falls from his lips. Jesus, that fucking stings. Your eyes mist over when his thumb moves to touch alongside the split in your lip—yeah, that sucks, it’s going to make kissing difficult for sure. 

Garrett misreads your expression, leaning forward to kiss the spot above your eyebrow before standing, “Were those guys players or fans?” He asks Logan. 

You shake your head, reaching for Garrett’s hand. Logan shifts uneasily on his feet, glancing at you before looking back at his Captain. “Uh, players. I think.” 

You place the icepack on the table, standing from the booth, “Garrett.” 

Logan glances between you two, clearing his throat, “I’m going to go…over there.” He motions to the counter where Marie is, walking away before anyone says anything. 

Your other hand moves to force Garrett’s chin in your direction, waiting until his hazel eyes meet your own, “Don’t even think about it, okay? It was an accident.” The last thing you want him to do is to get into a stupid fight on the ice over something like this. 

“If you want to do something, you can take me home. I have the worst headache.” 

Garrett lets out a long sigh from his nose, taking your hand off his face so he can kiss your knuckles. But at least he nods, defending your honor (no matter how misguided), forgotten. 

—

It always sort of seems universally unfair that Garrett, for whatever his reasons, doesn’t ‘do girlfriends’ because he’s always proving in one way or another about how good of a boyfriend he’d be. 

Over the next week, not only does Garrett make sure that you’re healing properly but he goes out of his way to do other things too. Things that he’s done before and yet…you can’t stop thinking about him calling you baby, how you wanted to hear it again without telling him so. 

After he drops off dinner at your dorm before he heads to practice, with a gentle hand on your cheek brushing over the fading bruise underneath your eye and a kiss to your temple, you close the door with your heart in your throat. 

Your roommate on the couch raises her eyebrows at the interaction, pursing her lips, “If not boyfriend, why boyfriend shaped?” 

You let out a soft laugh, the back of your neck warm, “Shut up or I won’t share my mozz sticks with you.” 

She grins, pretends to zip her lips closed and heads to the kitchenette for plates. 

—

Another party thrown at Briar U like the day is ending in Y. You can’t even remember what frat house you’re at, only that Garrett is going to meet you here after his game. A game that he fucking killed by the way. You go to games when you’ve got the time off work; it’s fun seeing him in his element even though you wouldn’t consider yourself a hockey fan. Or any sports fan, really. But the energy of the crowd and camaraderie of school spirit and…the way Garrett sometimes looks to the stands and locks eyes with you, giving you that boyish grin…

Yeah, it’s definitely something to get used to. 

Grabbing a canned drink from a cooler, you pop it open and turn—and almost knock right into Pete. “Oh shit,” You laugh softly, “I’m sorry.”

“No, it’s my bad.” Pete, who's tall and has goldish brown curls and blue eyes and handsome in that sort of textbook kind of way, “Oh I meant to tell you, I uh, I took notes for you. From ethics.” 

You raise your eyebrows as he turns, seemingly looking for something. He grabs a backpack from the floor and tugs out a notebook, ripping the notes right out of it to hand over. You smile a little because that’s…

“Hey.” 

You turn at the sound of Garrett’s voice, coming up behind where you’re standing. He’s freshly showered, you can smell the mint in his shampoo mixing with the cologne he usually wears. He’s got on black jeans, a black t-shirt and his oversized leather jacket, the familiar gold chain resting against his chest. It’s definitely not anything new and yet your heart leaps in your chest all the same. 

You smile up at him, “Hi,” You bump your shoulder against his arm, “Great game.” 

“Thank you.” He smiles, something warm and soft; just for you. Then he glances at—

Right. Pete. You clear your throat, “Oh this is Pete, he’s in my ethics class.” 

Pete nods, dropping his backpack down against the couch, “I was just giving her notes that she missed.” 

“Which was very sweet,” You add, folding the notes that he handed over to slip into your backpocket. You look back up at Garrett, “My opening shift at Malone’s took longer than I thought today and I missed half the lecture.” 

Garrett hums, “You take notes for all the girls in your class?” 

The comment lands like a rock in a pond and your mouth opens slightly even though you’re not entirely sure what you’re going to say. If Pete picks up on the possessiveness in Garrett’s reply, he doesn’t show it, he only smiles and adds, 

“Only the smart ones.” 

The muscle in Garrett’s jaw twitches and Pete kinda clears his throat, smile withering, “Right well. Uh,” He tips his beer in your direction with a light laugh before disappearing. 

You shake your head, turning to look up at Garrett before lightly smacking him in the chest, “What was that about?” 

“Nothing,” He replies but his voice is pitched and his nose is crinkling and he’s pissy. 

And—oh my god. Your mouth falls open. No fucking way. 

“Are you…” Garrett gaze meets yours, raising his eyebrows, “Oh my god, you are. You’re jealous.” 

He scoffs out a laugh but you swear you pick up on the slightest tint to his cheekbones, “You wish, bumble.” 

“I don’t have to wish, your face looks like it's sucking on a lemon.” You inch closer to him, tipping your chin up to lock eyes, your bodies pressing together like puzzle pieces. “So now I’m back to ‘bumble’?” You ask, “What happened to ‘baby’?”

Garrett runs his tongue over his teeth, picking his hand up to brush the back of his fingers along your cheek where that bruise from Malone’s has healed, “I think you like hearing ‘baby’ a little bit too much.” 

Your reply is instant— “Maybe I do.” His eyebrows tip up before that soft surprise melts into heated longing. 

You’ve lost count of how many times you’ve kissed Garrett. How many times both of you have touched eachother, fingers and lips and tongue and teeth—but something about this feels different, charged at the edges. More real, somehow. Like balancing at the precipice of a cliff. 

Pressing yourself up on your toes, your lips graze his, “Say it again.” 

Garrett nips at your lower lip with his teeth, a small smile toying with the corners of his mouth. “Baby.” He whispers. 

The moment the word comes out of his mouth, you kiss him with a force that nearly knocks him back on his heels. You enjoy the way his arms automatically wrap around you, almost lifting you from the floor, you enjoy the way you can feel him smiling against your mouth, his hands tangling in your hair. There’s a desperation there, like neither of you want the other to stop. 

Distantly, you feel Garrett back up, dragging you somewhere. You could care less where you end up. 

A door opens and closes and part of you wonders how he even knew where he was taking you, a flutter of a laugh leaving your chest as you pull back, just a little to see—

“We’re in a storage closet.” 

Garrett’s hands slide down your body, gently cupping your ass by his fingers slipping into the pockets of your jeans, “Yeah, I saw it when I walked in on Pete trying to make a move.” 

“Oh shut up,” You laugh, making him smile. “You’re lucky being jealous kinda makes you hot.” 

“Kinda?” He asks, a mock offended scoff tumbling out of his mouth. His hand moves to caress your cheek, brushing along your jawline, “Guess I gotta work on that.” 

You press a kiss to his chin, peppering them down his neck. Your hands move to unbutton his jeans, tugging at them when you pull back, “Don’t worry—I know exactly how you can do that.” This is utterly ridiculous but the great thing about Garrett? He never disappoints in playing along. 

“Oh yeah? How’s that?” 

You slide your hands along his shoulders before slipping them into his leather jacket, helping him slide it off his body. It lands on the floor near some cans of tomatoes and you plant a kiss directly under his ear, “By enjoying what I’m about to do to you.” 

In your opinion? Male moaning is severely underrated—and Garrett’s got that going on in spades. There’s something about him being the prince of Briar U hockey, something about him being such a figure on campus, a legend, bold and strong and fucking so confident it’s almost cocky. 

Something about a man like Garrett melting under your touch, groaning when he enjoys something, moaning that he wants you to keep going, that you’re good at it. Heat gathers low in your stomach at the idea, sinking to your knees, drawing the zipper of his jeans down as you go. 

A sharp gasp leaves Garrett’s lips as you push his jeans aside, your lips pressing to the head of his cock through his briefs. He’s already hard, making you throb between your legs. Ignoring your own needs, you tug down Garrett’s briefs to free him. His cock points towards his stomach, head slightly red, leaking precum. You chance a look at him as you wrap a hand around the base, the flushed pleasure on his face almost enough to send you over your own edge. A tiny whimper leaves your throat, your other hand sliding behind his thigh to anchor yourself and you draw in a breath before wrapping your lips around the head of his cock. 

“Fuck,” He groans, his hand wrapping around the back of your neck, “That feels so good.” 

That’s exactly what you’d been after—the sounds emptying from deep in Garrett’s chest, the way his hand squeezes the back of your neck or threads through your hair, the swivel of his hips every so often, the way his thighs shake. Every single piece of it; his reactions are so genuine, so sexy. He’s not trying to perform for anyone, he’s not trying to play it cool. He’s just feeling. And you’re doing that for him. 

It doesn’t take long, building him up, and then suddenly he’s moaning your name. And the moment he says fuck, gonna come, baby—you lose it not long after he does. You pull off of him, reaching your hand down to slip it into your pants, finding your clit, rubbing once, twice and coming. His name is definitely on your lips. 

Over and over as those waves crash into you. 

Garrett reaches for your shirt at your shoulder, pulling you up. You can’t stop yourself from smiling as he cups your cheek to kiss you. You tuck him back into his briefs, fingers lingering at his waist and a soft moan leaves your lips as his tongue licks into your mouth—

Then the storage door swings open. 

Both you and Garrett turn your attention to the random guy who’s in the doorway, everyone blinking at eachother like the Spiderman meme brought to life. 

“Uh just…was looking for…chips.” He says. 

You look around on the floor, spotting some tucked into one of the shelves. You reach down and grab them, passing them off in his direction. 

“Thanks.” He replies…and slowly closes the door. 

A laugh breaks off in Garrett’s throat and you can’t help but look at him and grin, giggling too. He pulls you into another kiss, though both of you can barely stop laughing to do it properly. 

—

A few days pass in the normalcy that you’re used to. You and Garrett are exactly as you’ve always been and yet that same sticky sensation settles in the bottom of your ribcage. It’s always felt…unavoidable and suddenly it becomes exactly that. You want to talk to him about whatever it is that the two of you are doing. 

You don’t want to exist in half truths anymore, in both exclusivity and casualness. You can’t. 

It takes a minute to track him down. When you finish your shift at Malone’s and you don’t find him at his place, it takes one call going to voicemail for you to realize he must be at the rink. There’s not a scheduled practice, so at least you don’t have to worry about having this conversation in front of an audience. 

Rubbing your arms against the chill, you smile as wander through the bleachers and walk right up to the ice, watching Garrett’s lean and powerful body shoot pucks towards the goal. Most of them go right in, only one or two knocking just short. He really is something else. 

“If you wanted a private viewing, all you had to do was ask.” 

A small laugh slips through your lips as he notices you, skating over in your direction and bumping against the boards all too gracefully. He’s not in full gear, just a pair of dark jeans, a hoodie and the oversized leather jacket. 

“I wanted to talk to you.” 

Garrett licks his lips with a soft nod, giving you a onceover before backing up a bit on his skates, “Alright. If you come on the ice with me.” 

You raise your eyebrows, another laugh leaving your chest, though this time it sounds incredulous. “Uh, no. I’m not dressed for that and you know I can’t skate for shit.” 

“Aw c’mon,” He shrugs his jacket off, getting close enough to you that he can slip it over your shoulders, “You know I won’t let you fall.” 

You’re shaking your head even though you’re sliding your arms through the sleeves of the jacket. You can feel the residual heat left behind from his body and smell remnants of his cologne and…you hate how that’s pretty much all it takes to convince you to put skates on. 

You’re like Bambi, wobbly as fuck as you eventually make it onto the ice. Garrett reaches for you, holding onto your hand, a small laugh rumbling his chest. 

“Shut up,” Though you’re laughing too. A small squeak leaves your lips as you attempt to remain upright—how are you supposed to have a serious conversation when you’re swimming like this? “I hate you.”

“No you don’t,” He skates by your side, squeezing your hand every so often, “Your legs are too far apart.” 

“Never heard that complaint from you before.” 

Garrett laughs, something warm and loud and it fills up your entire chest. You grin at him but lose your fucking footing and your entire life flashes before your eyes as you scramble for purchase. Garrett is quick to pick you up but it just throws you both completely off balance. 

And then he’s down on the ice with an oof!, you on top of him. 

You wince and lean up a little but…you’re pretty sure no one has broken anything, “What happened to ‘I won’t let you fall’?” 

“I didn’t,” He shakes his head, “I fell.” You giggle, covering your mouth with your hand. “I’m glad you think this is funny because I’m fully capable of getting up off the ice,” He tilts his chin forward to look at you, “Are you?” 

You tap his cheek, “While I have you here, I wanted to talk to you about… everything.” You draw in a confident breath, “About you and me.” 

Garrett raises his eyebrows, squeezing your hips so that you continue. Apparently he’s not moving until you finish what you started. 

“I don’t want to be casual anymore,” You breathe out, convincing yourself that you’re trembling because you’re cold and that it has nothing to do with nerves. “I want you all to myself. For real.” 

There’s a moment where silence fills the space between you and it dawns on you how awkward this is going to be if you need to leave this conversation and…you won’t be able to scramble up off the ice. But Garrett reaches to cup your cheek, a soft smile pulling at his mouth. 

He leans down, kissing you, slow and steady and suddenly you’re not very cold anymore, “You think I’m out here calling anyone else ‘baby’?” He teases against your lips, “You want me?” Garrett asks, brushing his thumb over your cheek, “You got me.” 

His one hand playfully squeezes your ass, sitting up a bit and getting up off the ice. He reaches his hand out to tug you up too, 

“C’mon—if we’re gonna be dating, you gotta learn how to remain upright on the ice. Embarrassing, really.” 

You laugh even though you know he’s poking fun at you. Once you’re up, you wrap your arms around his shoulders, your body molding against his own as his arms wind along your waist. You suppose if that’s the price you have to pay? That sounds worth it—and draw him closer for a kiss. 

[kooksandpearls]

garrett graham ❄︎ wanted you.

pairing – garrett graham x nursing student!reader summary – after a head injury at clinical, garrett graham gets to be the one doing the looking after for once. warnings – head injury, concussion, facial bruising, blood, medical care, patient aggression, emotional distress, caretaking, strong language notes from me – we're getting somewhere my loves!!!! based on this ask, hope u enjoy! <3 word count – 11.9k

navigation – masterlist |

The car smells like hospital hand sanitiser and Maria’s vanilla air freshener and the coppery, unpleasant trace of blood she’s pretty sure is still stuck somewhere under her nose.

She sits very carefully in the passenger seat with her bag clutched in her lap and the discharge papers folded into the front pocket because Maria had put them there for safekeeping after watching her try to read the same paragraph three times and then ask, quietly and with genuine confusion, whether nausea was spelled with an o. The answer is no. Apparently. She knows that. Usually.

Her head throbs with every tiny vibration of the road, a dull, spreading pressure behind her eyes and across the bridge of her nose, pulsing in time with her heartbeat like her skull has decided to develop a second career as a bass drum. The split in her lip keeps reopening every time she moves her mouth too much, which is rude, considering she would very much like to continue pretending this is all fine and fine people generally require functional lips for lying.

There’s dried blood under her nose. She can feel it there, tight and flaky against her skin, the way she can feel the swelling beginning to gather beneath both eyes, heavy and hot and humiliating. 

Her scrub top is folded in a plastic bag somewhere near her feet because the front of it’s torn and streaked with blood from the first few awful seconds before anyone could get to her, before security and Maria and Steph from triage had managed to pull her backwards by the waist while the patient screamed so loudly the whole department seemed to go airless around it.

It wasn’t his fault, not really. He was frightened and out of it and nobody expected him to come up that fast, one second curled tight on the bed with his voice climbing, the next swinging blind and hard enough that his elbow caught her straight across the face. 

She remembers the crack of pain before she remembers making a sound. Then her own cry seemed to set him off worse, his hand catching a fistful of her scrub top before she could step back, the brutal pull forward, the bed rail coming up too fast.

Her nose had hit first. Or her mouth. Or her forehead. It’s all a little rearranged now, bright flashes and metal and Maria shouting her name and someone saying, “Security, now,” with enough force to make the whole bay move.

She knows it wasn’t anyone’s fault. She knows psych presentations can turn quickly, knows agitation isn’t always a straight line with warning signs and a polite little interval where everyone gets to reposition themselves safely. 

She knows all the rational things. She also knows her face hurts badly enough that thinking in full sentences feels like pushing through wet cement, and she is, medically speaking, having a really fucking shit time.

Beside her, Maria drives like a woman who’s spent twenty years transporting compromised student nurses and actual glassware with equal care. One hand on the wheel, eyes on the road, her voice soft enough not to scrape against the inside of her skull when she says, “How’s the head, honey?”

She exhales through her nose and immediately regrets it because her nose doesn’t wish to be involved in breathing at this time. “Super normal. Love having one.”

Maria makes a small sound that could be a laugh if it wasn’t wrapped so tightly in concern. “Nausea?”

“Not worse.”

“That’s not what I asked.”

She lets her head rest back against the seat and keeps her eyes on the blurred glow of streetlights sliding across the windscreen. The movement makes her stomach roll faintly, but not enough to tell Maria about, because Maria has already done enough. 

Maria had stood in the consult room while Dr. Patel checked her pupils and her nose and the swelling around her cheekbones, one warm hand resting between her shoulder blades every time she tried to make a joke and ended up going quiet instead. 

Maria had found her spare hoodie from the locker room and helped her into it when lifting her left arm made pain streak down through her shoulder. Maria had said, very gently, you’re not catching the bus after getting your bell rung in my department, like that settled the matter.

“A little,” she admits. “But I’m not going to vomit in your car.”

“Kind of you.”

“I’m very thoughtful.”

“You’re concussed.”

She sighs softly. “Also that.”

Maria’s eyes flick over her in the dim light, quick and practised. “You remember what Dr. Patel said?”

She does. Mostly. The words have been looping vaguely around the edges of her head since he handed her the paperwork. Mild concussion. No fracture. Neuro obs stable. X-ray clear. Rest. No driving. No placement until reviewed. Come back if vomiting, worsening headache, confusion, unusual drowsiness, changes in vision, weakness, seizure, or if anything feels wrong enough that you’re trying to talk yourself out of seeking help.

No being alone tonight.

That last one had landed harder than the rest, somehow. Maybe because the ED had been too bright and too busy and she had been sitting there with a wad of gauze under her nose, feeling like a leaking appliance. Maybe because the doctor had said it in that professional, non-negotiable way that made arguing feel childish. Maybe because the idea of someone watching her because her brain had been knocked around made her feel suddenly, horribly small.

“Wake me every few hours,” she says. “Check I’m not getting weirder.”

Maria’s mouth tips. “You said weirder.”

“That’s the clinical term.”

“It’s not.”

“It should be. Easier to spell than altered level of consciousness.”

Maria actually laughs that time, but it fades quickly. “You can’t be home alone.”

“I know.”

“And you’re not going to pretend you’re fine and sit in your dorm by yourself because you feel embarrassed?”

Her eyes drift shut for half a second, then open again when the darkness makes her head swim. “I’m not embarrassed.”

Maria’s silent.

She sinks a little lower in the seat. “Okay. Maybe a normal amount.”

“There is no normal amount of embarrassed after being assaulted by a patient at work.”

“It wasn’t assault.”

Maria sighs. “Honey.”

“He didn’t know what he was doing,” she argues.

“That doesn’t mean you didn’t get hurt.”

Her mouth twitches before she remembers her lip is split. Pain snaps bright and sharp through the swollen skin. “Ow. Fuck.”

Maria’s hand lifts slightly off the wheel like she wants to reach over, then thinks better of it. “Don’t smile.”

“That’s bleak advice.”

“Currently medical advice.”

She presses her tongue carefully to the inside of her lip and tastes blood again. The whole evening keeps arriving in pieces. The patient’s arm. The bed rail. Maria’s face above hers, too close and too worried. Someone cutting away the torn edge of her scrub top. 

Her own hands shaking in her lap while she tried to tell everyone, very reasonably, that she could finish the shift if they just gave her a second. As if she hadn’t been bleeding on her own shoes.

The thought makes heat rise under the bruising in her face, which is unfair because her face has already suffered enough. “God,” she mutters. “Everyone saw.”

Maria sighs, not impatient, but close to something sad. “Yes, everyone saw that you got hurt.”

“I’m the student.”

“Yes,” Maria nods.

“I’m supposed to be useful.”

“You were useful all day.”

“I ended the shift with a concussion and a bloody nose.”

“You ended the shift injured because an unpredictable situation escalated. That’s not a performance review.”

She knows that. She does. She would say that to anyone else. She would put her hand on another student’s shoulder and mean it completely. She would tell them they were in the wrong place at the wrong second and that sometimes you can do everything right and still get hurt because hospitals are not made of lesson plans and perfect outcomes.

Unfortunately, she’s not another student. She’s herself. And herself currently has blood in her hoodie sleeve because she keeps forgetting not to touch her face.

They hit a bump in the road, not even a large one, but it sends pain blooming through her skull with such immediate nastiness that she sucks in a breath through her teeth and grips the strap of her bag.

Maria notices. “Almost there.”

She opens her mouth to ask where there is, and then remembers campus, her dorm, her room, the bed with the old sweatshirt shoved under the pillow, the roommate who is not there. Her stomach drops so abruptly it makes the nausea worse. “Shit.”

Maria glances over. “What?”

“My roommate’s not home.”

“Tonight?”

“She’s at her sister’s. Like, hours away.” She closes her eyes, then opens them again because the inside of her head does not enjoy visual privacy right now. “Fuck. I forgot.”

“Okay.” Maria’s voice stays calm. That is possibly the worst part. “Do you have someone else? A friend you could stay with?”

She thinks of Lucy first, because that’s the correct answer. Lucy would absolutely let her stay. Lucy would probably panic and then overcorrect into a level of cheerfulness that could qualify as a secondary head injury. Monique would be better, quieter, but Monique has an exam tomorrow and lives across campus in a building where the lift is always broken, which feels like a personal attack under current conditions.

Then her brain, unhelpfully and immediately, supplies Garrett.

Garrett’s room with the lamp on. Garrett’s hand at the back of her neck. Garrett’s voice low in her ear telling her to stop studying and sleep. Garrett sitting on the edge of her bed taking off her shoes after a bad shift. 

Garrett looking at her like competence is something he can be proud of even when she feels like she’s wearing it badly. Garrett, who has been hit in the head enough times that concussion protocol is probably written somewhere in his bones.

Garrett, who’s not technically her boyfriend, except the technicalities feel very stupid when her head is throbbing and her lip is bleeding and she wants him so badly it makes her chest ache worse than her shoulder.

“Yeah,” she says, and her voice comes out softer than she means it to. “Uh. Yeah. I have someone.”

Maria doesn’t look smug. That’s probably part of why she is a good preceptor. “Address?”

She gives her the hockey house. The words feel bigger in the car than they should. Maybe because saying his address out loud to Maria feels like she’s accidentally handed over evidence. Maybe because the last time Maria saw Garrett, he’d been standing in the ED hallway with panic sitting badly under his skin while Logan asked what day it was for the third time. 

Maybe because Maria now knows exactly where to take the concussed student nurse with the split lip and the ruined scrubs, and that place is apparently Garrett Graham’s house.

Maria only nods and changes lanes.

The hockey house is lit up when they pull onto the street, every downstairs window glowing warm and yellow into the cold, the porch light flickering faintly over the steps. There are cars out front, some vaguely familiar. The sight of it loosens something in her chest. At least someone’s home. At least there’s a couch, and people who know what pupils are supposed to do, and Garrett somewhere inside if the universe has decided to be kind after all the other things it did tonight.

Maria puts the car in park and turns toward her. “Wait. I’ll help you.”

“I can walk.”

“I didn’t ask,” Maria responds.

She huffs, which hurts less than smiling. Maria gets out first and comes around, opening the passenger door before she can argue again. The cold hits her face and instantly makes her nose ache in a new and innovative way. 

She climbs out slowly, one hand braced on the car door, shoulder protesting when she reaches for the strap of her bag. Maria takes it from her without comment.

“Rude,” she murmurs.

“Concussed.”

“Everyone keeps saying that like it explains everything.”

“It explains a lot.”

The walk up the path feels longer than it should. The porch steps require more concentration than she likes, which annoys her because she’s watched drunk freshmen navigate these steps while carrying open cups and zero dignity. Her sneakers scrape lightly over the boards. 

Somewhere inside, someone yells something that might be, “You’re cheating,” followed by Dean’s voice saying, “It’s not cheating if the game lets me do it,” which feels like an argument that has existed in this house for generations.

She knocks once because lifting her hand twice seems excessive. There’s a crash inside. A hockey house crash. Male voices overlap, loud and irritated and completely unaware of the fact that sound is currently a weapon. She winces before she can stop herself, one hand coming up toward her temple and hovering there uselessly.

Maria’s mouth tightens. “You okay?”

“Yep.”

The door opens on Logan in sweats and a faded Briar shirt, hair a mess, controller in one hand, expression halfway to annoyed until he sees her. Everything drops out of his face.

He says her name once, startled and low, and then, “What the fuck happened?”

The room behind him seems to quiet in stages. Maybe because of his voice. Maybe because she’s standing on the porch looking like an ED discharge summary with legs. 

She becomes suddenly, viciously aware of herself: the bruising already shadowing beneath her eyes, the swollen bridge of her nose, the blood dried under it despite Maria helping her clean up, the split lip, the hoodie zipped crooked because raising her shoulder hurts. She hadn’t thought much about how she looked in the car because looking required mirrors and mirrors required courage she didn’t currently possess.

Then Garrett appears behind Logan, and the whole night rearranges itself around the look on his face. He must have been in the living room. His hair’s damp at the edges like he showered not long ago, curls loose over his forehead, sweatpants low on his hips, a dark t-shirt pulled tight across his shoulders. 

He steps into the doorway with his mouth already forming some question, probably a chirp, probably something warm and annoying about why she’s showing up with supervision. He sees her, and all the colour leaves his face, as if something has reached into him and taken it by the roots.

His eyes move over her once, too fast and not fast enough. Nose. Mouth. Bruises. Hoodie. The stiff way she’s holding her shoulder. Maria beside her with the bag and the paperwork. Back to her face, where his attention catches and stays.

She tries to smile. It’s a mistake immediately. Pain sparks through her lip, and she winces instead, which feels like the saddest possible version of flirting. “Hi,” she says.

Garrett doesn’t answer.

Logan steps back at once. “Jesus. Come in. Fuck. Come in.”

Warmth and sound and the smell of boys and pizza and laundry detergent roll over her as she steps into the house. The living room lights make her eyes sting. Dean and Tucker are on the couch, controllers in hand, the TV paused mid-game like they’ve both forgotten the concept of winning. Dean’s mouth opens. Tucker’s face changes quietly, which somehow feels worse.

“Holy fuck,” Dean half-yells.

The words hit too loud. She flinches before she can make herself not do it.

Tucker moves instantly. “Dean, get the lights, man.”

“What? Oh. Shit, yeah.” Dean scrambles for the lamp with the guilty urgency of a man who’s suddenly remembered inside voices exist. The room drops into a dimmer yellow, the overhead going off, the TV brightness turned down under Tucker’s quick hand. It changes the whole house at once, softens the edges, takes the blade out of the light.

Maria watches all of it with a look that would be approving if she weren’t still too professional to be obvious about it. 

“She’s had a head injury,” she says, voice calm, eyes moving to Garrett because everyone’s eyes move to Garrett, because this is his house and not-his-girlfriend has arrived at his door concussed and bleeding. “Mild concussion. X-ray was clear, no nasal fracture, but she needs monitoring overnight. No alcohol, no driving, no being alone. Keep the lights low, noise down. She can sleep, but someone needs to check on her as per the discharge instructions. If she starts vomiting, gets more confused, can’t be woken, worsening headache, vision changes, weakness, anything that feels off, take her back in.”

Garrett nods slowly. He’s still staring at her.

Logan, maybe because Garrett looks like he’s briefly lost access to language, reaches out and takes the paperwork from Maria. “Yeah. We’ve got it.”

Maria turns back to her, and her face softens in that way that makes the back of her throat go tight. “I’ll see you in a couple days, honey. Not tomorrow. Rest tomorrow.”

She nods carefully. Even that tiny motion makes pressure throb through her skull. “Thanks for driving me.”

“Text me when you wake up.” Maria’s eyes flick toward Garrett again. “And listen to them for once.”

That almost makes her smile. She resists, heroically. “No promises.”

Maria gives her shoulder the gentlest squeeze, nowhere near the painful side, then lets herself out. Logan closes the door softly behind her, like the whole house has been put on medical quiet time. 

For half a second, nobody moves. Then Dean says, much quieter this time, “Who the fuck did that?”

She lets out a breath that doesn’t quite make it to a laugh. “Hi to you too.”

Dean’s on his feet now, controller abandoned on the couch, all his usual lazy beauty sharpened into something pissed and bright. “I’m serious.”

“I know.” Her head’s beginning to pound harder now that she’s standing still. The adrenaline from getting out of the car, climbing the steps, seeing Garrett’s face, all of it drains down through her body and leaves her feeling oddly hollow. 

Garrett notices, his hand comes to her elbow, barely touching at first like he’s afraid pressure might break something. The warmth of him lands through the hoodie and her body, traitorous and exhausted, turns toward it before her pride has any say.

She steps into him. She leans forward and presses her forehead against his chest because the angle is the only one that doesn’t put pressure on her nose, one hand curling weakly in the soft fabric of his shirt. 

Garrett tenses under her for a fraction of a second, like seeing her had knocked him out of himself and her touching him is what pulls him back in wrong. Then his arms come around her.

Careful. So careful it almost makes her cry. One hand settles at the back of her head without pressing, fingers spread wide over her hair, the other around her waist, holding her there with a gentleness that feels nothing like the boy who body checks men into boards for sport and everything like the one who once took her UGGs off because outside shoes didn’t belong in bed.

She closes her eyes, just for a second. Garrett’s voice, when it finally comes, is rough enough that she feels it against her cheek. “Baby.”

“I’m okay,” she says into his shirt, because she’s decided to start lying as a hobby.

His hand flexes once at her waist. “You’re bleeding.”

“I’m not actively dying.”

“That’s not the same thing.”

She manages a weak shrug. “Clinically significant distinction.”

Logan exhales behind them, shaky in a way he probably wishes nobody noticed. Tucker moves around them quietly, collecting controllers, turning the game off properly, lowering the TV volume until the room becomes mostly the hum of the refrigerator and distant campus noise through the windows. Dean’s still standing there looking like he needs something to hit and has, unfortunately for everyone, found only furniture.

Garrett pulls back enough to look at her, but not far enough that she loses him. His eyes scan her face again, slower now. It’s almost worse than the pain. The way his gaze catches on the swollen bridge of her nose, the blood at one nostril, the split in her lower lip. He looks wrecked by it. Offended, almost, like her body has done something behind his back.

“Come sit down,” he says.

She wants to make a joke about his captain voice. She really does. It’s right there, familiar and easy. Unfortunately, her brain loses the sentence halfway through assembling it, and by the time she finds a piece of it, Garrett’s already guiding her to the couch.

Dean moves a cushion out of the way. Tucker places another behind her back. Logan stands nearby with the paperwork in one hand, reading it with a frown so intense it looks like he’s preparing for finals in head trauma. 

They all shift around her with this strange, quiet purpose that makes her chest feel too full and her face feel too sore to hold whatever expression she wants. Garrett crouches in front of her and reaches for her sneakers.

She blinks down at him. “What are you doing?”

His mouth barely moves. “Taking your shoes off.”

“I can take my shoes off.”

He looks up at her, and there is something in his face so taut and helpless that the argument falls apart in her lap. “Can you let me?”

Oh. That’s not fair. That’s wildly not fair.

She swallows and looks away first. “Yeah.”

Garrett unties her sneakers one at a time, slow with the laces, careful of the way moving her leg pulls faintly at her shoulder. He sets them neatly beside the coffee table. When her feet are free, she curls her legs up onto the couch without thinking, tucking herself sideways into the cushions because upright feels like an idea designed by people whose skulls are not currently full of angry bees.

Garrett’s hand hovers near her knee, then settles there. “Did you want water?”

She nods, then instantly regrets the movement. Pain washes across her forehead, hot and thick. Her eyes squeeze shut. “Ow. Fuck. Yes, please.”

Garrett rises. Her hand moves before she decides to move it, fingers catching the loose fabric of his sweatpants at the thigh, barely enough to stop him if he wanted to go. But he does stop. Immediately. She opens her eyes. Garrett’s looking down at her hand on him. Then he looks at Logan.

Logan’s already moving. “I’ve got it.”

Garrett sits beside her instead. He does it carefully, couch dipping with his weight, his thigh warm along the outside of her curled legs. He doesn’t crowd her face. Doesn’t pull her in too fast. Simply sits close enough that she can feel him there, his hand returning to her knee, thumb still because even his restless touching has gone cautious.

Dean hasn’t let the original point go. He sits on the edge of the coffee table across from her, elbows on his knees, all dramatic cheekbones and very real anger. “No, seriously. Who the fuck did this?”

She opens her mouth. The first answer is too long and falls apart before she can get to it. Her head gives one hard pulse. She shuts her eyes briefly, tries again. “A patient.”

Dean stares at her. “A patient did this to your face?”

“He was really agitated,” she explains as Logan comes back with water. He hands it to Garrett, not her, which would be annoying if her hands didn’t feel vaguely unreliable. “It escalated. He didn’t mean it.”

Dean’s expression says that this isn’t helping his blood pressure. “He didn’t mean it.”

“No.” She lets Garrett pass her the glass, taking it with both hands because one feels optimistic. The cold of it is nice against her palms. Her lip stings when she drinks, water catching briefly at the split, but her throat is dry enough that she keeps going anyway. “He was out of it. Psych presentation. It wasn’t– nobody did anything wrong.”

Tucker returns from the kitchen with an ice pack wrapped in a tea towel and offers it out with both hands like a peace treaty. “For your face. Or your shoulder. Or… wherever. I don’t know. I’m not the medical one.”

She takes it and immediately loves him a little for the towel. “Thanks, Tuck.”

Logan, reading from the discharge sheet now, says, “It says shoulder strain?”

“Logan.”

“What? It does.”

“Stop reading my lore out loud,” she huffs.

Dean gives her a look. “Your lore says shoulder strain and concussion.”

She lets her eyes close for a moment. “My lore is private.”

“Your lore showed up bleeding on our porch.”

She would like to laugh. She really would. Instead, the corner of her mouth twitches, pain bites through her lip, and her eyes water instantly. “Ow. God. That’s so annoying.”

Garrett’s hand comes up, stops short of her face. His fingers curl in midair before he lets them drop. “Your lip’s split and you’ve still got dried blood under your nose, baby.”

The baby does something terrible to her. It always does, but right now it’s worse because his voice is stripped down to the bone. He’s looking at her like he’s trying to keep himself from shaking by cataloguing every visible injury.

She shrugs with one shoulder and immediately regrets that too. Pain tugs from the side of her neck down into the joint, sharp enough that her breath catches.

Garrett sees it. His jaw flexes. “Don’t shrug.”

“I forgot.”

“How do you forget your shoulder hurts?”

“Concussion,” she says, because if everyone else gets to use it as an explanation, so does she. “It looks worse than it is. Promise. I’m just drained. And foggy. I keep losing my train of thought, which is the rudest symptom. Like, I was mid-sentence with Dr. Patel and just fully misplaced the rest of it.”

Tucker’s mouth softens. “That sounds scary.”

She looks down at the glass in her hands. The condensation has started to wet her fingers. “Mostly annoying.”

She lifts the ice pack toward her face, but her shoulder protests halfway up and makes the movement jerky. Garrett catches the pack before she can pretend she meant to do that.

Her eyes flick to him. “I can hold an ice pack.”

“I know.” His voice is quieter now. He shifts closer, one knee turning toward her on the couch, the wrapped ice pack careful in his hand. “But how many times have you looked after me, huh?”

She has no good answer for that. Too many. Not enough. In locker room hallways, in his bed, on this exact couch with bruises over his ribs while he tried to convince her hockey was a sufficient medical explanation for all bodily damage. She’s pressed ice to his cheek and taped his fingers and made him take painkillers and once threatened to call Maria for backup if he said manageable one more time.

Garrett’s mouth moves faintly, not a smile, but close enough to hurt. “Let me.”

She lets him. Garrett lifts the ice pack to her face with a care that makes her throat tighten, angling it over the bridge of her nose and the swelling beginning to spread under one eye without pressing too hard. 

The cold hurts first, a bright, mean sting over bruised skin, then settles into something almost relieving. Her breath comes out shaky despite her best efforts.

“Too much?” he asks.

“No.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah.” She shifts her gaze past him because his face is currently unmanageable. Dean and Tucker and Logan are all watching her with varying degrees of poorly concealed worry. Dean looks like he’s biting the inside of his cheek hard enough to draw blood. Logan still has the discharge paper. Tucker has both hands shoved into the pocket of his hoodie like he doesn’t trust them not to hover. “What?”

Dean blinks. “What?”

“You guys look like this every week and I don’t stare at you.”

Logan snorts, but it comes out thin. “That’s because we’re hot when we’re bruised.”

She manages an eye roll, which is a win. “You’re concussed half the time and deeply irritating the other half.”

“Range,” Dean says automatically.

She points weakly toward the TV with the hand not holding her water. “Relax. Go back to your video games.”

Tucker’s brows pull together. “No, but– but it’s different.”

Her eyes move to him.

He looks briefly embarrassed, then pushes through it anyway. “It’s you.”

Her chest does that awful thing again, too soft and too sore at the same time. She looks down because taking that directly from Tucker feels unfairly intimate, like he’s handed her something warm without warning.

“I’m okay,” she says, and it’s not entirely true, but she tries to make it sound close enough. “Really. I was observed. I had neuro obs. I had scans. No fracture. Nothing’s broken. Just bruised and concussed and mildly tragic.”

“Mildly?” Dean asks.

“Moderately if you keep fucking yelling.”

His face changes instantly. “Sorry.”

The apology is so immediate that she almost smiles again and has to stop herself like a responsible person. “It’s okay.”

Garrett’s hand holding the ice pack is steady. His eyes have barely left her face, and the longer she sits there under that attention, the more she realises he still hasn’t really said anything. Not like Garrett. Not a joke, not an actual question, not one of the bossy little comments that usually lands him in trouble and somehow still gets her to drink water.

His silence has weight. It sits beside her on the couch, pressed into the careful line of his shoulders.

She turns her head just enough to look at him. “You’re being weird.”

His eyes flick to hers. “I’m not.”

“You are.”

His mouth presses together. For a second, he looks younger than he usually does. Less Briar captain, less untouchable campus landmark, more boy on a couch holding an ice pack to a girl’s swollen face with fear making a mess under his skin.

He swallows. “Do you want me to loosen your hair?”

The question is so small and practical that it nearly undoes her. Her hair is still claw-clipped from placement, half-fallen now, strands tugging at her scalp from where it got pulled in the scuffle and then shoved messily back while she was being assessed. She had forgotten about it until he said it, and now she can feel every tight little pull at the roots, all of it feeding into the headache sitting behind her eyes.

“Yes, please,” she says.

Garrett lowers the ice pack and hands it to Tucker without looking. Tucker takes it like an assistant in surgery. Garrett turns slightly toward her, one hand moving behind her head, not touching at first. “Tell me if it hurts.”

“It all hurts.”

His face does something awful.

She softens her voice. “I’ll tell you if it hurts more.”

“Okay.” His fingers find the clip carefully. He’s taken her hair down before, usually with far less medical purpose and far more smugness, but now every motion is slow, almost reverent. The clip gives, and the weight of her hair loosens down her back. The relief is immediate enough that her eyes flutter shut without permission.

Garrett catches that too. “Better?”

“Mhm.”

He combs the fallen strands away from the side of her face with his fingers, avoiding the swelling, avoiding the blood, avoiding every place that might make her flinch. His thumb brushes once near her temple, feather-light. 

She opens her eyes and finds him looking at her. “I’m okay,” she says again, quieter this time. “Really.”

Garrett doesn’t argue. That might be worse. He only nods once and takes the ice pack back from Tucker, pressing it carefully to her face again.

For a while, the room adjusts around her. Dean sits back down, but he doesn’t pick up the controller. Tucker goes to the kitchen and returns with a straw for her water like a man who’s discovered a side quest and intends to complete it properly. Logan reads the discharge instructions twice, then starts setting alarms on his phone without announcing it, because subtlety, in this house, is sometimes just everyone pretending they cannot see love doing administrative tasks in sweatpants.

She drinks water through the straw because lifting the glass is annoying and because nobody makes a thing of it. Garrett keeps the ice pack steady. Every so often, he asks a question in a voice too even to be casual. Headache worse? Nausea? Vision okay? She answers as best she can. Same. Little bit. Yeah, mostly. 

When Dean shifts too fast and the couch creaks, he freezes like he’s committed assault by upholstery. That makes her huff something dangerously close to a laugh, and Garrett immediately murmurs, “Careful,” like her face is now a team responsibility.

The fogginess comes in waves. Sometimes she’s fully in the room, tracking Dean’s quiet rage and Tucker’s gentle fussing and Logan’s forced calm. Sometimes the edges blur a little, slow, like her thoughts are moving through syrup. Garrett’s thigh is warm against her curled legs. His arm rests along the back of the couch behind her, a soft barrier between her and the world. 

She leans into him by degrees until her shoulder touches his chest and her head tips carefully toward the place beneath his jaw that smells like soap and boy and safety.

She doesn’t mean to get sleepy. She has discharge instructions that say she can sleep, she knows that, but the idea of giving in with everyone watching feels embarrassing in a new, stupid direction. Still, her eyelids grow heavy. The headache spreads and dulls under the cold. The room is dim. The boys are quiet. Garrett is warm.

At some point, Dean says softly, “You want me to call Lucy or someone?”

She tries to answer. The name gets halfway through her head and then wanders off. “Tomorrow,” she murmurs.

“Okay,” Dean says, and for once there’s no joke attached.

Garrett shifts beside her. “Baby?”

She makes a small sound that could mean what or I’m alive or don’t make me move, depending on how generous he feels.

“You getting sleepy?”

“No.”

There’s a pause.

Logan says, very quietly, “That was the least convincing thing I’ve ever heard.”

She opens one eye to glare at him, but the room tilts slightly with the effort, so she closes it again. “Your face is least convincing.”

“Strong comeback.”

“Thank you.”

Garrett’s lips brush her hair. It’s quick, maybe accidental, except nothing Garrett does with her feels accidental anymore, no matter how hard both of them have tried to label it otherwise. “I’m gonna take you upstairs, okay?”

Her eyes open properly at that, or as properly as they can. “I can walk.”

“I know.”

“You keep saying that and then doing the thing for me anyway.”

His mouth curves faintly for the first time all night. It’s tiny and tired and painfully Garrett. “Yeah.”

She should argue. She’s built a respectable portion of this entire situationship on arguing with Garrett Graham while letting him do exactly what she wants him to do. But her shoulder aches, her face throbs, and her legs feel like they belong to somebody who’s spent the day being chased by weather. 

More than that, she wants him. She wants his hands steady under her thighs, his chest close, his room dark and warm around them. She wants to stop being the student who got hurt and start being the girl Garrett carries upstairs because the floor feels too far away.

“Okay,” she whispers.

Dean looks at the TV like he’s never been interested in anything more. Tucker suddenly finds the water glass fascinating. Logan folds the discharge papers with great concentration. Nobody says a word.

Garrett slides one arm behind her back and the other beneath her knees with the same careful strength he uses for everything he takes seriously. “Shoulder?”

“Fine.”

His eyes flick to hers.

“Not worse,” she corrects.

He nods once and lifts her.

It does hurt, a little. Her shoulder pulls, her head pulses, and the movement makes nausea roll faintly through her stomach. But Garrett holds her so close and so steadily that the discomfort never gets sharp enough to scare her. Her hand curls in the front of his shirt, her face turning carefully toward his neck because pressing into his chest would bump her nose and she’s learned at least one thing tonight.

Dean’s voice follows them, low and rough from the couch. “G.”

Garrett stops at the foot of the stairs but doesn’t turn fully, like turning her too much might hurt.

Dean’s eyes move over her once, then to Garrett. Whatever he’d been about to say gets swallowed down and changed into something smaller. “We’re downstairs if you need anything.”

Garrett’s hold tightens by a fraction. “Yeah.”

Tucker adds, “I’ll bring up more ice in a bit.”

“And meds when she’s due,” Logan says, lifting the papers slightly.

She wants to tell them they’re all being ridiculous. She wants to say she’s fine, to make some joke about the Briar hockey team turning into a poorly licensed urgent care clinic. But her throat feels thick, and her eyes sting in a way that has nothing to do with the swelling, and for once the joke doesn’t come quickly enough to save her from feeling it.

So she only says, “Thanks, guys.”

Dean nods, jaw tight. Tucker gives her a small, worried smile. Logan says, “Anytime,” like he means it and hates that there’s a reason to.

Garrett carries her upstairs slowly. The stairwell is dim, the house clutter softened into shadows: a hoodie over the railing, someone’s shoes kicked near the landing, a dent in the wall nobody has confessed to making. 

His breathing is steady beneath her ear. His arms don’t shift, don’t tremble, don’t let her feel for one second like she’s heavy or inconvenient or anything other than something he’s decided belongs safely against him.

Halfway up, she murmurs, “Garrett?”

“Yeah?”

“You’re still being weird.”

This time, his breath leaves him in something almost like a laugh. It brushes warm over her hair. “Yeah, baby,” he says, voice low enough that it belongs only to the stairs and the dark and the careful space between them. “I know.”

His room is already dim when he gets there, like he’d been in it before everything happened and left the lamp on low beside the bed, the shade turning the walls a warm, soft yellow that doesn’t stab behind her eyes. 

The window is cracked just enough to let in a thin line of cold air, shifting the edge of the curtain and carrying in the far-off sound of campus on a weeknight, car doors and laughter and somebody shouting down the street like the world has not personally offended her face.

Garrett nudges the door open with his shoulder and steps inside carefully, like the room might have developed hazards in the ten minutes since he last saw it. One of his hoodies is thrown over the desk chair. There’s a textbook facedown on the bed that he must have been pretending to read earlier, a roll of hockey tape on the nightstand, his phone charger twisted into a knot on the floor. 

The ordinary mess of him sits around them so gently that it makes something behind her ribs go weak. His room. His bed. His detergent and the clean soap smell of his skin under the faint cold of the hallway.

For the first time since the bay, since the rail, since the white burst of pain and Maria’s hand firm between her shoulder blades, her body seems to understand that it’s stopped moving.

Garrett lowers her onto the edge of the mattress with so much care it almost becomes annoying. One arm stays behind her back until she’s properly sitting, the other at her knees, and even after he lets go he keeps his hands there for a second, hovering near her like he’s not fully convinced gravity has been handled.

She blinks down at him because he’s crouched in front of her now, broad shoulders between her knees, face tipped up, eyes moving over her again with that same awful, quiet attention. 

She can feel what he’s seeing before he says anything. The blood dried tight beneath her nose. The swelling already darkening around the bridge of it. The split in her lip, tacky and sore. Mascara smudged under both eyes from the crying she doesn’t remember allowing herself to do properly, only the wetness and the sting and Maria saying, breathe for me, honey, nice and slow.

Garrett swallows. His hands rest lightly on her calves, thumbs still. “Did you want to wipe your face?” he asks, voice careful. “You’ve got, uh…” His eyes flick down, then back up, and his mouth tightens around something he doesn’t let out. “Some mascara under your eyes. And some blood still.”

She knows he’s trying very hard not to sound like the sight of it is putting his organs in the wrong order. She loves him a little for the effort, which is a thought she cannot touch right now because her brain is concussed and reckless and clearly looking for loaded weapons.

She nods once, then immediately remembers that nodding is no longer a neutral activity. The headache flares behind her eyes, thick and punishing. “Ow,” she says, small and irritated.

Garrett’s hands tighten on her legs. “Hey.”

“I’m good.” Her tongue touches the split in her lip and she tastes metal again. “Can you?”

His face changes. Barely. A little fracture through the tight worry, something softer underneath it. “Course.”

He stands, and the second his hands leave her, her body reacts before her mind catches up. Her fingers snag in the hem of his t-shirt, clumsy and sudden, and the movement pulls through her bad shoulder so sharply that a soft, wounded sound slips out of her before she can bite it down.

Garrett freezes instantly. Entire body going still. “Hey. Hey, you’re good.” He turns back toward her, one hand coming carefully to her wrist, covering her fingers where they’re twisted in his shirt. “I’m just going to the hallway, yeah? Bathroom’s right there. Two seconds.”

She knows that. Obviously she knows that. She’s been in this house enough times to know the bathroom is six steps from his door and usually contains at least one towel on the floor and Dean’s body wash in a place where it doesn’t belong. She knows Garrett’s not leaving. She knows the door is open, the house is full, Logan’s downstairs reading concussion instructions like the exam is tomorrow.

Still, her fingers don’t let go right away.

Her head hurts. Her mouth hurts. Her shoulder is a hot, sharp line down one side of her body. And the small, rational part of her brain that usually handles dignity and sarcasm is sitting in a dark room somewhere with a blanket over its head, because all she can think is that she wants him where she can reach him.

Garrett’s thumb moves once over her knuckles. “I’ll keep the door open.”

She nods more carefully this time. “Okay.”

He waits until her fingers loosen, then steps backward instead of turning right away, eyes on her the whole time. It would be funny, maybe, if it didn’t work. If she didn’t feel her ribs unclench slightly because she can still see him, because he backs into the hallway like she’s a wild animal he’s trying not to spook and not a nursing student with blood under her nose and one of his sleeves somewhere in her fist.

He disappears only when he reaches the bathroom, and even then he keeps talking. “Still here,” he says, and the water starts a second later, soft against porcelain. “Just getting a washcloth.”

“I know,” she calls back, then winces because even her own voice feels too loud inside her skull.

Garrett comes back with the washcloth damp and folded in one hand. His other hand shuts the door halfway, enough to soften the rest of the house into a distant murmur. The mattress dips when he sits beside her, turned toward her with one knee bent on the bed. 

He smells like clean skin and laundry and something faintly sweet from the kitchen downstairs, and she has to swallow around the childish, humiliating urge to press her face into his chest and stay there until her body stops feeling like it has been borrowed from a car crash.

“Here we go,” he says.

The cloth touches just beneath her eye first.

She stiffens on instinct, because everything has hurt tonight and her body is no longer trusting innocent objects, but Garrett pauses immediately. “Too cold?”

“No.” Her voice comes out thinner than she likes. “Just surprised.”

“Okay.” His face stays close, intent in a way that would normally make her flustered for more interesting reasons. “I’ll go slow.”

He does. He wipes the smudged mascara from beneath one eye with feather-light strokes, the washcloth barely dragging over skin, then folds it to a clean corner and does the other side. He works like he has been given something fragile and a little dangerous. Like every movement is being negotiated with the injuries on her face and the dull heaviness behind her eyes. 

His jaw flexes when the cloth comes away grey-black with makeup and faintly pink with old blood, but he doesn’t comment. He only turns it again and brings it to the place under her nose.

“That might hurt,” he murmurs.

“It already hurts.”

His eyes lift to hers. “Yeah.”

She looks down at his wrist, at the veins there, at the old tape mark near his thumb, at the little scrape over one knuckle from practice or a game or some Garrett-related misuse of his own body. Usually she would notice and ask. Usually she would press her thumb near it and say, what’s this? and he would say, nothing, and she would call him annoying and make him let her look anyway.

Tonight she just watches his hand hold the cloth and lets him clean the blood away. The dried parts tug where they have hardened on her skin, and she sucks in a breath through her mouth when the washcloth brushes too close to the swelling at the bridge of her nose. 

Garrett stops every time, waits for the little movement of her fingers in his shirt to settle, then continues. He wipes around the split in her lip last, his mouth flattening when fresh blood beads at the edge.

“You’re gonna bruise like hell,” he says, almost to himself.

She tries not to smile. It becomes a tiny, crooked thing anyway and immediately hurts. “Hot.”

His eyes flick back to hers, and for the first time since she arrived, something almost like Garrett moves across his face. Small. Tired. There and gone. “Yeah, baby. Real intimidating.”

“Good. I’ve always wanted to look tough.”

“You already look tough.”

“That’s because you have questionable standards.”

“No,” he says, and the softness in it makes her look away first. “I don’t.”

The room goes quiet except for the dull throb of the house underneath them, the creak of something downstairs, Logan or Dean moving around, the low murmur of the boys trying and failing not to sound worried through the floor. Garrett folds the washcloth over itself and sets it on the nightstand, then looks down at the rest of her.

The hoodie Maria put on her is zipped to her collarbone, dark fabric stained rusty near the cuff where she must have touched her face. Her scrub pants are still on, wrinkled and creased from the shift, one knee smudged faintly with something she refuses to identify. There is a hospital sticker on her shoe that nobody noticed until now, bright and stupid and stuck to the edge of the sole.

Garrett’s gaze catches on the blood at her sleeve. “You want out of these scrub pants?” he asks quietly. “And your hoodie has blood on it, baby.”

She looks down, as if this is new information. Her brain takes a second to make sense of the stain. “Oh.”

“It’s okay.”

“Yeah,” she says after a moment. Then, because the word seems to have scraped something loose on the way out, she adds, “Sorry.”

Garrett’s head lifts. “Why the fuck are you sorry?”

The sharpness of it makes her blink. He says it too quietly, all the force held under his tongue. But it lands somewhere tender anyway. She presses her lips together and immediately regrets that too. “Ow.”

Garrett’s expression softens, but his eyes stay fixed on her. Waiting.

She sighs, and it comes out shaky enough that she would like to file a formal complaint with her nervous system. “Because you…” The thought keeps slipping. She can see it, vaguely, but reaching for it makes her head pulse harder. “You didn’t sign up for this. I should’ve gotten Lucy or Monique. Or stayed with Maria, or– I don’t know.”

“No.” Garrett shakes his head once, and then stops himself, like maybe he’s remembered that head movement isn’t anyone’s friend right now. His hand comes to the side of her face, careful of the bruising, thumb brushing just below her temple where the skin is untouched. “Don’t do that.”

“I’m not doing anything.”

“You’re apologising for coming here.”

Her throat tightens. She looks at his shoulder because his face is too close and too much and still not close enough. “I just didn’t want you to feel like you had to.”

“Had to what?”

“Look after me.”

For a second, he only stares at her. Then he exhales through his nose, rough and almost disbelieving, and his fingers slide into her hair at the side of her head, holding it back from her face like the gesture can stand in for all the things he’s trying not to say too fast or wrong. “You think I’m sitting here because I feel obligated?”

She has the very strong, very pathetic urge to cry, which is inconvenient because crying would involve her face. “I don’t know.”

“Baby.”

She closes her eyes.

“Hey.” His thumb moves once. “Look at me.”

She does, reluctantly, because Garrett’s voice has gone into that low place that usually gets him what he wants and because her resistance is currently running on fumes.

His face is steadier now. Still pale underneath the warm lamplight, still tight around the edges, but steady in the places he’s offering to her. “I want you here.”

Her breath catches around something that hurts in a completely separate way from her nose. “Are we…” She stops, partly because the sentence is embarrassing and partly because she loses the middle of it for a second. The fog rolls in, cottony and irritating. She blinks, and Garrett waits. He doesn’t hurry her. Doesn’t fill the gap with a joke. Just keeps his hand at her face until she finds the rest. “Are we okay?”

His expression breaks so gently it makes her chest ache. “Course we are.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.” He brushes her hair back again, knuckles barely grazing the side of her neck. “We’re okay.”

She nods carefully. A tiny movement. “Good.”

Garrett’s mouth lifts at one corner, soft and sad and warm all at once. “Good?”

“Yeah.” Her fingers curl in his shirt again. This time, she doesn’t pull. “Because I really…” She swallows. Her throat is dry. Her head is thick. The truth comes out before she can dress it up in something safer. “I just wanted you.”

Something in him goes still. A held breath somewhere in the centre of him, then he nods, and the smile that comes with it is small enough that it feels private, even with the door half open and the boys downstairs and the whole house softly rearranged around her injury. “I know the feeling.”

She sniffs, because her body is committed to making the worst possible choices, and pain snaps up through her nose so sharply her eyes water. “Ow. Fuck.” She presses two fingers near the side of her face. “You do?”

Garrett’s smile shifts. “You want me to say it again while you look like you’re about to sneeze blood?”

“Maybe.”

“I know the feeling,” he says, and this time he doesn’t look away. “Because who better to nurse me back to health than you, huh?”

The laugh that escapes her is tiny and breathless and immediately followed by a wince, but it’s real. “I’m not even good at it today.”

“That’s okay.” He leans in and kisses the top of her head, nowhere near the bruising, lips warm against her hair. “I’ll cover this one.”

He gets up slowly this time, one hand staying in hers until the last possible second, then moves to his dresser. She watches him pull open drawers. 

He finds a pair of grey sweatpants first, soft and old and definitely his, then a zip-up hoodie because it will not need to go over her head. She can see the moment he chooses it for that reason. The little pause, the glance back at her shoulder, the jaw tight enough to tell on him.

When he comes back, the clothes folded over his arm, he crouches in front of her again. “Alright. We’ll do this slow, okay?”

She nods, then corrects it into a verbal answer before her head can punish her. “Okay.”

“Pants first.”

“Romantic.”

His mouth twitches. “I’m known for it.”

He helps her stand only as much as she needs, one hand at her good elbow, the other at her waist. The room sways faintly when she gets upright, unpleasantly loose at the edges, and Garrett’s hand firms at once. “Dizzy?”

“Little bit.”

“Sit?”

“No, I’m good. Just…” She looks down at the drawstring of her scrub pants, then at him. “This is a very low dignity moment for me.”

Garrett’s gaze flicks up, and there it is again, the smallest spark of him through the worry. “Baby, you’ve fallen asleep drooling on my chest after telling me I had slutty veins.”

She frowns. “I said that?”

“You did.”

“That does sound like me,” she accepts. 

“Exactly. Dignity’s been dead.”

She huffs, almost laughing, and he helps ease the scrub pants down her legs without making a production of it. Nothing in his face changes in the way that would make her feel watched, despite the fact that he’s, technically, undressing her in his bedroom. 

His touch stays practical, warm, almost painfully respectful. He holds the sweatpants open for her one leg at a time, keeps a hand at her hip while she steps in, then draws them up slowly over her thighs.

They’re too big, of course. They sit low on her hips and pool at her ankles in a way that would be funny if everything didn’t hurt. Garrett ties the drawstring in a loose knot and pats it once.

“There,” he says. “Very fashionable.”

“Shut up. I’m concussed.”

“I know. That’s why I’m letting you get away with that tone.”

Her mouth threatens a smile, so she bites it back and looks down at herself instead. The hoodie is next. Garrett reaches for the zipper, then stops. “Where’s the top?”

She blinks at him. “What?”

“Your scrub top.” His voice stays even, but not naturally. 

Her mind searches the department and comes back with torn fabric, scissors, someone’s gloved hands. “Um.” She rubs her fingers against the seam of his sweatpants, trying to make the thought stay still long enough to look at it. “Um. Bag. Maybe. They had to cut it off, I think.”

Garrett’s jaw tenses. It’s quick. A muscle jumping once, his mouth going flat, his eyes dropping away from her face for half a second like he needs to put the reaction somewhere she can’t see it. But she sees it anyway. She’s concussed, not blind.

When he looks back up, he’s forced something lighter onto his face. It’s not quite convincing, but the attempt is so Garrett it makes her ache.

“Damn,” he says. “Liked that pair.”

She stares at him. “Pair?”

“Set. Outfit. Whatever.” He lifts one shoulder, careful to keep his voice mild. “Made your ass look great.”

The giggle escapes before she can stop it. Immediately, pain blooms across her lip and nose, and she presses her fingers to her mouth with a muffled, “Ow. Don’t flirt with the concussed.”

Garrett’s smile is barely there, but warmer this time. “Can’t help it.”

“You should try.”

“I’ve been trying for months. Terrible at it.”

That one sits in the room longer than it should. Her eyes lift to his, and for a second, neither of them moves. Then Garrett clears his throat softly and reaches for the zipper of her hoodie.

“This one’s gonna suck,” he says. “I’m sorry.”

That’s somehow worse than if he had lied. “Okay.”

He unzips the bloodstained hoodie slowly, easing one side down her good arm first. That part is fine, or close enough. The bad shoulder is different. Even with the zip-up, even with him going painfully slowly, the fabric drags over the sore joint and catches near her elbow, and the strain of lifting even a fraction sends pain snapping hot and deep through her shoulder and up the side of her neck.

She makes a sound she hates. Small and broken enough that Garrett’s whole face changes.

“Stop, stop, stop,” he murmurs immediately. His hands freeze, one holding the fabric, the other at her waist. “I’ve got it. You’re okay. Don’t move.”

Her eyes burn fast. Too fast. The pain isn’t even the worst she has felt tonight, which somehow makes crying more insulting, like her body has chosen this as the point to become unreasonable. A few tears slip out anyway, hot and humiliating over her swollen cheeks.

“Sorry,” she whispers.

Garrett’s eyes flash. “Do not.”

“I know. I know, I’m just–” Her breath catches in that horrible little pre-sob way, and her face hurts too much to do anything with it. “It hurts.”

“I know.” His voice drops, low and steady. He shifts closer, bracing her gently with his own body while he works the sleeve down by tiny increments. “I know. I’m sorry. Almost done. There you go. Good girl. That’s it.”

The praise lands somewhere stupid and warm under all the pain, and she would make fun of him for weaponising it if she were not currently trying not to cry into his shirt. The hoodie finally comes free, and Garrett gets his zip-up around her without making her lift her arm higher than necessary, guiding the sore side in first, then the other, then drawing the soft fabric closed around her body. It smells like him immediately. Clean laundry, cold rink air, skin.

The relief of being out of the hospital clothes hits harder than she expects. She folds forward into him.

Garrett catches her like he has been waiting for it, one arm firm around her waist, the other cradling the back of her head before she can tip into the wrong angle. “There we go,” he murmurs into her hair. “Got you.”

She nods against him, but it’s barely a movement. “Hurts.”

“I know, baby.”

“I’m being a baby.”

“No.” His hand spreads over her back, broad and warm through the hoodie. “You’re being concussed with a fucked-up shoulder.”

She breathes against him for another minute, letting the warmth of him settle over the sharper edges. His heart is steady under her cheek. Or maybe it isn’t. Maybe that’s just what she needs it to be. Either way, his arms stay around her until her breathing evens out, until the tears stop sliding hot under her eyes, until she can pull back without feeling like she might tip sideways into the nightstand.

Garrett helps her lie down against his pillows. He has her on her back at first, then adjusts when she makes a face, turning her slightly onto her good side with slow hands and a pillow tucked near her shoulder so it isn’t pulling strangely. He moves like he’s learning her injury as he goes, like the map of her pain matters enough to memorise. It makes something soft and sore press up behind her ribs.

When he climbs in beside her, he doesn’t pull her in immediately. He waits, lying on his side facing her, one arm bent under his head, the other resting near the blanket between them. Giving her space to decide how much contact feels possible. Which is very considerate of him and also deeply annoying because she has no interest in space.

She curls into him as best she can, awkwardly, her bad shoulder protected between them, her forehead carefully finding the safe hollow below his collarbone. Garrett lets out a breath that sounds like he has been holding it since the front door.

“There,” he says softly. “That okay?”

“Mhm.”

His hand comes to her hair again. Fingers sliding slowly from her temple back over her scalp, loosening what the clip and the shift and the panic left behind. The motion sends a dull, pleasant ache through her, somewhere under the headache, a different kind of heaviness.

She sighs before she can stop herself. “Feels nice.”

Garrett’s thumb moves near her hairline. “I’ll keep doing it then.”

She lets her eyes close.

For a while, the room stays still around them. The lamp glows behind her eyelids. The house below makes small, careful sounds, a cabinet closing softly, footsteps pausing in the hallway and then retreating, the quiet evidence of three hockey players trying very hard to be normal about the girl in Garrett’s bed with a concussion. 

Her head throbs anyway, steady and deep. Her lip pulses. Her shoulder aches in its own miserable rhythm. But Garrett’s hand keeps moving through her hair, slow enough that her breathing starts to follow it.

She’s almost asleep, or something near it, when Garrett speaks. “What happened?”

His voice is quiet. He asks like he’s been holding the question in both hands for too long and needs to set it somewhere.

She opens her eyes to the dark cotton of his shirt. Her brain takes a few seconds to come back online. She breathes out slowly through her mouth because her nose is still a disaster. 

The memory is there at once, too close and too bright around the edges, and her body reacts to it before the words arrive. Fingers curling lightly in the front of his shirt. Shoulder tightening, then complaining. The ghost of the rail coming up fast.

Garrett’s hand pauses in her hair. “You don’t have to.”

“No.” Her voice is quiet. “It’s okay.”

He starts moving his hand again, slower now.

“It was a psych patient,” she says. “He was really agitated. Not like… violent, at first. Just scared, I think. Curled in on himself, wouldn’t really let anyone near him. Maria was with me. We were trying to keep the room calm, but the ED was so busy and loud and everyone was stretched thin, and he just…” She stops, trying to find the order of it. Everything feels slippery when she looks too directly. “He lashed out. His elbow got me in the face. Accidentally, I think.”

Garrett’s chest goes very still under her cheek.

“And I cried out,” she continues. “I don’t know. It just hurt and it surprised me, and I think that freaked him out more. Or the noise did. Or maybe he just didn’t know what was happening.” She swallows. Her throat feels raw. “He grabbed my scrub top before I could move back. Pulled me forward. My nose hit the bed rail. Or my mouth did. I’m not sure. It happened really fast.”

Garrett’s arm tightens around her, then loosens immediately like he’s afraid of hurting her. His hand remains in her hair, but the fingers have gone still.

“Security came in,” she says. “Another nurse pulled me back. Steph, I think. Or maybe Maria. Both, maybe. I don’t know. I remember Maria saying my name a lot.” She looks down between them, though there is nothing to see but the dark fold of his shirt and the edge of his hoodie on her body. “He didn’t mean it.”

Garrett is quiet for long enough that she starts to wonder if he has stopped breathing.

Then he says, “You keep saying that.”

“He didn’t.”

“I know.” His voice is rough, scraped thin at the edges. “I know he didn’t, baby. I just…” He takes a breath. It moves carefully through his chest. “You got hurt anyway.”

The words land with the same awful simplicity as Maria’s had in the car. That doesn’t mean you didn’t get hurt. She closes her eyes, because everyone has decided to be kind in the exact way she cannot defend against.

“I know,” she whispers.

Garrett’s hand finally moves again, fingers sliding over her scalp, then down to the nape of her neck where he can touch without brushing bruised skin. “Is this how you feel?”

She opens her eyes. “What?”

“When I come home after a game all bruised and shit.” He shifts just enough that she can feel him looking down at her, though she doesn’t lift her head to meet it yet. “Is this what it feels like?”

A tiny breath leaves her. Not quite a laugh. More tired than that. “You mean do I also go weird and silent and look like I might throw up?”

“Yeah.”

“Then yeah.” Her fingers smooth over the fabric of his shirt because she needs something small to do. “Kind of, I guess.”

Garrett doesn’t answer.

She turns her face slightly, enough to look at the line of his jaw in the low light. He’s staring at the wall beyond her head, mouth set, brows drawn, hair falling messily over his forehead. He looks angry and young and helpless, which is such a strange combination on him that it makes her chest ache.

“It’s different,” she says softly. “You’re playing a game you love. You know the risks. I know that. And you guys are all… insane about pain, which I’ve accepted against my will.”

His mouth twitches without humour.

“But I don’t enjoy seeing you hurt.” Her voice goes quieter around the admission. “Even when it’s normal hockey hurt. Even when you’re smug about it and standing in the kitchen telling me it’s fine while your ribs look like someone used you as a doorstop. It still makes my stomach feel weird.”

Garrett’s eyes come down to her then. She tries to hold the look for a second and manages maybe half. His attention is too raw tonight. Too stripped of the things he usually wears over it.

“I know you’re tough,” she says, looking at his collar instead. “I know you can take it. I know half the time you think me worrying is funny or hot or both, because you have a very damaged sense of romance.”

“That’s fair.”

“But I still…” She frowns slightly, the thought losing shape, then finding it again. “I still hate it. Not because I think you’re weak. Because you’re not. Obviously. It’s just your body, you know? And I like your body.”

Garrett’s eyebrows lift faintly.

She narrows her eyes at him. “Don’t.”

“I didn’t say anything.”

“You were about to become insufferable.”

“Maybe a little.”

“I have a concussion. Be kind.”

His face softens again, the almost-tease folding back into something warmer. “I’m being so kind.”

“You’re doing okay.”

“Glowing review.”

She breathes out through her mouth, and for a moment the room feels almost normal. Almost. Garrett’s hand in her hair. His chest under her cheek. The two of them managing to find the familiar shape of each other even through the bruising and the blood and the fear still sitting somewhere near the foot of the bed.

Then Garrett’s thumb brushes the side of her head again, light and careful, and his voice drops. “I hated seeing you like that.”

She looks at him this time.

He doesn’t look away. His eyes are dark in the low light, all the usual teasing stripped out of them. “At the door,” he says. “I hated it.”

“I know.”

“No, I don’t think you do.” His mouth tightens, then releases. “You were standing there with blood on your face and Maria next to you and you looked at me like you were sorry. Like I was gonna be upset that you came here.”

Her throat works. “I didn’t want to be too much.”

Garrett makes a sound under his breath, small and rough. “You got hurt.”

“Yeah.”

“You’re allowed to be too much.”

The sentence is so simple it feels dangerous. Her eyes sting again, and she presses her face carefully into his chest before the tears can do anything stupid to her already stupid face.

Garrett’s arm comes around her, careful of her shoulder, his hand settling between her shoulder blades where he can hold without hurting. “Especially here,” he murmurs into her hair. “Especially with me.”

She doesn’t answer. She can’t, really. Not without crying, and crying hurts, and she’s tired of things hurting. So she only curls her fingers more tightly in his shirt and lets him keep his hand in her hair.

After a while, she says, very quietly, “I’m really tired.”

“I know.” Garrett kisses the top of her head. “You can sleep.”

“Logan set alarms.”

“Of course Logan set alarms.”

She manages the faintest smile. “He looked very serious.”

“He loves a protocol.”

“He does have the head injury experience.”

Garrett huffs a soft laugh against her hair, the sound loosening something in the dark. “Unfortunately.”

She lets her eyes close again. The headache is still there. The bruising is still swelling around her nose, hot and heavy. Her shoulder still aches beneath his hoodie. None of it has gone away.

But Garrett’s fingers keep moving through her hair, and his body is warm where hers has gone cold and wrung out, and downstairs the boys are quiet in a way that makes the whole house feel like it is holding its breath around her.

“Garrett?”

“Yeah, baby?”

“If I say something weird, it’s the concussion.”

His hand pauses for half a second. “Okay.”

“And if I say something nice.”

His mouth brushes her hair. “Also concussion?”

“Probably.”

“Got it.”

She’s quiet long enough that he likely thinks she’s drifted off. Maybe she has, a little. The edge of sleep is soft and close, pulling at the corners of the room, blurring the pain into something thick and manageable. Then she murmurs, “You’re good at this.”

Garrett’s chest rises slowly beneath her cheek. “At what?”

“Looking after me.”

His fingers resume their movement through her hair, slower than before. “Yeah?”

“Mm.”

His voice, when it comes, is barely more than warmth in the dark. “Only because you taught me how.”

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[watchtowerlibrary]

The way I thought Reader would be loopy and would say some very honest stuff 😅 Garrett in the bathroom verbalising stuff got to me 😊

[kooksandpearls]

garrett graham ❄︎ learning.

pairing – garrett graham x petal!reader summary – what starts as academic suffering becomes a back-row flirtation when garrett graham gets to class late late. warnings – professor embarrassment, flirting, swearing. notes from me – as requested my babes!! love this lil meet cute 🥹 word count – 0.9k

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She had picked the seat in the very back because suffering felt more dignified from a distance. The class had been a mistake. A spectacular, academically sanctioned mistake. 

She’d chosen it as an elective three weeks ago with the loose, optimistic confidence of a girl who had seen the words cultural theory and performance on the course list and decided, sure, sounds adjacent enough to theatre to count as enrichment. 

Now she was sitting under fluorescent lights in the back row of a lecture hall while Professor Martin clicked through a slideshow that had, somehow, mentioned both post-industrial labour and narrative collapse in the same sentence, and she was beginning to suspect enrichment was a scam.

Her notebook had one full page of notes. Unfortunately, most of it read: what the fuck does this mean?

The door near the top of the lecture hall opened twenty minutes late with a soft, guilty scrape, and every head in the room turned with the specific hunger of students desperate for anything to happen. 

A guy slipped in, tall and broad-shouldered in a Briar hockey hoodie, dark curls, backpack hanging off one shoulder and an iced coffee balanced in one hand. Garrett Graham, obviously.

She knew the name because everyone at Briar knew the name, usually said with some combination of awe, thirst, and deeply annoying familiarity. He scanned the back row, found the empty seat beside her, and leaned in just enough for his voice to stay under the professor’s. “This taken?”

She shook her head, trying very hard not to look like she’d noticed his forearms. “Go for it.”

He slid into the seat with the quietest possible amount of athletic grace, which was still not quiet enough.

Professor Martin stopped mid-slide. “Thank you for joining us, Mr. Graham.”

Garrett froze with one hand still on his backpack zipper. “Oh– uh, yeah. Sorry. Hockey practice ran over.”

Professor Martin looked at the iced coffee in his hand, then tilted her head at him. “Oh. Hockey practice. Do they give you iced coffees on the way out now? That’s new.”

His eyes flicked to her. For half a second, panic. Then something brighter, amused and wicked. He set the coffee onto the tiny desk attached to her chair like he had been wronged by circumstance. “It was for my girl. Sorry. Won’t happen again.”

Her lips pressed together so hard her mouth almost disappeared. Across the room, someone made a strangled noise.

She nodded gravely, sliding one hand around the cup. “Totally my bad. I begged for one. Sorry, Professor.”

Professor Martin stared at both of them with the exhausted stillness of a woman who had taught athletes before and expected better from theatre majors. “Be on time to my class, Mr. Graham.”

Garrett nodded with a sincerity so polished it was basically fraudulent. “Yes, ma’am.”

The lecture resumed. The slide changed to one with even more words on it, which felt aggressive. Beside her, Garrett exhaled slowly, then pushed the iced coffee further toward her with two fingers.

“For your trouble,” he whispered.

She glanced at the cup, then at him. “That’s okay. It’s yours.”

“Yeah, but I just accused you of sending me on a beverage run in front of the whole class.”

“You did.”

“So.” He nudged it another inch toward her, mouth curving. “Hazard pay.”

She pressed her lips together, trying very hard not to smile. “I’m not taking your coffee.”

“It’s not mine anymore.”

“It has your name on it.”

Garrett looked down at the sticker, then back at her with a perfectly straight face. “That’s so they knew who to give it to before I delivered it to my girl.”

A laugh got out of her before she could stop it. Tiny. Horribly timed. Professor Martin paused for half a second at the front of the room, and she immediately dropped her gaze to her notebook like the blank page had become urgent.

Garrett’s shoulder shook once beside her. “Good acting,” he murmured.

“Shut up.”

“I mean it. Very committed.”

“I'm a theatre major, I’m always committed.”

His grin turned interested in a way that made the fluorescent-lit back row feel suddenly too small. “Yeah?”

Then his eyes dropped to her notebook, where she had written what the fuck? in the margin and underlined it twice.

“So,” he whispered. “You got any idea what’s going on in this class?”

She looked down at the page, then back at him. “Nope. I’m probably dropping it.”

Garrett sucked at his teeth. “Shit. I was hoping you could help me.”

“Sorry.”

“Well,” he said, settling back like academic disaster had simply opened a networking opportunity, “if you decide not to drop out, you should give me your number. We could study together.”

She tilted her head. “Study?”

“Mr. Graham,” Professor Martin said from the front, without turning around. “Am I interrupting your date back there?”

Heat shot straight up her neck. Garrett sat back so fast his knee hit the underside of the tiny desk.

“No, Professor,” he said, clearing his throat. “Very sorry. We’re listening. I swear.”

She nodded quickly, eyes fixed on her notebook. “Sorry.”

For almost a full minute, they were quiet. Or quiet enough. The professor kept talking. Someone coughed near the front. Garrett’s iced coffee sat between them, sweating a small ring onto the desk, and eventually he slid it toward her again without looking over.

She glanced down. Beside her, Garrett stared straight ahead, pen balanced uselessly between his fingers, the corner of his mouth barely moving. “You should drink some before you drop the class.”

Her mouth twitched. “Is that your academic advice?”

“It’s my apology.”

“You apologise with coffee often?”

“Usually works.”

She shook her head, still looking at the front of the room, but she took the cup anyway. 

Garrett’s smile showed up slowly, pleased and quiet and deeply annoying. “See? We’re already learning.”

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[kooksandpearls]

garrett graham ❄︎ kitchen apology.

pairing – garrett graham x nursing student!reader summary – garrett is late, the hockey house is loud, and trusting him again feels harder than it used to. luckily, he arrives ready to grovel. warnings – hurt/comfort, anxious thoughts, relationship tension, trust issues, emotional repair, hockey house chaos. notes from me – based on these asks!!! thank u my loves, we're officially in post-nine days territory!!!! word count – 7.6k

navigation – masterlist |

The first bad feeling arrives before she can talk herself out of it. It’s stupid, probably. Premature. Fully unfair, considering Garrett Graham isn’t contractually required to be standing at the door like some kind of emotionally available golden retriever just because he told her to come over before her shift. 

But the hockey house is warm and loud in that familiar, badly insulated way when she lets herself in, but Garrett’s voice isn’t one of the voices inside, and something under her ribs does this small, ugly drop before her brain can catch it.

Not again, her body says, dramatic and unhelpful.

Her brain, which has survived pharmacology and several hospital bathrooms with suspicious floor puddles, tries to be rational.

He’s probably in the shower. He’s probably upstairs. He’s probably doing one of the ninety-seven hockey-related things that make up his life and not, actually, recreating the worst nine days of her recent emotional history for sport.

Still, her fingers tighten around the strap of her backpack as she toes the door shut behind her, the winter air clinging to the back of her neck where her puffer jacket doesn’t quite cover.

She stands in the entryway for half a second too long, scrubs wrinkling at the knees from the bus ride over, badge clipped to her pocket, hair pulled back in a claw clip that had seemed stable three hours ago and has since started half falling out.

“Garrett?” she calls, and tries very hard not to sound like the word matters.

No answer.

From the kitchen, Tucker’s head appears around the corner. He’s wearing a faded Briar t-shirt, a tea towel thrown over one shoulder, and the slightly stressed expression of a man trying to feed four athletes before someone starts eating cereal directly from the box again. 

“Hey,” he says, then immediately softens like he’s remembered he’s been entrusted with a fragile object and not just a message. “He’s not back yet, sorry. Coach called him in for a meeting after practice.”

“Oh.” Her hand slides down the backpack strap, readjusting for no real reason. “Right. Okay.”

“He wanted us to let you know when you got here that…” Tucker squints toward the ceiling like Garrett’s exact wording might be written there in moisture damage. “Uh. What did he say? Oh. He’s sorry, and he didn’t have time to text, but he will drive you tonight, definitely, and he’ll be here as soon as he can.”

The relief is embarrassing because it doesn’t feel like relief at first. It feels like her throat loosening too quickly. Like a bruise being pressed and then not pressed. Like she’s been carrying a tray with too many little glass things on it and someone has finally said, careful, I see it.

She nods, already making her face do something casual. “Okay. Thanks.”

Tucker watches her for one second, observant in the quietly competent way he gets when he’s cooking or cleaning blood off a counter after Dean decides to cook. Then he gestures toward the kitchen with his spoon. “You can come in. It’s warmer in here.”

“I was going to,” she says, because saying thank you would feel too naked for the size of the moment. “I’m just… slowly removing outerwear first.”

Tucker’s mouth twitches. “Yeah, all good."

The jacket is huge and black and makes a soft shushing sound as she folds it over the back of a chair near the dining table. Her backpack lands beside it with a heavier thump, full of placement notes, a stethoscope, three pens that may or may not work, and the kind of granola bar she keeps buying despite the fact that it tastes vaguely of compressed drywall.

The kitchen smells incredible. Warm oil, garlic, something lemony, rice steaming on the stove, chicken browning in a pan with enough seasoning that it feels like the whole house has briefly become a functional domestic environment. 

She steps in properly and leans against the edge of the counter, watching Tucker move between stove and chopping board with efficient little adjustments of heat, towel, spoon, pan. “What're you making?”

“Chicken bowls,” he says. “Rice, vegetables, some yogurt sauce thing. High protein, high carbs, low chance of Logan saying he’s starving again in forty minutes.”

“So, science.”

“So, self-defence.”

She smiles before she can stop herself. “Smells amazing.”

“Yeah?” Tucker glances toward the cutting board, where half a capsicum sits beside a cucumber and a pile of herbs. “You mind cutting that up for me? Little cubes.”

She moves to the sink, pushing up her sleeves. “Little cubes I can do.”

Her hands know the routine before her head fully catches up. Soap. Warm water over wrists, between fingers, under nails. Twenty seconds because hospital habits follow her into every kitchen now, because the line between clinical and normal has started blurring in ways that made Logan once say she washed her hands like she was about to perform surgery on his sandwich. 

She dries them on the towel Tucker points to with his elbow, then takes the knife he slides across the bench.

For a few minutes, it’s easy in the way this house sometimes is when nobody’s trying too hard. The knife knocks softly against the board. Tucker moves around her without crowding, reaching past for salt, then a bowl, then the little container of sauce from the fridge. 

Music hums from somewhere in the living room, low enough not to fight with the sizzle of the pan. It should be strange, standing in Garrett’s kitchen in her scrubs while Garrett isn’t here. It should feel like overstepping, maybe, or like she’s arrived too early to a thing she isn’t supposed to trust.

But she’s cooked beside Tucker before. She's stirred pasta sauce while he flipped chicken, cut carrots while he told her which spice Dean keeps accusing him of using with intent, leaned her hip into this exact counter while Garrett sat on the island behind her with his hand hooked in the waistband of her sweatpants like that was a normal roommate-adjacent arrangement. 

This house has already made space for her in too many tiny ways to pretend it hasn’t. Oat milk in the fridge. Her name on a leftover container. A hoodie abandoned over the back of a chair that everyone knows is Garrett’s but nobody moves because she likes stealing it when she gets cold.

The problem is she notices all of it now.

Before, she had been able to tuck each little thing away under casual. Funny. Convenient. Sex with benefits and transportation. But after nine days of not having it, every detail has come back with teeth. 

The hand towels by the sink. The chipped blue mug she uses without asking. The corner of Garrett’s bed closest to the wall. Things she had let become familiar before she realised familiar could be taken back.

Tucker reaches across to turn down the pan. “He really was sorry,” he says, not looking directly at her. “About not texting. He wanted to. Coach has been on his ass.”

Her fingers pause for half a beat around the knife handle, then continue. “Yeah. He mentioned that.”

“Yeah.” Tucker nods, adding a handful of chopped herbs to the sauce. “He was a nightmare for the last, like…” He makes a face, not quite committing to the number. “Week. When you weren’t coming around much.”

The cucumber gives slightly under the blade. She lines up the pieces again, smaller, neater. “Well,” she says, because it comes out before she can decide whether she wants it to, “he wasn’t speaking to me.”

Tucker stops stirring. It’s only a second. He doesn’t make a whole thing out of it. “Oh,” he says. “I didn’t realise.”

She gives him half a smile without looking up. “Yeah. It was super fun.”

“Sounds like him,” Tucker says, gentle enough that it almost doesn’t sound like a joke.

Her mouth twitches. “He had his reasons.”

“I’m sure.” Tucker scrapes the sauce into a smaller bowl, then sets the spoon down with a quiet click. “Still. I’m glad you’re talking to him again. He’s way less of an asshole when you’re around.”

That pulls a real laugh out of her, small but immediate, and it startles her a little because it doesn’t scrape on the way out. “He’s not an asshole.”

Tucker looks at her like she’s said something both sweet and medically concerning. “That’s because you’ve never seen him when you’re not around.”

She points at him with the knife. “I’ve seen him on low sleep, after a loss, and once when Dean ate the food he labelled. I’ve seen range.”

“You’ve seen curated asshole. Boutique asshole. Small batch.” Tucker takes the knife gently from her hand because she’s started gesturing too much with it, which is probably fair. “We got the industrial supply version.”

She’s laughing properly when Logan appears at the bottom of the stairs with the stunned, relieved expression of a man spotting land after months at sea. “Oh my God,” he says. “Thank God you’re here.”

She turns, still smiling. “Hi?”

He comes into the kitchen holding a notebook, a laptop, and three loose sheets of paper somehow all pressed to his chest like he’s physically restraining an academic crisis. 

His hair is a mess, hoodie twisted slightly at the shoulder, eyes bright with desperation. “I’m taking this anatomy class because I thought it would be helpful with hockey or whatever–”

“Aren’t you a business major?”

“Yeah, yeah, elective.” He waves that away with the hand holding the notebook, almost losing a page in the process. “But I need help, man. I’ve been staring at this diagram for an hour and I’m starting to think the human body is badly designed.”

“It is,” she says. “But usually not for the reasons anatomy students think.” She glances at Tucker, who’s already grinning into the pan. “Fine. Come here.”

Logan drops into one of the chairs at the little kitchen table with such force that the legs scrape across the floor. She wipes her hands on the towel, then pulls out the chair beside him, leaning over the notebook. 

It’s musculoskeletal, thank God. A worksheet on major muscle groups, actions, and injury relevance, which is deeply funny considering half this house treats muscles like disposable equipment until one of them starts making noises during squats.

“Okay,” she says, drawing the page closer. “What part is killing you?”

“All of it.”

“Helpful.”

He points at the diagram of the shoulder like it has personally betrayed him. “This rotator cuff shit. Why are there four? Why can’t there be one big one?”

“Because then your shoulder would have the stability of a shopping trolley with one bad wheel.” She taps the page with the end of his pen. “These are small muscles but they matter a lot. They keep the head of the humerus stable in the socket while your bigger muscles do the obvious stuff.”

Logan squints. “Humerus is arm bone?”

“Upper arm bone. Yes.”

“See, that’s a stupid name. That’s not on me.”

“It’s a little on you.”

Tucker laughs quietly from the stove.

She turns the notebook toward herself and draws a rough little shoulder joint in the margin, because explaining anatomy to hockey players is often less about textbook definitions and more about translating the body into ways they’ve injured it. 

“Think of it like when you’re taking contact near the boards and your arm gets jammed awkwardly. Your deltoid, here, is the big muscle everyone notices, but without these smaller stabilisers, your shoulder would be sliding all over the place every time someone hits you.”

Logan goes still, then nods slowly. “Oh. Okay. That makes more sense.”

“See?”

“Why didn’t the professor say it like that?”

“Because your professor probably has a healthy relationship with sports-related trauma.”

He points at the page again. “What about hip flexors?”

She leans closer, stealing a carrot from the bowl Tucker sets near her elbow. “Stride recovery. When you bring your leg forward after pushing off. Garrett complains about tight hip flexors when Coach does too much conditioning, then pretends he didn’t complain because captaincy is a disease.”

Logan’s face clears like someone has turned on a light. “Ohhh, fuck. Okay. Yeah. That makes sense.” Then he looks at her, curious. “How do you know that stuff? The hockey stuff?”

“I’ve been sleeping with Garrett for, like, six months,” she says, reaching for the pen again. “I know hockey.”

Tucker makes a sound into the chicken that is suspiciously close to choking. Logan, to his credit, just nods like this is academically valid. “Fair.”

Her own face gets hot about half a second later, but she refuses to acknowledge it because acknowledging things in this house is how they grow legs. She circles a term instead. “Adductors. Think groin.”

Logan winces. “Hate that.”

“Most men do.”

“No, I mean I pulled mine last year and thought I was dying.”

“You probably acted like you were dying.”

“I was brave.” He writes something down, then glances at the next question. “G helped me with some of this last week, but he wasn’t as good as you.”

She frowns faintly, still looking at the page. “Garrett doesn’t know any of this shit.”

“Yeah, he does. Or, like, more than me, which isn’t an achievement, but still.” Logan flips back a page, scanning. “He knew the hamstring muscles. And some nerve thing. Sciatic? He said if I wrote sciatic nerve for everything below the waist I’d probably get partial credit.”

She stares at him.

Logan looks up. “What?”

“Nothing,” she says, but it comes out thinner than she expects. “He just– he listens to me rambling?”

Logan gives her an odd look, like the answer is obvious enough that he’s not sure what shape to make his face around it. “Yeah. He never shuts up about you.”

The kitchen keeps moving around her. Tucker scraping rice from the pot. The dull hum of the fridge. Music from the living room slipping into a new song. Logan tapping the pen against his page once, twice, three times before he seems to realise she hasn’t answered.

“He doesn’t?” she says, because her mouth has decided to embarrass her in instalments.

Logan snorts. “Are you kidding? He’s so stupidly proud. It’s actually gross.” He leans back in the chair, warming to the betrayal with the easy cruelty of a roommate who has suffered enough to feel entitled to speak. “He’ll be like, she can name every bone in the hand, and we’re like, okay, man, congrats on dating a textbook. Or he’ll say some weird hospital thing you told him, and Tucker will be trying to cook, and Dean will be pretending not to listen, and Garrett’s just standing there explaining wound care like he invented gauze.”

Tucker lifts a hand without turning around. “He did explain, uh, wound vacs to us for eleven minutes.”

She blinks at him. “He hates the phrase wound vac.”

“He said that too,” Tucker says. “Several times.”

Logan points the pen at her. “And after that bad IV day? He made me watch a video about starting IVs in dehydrated kids.”

Her face changes before she can stop it. She feels it. The small, stupid slip of her features. The way her mouth parts around no sound at all.

Logan’s expression softens in that dangerously casual way he gets when he’s about to say something sincere and act like it was an accident. “He talks about you like you’re the smartest person he knows.”

“Oh,” she says, very quietly. “That’s really… um.” She looks down at the worksheet because the rotator cuff, at least, has the decency not to look back. “That’s really nice.”

Logan lets her have the page for a second. Tucker makes himself busy with bowls. Nobody points out that she’s gone still over an anatomy assignment because Garrett, who had spent nine days making her feel like she’d imagined the whole shape of them, had been in this kitchen bragging about her tendons and nursing skills like a man with no sense of plausible deniability.

Then Logan clears his throat and ruins the tenderness because he is still Logan. “So, if my professor asks, can I say my source is Garrett’s incredibly hot nursing girlfriend?”

She immediately kicks his leg.

“Ow.”

“You can say nothing.”

He nods. “Noted.”

“You can say your source is studying.”

“That feels less fun.”

Tucker sets a bowl near her elbow. “Eat some of this before you go. Garrett will ask.”

The sentence is too gentle to argue with, so she just takes the fork he hands her and keeps helping Logan. 

They go through hip flexors, adductors, biceps femoris, ACL, MCL, the difference between flexion and extension, which Logan insists is not intuitive until she uses skating mechanics and he suddenly understands like the joint itself has whispered to him. 

She’s explaining why the gastrocnemius crosses the knee when Dean strolls into the kitchen wearing only a towel around his hips and the deeply satisfied expression of a man who has never faced consequences proportionate to his behaviour.

She doesn’t even look up. “No.”

Dean stops. “That’s rude. I haven’t done anything.”

“You’re damp and nearly naked in a food preparation area.”

“I’m clean and emotionally available.”

“Two lies in one sentence,” Tucker says.

Dean ignores him and comes up behind her chair, bending to wrap both arms around her shoulders in a wet, obnoxious hug. 

She shrieks because his skin is cold from the shower, shoving at his forearm while Logan dissolves into laughter. “Dean! Get off, you’re literally dripping on me.”

“It’s called affection, Florence. Some people pay for this.”

“Not enough people, apparently.” She elbows him until he releases her, then grabs a napkin to wipe her sleeve. “I’m helping Logan.”

Dean peers over her shoulder at the worksheet. “Anatomy? Sexy.”

“It’s not sexy, man,” Logan says, betrayed by the subject as a whole. “It’s awful.”

“Speak for yourself. I have a deep respect for the body.”

Tucker turns with a bowl in each hand. “You thought the clavicle was in the leg.”

“For like eight seconds, man. Let it go.”

She pinches the bridge of her nose, but she’s smiling, and that feels like something. A small one, maybe. Her shoulders are lower than they were when she arrived. Her stomach has stopped waiting for a hit that hasn’t come. 

She’s sitting in the kitchen at the hockey house eating chicken and rice from a bowl Tucker made while Logan writes down flexion = bending in aggressive capital letters and Dean drips shower water on the floor.

It’s ridiculous. It’s warm. It’s hers in a way she doesn't know what to do with.

Dean leans against the counter, towel tucked low on his hips, and squints at her scrubs. “Are one of us meant to drive you to work?”

She glances up. “What? No. Garrett’s driving me when he gets here.”

“Oh. Right.”

It’s too casual. Dean does a lot of things casually, because if he did them earnestly the room might combust, but this one sits wrong. 

She watches him for a beat, fork paused halfway to her mouth. Tucker has suddenly become very interested in arranging bowls. Logan looks between them, decides survival lies upstairs, and slaps his notebook closed.

“I think I got it,” he says, standing too quickly. “Thank you. You’re the best. If I pass, I’m naming my firstborn after you.”

“Please don’t.”

“Middle name, then.”

“Logan.”

“Fine. No offspring tribute.” He grabs his laptop and bolts toward the stairs like a man fleeing a vibe. “Still the best.”

The kitchen feels quieter after he leaves, even with Tucker at the stove and music still moving through the living room. Dean crosses his arms loosely, towel be damned, and looks at her with the kind of big-brother expression she didn't sign paperwork to receive.

“So,” he says.

She narrows her eyes. “So?”

“Are you actually giving him another chance to not be a dick, or is this just…” He gestures vaguely around her, the kitchen, the bowl, the scrubs, the invisible Garrett-shaped dent in all of it.

Her fork lands in the bowl with a soft clink. “Garrett and I are fine, Dean.”

“Right.”

“And none of your business, really.”

“Sure.” Dean nods, then pushes away from the counter enough that the joke drains out of his posture but not fully out of his face, because he's Dean and cannot be expected to operate without at least one layer of asshole. “Except Garrett made it my business when he spent a week and a half bitching about how much he missed you to me.”

Her breath catches in the most inconvenient, infuriating place. Tucker, wisely, turns away to rinse something that absolutely does not require rinsing.

Dean sees it because Dean sees everything he shouldn’t and almost nothing he should. His voice drops slightly. “I’m serious. Are you serious?”

Her mouth opens. For a second, nothing feels enough to say. Garrett’s not my boyfriend is there, worn smooth from use. We’re just talking is there too, flimsy and terrible. We’re fine, again, but Dean has already made it clear he’s not purchasing that particular product tonight. 

She looks down at her hands, at the faint red mark the fork handle has pressed into her finger, and feels all of the last few weeks move under her skin at once.

Garrett crying into her shoulder. Garrett’s split knuckles in her lap. Garrett saying I don’t want to leave you in her dorm room like the words had cost him something. Garrett not answering texts. Garrett listening while she studied and then carrying pieces of her knowledge into this kitchen like proof.

“I mean,” she starts, and immediately hates how small it sounds. “Garrett’s not– he doesn’t want a girlfriend, so–”

The front door opens hard enough to hit the wall.

“Ew,” Garrett says from the entryway, breathless and already moving. “Dean. Put clothes on.”

Dean looks toward the hall, towel slung low around his hips, hair still dripping onto the back of his neck. “You’re threatened because I look good.”

“I’m threatened because you’re one bad knot away from making me file a complaint with housing.” Garrett appears in the kitchen doorway with his gym bag still hooked over one shoulder, hoodie half-zipped.

His jaw is tight, that overworked captain set still sitting in the muscles there, but then his eyes find her at the table and the whole thing cracks.

“Hi, baby,” he says, and it comes out softer than the entrance deserves.

Her fingers tighten around the fork in her hand before she can stop them. “Hi.”

Garrett’s gaze drops over her, quick but not casual. Scrubs, badge, hair clip, the bowl in front of her, the slight guarded angle of her shoulders that she wishes he didn’t know how to read. He drops his bag beside the table with no real care for where it lands and crosses to her like he’s been waiting the whole drive back to do it, like every step between the front door and the kitchen is personally offensive to him. 

“I’m so fucking sorry,” he says before she can stand, before anyone can make a joke big enough to hide behind. His hands go to the back of her chair first, not her body, which is new enough that she notices it in the small, tender, stupid place behind her ribs. “Coach called me in straight after practice, and I didn’t have my phone, and by the time I got out I was already late and I know that sounds exactly like the sort of thing I shouldn’t be asking you to just believe right now, but I swear to God–”

“I already filled her in, bro,” Tucker calls from the stove, gentle but quick, like he’s throwing Garrett a rope before he can drown himself in his own apology.

Garrett barely looks at him. “Yeah?”

She nods, keeping her fork very busy with a piece of chicken that has already been sufficiently stabbed. “He did.”

“I wanted to text.” Garrett says it like the distinction matters, like he knows maybe it shouldn’t and needs her to understand anyway. His hands flex once against the back of the chair, the wood creaking softly under his fingers. “I was sitting there in Coach’s office thinking about it the whole time. Like a psycho. He was talking about forechecking and leadership and I was just looking at the clock thinking, she’s going to get there and I’m not going to be there.”

Dean makes a low noise from the counter. “Romantic. Concerning, but romantic.”

Garrett points at him without looking. “Put pants on.”

“Still threatened.”

“Deeply. Your knees are ruining my night.”

She should laugh. She does, a little, but it comes out thin enough that Garrett’s attention snaps fully back to her. He keeps catching everything. Before, he used to take her laugh and run with it, smug and bright and pleased with himself. Now he watches the edges of it. Measures. Looks at her like he’s trying to learn a language he spent weeks pretending he didn’t need.

“It’s okay,” she says, because it’s easier than saying, I believed you for almost ten whole minutes and then my body remembered what it felt like when you stopped choosing me.

Garrett’s mouth pulls, not quite a smile. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

He doesn’t take the absolution cleanly. That’s the part that makes her chest ache. He doesn’t grin and kiss the top of her head and act like the room has reset because she handed him a word small enough to carry.

He crouches slightly beside her chair instead, one hand finally lifting toward her knee before stopping short, like he catches himself asking permission without wanting to make a performance out of it.

“Can I?” he asks, low enough that it’s mostly for her.

Her throat does something irritating. She nods once.

His hand lands on her knee over her scrubs, warm and careful, thumb moving just once like he has to remind himself not to overdo it. “I’m sorry,” he says again, quieter. “I know I said that already. I’m probably gonna say it too many times and get annoying.”

“You’re already annoying.”

“Yeah.” His mouth curves faintly. “But I used to be charming-annoying. I’m trying to get back there.”

The fork presses into her palm. She hates him a little. For being funny under it without using the joke to escape the apology. For sitting in front of her in his own kitchen with Dean half naked three feet away and Tucker pretending not to listen like a gentleman, still somehow making the room narrow down to the careful shape of his hand on her knee.

“I’m not mad you had a meeting,” she says.

“I know.”

“Do you?”

Garrett’s eyes flick up to hers, and the answer is there before he says anything. The wince that’s barely a wince. The tiny drop of his shoulders. “Yeah,” he says. “I do.”

For a second, nobody makes a joke. Even Dean has enough survival instinct to examine the ceiling. Tucker stirs something that absolutely doesn’t need stirring, the spoon scraping softly along the bottom of the pan.

Garrett looks down at her bowl, like he needs a safer place to put some of the feeling trying to crawl up his throat. “You ate?”

“I’m eating.”

He looks toward Tucker anyway.

Tucker lifts one hand. “She ate. Like, actual food. Not sad little hospital pocket snacks.”

“I don’t have hospital pocket snacks.”

“You had two granola bars in your scrub pocket last week,” Garrett says immediately.

She stares at him. “Why do you know that?”

“Because one of them fell out in my car and hit me in the ankle like a brick.” His thumb moves again over her knee, absent now, the old Garrett sneaking through the new carefulness. “Also because I care about your terrible survival habits.”

“Touching,” she says dryly.

“It is. I’m basically a saint.” He glances down at her scrubs again, and this time his expression shifts before he can stop it, warmth and want moving across his face so plainly that her stomach dips. “You look pretty.”

She blinks. “I’m going to work.”

“I know.”

“I’m in scrubs.”

“Exactly.”

She gives him a look.

Garrett’s mouth does that slow, dangerous almost-smile, but it doesn’t quite sharpen into cocky. It stays soft around the edges, like even the teasing is kneeling a little. “What? I’m supposed to pretend I’m not into the whole competent hospital thing?”

“It’s not a thing.”

“It’s a thing.”

“I have pens in my pocket and scissors on my waistband.”

“Hot.”

She gives him a look. “Garrett.”

“Baby, I’m being brave and honest during a vulnerable time.”

Dean groans. “I liked him better when he was emotionally constipated.”

“No, you didn’t,” Tucker says.

She laughs properly this time, and Garrett catches it like a man watching the first window light after a blackout. His hand tightens on her knee, not enough to hold her there but enough for her to feel how badly he wants to. 

That’s the part that unsettles her most, the wanting. Garrett has always wanted her loudly in ways that made it easy to roll her eyes – hands on her waist, mouth at her neck, ridiculous comments in kitchens, that smug little lift of his eyebrows when he caught her staring.

This is different. He looks at her like he would take whatever scraps of normal she’s willing to give him and build a whole evening out of them with his bare hands.

His gaze drops to her mouth, then back to her eyes. “Can I kiss you?”

Dean, because he's pathologically incapable of letting a moment live unharassed, whispers, “Growth.”

Garrett reaches blindly for the nearest object and throws a napkin at him without looking away from her. It flutters pathetically to the floor halfway between them. “Shut up.”

She should make him wait. Not as a punishment, she doesn’t want to punish him. That would be easier, cleaner, something with edges. This is muddier. Her body leans toward him while some bruised, newly cautious part of her stays sitting very still, arms crossed, watching for the trick.

She hates that she has that part now. Hates that nine days built a little guardrail in her chest and left her to trip over it every time Garrett reaches for her.

But he’s still crouched there. Still asking. Still looking like he might actually survive being denied if that’s what she needs, which makes her want to kiss him more than if he’d assumed she already would.

She nods.

Garrett rises in one smooth motion, his hand sliding from her knee to the edge of the table for balance as he bends over her chair. He doesn’t take her face in both hands, doesn’t swallow the space like he has a right to it.

He touches two fingers lightly under her chin, tips her up, and kisses her like he’s trying to be allowed rather than forgiven. Warm. Careful. Devastatingly restrained, which is rude of him, honestly, because restraint has no business feeling this good.

When he pulls back, he stays close enough that his breath ghosts over her mouth. “Hi,” he says again, and this time there’s the faintest smile in it.

Her own mouth betrays her. “You said that already.”

“Didn’t do it right the first time.”

“Very high standards.”

“With you?” His eyes flick over her face, naked enough that something behind her ribs tries to hide under the table. “Yeah.”

Dean makes a strangled noise. “Jesus Christ, Graham.”

Garrett finally straightens, but one hand stays at the back of her chair, fingers brushing the fabric near her shoulder without quite touching skin. “You got a problem?”

“I have several. The main one is that I’m hungry and you’re grovelling in the protein bowl area.”

Tucker points his spoon at Dean. “Then put pants on and make a bowl like a person.”

Dean looks offended. “I’m in a towel, not uncivilised.”

“You’re both,” she says, reaching for her fork again mostly because her hands need something to do.

Garrett’s attention drops to the motion, then to the bowl. “Finish that.”

Her eyebrows lift. “Are you giving me orders now?”

“No.” He catches himself so quickly it almost hurts. Then, softer, his thumb brushing the back of her chair. “No. I’m asking. Please finish it before I take you in. Evening shift on half a bowl is how you end up texting me at midnight saying you feel weird and then admitting weird means you haven’t eaten since noon.”

Tucker turns to the sink. “That does sound like her.”

“I’m being attacked in a safe space,” she says.

Garrett’s mouth curves. “This house has never been safe.”

“That’s actually true,” Dean says. “I once found Logan asleep under the beer pong table and he bit my hand.”

Logan’s voice carries from upstairs, offended and muffled. “I was disoriented!”

“Rabid,” Dean calls back.

Garrett smiles, but even while he does, his hand reaches for the water bottle near her bowl and nudges it closer. The little practical care of him slipping back in around the wound, testing whether it still fits.

It does. 

She takes the bottle because refusing would be childish and because she’s thirsty. Garrett watches her drink with visible satisfaction, like she’s completed a drill correctly. “Don’t look so proud,” she mutters.

“I’m easy to impress.”

“No, you’re not.”

“With you, I am.” He says it too fast to have dressed it up.

Her eyes drop first. Garrett notices. His fingers shift against the chair, but he doesn’t push, doesn’t lean in and force the softness to continue until she has nowhere to put her face. He lets her look down. Lets her stab at rice. Lets the silence become normal before it can become too much.

Then, because he’s still Garrett and cannot go more than ninety seconds without behaving badly, his gaze trails over her when she stands to take her bowl to the sink. “Also, for the record, your ass looks ridiculous in those scrubs.”

She freezes. “I’m going to work.”

“I know. I’m respecting healthcare professionals.”

“You just objectified one.”

“Respectfully.”

Dean lifts a hand. “As an observer, it did sound respectful.”

“You’re not helping,” she tells him.

Garrett’s grin finally gets a little smug, which is a relief in a way she refuses to interrogate. “I’m just saying, if the hospital wanted me to behave normally, they shouldn’t have made the pants fit like that.”

“The hospital didn’t make my pants for you.”

“Then that was short-sighted of them.”

She rolls her eyes, but the laugh is already tugging at her mouth, and Garrett sees it. He always sees it. He steps closer while she rinses her bowl, near enough that the heat of him lands at her side. His shoulder brushes hers once, deliberate and light.

“I’m gonna shower,” he says, quieter now. “Then I’ll take you. We’ll be on time.”

“Are you trying to convince me or yourself?”

“You.” His answer is immediate. No joke. No dodge. “Mostly you.”

The water runs too loud over the bowl. She turns it off. The sudden quiet makes his honesty feel louder.

Garrett leans one hip against the counter beside her, hands in the pocket of his hoodie like he’s physically stopping himself from reaching again. “I know I made it weird,” he says. “The trusting me part. I know I don’t get to just say sorry and have you go back to how you were before.”

Her throat tightens. She looks down at the sink, at the little grains of rice caught near the drain. “I don’t know how I was before.”

His mouth presses together.

“I mean, I do,” she says, softer, because the look on his face is too much. “I just didn’t realise how much I was… doing. Until I stopped.”

Garrett’s eyes stay on her profile. She can feel them. Careful, dark, too focused. “Doing what?”

Waiting for your texts. Sleeping better in your bed. Looking for you in every doorway. Letting your roommates become my people. Letting myself believe you would be where you said you’d be.

She gives him the smaller truth because it is the only one she can hold in the middle of the kitchen. “Getting comfortable.”

Garrett exhales like it hurts. “Baby.”

“Don’t do the voice.”

“What voice?”

“The one that makes me feel like I kicked a puppy.”

“You kind of did.” His mouth twitches, but it doesn’t last. “A really hot, emotionally improving puppy.”

She snorts before she can stop herself. “God.”

“I’m serious about the improvement.”

“That part was not the issue.”

“I know.” His hand leaves his pocket slowly, telegraphed enough that she could move away if she wanted. She doesn’t. He touches the side of her wrist with two fingers, not quite taking her hand. “Can I keep trying?”

The question lands so plainly that the kitchen, for all its mess and Dean’s damp towel and Tucker’s aggressively respectful silence, seems to tilt around it.

She looks at him then. Garrett Graham, who’s talked his way out of penalties and into beds and through rooms full of people who wanted to hate him and couldn’t quite manage it, looks suddenly stripped of every easy thing he knows how to do. 

He’s still handsome in that unfair, stupid way, hair curling around his forehead, shoulders broad under the hoodie, mouth made for smugness and currently doing none of it. But the wanting is right there. It’s in the restraint, in the way his fingers hover at her wrist like he’s asking to earn back one inch at a time.

Her walls don’t come down. They don’t collapse because he looks sad and says please with his eyes. She’s not that girl, or she’s trying very hard not to be. But something in her opens a little window.

“You can keep trying,” she says.

His fingers close around her wrist like the words have weight. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay.” His thumb moves over her pulse once, and his face does something soft and almost wrecked before he gets it under control. “Good. Great. I’m very good at effort. Huge effort guy.”

“There he is,” Dean says. “The emotionally improving puppy has found delusion.”

Garrett looks over. “I swear to God, if you’re still in that towel when I come back down, I’m setting it on fire.”

Dean’s brows lift. “While I’m wearing it?”

“Depends how fast you move.”

Tucker sighs. “No fires in the kitchen.”

“Fine,” Garrett says. “No kitchen fires. See? Growth.”

She laughs again, and this time when Garrett tugs gently at her wrist, she lets herself step closer. Close enough that his hand can settle, carefully, at her waist.

His gaze drops to her mouth. “Come upstairs with me for a second?”

“I have to leave soon.”

“I know.” His voice lowers. “Just a second. I need to change. Shower. Be near you without Dean’s nipples in my peripheral vision.”

Dean looks down at his own chest. “They’re normal nipples.”

“They’re everywhere,” Garrett says.

She covers her mouth, laughing, and Garrett’s hand at her waist tightens like the sound has gone straight through him. He looks at her for one beat too long, all the humour thinning into something hungry and relieved.

“Shower?” she asks, quieter.

His eyes lift. “You asking?”

“I’m asking if that’s what you meant.”

Garrett’s mouth curves, but the smile is careful. Hopeful in a way he probably doesn’t realise shows. “Yeah. That’s what I meant.”

“You’re very subtle.”

“I’ve had a hard week.”

She reaches up and taps two fingers lightly against his chest. “Go shower, Graham.”

“Yes, ma’am,” he says, and the relief in him is almost too much to look at.

He turns her gently by the hips before he starts walking, guiding her ahead of him out of the kitchen with one palm settling low at her back.

Tucker calls after them that there are containers in the fridge for after her shift, and Garrett calls back, “I know,” at the exact same time she says, “Thank you, Tuck,” which makes Dean groan something about domestic terrorism.

Halfway up the stairs, Garrett’s hand slips from her back to her hip, then pauses like he’s second-guessed whether he’s allowed. She reaches back without looking and catches his fingers.

Behind her, he goes quiet. She keeps walking. So does he. His hand closes around hers, a little too tight for half a second before he eases it, thumb dragging once over her knuckles.

“Your ass still looks great,” he says after a few steps, because sincerity has limits and Garrett has reached his.

She laughs, turning her head enough to glare at him over her shoulder. “I’m in scrubs.”

“Yeah. We covered this. Big fan.”

“I’m about to spend six hours charting vitals and answering call bells.”

“Hot and community-minded.”

“You’re impossible.”

She makes it to the upstairs landing still smiling, which feels dangerous in a way that’s not entirely bad. Garrett catches up behind her before she can turn toward his room, his chest brushing her back, his free hand coming carefully to her waist. He bends until his mouth is near her ear, not touching yet.

“I’m going to make it up to you,” he says.

The sentence moves through her slowly. Garrett, low and serious in the hallway while the house bangs and laughs beneath them. His hand is steady at her waist, his breath warm against the side of her neck, and for once he doesn’t sound like he’s trying to win the moment. He sounds like he’s prepared to keep showing up after it.

Her fingers tighten around his. “Start with getting me to work on time.”

His laugh brushes her skin. “Done.”

“And don’t use all the hot water.”

“Harder, but I’ll try.”

“And stop looking at me like that.”

He turns her gently, crowding close without trapping her, his hands settling at her hips. “Like what?”

Like you missed me. Like you’re sorry. Like you want to crawl under my skin and fix what you broke from the inside.

She lifts her chin. “Like you’re trying to get out of trouble.”

Garrett’s eyes flick to her mouth. “Baby, I’m trying to earn my way out. Big difference.”

Her stomach dips. She hates him. She really does.

His grin tugs at one corner, but it doesn’t hide the yearning under it. If anything, it makes it worse. He leans in slowly enough that she can stop him, and when she doesn’t, he kisses the corner of her mouth first, then her cheek, then just below her ear, each one warm and brief and almost unbearably patient.

“I missed you,” he murmurs against her skin.

Her eyes close before she can stop them. He doesn’t say anything else. He doesn’t ask her to say it back. He only presses one more kiss to the side of her jaw, then pulls away enough to open his bedroom door, still holding her hand like he’s not stupid enough to let go first.

The room smells like clean laundry and hockey gear he has tried, with only partial success, to contain. His bed is unmade. A textbook lies open facedown on his desk beside a mug she recognises as hers.

Garrett follows her gaze and clears his throat. “You left it here.”

“I know.”

“I kept it safe.”

“Strong work.”

His mouth curves, but when he shrugs off his hoodie, his eyes stay on her face more than they used to. Still checking. Still waiting for the little no in her shoulders, the small step back, the place where he should stop. She watches him notice the watching, and something warm and sore twists beneath her ribs.

“You okay?” he asks.

She looks at him for a second. At the curls, the tired eyes, the bare stretch of his shoulders now that the hoodie is gone, the boy standing in front of her trying so hard not to reach too fast.

“Yeah,” she says. Then, because she means it enough to let him have it, “I’m okay.”

Garrett’s whole face loosens.

“Okay,” he says, voice rougher than before. “Good.”

He takes one step closer, then another, and when his hand comes up to the badge clipped at her scrub top, his finger only hooks gently beneath the lanyard, tugging her in by almost nothing. “Come on, baby,” he murmurs. “Clock’s ticking.”

She rolls her eyes, but her hand is already in his, and when he leads her toward the bathroom, she lets herself follow without asking the room to promise anything bigger than this.

The shower turns on with a rusty cough behind the door, steam beginning to gather at the edges of the mirror. Garrett looks back at her from the doorway, smile soft, eyes still careful.

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[kooksandpearls]

garrett graham ❄︎ manwhore.

pairing – garrett graham x kitty!reader summary – garrett graham is used to girls giving him their names. tonight, one girl in a leopard print skirt decides to make him work for it. warnings – party setting, alcohol mentions, flirting, swearing, sexual references, garrett being humbled. notes from me – hi babes!! finally wrote kitty & garrett meeting! thank u to all the lovely ppl who requested this!! word count – 0.7k

navigation – masterlist |

The hockey house was already too loud by the time Garrett saw her, which was probably why it took him a second to realise he didn’t know her. He knew most people who came through his house. 

In the loose, campus-famous, hockey-captain way where girls knew his name before he’d even decided whether he wanted to know theirs, and guys he’d never spoken to clapped him on the shoulder. The house moved around him like that every Friday, warm beer and cheap perfume and too many bodies pressed under bad lighting, everyone familiar enough to blur.

She didn’t blur.

She stood near the back of the living room in a tiny leopard print skirt and a black top that did absolutely nothing generous for his attention span, one hip tipped against the wall, boots planted like she’d picked the spot and expected the room to adjust. 

Her nails were long, glossy, sharp-looking things wrapped around a red cup, and when she laughed at something the girl beside her said, Garrett’s eyes dropped to her mouth before he could pretend they hadn’t.

He made it about three minutes before he crossed the room. “Hey,” he said, leaning one shoulder into the wall beside her. “Madison, right?”

Her laugh stopped. Slowly, like she was letting the stupidity settle properly before she decided what to do with it.

She turned her head, eyes moving over him from his messy curls to the Briar Hockey sweatshirt stretched across his shoulders, then back up to his face. “Uh,” she said. “Are you talking to me, hockey boy?”

Garrett blinked. Then he laughed, because it surprised him, and because her face didn’t move when he did. “Hockey boy?”

“You’re wearing your own merch.”

“You’re in my house.”

“And you have no idea who I am.” She tilted her cup toward him, eyebrows lifting. “You don’t even know my name.”

Garrett opened his mouth. Shut it again. “Well, I–”

“You can ask.”

His smile pulled wider despite himself. She was pretty in a way that felt vaguely dangerous up close, all shiny eyes and bare legs and that unimpressed mouth that made him want to say something worse just to see what she’d do with it. “Usually I don’t have to.”

“No,” she said, and this time she laughed properly, soft and mean and delighted. “God, I bet you don’t.”

His eyebrows rose. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means you have manwhore energy.”

Garrett stared at her for a beat, then laughed again, louder this time. “Manwhore?”

She looked him over again, slower and much less accidental, and something hot slipped under his ribs. “I’m assuming you’ve heard worse.”

“Not usually from girls who want me to buy them a drink.”

“I didn’t say I wanted that.”

“But you do.”

Her eyes narrowed, amused now. “Do I?”

Garrett leaned a little closer, just enough that her perfume cut through the beer-sweat heat of the room, something sweet and warm that made his focus go briefly, embarrassingly clean. “Can I get you a drink?”

Her mouth curved. “You really won’t ask my name?”

“You really won’t just tell me?”

“Nope.” She pushed off the wall, the edge of her shoulder brushing his arm as she passed, and Garrett had the incredibly stupid urge to catch her wrist. He didn’t. Barely. She glanced back once, smile sharp enough to leave a mark. “Good luck, hockey boy.”

It took him forty-seven minutes and three separate conversations to find out her name.

When he found her again, she was in the kitchen, reaching past some sophomore for a bottle of vodka with the confidence of someone who had never once considered asking a man to move. Garrett came up behind her, close enough that his mouth was near her ear when he said her name.

She went still for half a second. Then she turned, and the look on her face made the whole stupid search worth it. “Hi.”

Garrett grinned. “Hi.”

“You asked around about me?”

“Maybe.”

“That’s embarrassing for you.”

“Little bit,” he admitted. “You’ve got a reputation.”

Her eyes flicked down to his mouth. Back up. “So do you.”

“Yeah?” He shifted closer, and this time she didn’t move away. “Hope mine’s good.”

Her smile went slow. “Depends who you ask.”

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[kooksandpearls]

garrett graham ❄︎ the list.

pairing – garrett graham x nursing student!reader summary – post-fever softness makes everything feel a little too intimate, so naturally, the solution is a list of new things to try in bed. for research purposes, obviously. warnings – 18+, explicit smut, multiple sex scenes, sexual experimentation, praise kink, dirty talk, handcuffs/restraints, mirror sex, protected sex. notes from me – wheewwwww i got carried away!! but i promised up to date NS!reader & garrett smut so here we are!! set in the days after patient zero!! word count – 14.9k

navigation – masterlist |

For three days after her fever, Garrett handles her like someone has slapped a little fragile sticker between her shoulder blades and told him he’ll be fined by the universe if he ignores it.

It’s not bad. It’s Garrett, so it’s still annoying enough to keep her grounded. He still steals bites of her food without asking and texts her things like u alive? when he knows she’s in lab and cannot answer, and he still makes obscene comments about her scrubs with the straight-faced confidence of a man who thinks being hot should count as a mitigating factor in court. 

But there’s a softness threaded through him now that keeps catching her wrong. His hand lingers at the small of her back before he moves away. He asks if she’s tired before he tries to kiss her properly. He watches her face too closely, like he’s waiting for some delayed fever confession to climb out of her mouth and make both of their lives complicated.

Which is rude, honestly, because she barely remembers saying anything.

There are flashes. Heat. His hoodie under her cheek. The sitcom playing too quietly from her laptop. Garrett’s hand in her hair. The horrible, half-dreamed shape of her own voice asking something pathetic and vulnerable enough that her waking brain keeps trying to lock the memory in a cupboard and then sit in front of it with a chair. 

Something about girlfriend. Something about not being enough. Something about wanting him. None of it is clear enough to prosecute, thank God, and Garrett, mercifully or cowardly or both, hasn’t brought it up.

Instead, he’s become gentle. Careful in a way that makes her want to climb the walls and kiss him stupid at the same time.

By Friday night, her roommate is gone for the weekend, her fever has been well and truly dead for two full days, and Garrett’s in her dorm bed with his jeans open, his shirt somewhere near her desk chair, and his mouth hot against hers like his whole body is trying to prove he can behave without actually behaving.

The room is dim except for her lamp, one of those stupid little warm bulbs that makes everything look softer than it has any right to. Her clean laundry is still folded in a basket by the wardrobe because she’d been very ambitious about domestic maintenance for exactly twelve minutes before Garrett texted that he was outside, and now her bra is on top of a pile of socks, which feels like a metaphor she should probably not unpack. 

Garrett’s above her in nothing but black briefs and his half-open jeans shoved low on his hips, one knee between her thighs, one forearm braced beside her head, kissing her like he’s got nowhere to be and no one to prove anything to except the very smug part of her that knows he missed this.

She’s in a little bralette and underwear, both soft and pale and not technically chosen for him, except that’s a lie and they both know it. His hand skims her side, fingers spreading over her ribs, thumb brushing the underside of the bralette but not pushing. Careful. Again.

His mouth follows the line of her jaw, then her throat, then the little hollow beneath it, and every place he kisses, he pauses like he’s checking whether her body agrees.

It does. Loudly. Embarrassingly. Her body is a traitor with excellent taste.

“Garrett,” she mumbles, fingers sliding into his hair as he kisses lower, over the rise of her chest, down the strip of bare stomach between the bralette and her underwear. 

His curls are soft between her fingers, still a little damp from the shower he took after practice, and when she tugs lightly, he hums against her skin in a way that makes her toes curl against the sheets.

“Yeah, baby?” he murmurs, mouth moving over her stomach, one hand warm on her hip.

She looks down at him. Big mistake. Terrible idea. He’s all broad shoulders and messy curls and dark eyes lifted to her from her own body, his mouth shiny from kissing her, his expression soft enough to be dangerous and smug enough to be Garrett. He presses another kiss beside her navel, then another, slower, like he’s decided to make patience everyone’s problem tonight.

She swallows. “So, I, uh. Saw a TikTok today.”

Garrett pauses with his mouth against her stomach. For one second, neither of them moves. Then he lifts his head. “A TikTok.”

“Mhm.”

His brows rise. “Should I be scared?”

“Not scared.” She bites the inside of her cheek and immediately ruins any chance of seeming casual by smiling. “Maybe interested.”

Garrett’s hand tightens once at her hip. “Okay.”

“It was one of those list things.”

“List?”

“Yeah.” She shifts under him, partly because she’s suddenly very aware of how naked she almost is and partly because Garrett looking curious while half on top of her is genuinely hazardous. “Like… sex positions to try with your partner or whatever.”

Garrett’s face does something. A flicker at the corner of his mouth, his eyes dipping for half a second like he heard it and filed it somewhere warm and stupid. Then his grin starts, slow and bright and ruinous. “You have a list.”

“I might have a little list.”

“A little list.”

“Don’t say it like that.”

“I’m not saying it like anything.” He crawls back up her body, which is a deeply unfair move because it makes the mattress dip and her knees part around his hips before she’s formally authorised the decision. His mouth hovers over hers. “I’m just processing that you have a list of sexy shit you wanna try.”

She rolls her eyes, but her cheeks are already hot. “It’s not, like, laminated.”

“Disappointing.”

“I didn’t make a spreadsheet.”

“Honestly? Also disappointing.” Garrett kisses the corner of her mouth, then her cheek, then hovers there with his smile brushing her skin. “What’s on it?”

She laughs, breathy and nervous and already half gone from the way his body is pressing hers into the mattress. “I’m not telling you everything at once.”

“Oh, so there’s an everything.”

“Maybe.”

His mouth finds hers again, a little deeper this time, tongue sliding over hers until the laugh in her throat turns into something softer. His hand slips up her side, thumb brushing the edge of her bralette, and she arches before she can pretend she doesn’t want him to notice. He notices. 

When he pulls back, his grin is lazy. “Do I get to have a list?”

She blinks. “Do you have a list?”

“I could make one.”

She giggles, and the sound feels stupidly light in the room after all the fever-weighted softness of the last week. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.” He kisses down her jaw again, speaking against her skin. “Sexy shit to try with my not-girlfriend.”

She pinches his shoulder. “Don’t be weird.”

He laughs, catching her wrist and pinning it gently beside her head for exactly one second before letting go because he’s still pretending to be civilised. “You started it.”

“I said partner. Very normal word. You’re my… sex partner.”

“Mhm.” His mouth brushes her ear. “Very normal.”

Her stomach flips, but she refuses to give him the satisfaction of seeing it too clearly. “Okay, then. We make lists.”

Garrett lifts his head and looks at her like this is a challenge, which is funny, because most things are a challenge to Garrett. Hockey. Trivia. Her pretending she doesn’t want to stay over. The concept of not eating the last garlic bread. “Okay,” he says. “Let’s make lists.”

She smiles before she can stop herself. “Okay.”

His gaze drops to her mouth. “But I’m finishing this first.”

The list starts as a joke. That’s what she tells herself later, because jokes are useful and safe and have exits on every side. It starts in her notes app with her lying on her stomach in bed while Garrett sprawls shirtless beside her, one hand shamelessly on her ass and the other holding his own phone like he’s doing important scholarly research instead of googling sex positions with the terrifying seriousness he usually reserves for game tape.

It stops being a joke about twenty-four hours later in Garrett’s room, when she’s naked on her knees on his mattress and he’s standing in front of her in nothing but boxers, his hand in her hair, and the air between them has gone too warm to be funny in any normal way.

“Are you sure?” she asks, kissing up the hard line of his stomach because her mouth has decided to be brave even if the rest of her is still catching up. His skin is warm under her lips, the muscle there tensing each time she drags her mouth higher. He smells like clean laundry and boy and the last faint edge of his body wash, and her knees sink into his comforter when she shifts closer. “Like, actually sure?”

Garrett looks down at her, and for all his earlier grinning, his expression goes steady at once. His fingers card gently through her hair, pushing it back from her face so he can see her properly. “I won’t drop you, baby.”

She presses her lips together, trying not to let the words reach anywhere embarrassing. “You swear?”

His mouth softens. “I swear.”

“I’ve watched you drop your phone on your own face twice.”

“That was different.”

“How?”

“My phone doesn’t hold on with its legs.” His thumb drags over her bottom lip, slow and warm, and her mouth parts before he even tells her to. Garrett’s eyes darken. “Open.”

She does. His thumb slips into her mouth, pressing lightly against her tongue, and the sound he makes is low enough that her thighs tighten around nothing. 

“Good girl,” he murmurs, watching her suck around it with a kind of focused hunger that makes the whole room feel smaller. Her hands move to his boxers, fingers pawing at the waistband, and Garrett huffs a quiet laugh through his nose even as his jaw tightens. “Needy.”

She looks up at him around his thumb.

His eyes flick over her face, then down her body, and whatever joke he had ready seems to leave him. “Fuck,” he says softly, more to himself than her. “Look at you.”

She pulls back, lips wet, cheeks hot. “Stop.”

“No.” He bends, catches her mouth in a quick, firm kiss that tastes like him and the fading pressure of his thumb, then straightens to shove his boxers down. “Not a chance.”

There’s something wildly intimate about it, which makes no sense because they’ve been naked together enough times now that her dignity should have built a tolerance. But Garrett standing there in the middle of his room, hard and flushed and looking at her like she’s the thing he wanted most after a day of hockey and noise and pretending to be normal, makes something warm and syrupy move low in her belly. 

He rolls the condom on with practiced hands, and she tries very hard not to stare at his forearms because she’s an evolved woman with goals. She fails.

Then Garrett looks at her and grins. “Up.”

She blinks. “What?”

“You’re the one with the list.”

“Oh my God.” She laughs, but she stands anyway, the cool air of his room brushing over her skin. Garrett’s gaze drops, then lifts again, and his throat works once. He’s seen her naked. He had his mouth between her thighs less than an hour ago. There’s no rational reason for him to look at her like he’s just discovered a new and deeply unfair law of physics.

“Holy fuck,” he says, shaking his head slightly. “You’re unreal.”

Her instinct is to hide behind both hands, which is inconvenient because Garrett’s already stepping in and lifting her like she weighs less than his gear bag. She gasps, hands flying to his shoulders, legs wrapping around his waist on reflex as he catches her beneath her thighs. 

The movement is so easy it steals the air right out of her. He’s solid and warm and strong under her hands, holding her against him in the middle of his room like this is completely reasonable.

“I’ve got you,” he says instantly, because her fingers have dug into his shoulders. “Hey. I’m not gonna drop you.”

She nods, breathing a little too fast. “Okay.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.” Her legs tighten around him anyway.

Garrett’s smile flickers, fond and a little wrecked. “There you go.”

It takes a second to line up. Longer than either of them probably pictured when they’d put it on the list with far too much confidence and no engineering consultation. She has one arm looped around his neck, the other reaching between them with a concentration that makes Garrett bite his lip like he’s very nobly not making a comment. When she finally gets him right there, when the head of him presses hot and blunt against her, both of them go still.

“Okay?” he asks, voice rough.

She nods against him. “Mhm.”

He lowers her slowly. The first inch makes her breath catch. The next makes Garrett swear under his breath, his hands tightening under her thighs, his forehead dipping to hers. 

By the time she’s seated fully, stretched around him with nowhere to go but him, her nails are in his shoulders and her mouth’s open on a sound she has no hope of controlling. “Oh, holy fuck, Garrett.”

“Shiiit,” he groans, the word dragging out of him like it hurts a little, like even Garrett, with all his stupid confidence and stupid shoulders and stupid ability to lift her like she weighs nothing, has been caught off guard by the feel of her sinking all the way down. “Baby.”

For a few seconds, that’s all they manage. Breathing. Foreheads pressed together. His mouth parted against hers without quite kissing, her fingers digging into the back of his neck, her body trying to make room for him while every nerve lights up with the obscene reality of being held up and full and wrapped around him in the middle of his room. 

There’s nowhere to hide from it like this. Only Garrett’s hands under her thighs, Garrett’s chest against hers, Garrett inside her, thick and deep and making her feel so completely split open that her next breath comes out as a tiny, ruined sound against his mouth.

His arms flex beneath her. She feels it everywhere, the strength of him, the easy violence of his body held back on purpose. In the hard bracket of his hands under her ass, in the way his stomach tightens against hers, in the controlled little shake of his breath as he keeps himself still and lets her have the second to adjust. 

He’s warm all over, skin damp already, his jaw tense beneath her cheek when she presses her face into him. It shouldn’t be hotter that he’s being careful. It shouldn’t make her clench around him just because he’s holding himself back. But it does.

Garrett feels it. His breath punches out of him, rough and pleased, and one of his hands tightens under her thigh. “Fuck,” he murmurs, mouth brushing her cheek. “You’re killing me.”

She laughs, except it catches halfway and turns into a moan when she tries to move. It’s tiny at first, barely more than a shaky lift of her hips and a slow sink back down, but the angle is so deep that her whole body goes loose and hot around it. 

Garrett follows immediately, not taking over, not yet, just rolling his hips up to meet her with enough pressure that her mouth falls open against his shoulder.

“Oh my God,” she pants into his skin, the words muffled and useless.

“Yeah?” His voice is strained and pleased, his mouth at her jaw, her cheek, the corner of her mouth, wherever he can reach without losing his grip on her. “This on your list?”

She tries to laugh again, but he lifts her like it’s nothing and brings her back down onto him, slow enough for her to feel every inch and hard enough that the laugh breaks into a helpless, wet little moan. 

Her legs clamp tighter around his waist, heels digging into the backs of his thighs like she can keep herself steady through force of will and extreme personal denial. “Shut up.”

“No, I’m serious.” His grin brushes her mouth, smug and breathless and already half-wrecked. Then he does it again, hands spreading beneath her, lifting, lowering, fucking her with this awful, effortless control that makes her feel completely weightless and completely owned by gravity at the same time. “Good list.”

“Garrett,” she whimpers, and she hates how thin it sounds. Hates it for about half a second, anyway, until his mouth closes over hers and he swallows the next one like he wanted it.

“I know, baby.” His kiss is messy immediately, all teeth and tongue and hot breath, his lips dragging against hers while he keeps moving her over him, while she keeps breaking little sounds into his mouth because the angle is insane and his hands are under her and he’s really, actually fucking her while holding her up like it costs him nothing. Like she’s something he can carry and ruin and keep safe all at once. “I’ve got you.”

He says it, and he means it, the way one hand shifts higher up her back for support while the other stays under her thigh. It makes the whole thing hotter, which feels unfair. It should just be athletic. Ridiculous. A stupid TikTok list turned into two adults discovering their own overconfidence. But Garrett’s care always has a way of making her dizzy. The strength is hot. The gentleness is worse.

She kisses him harder, whining against his mouth. “More.”

Garrett’s eyes flick to hers. “More?”

“Please, baby.”

His jaw flexes. The baby does something to him every time, like he hasn’t heard it a hundred times already, like each one lands fresh somewhere under his ribs. “Okay,” he says, voice low. “Hold on.”

She barely has time to tighten her arms around him before he turns them, lowers one knee onto the mattress, and brings her down to the bed without slipping out. It should be clumsy. It’s not. He presses her into the sheets, keeps one arm under her waist to hold her flush, and then starts moving properly.

Harder. Faster. Garrett shifts his weight properly over her, one forearm braced near her head, the other hand gripping her hip, and the first real thrust punches the air out of her in a sound that makes his jaw go tight.

“Oh,” she gasps, hand flying to his shoulder, nails catching there. “Fuck, okay.”

Garrett’s mouth twitches like he wants to be smug about it and is too busy trying not to lose his own mind. “Yeah?”

“Don’t yeah me.”

He laughs once, breathless and low, then does it again, driving into her with enough force that her whole body slides half an inch up the sheets. His skin damp under her hands, her thighs tight around his hips, the mattress shifting beneath them, the room narrowing to the slick drag of him inside her and the way Garrett knows, without asking, exactly how much harder she wants it.

He catches her by the hips before she can slide too far, dragging her back down onto him with a rough little sound that lands somewhere between a laugh and a groan. “There,” he mutters, mouth dropping to her chest. “Keep moving away from me.”

“I’m not,” she says, except her voice is useless and thin because his mouth has closed over one nipple and his hips are still moving, slow for two strokes, then hard on the third like he’s testing what gets the prettiest sound out of her.

“You are.” His teeth graze lightly, enough to make her back arch and her fingers twist in his hair. “Bed’s shit.”

“It’s your bed.”

“Exactly.”

She laughs, and it breaks apart when he sucks harder, when his hand slides from her hip to the back of her thigh and hikes her leg a little higher, opening her up just enough that the next thrust hits deeper. 

Her laugh turns into something humiliatingly close to a sob, her head tipping back into the pillow, throat exposed. Garrett feels the change in her body before she can say anything. She knows he does, because his rhythm stutters for half a second, then sharpens.

“Oh my–” Her hand yanks at his hair. “Garrett.”

“I know.” His voice is rough against her chest, lips dragging over damp skin as he kisses across to the other side. “I know, baby. Right there?”

She nods too fast, breath coming in broken little pulls. “Yeah. Yeah, right there.”

His hand tightens under her thigh. “Good.”

Then he gives it to her. Properly. No more careful half-measures, no more adjusting, no more pretending this is anything except exactly what she asked for when she looked up that stupid list and imagined him strong enough to hold her, dirty enough to make it fun, careful enough to make it safe. 

He fucks her into the mattress with a rhythm that’s hard and steady and so specifically Garrett it makes her chest ache around the pleasure: cocky, controlled, listening to her body like it’s another language he’s decided to learn fluently.

The headboard smacks once against the wall. Neither of them stops.

Garrett’s eyes flick up for half a second, mouth curving against her breast. “Gonna wake up the whole house.”

She makes a weak, breathless sound that might have been a laugh if he hadn’t rolled his hips at the end of the next thrust. “Don’t care.”

“No?” He lifts his head, curls falling over his forehead, face flushed and bright and ruined in the lamplight. He looks too pleased with her. Too affected by her. His hand slides up her side, over her ribs, thumb brushing the underside of her breast before he ducks down and kisses her hard enough that her next moan is muffled into his mouth. “I can tell.”

The bed knocks again, softer this time but still loud enough to make the room feel obscene around them. Her cheeks burn, but her body answers before her shame can do anything useful, tightening around him so suddenly Garrett groans into her mouth and loses the rhythm for one desperate second.

“Fuck,” he breathes, forehead dropping to hers. “You like that?”

“Don’t.”

“You do.” He kisses her again, messy and open-mouthed, hips still working into hers, his hand sliding under her waist to pull her down every time the force sends her inching up the sheets. “Like when everyone knows?”

“I like when you shut up.”

Garrett laughs, but it comes out wrecked because she clenches around him on purpose this time, petty and soaked and pleased with herself. His eyes darken immediately. “Oh, that’s cute.”

“It was.”

“It was mean.”

“You deserved it.”

“Probably.” He shifts his weight, plants one hand more firmly beside her head, and changes the angle just enough that the next thrust makes her mouth fall open around no sound at all. His grin flashes, there and gone. “There she is.”

Her body knows him now. She knows the flex of his back under her palms before he drives in harder. Knows the way his breathing goes rough when she drags her nails down his spine. Knows that if she hooks her ankles tighter at the base of his back, he’ll swear under his breath and press closer, like he cannot help following any invitation her body gives him. 

And he knows her too, knows when the noises she makes are for show and when they’ve been pulled out of somewhere helpless, knows when to kiss her, when to tease, when to slide a hand between them because she’s close enough to start getting frustrated and too stubborn to ask nicely.

His fingers find her clit with slick, sure pressure, and her whole body jolts. “There,” he murmurs, mouth brushing hers. “That what you needed?”

She nods, but it’s not enough for him. It never is when he gets like this, when his voice drops into that low, focused captain thing that makes her body go soft and obedient before her pride has even opened its mouth.

“Words, baby.”

“Yes.” It comes out as a whine, thin and wrecked, her hips lifting into his hand. “Yes, fuck, please don’t stop.”

Garrett’s expression does something hot and awful, satisfaction and restraint moving across his face at the same time. “Not stopping.”

He doesn’t. He keeps the pace hard, keeps pulling her back down when the mattress tries to steal her away from him, keeps his thumb moving in tight, steady circles while his mouth works over hers, her jaw, the side of her neck. The headboard knocks again, a dull, repetitive sound that should embarrass her more than it does, but all it does is make the whole thing feel dirtier, funnier, more real. 

Garrett breathing hard above her. Her thighs trembling around his waist. The sheets twisted under her shoulders. His hand on her hip, her hand in his hair, the bed giving them both away with every other thrust. She laughs once, breathless and half-delirious, because the sound of it is ridiculous.

Garrett lifts his head, eyes narrowed but smiling. “What?”

“Nothing.”

“You’re laughing?”

“The bed.”

He huffs a laugh too, then drives into her hard enough to make it knock again on purpose. Her laugh snaps into a moan so fast his grin turns devastating. “Still funny?”

She grabs his face and kisses him instead of answering. He takes it with a groan, mouth hot and wet over hers, thumb pressing a little firmer until the pleasure coils too tight to laugh through. It gathers low and bright, every thrust shoving her closer, every circle of his thumb making her thighs shake harder around him. 

She starts making those small, broken sounds she always hates afterwards and always gives him anyway, because Garrett knows exactly how to get them now. Knows the angle. Knows the pressure. Knows the way to murmur, “Good girl, that’s it,” right against her mouth so the words go straight through her.

“Baby,” she gasps, head tipping back. “I’m–”

“I know.” He kisses her hard, swallowing the rest, his hips never slowing. “Come on. Let me feel it.”

It hits her with his name in her mouth and her nails dragging down his back, her whole body locking around him before it breaks open. Garrett groans like the feeling has been dragged out of his chest, his thrusts turning rougher for a second as she tightens around him, shaking under him, her legs clamped so hard around his waist she has no idea where she ends and he starts. His hand stays between them, working her through it until she whines from the too-much edge of it and shoves weakly at his wrist.

“Okay,” he breathes, kissing her cheek, her mouth, the corner of her jaw. “Okay, I’ve got you.”

He follows a few thrusts later, hips stuttering deep, face dropping into the side of her neck as his whole body goes tight above her. His hand slides out from between them and under her waist again, holding her there, holding himself there, breath hot against her skin while he rides out the last of it with a broken little curse muffled into her throat.

For a while, neither of them speaks. There’s only the heat of him over her, the damp press of their skin, the distant house noise blurred behind the rush in her ears, and her own breath coming back in useless pieces. The headboard has stopped knocking. The silence after it feels almost funnier than the sound did.

Garrett lifts his head first. His curls are a disaster. There’s a flush high on his cheekbones, a scratch blooming red over one shoulder where her nails caught, and his eyes are bright with exertion and laughter and something softer underneath it, the thing he keeps trying to sneak into their sex like she won’t notice if he kisses her through it.

“Told you I wouldn’t drop you,” he says.

She stares at him for half a second, still boneless, still full of static, still trying to remember what bones are for.

Then she laughs so hard she has to cover her face. “Shut up.”

He grins and kisses her hands, then the inside of her wrist, then lets his mouth linger there like he can feel her pulse still racing under his lips. “Great list.”

The pink fuzzy handcuffs are, in her defence, objectively funny. They look like something from a bachelorette party that got lost on the way to good taste: fluffy, ridiculous, aggressively pink, dangling from her finger while she stands at the foot of her dorm bed in a matching set that’s definitely chosen for him this time. 

Soft pink lace, tiny straps, little bow between her breasts that she had stared at in the mirror for a full minute before deciding it was either sexy or humiliating and she was no longer interested in the difference.

Garrett is sitting up against her headboard in his boxers, shirtless, hair mussed, one arm stretched lazily along the pillows like this is all very amusing to him. His mouth twitches the second he sees the cuffs swinging from her finger.

“Very funny, baby,” he says, chuckling. “Put the cuffs down. C’mon.”

She lifts her brows. “You promised we’d do our lists.”

“I did.”

“This is on my list.”

His gaze drops over her body, then comes back up slightly slower. The amusement is still there, but it has taken a sharp turn into something else. “Baby, I’ll break them.”

“Then don’t.”

He laughs, already reaching for her. “That’s not how it works.”

“Ah-ah.” She steps back out of his reach, spinning the cuffs once more around her finger. “No touching. Cuffs, Garrett. Please.”

The please does what she hoped it would. His tongue runs over his bottom lip, eyes moving over her again, pausing at her chest, her stomach, the little strip of skin above the waistband of her underwear. He exhales through his nose like a man making a grave mistake on purpose. “Fine. Jesus. Fine. Okay. Just once, though.”

Her smile breaks wide. “Fuck yes.”

“You look way too happy about this.”

“I am happy.”

“You’re gonna get cocky,” he mumbles.

She climbs onto the bed and straddles him, knees sinking into the mattress on either side of his thighs. “Hands, babe.”

Garrett gives her a look, but he lifts his hands. “If Dean ever hears about this, I’m moving countries.”

“Dean is absolutely hearing about this if you annoy me.”

“Cruel.”

She raises an eyebrow. “Wrists.”

He lets her cuff one wrist first, watching her face instead of what she’s doing, which makes her fingers clumsier than they should be. Then she loops the chain through the metal of her headboard, brings his other wrist up, and cuffs that one too. For a second, the room feels suspended around the tiny click.

Garrett tugs experimentally. The cuffs hold. His brows lift.

Her grin turns slow. “Oh?”

He tugs again, a little harder. The headboard creaks softly, but the cuffs stay locked. “Huh,” he says.

“Huh?”

Garrett’s eyes slide back to hers. “You researched.”

“I’m a nursing student. I believe in preparation.”

“You’re so dangerous when you’re organised.”

She rolls her hips over him, just once, and whatever he was about to say disappears into a rough little sound that does a truly wonderful thing to her nervous system.

Garrett’s head tips back against the headboard, throat working, arms flexing above him on instinct before the cuffs stop him from doing anything useful with them. The sight of him like that – Garrett Graham, cocky, pretty, captain-of-everything Garrett Graham, restrained against her dorm bed with his jaw tight and his body already betraying him – sends something hot and bright kicking low in her stomach.

It’s not delicate. It’s not subtle. It’s the kind of feeling that makes her want to laugh and bite him at the same time.

“Oh,” she says, delighted, because she has absolutely never been more pleased to learn anything in her life. “You like this.”

“I like you in that,” he says, voice already lower, eyes dropping to the pink lace stretched over her chest and then dragging back up like it takes effort. “Don’t get ahead of yourself.”

She grinds down again, slower this time, letting herself feel all of it: the hard line of him through his boxers, the damp heat of herself pressing through the thin lace of her underwear, the way his thighs go tense beneath her knees. 

Garrett’s jaw tightens. His hands shift above him, instinctively trying to come down to her waist, to her hips, to any of the places he usually grabs when he wants to pretend he isn’t being bossy about it. The cuffs catch with a tiny metallic sound.

He groans. “Baby.”

“Yeah?”

His eyes lift to hers, dark and sharp under the mess of his curls. “Don’t say yeah like that.”

She leans in and kisses his neck, smiling against the jump of his pulse. “Like what?”

“Like you’re about to be a pain in my ass.”

“I am.”

It turns out being in control is fun in a very specific, scientifically alarming way. Garrett doesn’t give up control easily. He still talks. Still smirks. Still looks at her like he’s a few seconds away from saying something so smug she’ll have to ruin his life on principle. 

He still tries to guide her with his voice when his hands can’t do it, little murmurs of there you go and c’mon, baby, like he thinks he can captain his way out of handcuffs. But there’s something delicious about the cracks in him. The little ones. The ones she has to be close enough to catch. 

The way his breath catches when she drags her mouth under his jaw, right where he always goes a little still. The way his stomach tightens when her nails trail lightly down his sides. The way his hips lift before he can stop them when she rocks down harder and lets the wet lace drag over him.

She knows the spot just below his ear that makes his mouth go quiet for half a second. Knows that if she scrapes her teeth lightly along the tendon in his neck, he’ll inhale through his nose and pretend it didn’t just ruin him. Knows that his ribs are ticklish if she’s mean about it, but the sharp little dip beside his hip isn’t ticklish at all. That one makes him swear. That one makes his hands pull at the cuffs hard enough that her headboard gives a tiny warning creak.

She kisses down to find it because she is, at her core, committed to education.

Garrett’s whole abdomen jumps when her mouth lands there. “Fuck.”

Her smile presses into his skin. “There?”

“Don’t sound so proud.”

She presses another kiss to his skin. “I’m learning.”

“You’re abusing privileged information.”

“You volunteered as a patient.”

“That was different.”

She licks a slow line over the same place, just to watch him lose the rest of the sentence. His head thumps back against the headboard, and his arms go taut above him, shoulders bunching, biceps flexing in a way that makes the pink cuffs look even more ridiculous and somehow much hotter. 

She shouldn’t be into the contrast. The big hockey captain and the fluffy restraints. The absurdity of it. The fact that he could probably destroy her entire bed frame if he really wanted to, and instead he’s sitting there letting her take him apart one wet kiss at a time because she asked nicely and wore something pretty.

It makes her feel dizzy with power. Or maybe just horny. Probably both. The distinction feels as fuzzy as the cuffs.

She moves back up his body slowly, taking the long way because she can. Mouth over the hard line of his stomach. Tongue tracing the centre of his chest. A kiss pressed over his heart, which is beating faster than he would ever admit to under normal circumstances. Then lower again, because she wants to hear what he does when she changes her mind without warning.

Garrett watches her, eyes half-lidded and furious with wanting. “You’re having way too much fun.”

“I’m touching you.”

“You know what you’re doing.”

She lifts her brows as she settles back over his lap, grinding down just enough to make his breath go rough again. “Do I?”

The look he gives her should count as a clinical warning sign. “Baby.”

She laughs, breathless now, because it’s hard to stay completely smug when the friction is doing terrible things to her too. She can feel herself getting wetter, can feel the slick heat of it through the lace, can feel the way Garrett feels it every time she rolls her hips over him because his eyes keep dropping to the place their bodies meet. 

There’s no way to be dignified about it. She doesn’t even want to be dignified about it. She wants to be exactly this: half naked in her own bed, Garrett cuffed to the headboard beneath her.

She leans back on her hands and does it again, slower, pressing herself down against him with a little sigh she doesn’t bother hiding. Garrett’s mouth parts. His hips lift, chasing it, and the cuffs clink again when his hands pull against them.

“Jesus,” he says hoarsely. “You’re soaked.”

Her cheeks warm instantly, which is deeply annoying considering she’s just been licking his hip like a lunatic, but the embarrassment only makes her press down harder. “You can feel that?”

He gives her a look. “Baby.”

“Right. Stupid question.”

“Not stupid.” His eyes drag down her body again, stopping shamelessly between her thighs. “Just really fucking hot.”

The praise does something awful to her. Her hips stutter before she can smooth the movement out, and Garrett catches it, his mouth curving despite the fact that he’s currently restrained and suffering. That’s unacceptable. She reaches behind herself and unclasps the bralette just to wipe the look off his face. It works.

Garrett whines.

It’s small. Barely there. More breath than sound. But it’s absolutely a whine, and they both hear it. The room hears it. The pink handcuffs hear it. Somewhere in the universe, probably, Dean gets a chill and doesn’t know why.

Her mouth drops open. “Did you just–”

“No.”

Her whole face lights up. “You did.”

“No, I didn’t.”

“You whined.”

Garrett tugs at the cuffs, arms straining, the muscles in his shoulders jumping beautifully. “You gotta be kidding me.”

She lets the bralette fall onto the bed beside them, then settles back over him naked from the waist up, smiling like this is the best night of her life. It might be. She’s not ready to rule it out. Garrett stares at her chest like he’s been wronged by the existence of hands he cannot use, and the look on his face is so good that she rocks down again just to see what else she can get out of him.

His eyes squeeze shut for half a second. “Please.”

The word lands rough and low, dragged out of him by the slow grind of her body over his, by her breasts bare in front of him, by the fact that she keeps leaning close enough for him to feel but not close enough for his mouth to do anything useful. Her stomach flips so hard she almost takes pity on him immediately.

“Please what?” she asks, because she’s become a villain.

Garrett opens his eyes. “Don’t do that.”

She tilts her head innocently. “Do what?”

“Make me say shit while I’m cuffed to your bed.”

“Maybe I like when you say shit while you’re cuffed to my bed.”

His laugh comes out as something rough and disbelieving. “You’re way too into this.”

“Maybe you are too.”

“I’m not the one doing evil little victory laps on someone’s dick.”

She grins, bright and pleased, and bends to kiss him, but she stops just short of his mouth. Garrett lifts his head automatically, trying to close the gap, and she pulls back.

“Oh, you’re a nightmare,” he mutters.

“I’m having fun.”

“I can tell.”

She kisses him then, finally, because the wanting on his face has started making her own body feel too tight to keep teasing without relief. Garrett meets her hard, mouth opening under hers, kissing like he can make up for everything else he’s not allowed to do.

His tongue slides over hers, hot and impatient, and when she grinds down against him at the same time, he makes a sound into her mouth that goes straight through her.

She pulls away before she can lose the advantage entirely, breathless and smiling. “You’re easy.”

His eyes narrow. “Careful.”

“You’re cuffed.”

“For now.”

The for now shouldn’t make her wetter. It does anyway, because she has terrible instincts and Garrett’s voice has gone all low and promising. She slides down his body before he can see too much of her reaction, kissing his chest, his stomach, the places she already knows will make him twitch. 

She drags her nails lightly down his sides and feels him inhale sharply. Kisses the faint line of muscle above the waistband of his boxers and watches the muscle in his thigh jump.

“C’mon,” he says, and the way his voice has gone thin at the edges makes her smile against his skin. “Stop fucking around.”

“But I’m having fun.” She mouths over him through the boxers, slow and filthy, letting her lips drag over the hard shape of him while Garrett’s head tips back again. 

His hips lift once, restrained and desperate, and she places one hand firmly on his lower stomach to push him back down. The fact that he lets her do it makes heat flare through her so sharply she almost forgets what she’s doing.

“Stay still,” she murmurs.

Garrett laughs, but it is not an especially stable sound. “You’re giving orders now?”

She looks up at him from between his thighs. “Do you want me to stop?”

“No.” Immediate. Hoarse. Honest enough to make her grin.

“Then stay still.”

His jaw flexes. “Yes, ma’am.”

She has to look down for a second, and Garrett sees that too, because even handcuffed and half out of his mind, he is still terribly observant.

“Oh,” he says softly. “You liked that.”

She ignores him, which is difficult because her face is hot and her pulse is everywhere, and tugs his boxers down just enough to free him. Garrett hisses when the cool air hits, then swears under his breath when she wraps her hand around him.

She knows this too now. The weight of him in her palm. The way he likes her grip firmer than she’d expected the first time and the way his breath changes when she twists her wrist near the head. 

She knows that if she looks up at him while she does it, he gets that particular dark-eyed, ruined expression like he’s trying to decide whether to praise her or bite through the headboard. She knows he likes her mouth at the base, likes her tongue slow up the underside, likes when she kisses him there almost sweetly because it makes him say her name like a warning.

So she does all of it.

Garrett’s head hits the headboard with a dull thump. “Fuck.”

She licks up the length of him slowly, watching his stomach tense, watching his hands curl uselessly into fists above him. The cuffs pull tight around his wrists, the pink fluff shifting against his skin. 

His mouth is open now, breath coming rough, and she can feel the power of it again, the strange hot thrill of having him this undone and unable to do anything except take what she gives him.

She kisses the head of him, then looks up. “Condoms in the top drawer?”

For a second, Garrett just stares at her like his brain has disconnected from language entirely. Then he blinks. “Mhm.”

She lifts her brows.

He swallows hard. “Yeah. Top drawer. Jesus Christ.”

She retrieves one, rolls it on with more confidence than she feels, and enjoys the way Garrett watches every second of it with his hands still cuffed above his head and his patience visibly dying in stages. Then she stands at the edge of the bed and slides her underwear down her legs.

Garrett stares. “Let me out.”

“No.”

“Please.”

She steps closer. “You agreed.”

“I agreed before you took your bra off.”

“That sounds like poor planning.”

He laughs once, helpless and strangled. “Baby, c’mon. This is– fuck, let me touch you.”

The wanting in his voice nearly does it. Nearly. But she climbs back into his lap instead, wraps one hand around him, and sinks down slowly while Garrett watches with his mouth open and his arms straining against pink fluff and metal.

The first slide steals the smugness from her face. It drags the air out of her, turns the room syrup-thick and quiet, makes her hands flatten against his chest for balance. Garrett groans beneath her, eyes half-lidded now, his voice softening into something wrecked.

“There we go,” he murmurs. “Atta girl. You got it.”

Her forehead drops to his. “Don’t.”

“What?” His smile is lazy, but his voice is still rough. “You do.”

She starts riding him slowly, because slow is all she can manage at first. Every drop of her hips makes them both breathe harder. Garrett’s hands flex uselessly above him, and she can feel how badly he wants to touch her in the way his body keeps trying to rise to meet hers. The power of it goes straight to her head. Or between her legs. Possibly both.

She kisses him, sloppy and warm, and he kisses back like he’s trying to make up for the lack of hands with his mouth alone. His tongue slides over hers, his teeth catching lightly at her bottom lip, his praise murmured between kisses until her thighs start to shake from the effort of keeping the pace.

“Garrett,” she breathes.

“I know. Baby, I know.” He tugs hard at the cuffs, and this time the headboard gives a tiny, ugly creak. “Fuck, I need–”

The second tug snaps something. There’s a sharp little crack, a burst of pink fluff, and then Garrett’s hands are free.

She barely has time to laugh before his hands are on her. Everywhere. Waist, back, hips, thighs, one palm sliding up her spine and the other gripping her ass to drag her down harder as he thrusts up. The suddenness of it makes her gasp, and Garrett swallows the sound with a filthy, grateful kiss.

“Took you long enough,” she manages against his mouth.

His eyes flash. “You planned that?”

“I hoped.”

“You little shit.”

She grins, and then he rolls her under him so fast the room tips sideways and the broken cuffs tumble somewhere near the pillows. His mouth is on hers before she can fully land, his body pressing her into the mattress, hands finally free to touch every place they had been denied. 

It’s messy after that. Laughing into kisses. Garrett muttering about property damage against her throat. Her nails digging into his back while he drives into her with the kind of pent-up rhythm that makes the bedframe rattle and the broken cuff chain clink pathetically beside her ear.

“Worth it?” she gasps.

Garrett kisses her hard enough to make her forget the question for a second. “So worth it.”

The next list item is a disaster before anyone is naked enough to justify the confidence with which they approach it. They’re in Garrett’s room at the hockey house, both already flushed and laughing, her hair a mess from his hands and the sheet pulled up under her arms because the boys are all in the house somewhere and she’s not giving them a free show even by accident. 

Garrett’s sitting beside her with his phone in one hand and the kind of serious frown he gets during game review, except the screen isn’t showing hockey tape. It’s showing two people arranged in a position so anatomically confusing that she’s starting to suspect one of them may not have bones.

“So I think my head goes there,” she says, squinting at the picture, “and your… leg? Goes there?”

Garrett tilts the phone. “Baby, this is some Twister bullshit.”

“It’ll be hot, though, right?”

“Oh, totally.” He nods with absolutely no credibility. “Are you sure that’s your head? I feel like that’s my head.”

They both lean closer.

“Uhhhh,” she says.

Garrett turns the phone sideways. “Maybe?”

“Let’s just try. See what happens.”

“That’s how people end up in urgent care.”

“You’re very negative tonight.”

“I’m naked and being asked to solve, like, geometry.”

They try anyway, because they’re idiots and also optimistic in a way that should probably concern someone. It lasts less than forty seconds. Her knee ends up somewhere near his ribs, Garrett’s foot slides off the mattress, and at one point she says, “Ow, your dick is poking me,” in a tone so betrayed that Garrett collapses against her shoulder laughing.

“It’s supposed to,” he says.

“Not there!”

“Okay, wait, move your leg.”

“No, baby, your leg goes there.”

“My leg doesn’t bend there.”

“It does. You’re an athlete.”

“I’m a hockey player, not a pipe cleaner.”

She tries to twist, immediately loses balance, and they half-collapse sideways in a tangle of limbs and sheets and Garrett making a wounded sound because her elbow has landed somewhere unkind. 

For a few seconds they just lie there laughing, her hair all over her face, his arm trapped under her back, the phone somewhere near his hip still displaying the smug instructional image of two people who clearly have more core strength and fewer trust issues with furniture.

“That was a disaster,” she says into his chest.

“Holy fuck.” Garrett’s still laughing, one hand coming up to push her hair out of her mouth. “I think we invented a new injury.”

She lifts her head, and more hair falls into her face. Garrett’s smile changes before she can say anything else.

It goes softer. That sudden, quiet Garrett softness that keeps arriving in the middle of ridiculous things and making them feel less like distractions and more like evidence.

He brushes her hair back carefully, thumb skimming her cheek. “There,” he murmurs. “That’s better. Can see you now.”

Her laughter thins into something warm under her ribs. She smiles. “You’re being weird.”

“I’m fixing your hair.”

“You’re looking at me like that.”

“Like what?”

She doesn’t answer, partly because she doesn’t know how to say it without dragging the fever memory into the room by its ankles. Like you remember what I said. Like you’re scared I’ll disappear if you move too fast. Like you want to call this something and also don’t know where to put your hands once you do.

Instead she kisses him. Garrett responds slowly this time. His hand slides to the back of her neck, and she melts into him with a little sigh that he catches in his mouth. Somewhere between one breath and the next, the stupid position is abandoned completely. 

The phone drops to the floor. The sheet slips down. Garrett rolls over her with a care that makes her chest ache, settling between her thighs, his forehead resting against hers.

“Is this on the list?” he asks, but his voice is quieter now.

She smiles against his mouth. “No.”

“Good.”

He pushes in slowly while they’re kissing, and the whole room seems to exhale around them. It’s not the athletic, ridiculous heat of the standing thing, all sweat and strength and her legs locked around his waist while he held her up. It’s not the bright, sharp thrill of the cuffs, the stupid pink fluff against his wrists, the sound Garrett made when she took her bra off and he realised there were consequences to letting her have ideas. 

This is slower. Closer. Almost unfairly quiet after the laughing. The kind of hot that doesn’t arrive like a hit so much as a hand sliding under her ribs and staying there.

He eases into her one careful inch at a time, and she feels every part of it. The stretch of him, thick and slow, making her body open around him with a deep, aching pull. His chest pressed to hers, skin warm and slightly damp from all the failed manoeuvring they had just done. 

Her calves sliding along the backs of his thighs. The soft scrape of his stubble near her mouth when he kisses her again, distracted and hungry but not rushing. His breath is in her mouth, unsteady enough that she can tell he’s having to fight himself a little, and that might be the worst part. 

Garrett careful is devastating in a way Garrett cocky never quite manages, because cocky Garrett is easy to roll her eyes at. Careful Garrett gets under her skin and starts touching things she hasn’t signed off on.

Her hands clutch at his shoulders at first, nails pressing into muscle, then soften there when he stills halfway and lets her breathe through it. He knows her body now. He knows when she needs a second because the angle is deeper than expected, knows when the little sound in her throat means good and when it means wait, knows the difference between her grabbing at him because she wants more and grabbing because she needs to steady herself. 

He can read it all too well, like he’s been studying her with the same stupid focus he brings to hockey tape, except instead of plays and coverage, it’s the way her thighs tense around his hips, the way her mouth parts when he shifts a little too perfectly, the way her fingers slide into his hair when she stops trying to act unaffected.

Garrett watches her face the whole time. His eyes track everything: the flutter of her lashes, the way her brows pinch, the moment her breath catches when he presses deeper.

She wants to make a joke about it. She really does. Something about pupil response, maybe. Something about documenting his creepy eye contact in the chart. Something sharp and light enough to cut the feeling before it gets too big. 

But then he bottoms out and stills, fully inside her, his forehead pressed to hers, his mouth open on the same breath as hers, and the joke dissolves.

“Okay?” he murmurs.

She nods. “Yeah.”

His hand cups the side of her face, thumb brushing once along her cheekbone. “Yeah?”

It should be annoying, the double-checking. It should make her roll her eyes and tell him she’s not made of glass. But the second question lands softer than the first, somewhere low in her chest, because he’s not asking like he doubts her. He’s asking like he wants the answer to reach all of her before he moves.

She wraps her legs around his waist and pulls him closer. “Garrett.”

That’s answer enough.

His hips move slowly at first, a shallow drag out and then back in, and her whole body reacts like he has touched a live wire. Her toes curl against the backs of his thighs. Her fingers tighten in his hair. A sound slips out of her, small and breathy and embarrassingly honest, and Garrett’s eyes flicker like it hits him somewhere tender.

“Fuck,” he whispers, almost reverent, and then kisses her.

He kisses her through the next stroke and the next, deep and messy but unhurried, like he has nowhere to put all the tenderness except her mouth. There’s still heat in it. The slow, slick push of him inside her, the drag of his hips, the way his pelvis presses against hers every time he settles deep enough to make her breath catch. 

But it’s threaded through with something softer that makes it worse. His hand stays at her face. His thumb moves at her cheek. His other arm slips under her shoulders, gathering her closer instead of pinning her down, like he wants less space between them than the laws of bodies will realistically allow.

She moans into his mouth when he changes the angle, hips rolling instead of thrusting, and the pleasure goes deeper, warmer, spreading through her instead of snapping bright. Garrett hears it immediately. Feels it. His forehead brushes hers as he does it again.

His mouth drags over hers, not quite a kiss, more breath than anything. “Right there?”

She nods, because words feel like a lot of admin for a body currently full of Garrett Graham. “Mhm.”

He smiles faintly against her mouth. “That’s not words.”

“You’re inside me. Be grateful for what you get.”

The laugh that breaks out of him is low and warm and wrecked, and it rolls through his chest into hers. “There she is.”

She smiles too, but it falls apart when he keeps moving, slow and deep, each stroke hitting that same spot until the room blurs at the edges. Her hands slide down his back, learning him all over again in this quieter rhythm. 

The flex of muscle under her palms. The faint dampness between his shoulder blades. The place low on his spine where pressing her fingers in makes him exhale harder. She knows his body now too. Knows the small, involuntary hitch in his breath when she tightens her legs around his waist. Knows that if she drags her nails lightly up the back of his neck into his hair, his rhythm will stutter for half a second before he recovers. 

Knows that the softest version of his name, said right into his mouth, will make his eyes open like he needs to see her when he hears it. So she says it. “Garrett.”

His eyes lift to hers immediately.

His expression flickers like he regrets asking for this kind of closeness the second he gets it. Like it does something to him too. Good. Fair. She shouldn’t be the only one suffering through whatever this is with her entire body open and her heart making horrible choices under his ribs.

He keeps looking anyway. Keeps moving. Keeps his forehead close enough that every breath belongs partly to the other person. The sounds are different like this too, softer and more dangerous. The quiet slick of their bodies moving together. The little catch in her throat every time he fills her. 

Garrett’s rough exhale when she tightens around him. The bed shifting under them, not slamming now, not giving them away, just rocking faintly with the slow pressure of his hips. It’s so intimate she almost wants to laugh, except laughing would require oxygen she no longer has.

“Don’t look at me like that,” she whispers, because self-preservation has arrived late and underqualified.

Garrett’s mouth brushes hers. “Like what?”

“Like…” She loses the sentence when he pushes in deep and stays there, grinding just enough to make pleasure flare hot and low. Her nails dig into his back. “Fuck.”

His lips curve, but he doesn’t turn it into a joke. He kisses the corner of her mouth instead, then the edge of her jaw, then back to her lips. “Like what, baby?”

“Like you know me.”

Garrett goes still for half a breath. She feels the words land between them. Her chest tightens and her hands soften against his shoulders, already wanting to take it back, already wanting to bury it under a joke or a kiss or the entire hockey house collapsing through the ceiling.

Then his hand slides from her cheek to the back of her neck, holding her there gently. “I do.”

Oh. That’s worse. That’s much worse.

She closes her eyes before he can see what it does to her, but Garrett makes a soft sound and kisses the corner of one eye, then the other, like he’s not letting her escape even that way.

“No,” he says, mouth brushing her skin. “Look at me.”

Her eyes open.

Garrett’s face is right there, flushed and serious and too beautiful in the dim mess of his room. He looks down at her like the whole list, the jokes, the cuffs, the stupid impossible Twister position, all of it has somehow led them here: his body moving inside hers, her legs around his waist, the two of them breathing into the same small space and pretending this is only sex with increasingly poor evidence.

He starts moving again, slower than before. Deeper. His hips roll into hers in a rhythm that makes heat gather thick and steady in her belly. Her mouth falls open against his. 

Garrett kisses her between strokes, sometimes catching her bottom lip between his, sometimes missing because one of them breathes wrong, sometimes just resting there with their mouths touching while he fucks her so slowly she feels every inch of him leave and every inch come back.

Her body starts to tremble under him. His hand slides down her side, over her hip, then back under her thigh to hold it higher around his waist. The shift opens her more, lets him press in deeper, and the sound she makes is so helpless she turns her face into him on instinct.

Garrett follows, mouth at her ear. “There?”

She nods against him, breath shaking. “Yeah. Don’t stop.”

“I won’t.” His voice is rough now, control starting to fray at the edges. “I’ve got you.”

The words shouldn’t still work on her. They have heard them too many times. On the stairs, in his room, when she was sick, when she was tired, when she was trying to pretend she wasn’t falling apart in ways he could see anyway. 

But they do. They go straight through her, softening some part of her body that hadn’t realised it was braced, and the pleasure rises hard in the space it leaves behind.

Garrett’s breathing changes when she starts getting close. He gets quieter first, then more focused, like he’s listening to her with his whole body. His thrusts stay slow but grow heavier, each one pushing a small sound out of her, each one making her grip him tighter. Her fingers slide into his curls and tug, enough that his mouth parts on a groan.

“Baby,” he says, and it sounds less like a warning than a plea.

“I’m close,” she whispers.

“I know.” His forehead presses to hers again. “I can feel it.”

The words tip her closer than they should. Maybe because he says them like he loves feeling it. Like her body giving him that much honesty is doing something to him too. His hand comes between them, not rushed, not frantic, fingers finding her with the same slow certainty as his hips, and she nearly sobs with the relief of it. “Garrett.”

“I know.” He kisses her, swallowing the broken little sound that follows. “Come on. Stay with me.”

She does. Barely. Her eyes stay open because he asked, because his are open too, because there’s something almost unbearable about watching his face as she comes around him. It’s quieter than the others, because it seems to take her under instead of throwing her over. 

A slow, deep pull through her whole body, her mouth open against his, her thighs tightening around his waist, her nails pressing into his shoulders as everything inside her clamps down and then melts.

“That’s it,” he murmurs, voice rough against her lips. “Good. Fuck, baby, that’s it.”

She shakes through it under him, forehead still touching his, breath breaking in little pieces into his mouth. He keeps moving, slow and careful, working her through the last of it until she whines softly and her hands slide from his shoulders to his chest in a weak little push.

“Okay,” he whispers. “Okay.”

He stills inside her for a second, breathing hard, jaw tight with the effort of holding back. She sees it now because she knows him. The tension in his neck. The way his arms tremble slightly where he’s braced over her. The restraint cutting through him because he waited for her and now the waiting is catching up.

Her hand cups his face. Garrett’s eyes flick to hers.

She kisses him softly. “You can.”

Something breaks in his expression. A tiny surrender, a flicker of relief and want and that same dangerous tenderness, and then he moves again. His mouth dropping to hers as his rhythm finally loses its careful edges. She wraps her legs tighter around him and takes him through it, kissing him while his breath turns ragged, while his hips stutter, while he comes with her name muffled into her mouth and his hand tangled in her hair.

After, he lowers himself onto her carefully, enough weight to make her body sink into the mattress and go loose beneath him, enough warmth to keep the room from floating away. 

His face is tucked into the side of her neck, breath hot and uneven against her skin, and she can feel the slowing pound of his heart through his chest where it’s pressed to hers.

For a while, neither of them speaks. The house makes noise around them, distant and muffled. A door shuts somewhere. Someone laughs downstairs. The world continues to exist in a deeply inconsiderate way, even though her body feels wrung out and glowing and her brain has gone soft at the edges.

Garrett’s hand moves first, a lazy stroke along her side, then back up. His thumb brushes beneath her ribcage, almost absent. She drags her fingers through his curls, slow and loose, feeling the dampness at his hairline, the warm weight of him, the way his mouth presses once to her throat without any heat behind it now.

Her chest aches.

“That wasn’t on the list,” she says eventually, voice raspy.

Garrett huffs a quiet laugh into her neck. “No?”

“No.”

His head lifts enough for her to see his face. His eyes are heavy, mouth soft, curls an actual disaster. “Should we add it?”

She looks at him for half a second too long. Then she smiles, small and helpless. “Maybe.”

Garrett’s thumb brushes her cheek. “Yeah?”

She kisses him before the word can become anything else.

The next item is his. She’s sitting on his bed in nothing but his jersey, bare legs folded under her, hair loose over her shoulders, one sleeve slipping down enough that the collar has gone wide and soft across her collarbone. 

She’d had placement and couldn’t make the game, which had annoyed her more than she expected because she’s now the kind of person who wants to watch a man she’s not dating get violent on ice for school spirit.

She’d made it to the hockey house after her shift anyway, showered in his bathroom, found his home jersey folded over the back of his desk chair, and made a decision she’s not prepared to defend in a court of law.

Garrett stands there with his gear bag still over one shoulder, hair damp from the post-game shower, tie loosened, suit jacket open, the bruised line of his mouth parting around nothing useful.

She smiles. “Hi, Captain.”

His eyes drop over her once. Twice. The second time is worse because it’s slower, like he’s making himself understand every detail before he reacts. Then he sets his bag down very carefully, as if sudden movements might spook either of them.

“You read my list,” he says.

She nods. “Mhm.”

His mouth curves, but there’s heat under it now. “Yeah?”

She rises onto her knees when he walks over. Garrett cups her jaw, thumb brushing under her chin with a touch that’s gentle and possessive and still a little fragile in the places she’s started to recognise.

“Hi,” he says, softer.

Her smile turns real. “Hi.”

He kisses her slowly at first, which is rude given the jersey and the fact that his hands are now sliding down her sides like he’s confirming there’s nothing underneath it. His tongue brushes hers, deep and unhurried, and she moans into his mouth before she can pretend to be casual. Garrett’s hand tightens at her waist.

When he pulls back, his eyes flick toward the full-length mirror leaning against the wall near his dresser. Her stomach dips.

Garrett sees it. “Tick two things off tonight?”

She looks at the mirror, then back at him. “What?”

He tilts his head toward it, and the warmth in her belly turns nervous and sharp around the edges.

“Garrett,” she says, suddenly aware of her bare thighs, the wide fall of his jersey, the way the mirror would catch everything. “I dunno. That’s like… a lot.”

His thumb comes under her chin, guiding her eyes back to his. “It’d be hot,” he says, but not carelessly, like he’s offering her a version of herself he already sees. “You look so sexy, baby.”

Her mouth presses together. She wants to say no on instinct, not because she doesn’t want it, but because being watched is one thing and watching herself be wanted is another. Garrett’s gaze moves over her face, patient beneath the heat.

“If you hate it, we stop,” he says. “List rules.”

A laugh slips out of her before she can stop it. “We have rules?”

“We should. Given the property damage.”

“The cuffs were cheap.”

“My wrists weren’t.”

She smiles, and the nerves loosen by a fraction. “Okay,” she says, quieter. “Yeah. We can try.”

Garrett kisses her again, warm and pleased, then climbs onto the bed behind her. He sits with his back against the headboard and spreads his legs around hers, pulling her back against his chest so she’s settled between his thighs facing the mirror. 

The reflection catches them at once: Garrett in his half-unbuttoned dress shirt and suit pants, hair messy, mouth at her temple; her in his jersey, bare legs, eyes a little too wide, hands resting uncertainly on his thighs.

His arms wrap around her. “You good?”

She nods, leaning back into him. “Mhm.”

“Words, baby.”

Her throat works. “I’m good.”

“Okay.” His mouth brushes her ear. “Eyes on the mirror.”

The mirror catches everything. His jersey hanging off her shoulders, too big and soft and unmistakably his. Her bare knees parted between Garrett’s legs. His hand spread low over her stomach, big and warm and casual in a way that’s not casual at all. 

His dress shirt open behind her, white fabric wrinkled from where she had grabbed him earlier, his tie gone somewhere near the end of the bed, his hair still damp from the post-game shower and curling messily over his forehead.

But worse than all of that is her own face. The way she’s already flushed. Her mouth parted slightly, her eyes too wide, her head tilted back just enough against Garrett’s shoulder that she can feel his smile near her temple before he even says anything.

“Oh,” he murmurs, like he’s made some fascinating discovery. “Look at you.”

“Don’t– don’t use that– tone.”

“I have a tone now?”

“You have several.” Her voice comes out thinner than intended because his hand has started moving under the jersey, palm sliding over the bare skin of her thigh. Over the outside first, maddeningly slow, like he has all night and knows exactly how badly she does not.

Garrett’s mouth brushes the side of her neck. “Name one.”

“Smug.”

“Mhm.”

“Bossy.”

“Sure.”

“Annoying.”

His hand slips higher, thumb tracing the crease where her thigh meets her hip, and the rest of the list disappears out of her head like someone’s opened a window. Garrett sees it happen in the mirror. She knows he does, because his smile deepens against her skin.

“Forgot one,” he says.

She swallows. “What?”

“Useful.”

Before she can argue, his hand slides inward. Her breath catches hard enough that her shoulders lift. The touch is still over the surface of things at first, his fingers dragging through the slick heat of her with an almost lazy confidence, gathering what her body has already given him and making sure she sees it. 

In the mirror, she watches his wrist disappear beneath the hem of the jersey, watches the fabric shift over the movement of his hand, watches her own knees part wider without him having to ask. Her body just does it. Traitorous and eager and very invested in making Garrett’s ego worse.

“There,” he murmurs, right against her ear. “Look at that.”

A tiny sound leaves her, mortifyingly soft, and she immediately tries to close her eyes because this is too much, seeing herself react. Seeing the way her hips tip forward. Seeing Garrett behind her watching the same thing, his gaze fixed on the mirror like he cannot decide what he likes more: the way she looks or the fact that she has to look too.

His fingers still.

Her eyes fly open again on instinct. “Garrett.”

“Uh-uh.” His voice is low and warm, amusement dragged rough around the edges. “Eyes open.”

She makes a frustrated little noise, but she looks.

“Good girl.”

The words hit so cleanly that her thighs tense around his hand. Garrett huffs a soft, pleased laugh against her cheek, and it should annoy her. It also makes her so wet she feels it, the embarrassing slick pulse of her body answering him before she can pretend not to like being told what to do.

“I hate you,” she whispers.

“No, you don’t.” His fingers move again, slower now, two of them sliding through her, parting her gently, not quite giving her enough pressure, only enough to make her hips chase his hand. “You love when I’m helpful.”

“This isn’t helpful.”

“It’s on the list.”

“This was your list.”

His mouth presses to the side of her neck, a wet, open kiss that makes her head tip back further against him. “And you still put the jersey on.”

Her reflection betrays her again. Her mouth twitches before she can stop it.

Garrett catches that too. “Exactly.”

“You’re so full of yourself.”

“Baby, you’re sitting between my legs in my jersey looking at yourself while I touch you.” His fingers dip lower, circling once, twice, slick and teasing, and her answer turns into a shaky inhale. “I feel like I’ve earned a little confidence.”

She wants to hide her face in his shoulder. Wants to turn around and kiss him until the mirror stops being a problem. Wants to make some smart remark about how this is deeply psychologically unethical, actually, because no person should have to process being aroused and perceived at the same time. 

But Garrett’s arm tightens around her waist, keeping her back against him, and his hand moves with more purpose now, fingers sliding over her clit in a slow, sure circle that makes the room tilt.

The mirror catches that too. The way her spine arches. The way the jersey pulls tight over her chest before slipping loose again. The way her hands grab at his thighs on either side of her, fingers digging into the firm muscle there because she needs somewhere to put the pressure. 

Garrett’s face is partly hidden behind her shoulder, but she can see enough: the dark focus of his eyes, the set of his jaw, the way his mouth parts slightly when she moans.

“Fuck,” he says quietly, like the sound has done something to him. “That’s so hot.”

She whimpers, and the noise embarrasses her enough that she tries to press her lips together.

Garrett notices immediately. “Nope. Don’t get shy now.”

“I’m naked under your jersey in front of a mirror while you–” Her sentence falls apart when he presses a little firmer, his touch slick and precise, circling right where she needs it. “Fuck.”

“While I what?” he asks, absolutely delighted in the most ruinous way. “Finish the sentence.”

“Garrett.”

“Come on, future nurse. Use your words.”

Her head rolls slightly against his shoulder, half laugh, half moan. “You’re fingering me in front of a mirror.”

His eyes flash in the reflection. “Mm,” he hums, voice dropping into something rougher. “I am.”

The bluntness of it sends heat tearing through her so fast she actually gasps. Garrett’s grin fades into something hungrier as his fingers slip lower again, teasing at her entrance, one finger pressing in slowly while his thumb keeps lazy circles over her clit. 

It’s obscene how well he knows the rhythm now. That focused, unfair Garrett competence turned onto her body, like he’s memorised every place that makes her breath catch and every angle that makes her stop being difficult.

He presses one finger inside her, slow enough that she has to watch the reaction move across her own face. Her lips part. Her brows draw together. Her hands tighten hard on his thighs, and Garrett groans softly in her ear like he feels it too.

“There you go,” he says. “Look how pretty you are when you stop arguing.”

“I’m still arguing.”

“Sure.” His thumb circles again, and the argument turns into a tiny, broken sound. “Very convincing.”

She would kick him if she had access to her legs in any meaningful way. Unfortunately, her legs are busy trembling open between his, and Garrett seems very aware of that. His free hand slides from her waist to her thigh, palm flattening over the inside of it, pushing it gently wider.

“Garrett,” she breathes, because the sight of it – his hand between her legs, his jersey bunched over his wrist, her thighs spread open over his lap – makes something hot and helpless twist low in her belly.

“I know.” His voice softens instantly, even though his fingers don’t stop. “It’s a lot.”

She nods, breath shaking.

His mouth touches her cheek. “Too much?”

“No. Just–” Her hips twitch when he curls his finger inside her, and her voice thins into something useless. “Just don’t stop.”

“Wasn’t planning to.”

He adds a second finger slowly, watching her face as he does it, and the stretch makes her head tip back against his shoulder with a moan she cannot swallow. Garrett’s arm comes around her more securely, hand sliding up to rest just under her ribs, holding her steady while his other hand works between her legs. 

The position makes her feel pinned and supported at the same time, exposed and safe in a way that should not be as hot as it is. She can feel his cock hard against her lower back through his pants, can feel every rough breath he takes when she moves against his hand, can feel the tension in his body like not fucking her immediately is requiring actual athletic discipline.

“You’re shaking,” he murmurs.

“You’re very observant.”

“Clinical skill.”

She laughs, breathless and wrecked, and the laugh breaks when he curls his fingers again. “Don’t use my thing against me.”

“Baby, your thing is currently using my thing against you.”

“Oh my God.” She tries to twist enough to glare at him, but he catches her chin with the hand that had been holding her waist and turns her face back to the mirror.

“Ah-ah. Watch.”

Her body sparks so hard at the gentle grip under her jaw that she goes quiet for half a second. 

Garrett feels that too. His thumb strokes once along her chin. “There. Good.” His voice dips. “You like that.”

Her face burns. “Maybe.”

“You can say yes.”

She watches herself swallow in the mirror. Watches his hand at her jaw, the other between her thighs, the rise and fall of her chest under his jersey. Watches the way her own hips roll into his hand without permission. It’s humiliating. It’s filthy. It’s so much hotter than she expected that it makes her throat feel tight.

“Yes,” she whispers.

Garrett goes still for one tiny, charged second behind her. Then he kisses the side of her face, soft and devastatingly pleased. “Good.”

The praise slides through her like a match strike. He starts moving his fingers again, deeper now, slow in a way that makes every curl and drag feel deliberate. His thumb keeps circling her clit, steady enough that the pleasure starts building in a humiliatingly unavoidable climb. 

Her thighs tremble open. Her hands leave his legs and grab at his forearm instead, nails pressing into skin, to have something solid while the rest of her goes liquid. The mirror becomes impossible and addictive. 

She keeps looking away for half a second and then looking back, dragged there by Garrett’s voice, by the sight of his hand disappearing under the jersey, by the way his eyes stay on her reflection like he wants her to see what he sees. The proof of it is right there. She’s not imagining the way he looks at her. It’s all in the mirror, undeniable and awful and gorgeous.

“That’s it,” he murmurs. “Right there, huh?”

“Yes.” The word breaks on the end when he presses his thumb harder. “Yes, there.”

His mouth touches the shell of her ear. “Good girl.”

Her body clenches around his fingers.

Garrett inhales sharply. “Fuck. You like hearing it when you can see yourself, don’t you?”

The question is so filthy, so Garrett in its mixture of smug and observant and devastatingly accurate, that her whole body flushes hot from chest to thighs. She makes a wounded sound and turns her face toward his neck, but his hand at her jaw keeps her from fully hiding.

“Eyes,” he says, softer this time.

“I can’t.”

“You can.” His lips brush her cheek. “You’re okay. I’ve got you.”

The words go straight through her, warm, loosening something in her that had started to brace against the intensity. He slows for a second, easing the pace until her breathing steadies a little. His fingers stay inside her, pressed deep, thumb resting lightly over her clit, giving her a second without taking the feeling away.

“Garrett,” she says, and her voice comes out small.

“I know.” His cheek rests briefly against hers. In the mirror, they look almost sweet if someone ignores the fact that his hand is under his jersey between her legs and she’s visibly seconds away from losing her mind. “You’re doing good.”

Garrett’s fingers start moving again before she can deny it, slow at first, then with that same steady rhythm that makes her body start climbing before her brain can catch up. He knows the way her knees pull up slightly when she’s close, the way her breath breaks into smaller pieces, the way she stops trying to be funny because her body is too busy telling the truth.

“Look at yourself,” he says, voice low. “Look how badly you want it.”

She whimpers. The sound comes out open and needy and so unlike the version of herself she tries to be most of the time – competent, composed, useful, not visibly desperate in a hockey jersey – that seeing it happen almost tips her over by itself.

Garrett’s hand at her jaw slides lower, fingers resting along the side of her throat. Gentle. Careful. Thumb under her chin, keeping her face angled toward the mirror. It makes her whole body spark. The pressure is barely pressure at all, but it’s enough to make her aware of her pulse under his fingers, of the fact that he can feel how fast her heart is going, of the way he is holding her together while taking her apart.

“Watch,” he murmurs.

The orgasm builds in a slow, filthy climb that makes her lose track of everything except the mirror and his hand and his voice. Her thighs shake open around his wrist. Her hips rock into his fingers in small, helpless circles. Her head tips back against his shoulder, mouth falling open, and Garrett stays right there behind her, chest solid, lips at her cheek, hand at her throat, talking her through every second like he knows exactly how much she needs the thread of his voice.

“That’s it, baby. Right there. Don’t hide from me. Fuck, you’re so pretty like this.” His fingers curl, thumb pressing steady over her clit, and her whole body jerks. “There you go. That’s it. Keep looking.”

She tries. She really does. But when the first wave hits, her eyes flutter shut on instinct, pleasure pulling tight and hot through her belly, down her thighs, up into her throat until his name breaks out of her in a sound she will absolutely be embarrassed about later.

Garrett’s voice is immediate, soft and firm at her ear. “Look at yourself.”

Her eyes open. She watches the second one take her. Watches her own face crumple, watches her mouth open around a broken moan, watches her body shudder against Garrett’s while his fingers keep moving inside her. 

The sight makes it sharper somehow. Stranger. Hotter. Like her body seeing itself give in only makes it give in harder. She grabs at his forearm, nails biting lightly into his skin, hips rolling helplessly into his hand while he murmurs praise against her cheek.

“Good girl. Yeah, just like that. Fuck, baby, there you go.”

She comes apart in his lap, shaking and soaked and boneless, his jersey bunched high over her thighs, his hand at her throat gentle but steady, his mouth pressed to the side of her face like he wants to be as close as possible for the whole thing. 

Garrett works her through it until the pleasure turns too sharp, until her thighs try to close around his wrist and her hand flies down to grab his.

“Okay,” she gasps. “Okay, oh my God, okay.”

He eases away immediately, fingers slipping out of her with enough care that she still shivers. His hand slides over her thigh instead, warm and soothing now, while the one at her throat softens into a stroke beneath her jaw. For a few seconds, she just sits there panting against him, staring at the reflection of herself wrecked in his jersey and Garrett behind her looking like he may never recover.

His eyes are dark in the mirror. His mouth is slightly open. His chest rises and falls hard against her back, and when his gaze drops to his own jersey bunched up around her hips, his jaw flexes like he’s actively reminding himself not to pounce.

She swallows, still trembling. “You’re staring.”

Garrett’s laugh is rough enough to barely count. “Yeah.”

“You’re meant to say no.”

“I’m not lying to you while you’re sitting on my lap like that.”

She turns in his lap before she can think better of it, knees pressing into the mattress on either side of his thighs, the jersey falling messily around her hips. Garrett’s hands come to her waist at once.

His fingers are still slick. The thought hits both of them at the same time, judging by the way his eyes drop to his hand and then back to her face. She should say something clever. Instead she grabs his open shirt and kisses him.

Garrett laughs into her mouth, startled and pleased. “Hi.”

“Did you–” She kisses him again, then pulls back enough to breathe. “Did you win? I forgot to ask.”

He stares at her for half a second, then laughs properly, head tipping back against the headboard. “We did.”

She nods, trying to look serious and failing because she’s still half trembling. “Good.”

“Good?”

“Yeah.” Her hands slide down to the buttons of his shirt, clumsy with urgency. “Can you please fuck me now?”

Garrett’s laughter cuts off into a groan. “Jersey stays on.”

She grins. “Yes, Captain.”

His eyes close for one brief second like he needs divine intervention. Then he grips her hips and flips her onto her back so fast she squeals, the sound breaking into giggles when she lands against the pillows in a mess of bare legs and Briar blue.

Garrett comes over her immediately, suit pants shoved down, shirt hanging open, mouth already finding hers. “You’re trouble.”

“You made the list.”

“You wore my jersey.”

“You left it out.”

“I live here.”

“Convenient.”

He kisses her until she stops laughing and starts making those softer sounds into his mouth, the ones that make his hands less patient. 

When he finally pushes into her, jersey bunched around her waist, mirror catching the angle of his body over hers from across the room, he lowers his forehead to hers and smiles like he knows exactly what she’s about to say.

She says it anyway, breathless and warm and stupidly happy under him. “Great list.”

Garrett laughs against her mouth, then drives into her deep enough that the next word vanishes completely.

“Best one yet,” he murmurs.

She wraps her legs around his waist and doesn’t argue.

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[watchtowerlibrary]

That scene with the handcuffs 🥵

[kooksandpearls]

garrett graham ❄︎ last time.

pairing – garrett graham x nursing student!reader summary – a stress text turns into a dorm hookup, a bar bathroom mistake, a midnight library rescue, and one very casual oat milk promise. warnings – 18+, smut, oral sex, penetrative sex, semi-public sex, bathroom sex, car sex implied/referenced, dirty talk, praise, jealousy, alcohol, strong language notes from me – because i love u all very much, here's a lil treat. set right after questionable choices !! and based on these requests! <3 word count – 12k

navigation – masterlist |

The first text is a terrible idea. She knows this because it takes her seventeen minutes to send eight words, which feels like enough clinical evidence to support the diagnosis. 

The phone sits face down beside her laptop while she pretends to review renal pharmacology with the kind of hollow-eyed focus usually reserved for hostage negotiations and end-stage group projects. 

Her notes are everywhere. Loose sheets across the desk, a colour-coded drug table half-finished under her elbow, three highlighters uncapped in a row like tiny fluorescent corpses. There’s a half-empty mug of tea gone cold near her wrist and one of Monique’s hair ties looped around the base of her lamp for reasons no one in the dorm has ever explained.

It’s eleven at night. Her brain has the texture of wet cardboard. She’s read the same sentence about potassium-sparing diuretics six times and retained absolutely nothing except the fact that the phrase potassium-sparing diuretics makes her want to put her head through the wall.

She should sleep. She should shower. She should make an actual snack instead of eating two sour gummy worms from the bottom of her tote bag and pretending that counts. She shouldn’t text Garrett Graham.

Garrett Graham, who she’s slept with exactly once.

Garrett Graham, who had given her his number the next morning in the kitchen of the hockey house like it was casual, like he hadn’t spent half the night proving several pieces of bathroom gossip correct and then pulled a sheet over her after like he was trying to ruin her entire no-complications policy from the inside.

Garrett Graham, who had leaned against the counter in grey sweats with sleep-flattened curls and said, “For emergencies,” while putting his name in her phone.

She had looked at him over the rim of the coffee Tucker had handed her and said, “What kind of emergency?”

Garrett’s grin had gone slow. “You’ll know.”

She hadn’t known then. She knows now. The emergency, apparently, is that her nervous system has been studying for six hours and has decided the only reasonable treatment plan involves a hockey player with good hands and very poor implications.

Her thumb hovers over the keyboard.

hi are u awake?

She stares at it. Deletes the question mark. Puts it back. Adds Garrett’s name, immediately hates herself, deletes it again. Then she sends it before dignity can organise a formal appeal.

For a second, nothing happens. Which is fine. Great, actually. Maybe he’s asleep. Maybe he’s busy. Maybe he’s doing whatever men with forearms and varsity schedules do at eleven at night, which she assumes involves protein powder. Maybe this can become one of those brave private moments she never has to acknowledge again.

Her phone buzzes.

Garrett: is this a u up text?

Heat hits her face so fast she actually has to sit back from her desk. She bites the inside of her cheek, staring at the screen while her body does something treacherous and immediate. 

A low, warm pull under the tiredness. A little bright thread of want unspooling beneath the cotton of her oversized Briar hoodie and the waistband of her sweatpants. Her fingers move before she can make the reply any less obvious.

it might be.

Then, because shame is no longer driving the car.

are u up?

The typing bubble appears almost immediately.

Garrett: yup.

Her stomach flips. Stupid. Violent. Medically concerning.

Garrett: can i come over?

She looks around the room like the dorm itself might object. Monique’s side is empty, bed made badly, closet open, a pair of boots lying sideways near the chair. She’d gone out with Lucy an hour ago and texted, in all caps, that she would be out late and if she died it was because a finance major named Bryce had weird little hands. So. The room is free.

Her thumb pauses for maybe half a second. Then she sends the dorm name and room number.

Garrett: 15.

It shouldn’t do anything to her, the lack of question mark. The simple confidence of it. Fifteen minutes. Like he’s already standing. Like he hasn’t been waiting, obviously, because that would be insane, but like he doesn’t need convincing either. Her body reads the message and immediately gives up on renal pharmacology as a field of study.

The next fifteen minutes are not her proudest. She shuts her laptop, then opens it again because shutting it feels too presumptuous, then shuts it again because pretending she’s going to study after sending a man a thinly veiled hookup text is insulting to the scientific method. 

She clears a pile of notes from the edge of the bed, then realises that looks like she prepared the bed, which she has, in fact, done, but she doesn’t need to advertise that. She takes her hair out of its claw clip, puts it back up, takes it out again. She brushes her teeth. She puts on lip balm. 

Then she stands in the middle of the room in a hoodie, sweatpants, and stress, and wonders if she should put on something cuter, which is a deranged thought because the whole point is that he’s coming here to take it off.

There’s a knock at eleven-eighteen. Two quick taps, controlled enough not to announce him to the hall, which is thoughtful in a way that annoys her immediately because she has no room in her body for him being thoughtful and hot at the same time.

She opens the door, and Garrett’s standing there in a dark Briar hoodie and grey sweats, hair still a little damp like he showered before coming, which is information her body receives with the same quiet religious awe it might reserve for a miracle or a very competent IV insertion. 

His hands are tucked into the front pocket of his hoodie. His shoulders nearly fill the doorway. He looks awake, amused, and just smug enough to make her regret every life choice that’s led to this exact corridor.

“Hi,” he says, mouth already starting.

She says, “Hi,” back, and then grabs him by the front of his hoodie and pulls him into the room.

Garrett makes a low sound when her mouth hits his. Half laugh, half breath, all of it warm against her lips as he steps inside and kicks the door shut behind him without looking. His hands find her waist immediately, big and sure over the soft bulk of her hoodie, and then he’s kissing her properly, head dipping, mouth opening over hers with the kind of easy confidence that makes the last two days of trying not to think about him feel suddenly pointless and embarrassing.

He tastes like mint. Smells like soap and cold air and him, clean and warm under the hoodie. Her hands fist in the fabric at his chest, pulling him closer, because the first time hadn’t been enough data. She needs replication. Peer review. A larger sample size.

Garrett hums against her mouth, pleased in a way she feels right down the centre of herself, then pulls back only enough to breathe. “Miss me?”

“No.”

“No?” His smile brushes her lips. “That’s crazy. This feels a lot like missing me.”

“This is stress management.”

“Ah.” He nods like that makes sense, hands sliding lower to her hips. “Medical.”

“Clinical, actually.”

“Right. Forgot you’re a professional.”

“I’m not a professional yet.”

His eyes move over her face, down to her mouth, then back up. “You’re pretty bossy for an amateur.”

She should have something good for that. Something sharp. Something that keeps her dignity propped upright in the corner. Unfortunately, Garrett’s thumb has slipped under the hem of her hoodie and found bare skin at her waist, and the touch deletes several useful parts of her personality.

Instead she kisses him again. That works better anyway.

The room narrows quickly. Desk lamp, cold tea, the faint scratch of winter rain against the window, Garrett’s hands gathering her closer until her body is flush with his and she can feel exactly how awake he is through the front of his sweats. He breaks the kiss with a rougher breath this time, forehead nearly touching hers, and then tugs his hoodie up over his head in one smooth motion.

Her mouth goes a little dry.

“Subtle,” he says.

“You got here fast.”

“I did.”

“Were you, like, waiting by the door?”

Garrett’s grin flashes, boyish and wicked. “Would that be hot or pathetic?”

She looks at him for one beat too long. “Depends how good you are tonight.”

He laughs, surprised and low, and then his hands are under her thighs. The lift knocks a breath out of her. Her legs wrap around his waist on instinct, arms looping around his neck as he catches her easily, like picking her up requires less effort than opening the door had. The strength of it lands hot and immediate, her body pressed to his chest, her face level with his, his hands firm beneath her thighs.

“Oh my God,” she mutters, and kisses down the side of his neck because his grin is going to become a problem if she keeps looking at it.

Garrett’s laugh catches in his throat. “Your roommate’s not home, right?”

She scrapes her teeth lightly beneath his jaw and feels his grip tighten. “She’s out.”

“Thank God.”

The sincerity of it makes her grin against his skin. “That desperate?”

He drops her onto the bed with more care than the gesture suggests, following her down with one knee on the mattress, hands bracketing her hips. “Baby,” he says, eyes warm and dark and already moving over her like he’s been waiting for permission to stop being polite. “You texted me at eleven o’clock with hi are you awake.”

“That was subtle.”

“That was a flare gun.”

She sits up enough to pull her hoodie over her head. Garrett shuts up. It’s deeply satisfying.

His eyes drop, and for once he doesn’t recover smoothly enough to be annoying. She’s in a soft little bra she hadn’t put on for him but is now retroactively grateful for, dark and thin and doing very little to hide the way her breathing has gone uneven. Garrett looks at her like his night has just improved beyond reasonable expectation.

“Well,” he says, voice gone rougher.

She lifts her eyebrows. “Still drafting?”

His gaze flicks to hers. The grin comes back slowly. “You remembered.”

“Unfortunately.”

“I like that.”

“You like a lot of things.”

“Yeah.” His hands slide up her ribs, thumbs tracing the line under her bra. “Apparently.”

Then his mouth is on her chest and the conversation becomes theoretical.

The first warm press of his lips over the lace makes her head tip back. He kisses one breast, then the other, slow enough to make her stomach tighten, his hands spreading over her sides as if to hold her still for the attention. 

Garrett Graham, she’s rapidly learning, kisses like a man with time. Like he knows rushing is for men who are worried the girl might come to her senses if given more than eight seconds to think. His mouth drags over the cup, his tongue pressing through the fabric, and her fingers fly into his hair.

“Fuck,” she breathes.

He hums, the vibration going straight through her. “That’s not studying.”

“I’m taking a break.”

“Good call.”

His hand slips behind her back to undo the clasp, and he pauses there, fingers warm against her spine. “Okay?”

That little door left open for her to walk out through if she wants. It should slow the room down. It does, but not in the way she expects. It makes the want settle deeper, warmer, more firmly inside her body because he’s not just assuming the yes and dragging her along after it.

“Yeah,” she says. “Okay.”

The bra comes off. Garrett looks at her for half a second too long, and she feels that look everywhere. Then he lowers his mouth.

Her body arches before she can make it elegant. One hand stays tangled in his curls, the other gripping the sheet as his mouth closes around her nipple, hot and deliberate, tongue moving slow enough to make her thighs press together uselessly around his waist. He makes a pleased sound when she pulls his hair, like her getting impatient is a reward he intends to earn properly.

“Garrett,” she says, and it comes out too soft to be a warning.

He lifts his head. “Yeah?”

She has no idea what she was going to say. Something about how she has an exam. Something about not having time. Something about him being annoying. None of it survives the sight of him above her, shirtless and flushed, mouth wet, eyes very obviously proud of himself already.

He smiles. “You stressed, baby?”

The question lands too accurately. Her body, currently strung tight and warm and desperate enough to be humiliating, still somehow remembers the notes on her desk, the unread lecture slides, the clinical placement form due tomorrow, the endless tiny requirements of being competent at an age where she sometimes eats dinner standing up because sitting down feels like committing to the day being over.

She nods. “So stressed.”

Garrett’s expression shifts, like something about the answer gives him a job. He kisses down her stomach.

Her breath catches when his mouth passes the dip between her ribs, then lower, over the sensitive skin above her waistband. He hooks his fingers into her sweatpants and looks up, waiting. 

She lifts her hips immediately, which makes his mouth twitch. “Helpful.”

“Shut up.”

“Bossy,” he murmurs, but he drags the sweatpants down anyway, taking her socks with them by accident and laughing when one catches briefly on her foot. “Cute.”

“It’s not cute.”

“It’s a little cute.”

“I’m going to kick you.”

Then her sweatpants are gone. Garrett’s hands settle on her knees, gently easing them apart. She feels the moment he sees her properly through the thin cotton of her underwear. The way his breath goes quieter. The way his thumbs stop moving for half a second. 

She’s been naked under him before. He’s been inside her before. It shouldn’t feel new, and yet somehow it does, because this time he’s kneeling between her legs with his hands on her thighs and the kind of attention on his face that makes her skin feel too small for her body.

“Been thinking about this for two days,” he says.

Her fingers flex in the sheet. “Yeah?”

His eyes lift to hers. “Yeah.”

“You could’ve texted.”

“You could’ve.”

She huffs a laugh. “I did text.”

“And look at me now.” Garrett lowers himself between her thighs, mouth brushing the soft skin just above her knee. “Very responsive.”

“Five-star service.”

“You have no idea.”

He kisses the inside of her thigh, then higher. Tiny, warm, maddening presses that make her breath turn shallow before his mouth has even touched anywhere useful. His fingers hook gently into the sides of her panties, then pause.

“Can I?”

Her throat feels tight. “Mhm.”

He pulls them down slowly, watching her face as much as his hands, and then they’re gone too, dropped somewhere near the foot of the bed with the rest of her ability to act normal. Garrett doesn’t dive in immediately. That would be too merciful. He kisses her thigh again, one side, then the other, mouth warm and unhurried, hands smoothing up to her hips.

“You want me to distract you?” he asks.

His mouth is close enough that she feels the words against her before she processes them properly. She nods. Garrett looks up.

She almost laughs because of course he wants words. Of course that’s already become a thing between them.

“Please,” she says, breathless enough that pride briefly leaves the room to get some air. “Please, Garrett.”

His grin is slow, pleased, and very nearly fatal.

“Good,” he says, and lowers his mouth to her.

The first kiss to her clit is so light it almost makes her angry. Barely there. A warm, wet press that sends one clean spark through her whole body and then disappears before she can do anything with it. She makes a small, betrayed sound, and Garrett’s hands tighten on her hips like he’s already enjoying himself too much. Then he does it again.

“Garrett.”

“Hm?”

“Don’t be annoying.”

His laugh is low against her, and the vibration makes her hips twitch. “You invited me.”

“For stress relief.”

“Yeah.” His mouth opens over her properly this time, tongue dragging slow and flat in a way that wipes the next sentence clean out of her head. “I’m relieving.”

“Oh my God.”

She means it as an insult. It doesn’t land as one. Garrett’s mouth curves against her, and then he stops playing.

Garrett goes down on her like he has an actual point to prove and a personal problem with every man who has ever failed to do this correctly before him. His tongue moves with patient, filthy confidence, licking into her, over her, learning the places that make her thighs tremble and then returning to them with the kind of accuracy that feels almost vindictive.

Her hands grip his hair. His curls are soft between her fingers, and when she tugs too hard, he groans into her like he likes it, which nearly makes her soul leave her body.

“Fuck,” she gasps, hips bucking before she can stop them.

Garrett’s forearm slides over her lower stomach and pins her down. The restraint is gentle enough that she could move if she really wanted. Firm enough that she cannot grind against his face the way her body has decided would be useful. The combination ruins her. She tries anyway, hips twitching under his arm, and Garrett hums like he finds the effort adorable.

She smacks the side of his head lightly before she can think better of it. “Garrett.”

He pulls back only enough to look up at her, mouth wet, eyes dark and amused. “What?”

“I swear to God.”

“What?” He presses a kiss to the crease of her thigh. “You want me to stop?”

“No.”

“Then stop hitting me.”

She huffs. “I’m overwhelmed.”

His grin does something terrible to her stomach. “Yeah, I noticed.”

Then he hooks her legs over his shoulders. The angle changes everything. His hands slide beneath her hips, lifting her into his mouth, and the next slow suck over her clit makes her cry out loud enough that Garrett’s fingers dig into her thigh.

“Careful,” he murmurs, but he sounds more pleased than concerned.

“My dorm has walls made of cardboard.”

“Then you should be quiet.”

“You should be worse at this.”

He laughs, and then his tongue slides into her and the entire concept of conversation becomes unavailable.

It builds too quickly after that. She tries to slow it down, tries to catch her breath, tries to keep one hand over her own mouth because Monique may not be here but several other women on this floor absolutely are, and she would prefer not to become a community bulletin. 

None of it works. Garrett keeps her pinned and open and worked up beyond any reasonable threshold, mouth moving with a kind of focused hunger that makes her chest hot and her thighs shake around his ears.

No one has ever made her come like this. Not from this. Not with just a mouth, not with this much attention, not with her lying there half out of her mind while a man she’s known properly for maybe seventy-two hours acts like getting her there is the most interesting thing he could possibly be doing.

It hits her somewhere deeper than it should. The competence. The patience. The way he is not performing generosity but enjoying it so obviously that she cannot even pretend to feel awkward for taking up space.

“Garrett,” she gasps, and her voice sounds thin now. Wrecked. “I’m gonna–”

He hums against her again. That’s all it takes. Her orgasm pulls tight and bright through her whole body, then breaks so hard her back arches off the mattress. She cries out before she can stop it, one hand flying into his hair, the other twisting in the sheet as she comes against his mouth. 

Garrett holds her through it, hands firm on her hips, tongue slower now but still there, drawing the last helpless little pulses out of her until her legs shake against his shoulders and she makes a sound that’s very close to begging.

He finally eases back.

The room comes back in pieces. Desk lamp. Rain. Her own breathing, rough and uneven. Garrett kissing the inside of her thigh again, softer now, then her hip, then the little sensitive place low on her stomach that makes her twitch away with a weak laugh.

He crawls up her body slowly, like he has every right to take his time and absolutely knows it. His mouth presses to her ribs, then the centre of her chest, then her throat. By the time he reaches her mouth, she’s boneless and overheated and still buzzing in places she hadn’t realised could hold that much sensation.

He kisses her. Slow at first. Then deeper when she opens for him, tasting herself on his tongue and immediately deciding she’ll unpack the psychological implications of that never.

Garrett pulls back an inch, smiling. “Good?”

She stares at him. Her hair is probably a mess. Her chest is flushed. Her thighs feel useless. Her entire academic future is lying in ruins on the desk behind him next to a highlighter with no cap.

“Oh my God,” she says.

Garrett laughs, pleased down to the bones. “Yeah?”

“Don’t yeah me.”

“You look less stressed.”

She laughs, a little higher than usual. “I think I left my body.”

“Want me to go find it?”

She grabs at his sweats instead of answering, and his smile changes. The humour stays, but something hotter moves under it, immediate and answering, his hips pressing into her hand for half a second before he catches himself. She can feel him through the fabric, hard and heavy and very obviously affected, and the knowledge sends another slow wave of heat through her despite how sensitive she already is.

“Please,” she says.

Garrett’s eyes flick to hers. She watches it hit him, watches the line of his mouth soften before the smugness can come back.

He kisses her again, slow and deep, one hand cupping the side of her face while the other slides down her waist. “Got you,” he murmurs.

Her head falls back against the pillow as he sits up to shove his sweats down, and she smiles at the ceiling because this is absolutely a terrible idea. A terrible, necessary, clinically indicated, high-risk, high-reward idea.

Garrett catches the smile when he comes back over her. “What?”

“Nothing.”

“Good nothing or bad nothing?”

She reaches for him, pulling him down by the back of his neck until his mouth is almost on hers again. “Questionable nothing.”

His grin flashes.

“Perfect,” he says.

The third time happens at Malone’s, which is the kind of thing she would judge someone else for doing if she had been asked. Not out loud, probably, because she believes in women’s wrongs and women’s wrongs just as much as the next girl, but internally? Absolutely. 

She would sit there with her cranberry vodka and a face full of sympathetic concern while some girl from her cohort admitted to letting a hockey player drag her into a bar bathroom after a game, and privately she would think, wow. That seems like a lot of health code violations for one orgasm.

Which is unfair, because by the time it happens to her, she’s had two drinks, half a basket of fries, and the better part of an hour to watch Garrett Graham across the room being flirted with.

He’s leaning against the bar with Logan on one side and Dean on the other, hair still damp from his post-game shower, Briar jacket unzipped over a shirt that fits way too well. There are girls around them. Pretty ones in little tops and glossy hair and voices pitched bright enough to cut through the noise of the bar. One of them keeps touching Garrett’s arm when she laughs, her fingers lingering at his sleeve like fabric.

She’s not bothered. Technically. Because she has no grounds to be bothered. 

They’ve slept together twice. Once at the hockey house after he changed the music and ruined her relationship with Metallica on a neurological level. Once in her dorm after she’d texted him at eleven p.m. because renal pharmacology had made her horny and stressed. That’s it. Two times. Fun times. Excellent times. Clinically significant times, maybe, but still only times.

He doesn’t belong to her. She doesn’t want him to belong to her. That was the entire fucking point. No boyfriend. No girlfriend. No expectations.

So she’s not bothered. She is, however, watching.

Across the table, Lucy follows her line of sight and makes a small sound into her straw.

“Don’t.”

“I didn’t say anything,” Lucy shrugs.

“You were about to.”

“I was going to say he’s staring at you.”

She looks back too quickly, which is humiliating because Lucy is right. Garrett’s eyes have cut across the room, past the girl at his arm, past the noise and bodies and beer signs glowing red against the wall, straight to her. His mouth curves when he catches her looking. Enough to say he knows she was watching and intends to be unbearable about it.

She lifts her drink in a tiny, dry little toast. Garrett’s phone appears in his hand a second later. Hers buzzes on the table.

Garrett: bathroom?

She stares at the message for one full second while heat kicks low in her stomach with such stupid immediacy that she nearly hates herself.

romantic.

Garrett looks down at his phone, laughs under his breath, then looks up again from across the room. He gives one shrug, too casual to be anything but a lie, and tilts his head toward the back hall.

Garrett: efficient.

She bites the inside of her cheek so she doesn’t smile like an idiot in front of witnesses.

this is stupid.

Garrett’s reply comes while he's still looking at her.

Garrett: yeah. Garrett: still bathroom?

She puts her phone face down.

Lucy’s eyebrows climb. “Oh my God.”

“What?”

“You’re doing something.”

“I’m going to the bathroom.”

“Mm.”

“I have a bladder," she argues.

“You have poor judgment,” Lucy sing-songs.

She flips her off. “Women can have multiple things.”

She stands before Lucy can say anything worse, smoothing her skirt down with what she hopes is dignity and not the behaviour of a woman about to make several bad choices near a hand dryer. 

The bar is warm and loud around her, bodies shifting too close, the floor slightly sticky under her boots. She walks past a group of guys yelling at the mounted TV, past a girl balancing three tequila sodas with the focus of a surgical team, past the narrow little hallway leading to the bathrooms and the old payphone no one has used since approximately 2004.

Garrett’s already there. He steps out from the shadow near the hall like he’s been waiting for her for longer than the thirty seconds he realistically has, and the sight of him up close does something immediate and unhelpful to her pulse. 

There’s still a faint flush high on his cheek from the game or the beer or the way he’d been watching her from across the bar. His hair is messy over his forehead. His mouth is curved like he already knows she came back here because he asked and is politely choosing not to say so out loud.

“Hi,” he says.

She gives him a look. “This is so stupid.”

“Yeah,” he says, stepping closer. “You said that.”

“I meant it.”

“Mm.” His hand slides to her waist, warm through the thin fabric of her top. “You still came.”

“Don’t make that a line.”

His grin flashes. “Wasn’t going to.”

“You absolutely were.”

He kisses her before she can keep being right.

It’s not like the dorm. This is faster, worse, the kind of kiss that starts already halfway gone because the hallway is public and the bathroom is a terrible idea and both of them know exactly how temporary the window is. Garrett’s mouth opens over hers, hot and sure, and his hand tightens at her waist as he walks her backward into the single-stall bathroom with a level of confidence that suggests he hasn’t spent even one second considering the microbial implications.

She should. She really should. Instead she grabs the front of his jacket and pulls him with her.

The lock clicks behind them. The bathroom is small, warm, and offensively fluorescent. A chipped mirror over the sink. Paper towel dispenser half-open. Someone has written call me maybe and a phone number on the inside of the door in eyeliner. The music is muffled through the walls, bass vibrating faintly through the tiles under her feet.

Garrett looks around for half a second and then back at her. “Okay. Not my best work.”

She laughs, breathless already. “You think?”

“Car would’ve been smarter.”

“Your car is outside.”

“Later.”

Then he has her against the door. The laugh disappears from her mouth when he turns her, one hand at her hip and the other braced beside her shoulder, his body warm and solid behind hers. He kisses the side of her neck, open-mouthed and immediate, and her eyes flutter before she can stop them. His hand slips down her thigh, dragging the hem of her skirt up slowly enough that the anticipation burns through her worse than if he’d rushed.

“You good?” he murmurs against her ear.

It’s ridiculous, the way the check still lands through the heat. The fact that he asks while his hand is already under her skirt, while his mouth is at her throat, while his hips are pressing her forward just enough that she can feel him hard against her. Her body gives one useless little pulse.

“Yeah,” she says. “I’m good.”

“Yeah?”

She tips her head back against his shoulder to glare at him, which is difficult from this angle. “Garrett.”

His grin brushes her skin. “Words. You know the drill.”

“I hate the drill.”

“No, you don’t.”

“I like parts of the drill.”

He laughs low in his throat, and then his fingers hook into the side of her panties. “This part?”

Her breath catches. “Yeah.”

“Good.”

He tugs them down just enough, his knuckles dragging warm over her hip, then lower. She reaches back for his belt without looking and feels his breath stutter when her hand closes around him through his jeans. That tiny break in him is gratifying enough that she nearly smiles. Garrett catches her wrist before she can get too proud, turning his head to kiss her palm once, quick and hot and completely unfair.

“Condom,” he mutters.

“Wallet?”

“Yeah.”

“You came prepared.”

“I’m optimistic.”

“You’re disgusting.”

“Efficient,” he corrects, and she can hear the smile in it as he deals with his jeans, the foil, the soft curse under his breath when her hips press back against him without permission.

It’s all too fast and not fast enough. Her palms flatten against the bathroom door, skirt bunched high, panties around her thighs, Garrett’s jacket brushing the backs of her arms as he moves behind her. There’s a brief, necessary pause where both of them go still enough to let the reality of the decision catch up. The locked door. The bass through the wall. The bar full of their friends outside. His hand warm on her hip.

“Still okay?” he asks, voice rougher now.

She nods, then remembers herself. “Yes.”

His hand slides around and covers her mouth at the exact second he pushes in.

The sound she makes would have gotten them banned from Malone’s immediately and possibly investigated by the liquor board, so maybe his timing deserves credit. Her eyes squeeze shut, fingers spreading hard against the door as he fills her in one slow, careful press that doesn’t match the stupidity of the location at all. It takes her body half a second to remember him. Then it does, all at once, heat and pressure moving through her so sharply that her knees nearly soften.

Garrett’s arm locks around her waist. “Fuck,” he breathes against her ear. “You good?”

She nods against his hand. Her own hand flies back to grip his thigh because she needs somewhere to put the feeling and the bathroom door is no longer good enough.

He stays still for another beat. Then he pulls back and thrusts in again. Her moan breaks against his palm.

Garrett’s breath leaves him in a rough laugh. “Should’ve thought this through more, baby,” he murmurs, mouth brushing the shell of her ear. “Forgot you can’t keep quiet.”

She laughs too, or tries to, but the next thrust turns it into something much less defensible. “This is stupid,” she gets out when his hand slips just enough for her mouth to form words. “We– fuck– we can’t do this again.”

He nods immediately, hips still moving. “Mm. Mhm. Last time. For sure.”

“I mean it.”

“Yeah.” He kisses the side of her neck. “Me too.”

Neither of them means it.

They both know that, which makes it worse. Better. Impossible to take seriously while he’s fucking her against a bathroom stall door with his hand over her mouth and his breath turning uneven behind her. He keeps the pace controlled at first, every thrust angled enough to make her body jerk forward into the door and then back against his chest. 

His hand stays over her mouth until she nods once, trying to promise she’ll behave, and then he slides it down to her jaw instead, tilting her face back so he can kiss her. The kiss is a mess. Twisted sideways, half-broken by the angle and the way her breathing keeps catching. 

Garrett’s mouth is hot and insistent, swallowing the sounds before they can get too far, and when she whimpers against him, his brow furrows in that way it does when concentration stops being a choice and becomes survival.

“Shh,” he says, but there’s no reprimand in it. His voice is wrecked around the edges. “Baby.”

“So– sorry. I’m trying.”

“I know.” His arm tightens around her waist, pulling her back harder into each thrust. “It’s hot. Just don’t want us banned.”

The laugh bursts out of her before she can stop it, helpless and breathy and immediately swallowed by another moan when he reaches around and finds her with his fingers. “Oh fuck, Garrett.”

His hand comes back over her mouth at once. “There,” he murmurs, and she can feel his smile against her neck. “There she is.”

She nods against his palm, tears of overstimulation prickling stupidly at the corners of her eyes because it’s too much and too good and the bathroom is too bright and the music is too loud and his fingers are moving like he learned her body in two times and took it personally.

The pressure builds fast, tight and bright through the low centre of her body, and she drops one hand to grip his wrist where it’s wrapped around her waist.

Garrett feels the shift. His mouth moves to her shoulder, pressing there hot and open through the neckline of her top.

“Come on,” he says, low enough that the words belong only to the tiny space between his mouth and her skin. “I’ve got you. Quiet, baby.”

The command shouldn’t work. It does. Or maybe it’s the baby, or the fingers, or the fact that he’s holding her together in a bar bathroom like that’s a perfectly reasonable place for a person to come apart. Her body tightens hard around him, the sound trapped against his palm as she comes with a full-body shudder that makes her knees give for half a second. 

Garrett holds her through it, arm strong around her, his own rhythm breaking almost immediately after because there are limits to even his smug athletic endurance. He buries a groan against the back of her shoulder when he finishes, hips pressing deep once, then stilling.

For a few seconds, there’s only breathing. The buzz of the fluorescent light. The muffled thud of music. Someone laughing outside the door, distant enough not to matter and close enough to make both of them freeze like idiots. Garrett’s forehead drops to her shoulder.

She whispers, “We’re so gross.”

His laugh shakes once against her back. “Yeah.”

“I’m serious.”

“I know.”

“We can’t do this again.”

“Agreed.”

Neither of them moves.

Then Garrett kisses the side of her neck, slower now, his hand sliding from her mouth to her waist. “Car?”

She exhales shakily, already smiling despite herself. “Car.”

He pulls out carefully, one hand at her hip like the bathroom door has not been doing most of the structural work. She winces a little from the sudden empty feeling and the oversensitivity, and Garrett’s thumb strokes once over her side before he steps back fully to deal with the condom.

“Okay?” he asks.

“Yeah.” She bends to tug her panties back up, cheeks hot in a way that feels absurd given what they’ve just done. 

They fix themselves badly. There is no dignified way to smooth a skirt down after getting railed against a bathroom door while your friends are twenty feet away eating wings. Garrett tucks himself back into his jeans and zips up with the concentration of a man trying not to look too pleased with himself. 

She washes her hands because she’s still a nursing student and has standards, no matter what the last ten minutes might imply about her personal brand. When she turns back, Garrett’s watching her.

“What?”

“Nothing.”

“Good nothing or bad nothing?”

His grin appears. “Last-time nothing.”

She rolls her eyes, but her mouth is already moving. “This counts as one time, right?”

Garrett’s eyebrows lift. “The bathroom and the car?”

“Same… continuous incident.”

“Yeah.” He steps closer, hand finding her waist again because apparently he learns nothing and neither does she. “One time.”

She nods solemnly. “Great. Efficient.”

“Romantic,” he says.

She laughs, and he kisses her before she can tell him he’s disgusting again.

The fourth time starts because she posts a photo to her story without thinking, which is generally how half the worst decisions in modern society begin.

It’s twelve-oh-six in the library and the whole building has settled into that terrible after-hours academic quiet where everyone looks like they’re either close to genius or actively losing organ function. 

The overhead lights are too bright, the carpet smells faintly like dust and burnt coffee, and somewhere near the windows a guy in a Briar lacrosse hoodie has been asleep on an economics textbook for so long she’s starting to wonder whether someone should check for a pulse.

Her table looks like a crime scene, if the crime were nursing school and the victim were her remaining will to live. There are notes everywhere, flashcards in badly organised little piles, two pens without caps, one pen with a cap that doesn’t belong to it, three highlighters arranged in a way that suggests strategy if one is feeling generous and delusion if one is being honest. 

Her laptop is open to a lecture slide about antihypertensives. Her textbook is open beside it. Her iced coffee has become mostly ice. There’s a protein bar wrapper half-tucked under her notebook, which is technically evidence that she ate, if anyone ever puts her on trial for nutritional negligence.

She takes the photo mostly because the situation feels absurd enough to deserve documentation. Laptop, notes, highlighters, the edge of her hand with a smudge of blue ink near her thumb. She adds text over the top.

midnight library date with my own bad decisions x

Then she posts it and goes back to trying to remember the difference between ACE inhibitors and ARBs with the kind of exhausted determination usually seen in women, raccoons, and final-year students with no remaining fear of God.

Her phone buzzes twenty minutes later.

Garrett: tragic.

She stares at the message for a second too long, and the stupidest thing happens. Her mouth moves. Not enough that anyone would call it smiling in court, but enough that if Monique were here, she’d make a sound so smug the library staff would have to remove her from the building.

thank u for ur support.

Garrett: always. Garrett: you eaten?

Her fingers pause above the screen. One second he’s a walking bad decision with good shoulders and a mouth that’s permanently damaged her ability to listen to Metallica casually, and the next he asks a question so simple and practical that her entire body behaves like it’s been tucked into a blanket without consent.

She looks at the protein bar wrapper.

yes.

Garrett: what did you eat?

She hates him a little.

food.

Garrett: convincing.

She rolls her eyes and puts her phone face down, because this is why she hadn’t texted him since Malone’s. She’d thought about him plenty. She’d thought about his hand over her mouth in the bar bathroom and the way his voice had gone rough against her ear when he said last time like both of them weren’t already actively committing fraud against the concept. 

She’d thought about the car after, which had been somehow worse, because cars are smaller than bedrooms and she had left Malone’s with her hair a mess, her thighs sore, and Lucy looking at her like she should be studied by feminist historians.

But she hadn’t texted. She had been busy. Actually busy, not pretending busy. Placements, lectures, assessments, a group assignment that had given her a genuine stress rash, and the general low-grade panic of being expected to learn a profession where making a mistake could one day involve significantly higher stakes than losing marks because someone named Ashleigh did not understand APA referencing.

Also, maybe, because texting Garrett again felt like moving something from fun into habit. And habit was dangerous. Habit was where people got comfortable. Habit was where a man started knowing your schedule and asking if you ate and making your body respond like that was foreplay, which was frankly humiliating for everyone involved.

She picks up her pen again.

At twelve-thirty-seven, someone drops a brown paper bag onto the table in front of her. She looks up so fast her neck clicks.

Garrett Graham’s standing there in a dark hoodie, grey sweats, and a black winter jacket, backpack hanging off one shoulder, curls messy from the cold outside. Ther’is a faint pink at the edge of his nose like he walked fast through the night air, and he looks completely wrong under the fluorescent library lights in a way that makes him almost more attractive, which feels unfair and possibly unconstitutional.

He pulls the chair opposite her out with his foot and sits down. “Hi,” he says.

She blinks at him. “Hi.”

“Haven’t heard from you since…” His mouth does this tiny thing, barely a curve, but enough to drag the entire bar bathroom into the space between her lecture notes. “Since Malone’s. Good to know you’re still alive.”

Her face heats immediately. “I’ve been busy.”

“I can see that.” He looks over the table, eyes moving from the flashcards to the notes to the watery iced coffee to the protein bar wrapper. He pauses there. “Is that your dinner?”

She goes to argue, and then nods.

“Jesus.” He opens the bag and starts taking containers out like the matter is already settled. “You’re lucky I’m community-minded.”

“You brought food?”

He pulls out a container of fries and slides it toward her. “Yes, I brought food.”

She stares at the fries like they’ve arrived from heaven. “Why?”

“Because you posted a cry for help.”

“I posted a study story.”

“Same thing.” He takes out two burgers, another container that smells like chicken and garlic and salt and the kind of hot, greasy mercy her body immediately recognises as medically necessary, then pushes napkins toward her with two fingers. “Eat something.”

It’s not gentle, that’s what gets under her skin. He doesn’t say it like some grand romantic gesture, doesn’t soften his voice into something she can laugh off or reject. He says it like a fact. Like he has assessed the situation and decided the intervention is fries.

She picks one up. “You always boss women around in libraries?”

“Only the ones who lie about protein bars.”

“That’s invasive.”

“That’s, like, dinner negligence.”

She eats the fry. It’s hot and salty and so good she almost has an emotional experience in public. Garrett watches her for one second, satisfied in a way that makes her want to throw the fry container at his head and kiss him directly after.

“What?” she asks.

“Nothing.”

He unpacks his own food, then his laptop, then a textbook from his bag with enough sticky notes jutting out of the top to suggest he may actually be a student and not just an athletic department myth with abs. She watches him open it to a heavily marked page and frown.

“What are you studying?” she asks.

“Philosophy.”

Her eyebrows lift. “You?”

He points a fry at her. “Don’t sound so shocked.”

“I’m not shocked.”

“You look shocked.”

“I’m processing.”

“It’s bullshit,” he says, looking down at the page. “Not all of it. Some of it. This guy’s been dead for, like, two hundred years and is still making my night worse.”

“That’s actually kind of impressive.”

“Yeah, I hate him.”

She laughs under her breath, and Garrett looks up like he got exactly what he came for, which is a dangerous thing to notice because it makes her chest feel strange in a way no lecture slide has prepared her to clinically identify.

For a while, they actually study. It’s stupidly nice. That might be the worst part.

She puts her headphones back in. He does the same. The food sits between them in warm, greasy peace, and the two of them fall into the quiet rhythm of midnight academic survival. 

He highlights things with a concentrated little crease between his brows, sometimes chewing at the inside of his cheek while he reads. She makes flashcards, checks her notes, steals fries from the container, and tries not to smile every time Garrett wordlessly nudges the box closer to her side of the table.

Every now and then, she looks up and finds him already looking at her.

His gaze lifting from his textbook just as hers lifts from her notes, both of them caught in the same accidental second. His mouth twitches. Hers follows before she can stop it. Then they both look down again like there are laws about this and they’re being very respectful of them.

There are, to be clear, no laws about smiling at a man over fries in the library. But there should be. It feels dangerous.

At one-sixteen, Garrett reaches across the table and plucks the pen from behind her ear. She goes still.

He sets it beside her notebook. “You’ve been looking for that for five minutes.”

“I knew where it was.”

“You asked your laptop where it went.”

Her brow furrows. “That was private.”

“It was out loud.”

She narrows her eyes. “You’re annoying.”

“You say that a lot,” he mutters.

“You earn it.”

He looks pleased by that, which is somehow worse than if he looked offended.

By one-thirty, the library has started clearing itself out. Chairs scrape softly. A printer somewhere coughs up one last page. The sleeping lacrosse guy wakes with a full-body twitch and looks around like he’s returned from war.

Garrett pulls one headphone off. “They kicking us out?”

“Soon.”

“You done?”

She looks at her notes.

No. Absolutely not. She’s never done. Nursing school has made sure of that. There’s always another drug class, another mechanism, another chart, another skill she’s meant to carry in her head while also somehow sleeping and being a person who buys toothpaste before running out.

But Garrett’s sitting across from her with his hoodie sleeves pushed up and his hair falling over his forehead, and her body has started making some persuasive arguments against continuing to study in public. “I’m done enough.”

“Come back to mine?”

Her eyes lift. “For studying?”

His grin is immediate and deeply untrustworthy. “We can study something.”

“That’s not a real answer.”

“Could be.”

She starts packing anyway.

The walk back to the hockey house is cold enough that she regrets not bringing a better jacket after approximately four seconds outside. She doesn’t say this. She’s survived clinical placement on four hours of sleep and a vending machine coffee; she can survive a ten-minute walk in winter air.

Unfortunately, Garrett notices the way she tucks her hands into the sleeves of her hoodie and lifts her shoulders against the wind like a damp little street animal with student debt. He shrugs out of his jacket and drops it over her shoulders without breaking stride.

“I’m fine,” she says automatically.

“I know.”

She gestures loosely. “I don’t need this.”

“Okay.”

She looks down at herself, now wearing his jacket. “You’re not taking it back.”

“Nope.”

“That’s not how conversations work.”

“Then stop having one.”

She opens her mouth, closes it, and then pulls the jacket tighter around herself because he smells like clean laundry, cold air, and whatever cologne he uses that makes her want to behave in ways public health messaging probably frowns upon.

“Bossy,” she mutters.

Garrett glances over, smiling. “You like when I’m bossy.”

The hockey house is quiet when they get back, at least by its own deeply questionable standards. No party, no music, no crowd in the kitchen. Only a few lights left on, a pair of shoes abandoned near the stairs, someone’s shaker bottle on the counter, and a sweatshirt tossed over the back of a chair like the house itself has given up on being raised properly.

Garrett keeps his voice low as they come in, the quiet makes the house feel less like a campus landmark and more like a place people live. A place with dishes in the sink and protein powder on the counter and a sticky note on the fridge that says DEAN STOP EATING MY LEFTOVERS in Logan’s handwriting, with Dean’s reply beneath it in darker pen: no.

She smiles before she can stop it.

“What?” Garrett asks.

“Your house is disgusting.”

He looks around. “This is clean.”

“That’s horrifying.”

“It’s clean for us.”

“Somehow worse.”

He grins and leads her upstairs with his hand at the small of her back, light enough to be casual, warm enough that she feels the shape of his palm through the layers she’s wearing.

They do study in his room. For twenty-one minutes, which is technically not nothing.

She sits cross-legged on the bed with her flashcards in her lap while Garrett sits at his desk, frowning at his textbook like philosophy has started a fight it cannot finish. The room is dim and warm, his desk lamp throwing a soft yellow pool over the papers, the window cracked just enough to let in a thread of cold air. It smells like detergent and him and the takeout bag they brought upstairs and immediately abandoned on the dresser.

“What’s metoprolol?” Garrett asks, spinning once in his chair to face her.

She looks up. “Beta blocker.”

“What’s it do?”

“Blocks beta-one receptors, lowers heart rate, lowers blood pressure, decreases myocardial oxygen demand.”

Garrett stares at her for a second.

“What?”

“That was hot.”

She throws a flashcard at him. “You need help.”

He catches it, and glances down. “Atorvastatin.”

“Lowers cholesterol.”

He bites at his bottom lip. “Sexy.”

“You’re not allowed to find lipid management sexy.”

“I don’t make the rules.”

“You absolutely do. In your own weird little head.”

He leans back in the chair, smiling at her in that easy, dangerous way that makes her fingers tighten around the rest of the flashcards. “You always this mean when you study?”

“I’m nice when people are useful.”

He tilts his head. “I brought you dinner.”

“That was useful,” she murmurs.

“Gave you my jacket.”

She sighs. “Also useful.”

“Walked you home.”

“This isn’t my home,” she argues.

His grin shifts. “Mm.”

She realises, half a second too late, that there are sentences a person shouldn’t leave lying around Garrett Graham unattended. He stands.

“Don’t,” she says.

“I didn’t do anything.”

“You’re about to.”

“Maybe I’m going to the bathroom,” he shrugs.

“You’re walking like a man with an agenda.”

“I always have an agenda.”

She turns up her nose. “Gross.”

He reaches the side of the bed and takes the flashcards from her hand. She lets him, which is the first bad sign. He sets them on the bedside table with far too much care, which is the second. Then he braces one hand on the mattress beside her hip and leans down.

“What?” she asks, because self-preservation wants to make a final cameo.

Garrett’s mouth brushes hers. “You done studying?”

“No.”

His smile touches her lips. “You done enough?”

She hates him. She wants him so badly her thighs press together before she can stop them. “Maybe.”

“Maybe’s generous.”

She laughs, and he kisses the sound out of her.

It goes slow for about twelve seconds. Maybe less. Long enough for his mouth to warm over hers, for her hand to find the side of his neck, for him to make that low pleased sound that seems to start somewhere in his chest and travel directly down her spine. Then she tugs him closer by the front of his hoodie, and Garrett’s control, which had been largely ornamental anyway, stops pretending.

His knee hits the bed. Then the other. His hand cups the back of her neck, fingers sliding into her hair, and he kisses her deeper, hotter, until she has to tip her face up and let him take the angle. 

The whole room shifts around the two of them. Philosophy textbook, flashcards, cold window, the distant creak of the house settling. Garrett’s body pressing hers back into the mattress like this was where the night had been headed from the second he dropped fries onto her library table.

“You sure?” he asks against her mouth.

The question comes rough and quiet, his hand already under her hoodie, palm warm at her waist. It makes something low in her body loosen and pull tight at the same time.

“Yeah,” she says. “I’m sure.”

After that, the night comes apart in pieces. His hoodie. Her shirt. The bra she hadn’t worn for him and yet feels extremely grateful for when Garrett’s eyes drop and his mouth goes still for half a second.

His hands on her ribs, then her waist, then lower. Her fingers in his hair. The soft thump of his knees between hers. Him kissing down her chest, pausing to murmur, “Missed these,” with such devastating sincerity that she yanks his curls hard enough to make him groan and grin against her skin.

“You saw them four days ago,” she says.

“Too long.”

“You’re ridiculous.”

“Yeah.” His mouth closes over her nipple, hot and deliberate through the lace for one unbearable second before he pulls the cup down and gives her the full wet heat of his tongue. “Still true.”

Her head tips back, laughter dissolving into something thinner, needier, as he works his mouth over her like he has nowhere else to be and nothing else on earth worth doing. 

That’s the problem with Garrett, she thinks distantly, somewhere between the drag of his tongue and the press of his thigh between hers. He doesn’t touch her like a man filling time. He touches her like he’s decided learning her is worth the focus.

It’s not fair. It’s not casual-friendly behaviour. She does her best to ignore that by getting his sweatpants down.

Garrett makes a sound against her skin when her hand wraps around him, the kind of sharp, half-swallowed groan that feels like a little private victory. He drops his forehead to her chest for a second, breath hot and uneven. “Fuck.”

She smiles into his hair. “Good?”

He lifts his head, eyes darker now. “You fishing?”

“Maybe.”

He huffs. “Absolutely shameless.”

“You started it.”

“I brought you food.”

She hums. “And now I’m thanking you.”

His laugh breaks rough at the edges, and then his mouth is on hers again, both of them moving faster now, worse at coordination than either of them would admit. Her jeans come off badly. One sock gets lost. Garrett nearly knocks his hip into the desk, which she finds funny until he bites lightly at her neck and she forgets to have any upper ground. The condom comes from the drawer by his bed, because Garrett Graham may be many things but unprepared is not one of them.

He tears the foil open and then pauses, looking at her.

“What?” she asks, breathless.

“Just checking.”

The simple words do more to her than they should. She’s lying in his bed, half naked and flushed, hair a mess, body still carrying the warm heavy aftertaste of takeout and studying and being walked home in his jacket. She should be embarrassed by how badly she wants him. Instead there’s this strange little steadiness under the want. A trust she doesn’t feel like naming because naming things has historically made them much harder to deny.

“I’m good,” she says, softer. “Really.”

Garrett nods once, and the look on his face changes before he lowers himself over her.

The first push of him inside makes them both go quiet. It’s slower than Malone’s. Slower than the first time, too, though not less intense. His forearm braces beside her head, his other hand sliding under her thigh to hitch her leg higher around his waist, and he presses in by careful degrees while watching her face like he’s reading something he has no intention of skimming. The stretch is familiar now, but not easy enough to be thoughtless. It still makes her breath catch. Still makes her hands grab at his shoulders, nails pressing into the warm skin there while her body adjusts around him.

“That’s it,” he murmurs. “You got it.”

The praise hits. It always hits. Her body gives her away immediately, tightening around him before she can pretend otherwise.

Garrett’s eyes flicker. “Yeah?”

“Don’t.”

“Don’t what?”

“Notice things.”

His grin appears, strained at the edges because he’s still holding himself so carefully above her. “Can’t help it.”

“You could try.”

“No.”

Then he bottoms out, and she forgets the rest of the argument. For a second, they just breathe. Him above her, inside her, warm and solid and close enough that the tip of his nose brushes hers when he drops his head.

She kisses him first this time, slow and open, because she cannot stand the way he’s looking at her and also because she wants more of it, which feels like a private contradiction her body is absolutely not interested in resolving.

When he starts moving, it’s with the same dangerous patience. Deep, steady strokes that make the bed creak softly beneath them and pull little sounds from her throat she keeps trying to swallow. Garrett notices that too, and presses his mouth to the corner of hers.

“Don’t have to be that quiet here,” he says.

She lets out a breathless laugh. “Your roommates are downstairs.”

“They’ve heard worse.”

“That’s not comforting.”

“It wasn’t supposed to be.”

She laughs again, and he smiles into the kiss like making her laugh while he’s inside her is a personal achievement he intends to collect points for. Then his hips roll a little harder and the laugh thins into a moan, her nails scraping down his back before she can stop them.

“There,” he says, voice dropping. “That better?”

She nods, because words feel suddenly ambitious. Garrett slows.

Her eyes open. “Don’t be mean.”

“Words, baby.”

She groans. “Yes. There. Better.”

His smile is filthy and proud. “Good.”

“You’re so annoying.”

“Yeah,” he murmurs, dipping his mouth to her throat as his pace builds again. “You keep inviting me places.”

“I posted a library story.”

“You posted an emergency.”

“It wasn’t an emergency.”

His hand slides between them, thumb finding her clit with infuriating precision. “Feels like one.”

The next sound she makes is loud enough that he laughs against her neck, and then the whole thing gets messier. Warmer. The room narrows to the slick slide of him inside her, the pressure of his thumb, his mouth moving over her jaw, the low, rough things he says when her body starts tightening around him. 

“That’s it.” “Right there?” “Fuck, baby.” “So good.” 

Words that move through her as surely as his hands do.

She comes with his name caught somewhere between her teeth and his mouth, body pulling tight around him, one hand fisted in the sheets and the other locked around his shoulder. Garrett groans, rhythm stuttering hard as he follows her, face buried in her neck, hips pressing deep once, twice, then stilling while his whole body shudders over hers.

Afterward, neither of them moves for a while. This is, in its own way, more dangerous than the sex.

The quiet after. The weight of him careful above her. His breath hot against her throat. Her hand moving slowly at the nape of his neck before she can decide whether that’s too tender for the circumstances. Garrett kisses her neck once, then her jaw, then the corner of her mouth, each one softer than the last until she feels something in her chest shift uncomfortably under the warmth.

“Good?” he asks.

She nods. “So good.”

“Yeah?”

She closes her eyes. “Don’t fish for performance feedback when I’m half-dead.”

He laughs, low and pleased, and kisses her again.

He pulls out carefully, deals with the condom, then comes back with a water bottle from somewhere near his desk. She doesn’t want to know whether Garrett Graham had water sitting near his bed because he expected this or because he’s simply an athlete with functional hydration habits. Either answer has the potential to irritate her.

She drinks anyway. They don’t sleep immediately. That would be sensible, and neither of them has shown much interest in that.

The night stretches around them in warm, stupid little loops. Kissing. Talking for two minutes. Her accusing him of sabotaging her GPA. Him asking her another pharmacology question with his mouth on her stomach just to see how long she can answer before losing the thread. 

Her laughing so hard into his pillow that he has to kiss her quiet because, “Seriously, the walls aren’t that thick.” His hands slow over her ribs, her waist, her thighs, like there's less urgency now but no less want. The second time that night is slower. The third is not. 

Somewhere around three in the morning she tells him she has to sleep or she’s going to start hallucinating beta blockers in the ceiling fan, and Garrett says, “Hot,” with enough sleep in his voice that she only manages to swat weakly at his chest before his arm curls around her waist and drags her back against him.

When she wakes, the room is pale with winter morning. For a few seconds she doesn’t move. Her body registers the sheets first, navy and tangled around her hips. Then the soft ache between her thighs. The warm, tired looseness in her limbs. 

The faint smell of Garrett’s detergent, his deodorant, the takeout they never properly threw away, and the cold air slipping in through the cracked window. It’s not her dorm. That should bother her more than it does.

Garrett isn’t in bed.

That bothers her for maybe half a second, until she hears male voices downstairs and the clatter of something in the kitchen. A cabinet shuts. Someone laughs. Someone else says, “Dude, stop,” with a level of exhaustion that suggests a long-standing domestic issue.

Her clothes are scattered across the floor. Her jeans are too far from the bed. Her bra is missing. One sock is on the windowsill, and she decides, with the calm of a woman who’s seen enough, that the sock is on its own journey now.

Garrett’s hoodie is hanging over the desk chair. She looks at it. Then she puts it on.

This isn’t a meaningful decision. It’s cold. She’s naked. The hoodie is right there. It’s large and soft and smells like him, which isn’t relevant as evidence because she’s not collecting evidence. She pulls on her panties, her little cotton shorts from yesterday, and his hoodie, then stands in front of his mirror trying to make her hair look less like she’s spent the night doing exactly what she spent the night doing.

She fails, but in a charming enough direction to leave the room.

The kitchen goes quiet when she appears at the bottom of the stairs. The boys are all there, post-workout and annoyingly alive. Logan’s leaning against the counter with a protein shake. Tucker’s by the toaster, damp hair curling at his temples, wearing a grey shirt and the general expression of a man who has probably been awake long enough to form a moral framework. Dean’s sitting on the counter in gym shorts, holding a banana in one hand and looking far too pleased by the universe.

Garrett’s at the coffee machine, hair damp, black Nike t-shirt stretched across his shoulders. He turns as soon as he hears her, and something in his face softens before he seems to remember there are witnesses.

Logan sees this. Obviously.

His grin becomes unbearable. “Ah,” he says, dragging the sound out like a man opening a very stupid case file. “So it wasn’t the last time.”

Garrett punches him in the arm without looking.

Logan laughs. “Ow. Worth it.”

She stops near the entry to the kitchen, hands half-lost inside the sleeves of Garrett’s hoodie. “Um. Hi… everyone?”

Tucker smiles first, because Tucker’s clearly the only man in the house raised near civilisation. “Morning.”

Dean lifts his banana in greeting. “Sup.”

Garrett turns sharply. “Don’t sup her.”

Dean looks genuinely confused. “What am I supposed to say?”

“Literally anything else.”

“Good morrow?”

Logan chokes on his shake.

She bites back a laugh and steps into the kitchen because standing in the doorway makes her feel more like an exhibit. Garrett’s eyes flick down over her again, hoodie, shorts, bare legs, and the look that crosses his face is fast but not fast enough. Warm. Pleased. A little smug in a way that makes her want to shove him and also crawl back into his bed immediately, which is a deeply inconvenient duality before coffee.

“Did you want coffee?” he asks.

“No, I’m okay.”

“You sure?” He reaches into the cabinet for another mug, stepping around her as he does, and his hand lands automatically at her lower stomach to guide her half a step out of the way. It’s brief. Casual. Warm through the hoodie. The kind of tiny, practical touch that shouldn’t make the whole room feel like it has leaned forward.

Dean’s eyes drop to the hand. Logan’s eyebrows go up. Tucker becomes fascinated by toast. She looks at Garrett. Garrett, to his credit or his complete lack of shame, doesn’t move his hand quite fast enough.

“I only drink oat milk,” she says, because her mouth has decided to keep functioning while the rest of her system manages the implications. “So, um, unless you have that?”

Tucker sighs with genuine regret. “We literally finished it yesterday. Sorry.”

She shakes her head quickly. “No, no, all good. Don’t worry.”

Garrett sets the mug down and pats her hip once. “I’ll get you some for next time.”

For one second, no one moves. She looks at him. Garrett looks back, realising maybe a beat too late what he’s just said but not looking especially interested in taking it back. His expression stays easy. Too easy, maybe. The corner of his mouth shifts like he’s daring her to be the one to make it weird.

Her stomach does a small, stupid dip. “Uh,” she says, with the full intellectual force of a woman studying complex medication mechanisms at midnight.

Garrett leans in and kisses her cheek. In front of them.

A quick, warm press of his mouth to her skin, casual enough to be worse than if he had made some big show of it. Her face warms instantly. The kitchen goes silent in a way that’s now absolutely everyone’s fault.

“I’ll shower and drop you home?” Garrett says, like he has not just thrown a live grenade called next time into the middle of breakfast.

She nods. “Uh huh.”

His thumb brushes once at her hip, and then he heads upstairs.

The second his footsteps disappear, Logan points at the ceiling. “That man is cooked.”

Tucker turns from the toaster. “Let her drink coffee first before you start.”

“She won’t drink coffee,” Dean says. “Oat milk issue.”

“I can hear all of you,” she says.

Dean looks at her with sudden focus, like she’s reminded him of something important. “Actually, how much of a nurse are you?”

She blinks. “What?”

“Like…” Dean holds up his hand. His middle finger is a little swollen around the joint, red near the knuckle. “Can you look at this? I think I jarred it.”

Tucker groans. “Dude.”

“What? She’s a nurse.”

“Student nurse,” she corrects automatically, already stepping closer because professional conditioning is stronger than shame. “And I’m not diagnosing you in a hockey kitchen.”

Dean offers his hand anyway. “Unofficially diagnosing.”

“I’m looking. There’s a difference.”

She takes his hand, gently pressing around the joint while Dean watches her with the fascinated expression of a man receiving medical care he absolutely didn’t earn. “When did you do it?”

“Yesterday.”

“How?”

Dean pauses.

Logan says, “He tried to catch a grape in his mouth and missed.”

She looks up slowly.

Dean’s face doesn't change. “It was a large grape.”

“It was a normal grape,” Tucker says.

“It had weight.”

“It was a grape.”

She presses lightly along the side of the joint, and Dean winces. “Pain there?”

“Yeah.”

“Can you bend it?”

He bends it halfway, makes a face. “Kinda.”

“Probably jammed. Ice it, buddy tape it if it’s bothering you, and maybe don’t use your hand as part of a fruit-based performance sport for a couple days.”

Logan’s laugh comes out so hard he has to turn away from the counter.

Dean looks impressed. “That was medical and mean.”

“She’s good,” Tucker says, smiling as he sets a plate near her. “Toast?”

She looks at the plate. Then at Tucker. Then at the stairs where Garrett disappeared. Then at the kitchen around her, messy and warm and full of men pretending with varying degrees of success that they’re not watching her stand there in Garrett’s hoodie giving injury advice after very obviously spending the night.

It should feel awkward. It does, a little. But not in the sharp way she expected. More in the soft, ridiculous way of stepping into a room where everyone already knows the joke and is waiting to see if she does too.

She takes the toast. “Thanks.”

Logan lifts his protein shake toward her. “For the record, I support whatever this is.”

“It’s nothing,” she says immediately.

The three of them look at her.

Dean’s grin starts first. Tucker, mercifully, looks down at the toaster like it has become urgent. Logan says, “Sure.”

She glares at him, but the effect is ruined by the toast in one hand and Garrett’s sleeves slipping over her knuckles. “It is.”

“Absolutely,” Logan says. “Nothing with oat milk inventory.”

“Very casual,” Dean adds.

“Student nurse-patient confidentiality isn’t legally binding here,” she says, pointing at his finger. “I can still tell people you lost a fight with a grape.”

Dean’s mouth shuts. Tucker laughs into his coffee.

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[kooksandpearls]

garrett graham ❄︎ take it off.

pairing – garrett graham x petal!reader summary – a joke with dean’s jersey stops being funny the second garrett sees another name across her back. warnings – jealousy, public argument, possessive-ish behaviour, post-breakup/rebuilding relationship, strong language notes from me – i combined these two asks for this one!! jealous garrett is 🥵 word count – 5.1k

navigation – masterlist |

The thing about Dean Di Laurentis was that he had a very dangerous understanding of comedy. In the way a person became dangerous when they had too much confidence, too little shame, and a girlfriend who was willing to stand beside him in the entryway of the hockey house saying, “No, wait, that’s actually evil,” while laughing so hard she had to grip the bannister.

“It’s not evil,” Dean had said, holding his jersey out to her like a formal offering. 

Allie had made a sound. “Garrett’s going to throw up.”

“Garrett throws up when someone beats him at pool,” Dean said. “This is nothing.”

“It’s not nothing,” Allie said, delighted, already looking at the jersey. “This is, like, emotional terrorism with shoulder patches.”

And maybe she should have listened to that. Maybe, somewhere between Allie leaning against Dean’s side in the foyer with glitter still on her eyelids from rehearsal and Dean grinning like a man who had discovered a loophole in the laws of decency, she should have thought, carefully and with maturity, that Garrett Graham was already a little too wound up about her lately for this to land as cleanly as a joke.

Because Garrett had been laying it on thick. He had been remembering the light ice and carrying her bag without making a ceremony of it and texting her before games with stupid little things like wish me luck, baby. 

He had been walking her home with his hands in his pockets because he knew better than to reach too much, looking at her mouth like it was taking actual captain-level discipline not to kiss it, and then saying goodnight. He had been careful and funny and patient and so visibly trying not to rush her that every part of her body had begun to feel like a room with the heat turned up too high.

The boys were sick of him. Dean had said this with enormous satisfaction. Logan had threatened to start charging Garrett for every time he looked at his phone and made a face. Tucker, who rarely entered other people’s emotional disasters unless invited, had told Garrett last week, very calmly, that if he sighed one more time into his cereal, someone was going to put him outside.

So, really, if a person thought about it from the correct angle, this was community service.

Which was how she ended up at the hockey house after a game, standing in the front hallway in a black mini skirt that had made Allie go briefly silent before saying, “Oh, he’s going to die,” knee-high boots, and Dean’s jersey half tucked at her waist like she hadn’t just committed a crime against Garrett Graham’s emotional stability. 

The party was already loud enough to make the floor feel alive under her heels, music thudding from the living room, laughter spilling out of the kitchen, the whole house smelling like beer and deodorant and someone’s aggressively cheap cologne. Dean had walked in beside her with Allie tucked under his arm, far too pleased with himself, and every few steps he glanced down at the name across her back and started laughing again.

“You’re so annoying,” she’d told him, but she was laughing too, because at that point it had still felt light. Stupid. Harmless. Dean’s jersey swallowed her a little through the shoulders and sleeves, the hem loose over her skirt, soft from too many washes and carrying the faint smell of laundry detergent and house air and Dean’s cologne, which was objectively ridiculous but not intimate. 

Not to her. Not to Allie, who had watched her tuck the front in and nearly folded in half from laughter. Not to Dean, who loved Garrett like a brother and irritated him like a calling.

Then Garrett saw her. It happened from across the living room, so quickly and so completely that the joke died before she had time to put a drink in her hand.

He was near the kitchen entrance with Logan and Tucker, shower-damp curls, black Briar shirt pulled tight across his chest, a faint flush high on his cheekbones from whatever mix of adrenaline and beer and victory had been buzzing through him before she walked in. 

He was smiling at something Logan was saying, mouth open, head tilted, easy and bright and Garrett enough that her stomach had done the stupid little flip it always did lately when she saw him before he saw her. And then his eyes landed on Dean’s jersey, and the smile disappeared so fast it was almost ugly.

Anger took it’s place. A clean, immediate lock of his jaw, the bottle in his hand lowering an inch, his eyes going dark in a way that made the noise around her seem to lift and thin.

He looked at the sleeves, the half-tucked hem, the name she knew was stretched across her back, and something moved through his face that made her spine straighten before she had decided whether she was in trouble or just watching him become a problem.

“Oh,” Allie said softly beside her, laughter gone. “Shit.”

Dean, because Dean had been dropped as a baby directly into a vat of bad instincts, grinned wider. “Oh, this is beautiful.”

“It’s not,” Allie muttered, eyes tracking Garrett as he set his beer down on the nearest table without looking. “Dean.”

“What?” Dean said, still smiling, though even he had begun to notice the lack of comedy in Garrett’s expression. “It’s funny.”

Garrett crossed the room like nobody else existed. People moved without really understanding they were moving, bodies shifting around the direct line of him, conversation breaking in tiny startled pieces as he came through.

He didn’t shove anyone, didn’t need to. Garrett had that athlete thing where his body made decisions faster than the room could argue with them, all broad shoulders and purpose and the low, dangerous quiet of a man who hadn't come over to be charming.

He stopped in front of her, close enough that she caught the clean, warm smell of him under the party air. His eyes flicked once to Dean beside her and then back to the jersey, and when he spoke, his voice was low enough that it should not have cut through the music the way it did. “Take it off.”

Her eyebrows lifted before her brain fully caught up. “Uh. Hi to you too?”

Garrett didn’t smile. That was the first real warning. Garrett could usually find a smile even when he was pissed, could wrap the sharp thing in something bright enough to make everyone else think the blade wasn’t there. But now his mouth was flat, his eyes fixed on the jersey like if he stared hard enough it might remove itself out of fear. “Take that shit off.”

The back of her neck warmed, like every person within ten feet had suddenly been handed a flashlight and directed toward her skin. “Garrett.”

“I’m not kidding.” His jaw shifted, tight enough that the muscle jumped near his cheek. “Take it off. Now.”

Something in her, the proud little reflexive thing that always reached for a weapon when embarrassment got too close, snapped its head up. “Well, I can’t exactly stand here in my bra, so.”

Dean made the mistake of laughing. A surprised little breath of amusement, barely anything, but Garrett’s eyes cut to him with such force that Dean’s grin stalled halfway across his face.

“Bro,” Dean started, holding up one hand, still playing it loose because Dean would flirt with danger until danger punched him in the throat. “Come on. It’s obviously–”

“I will punch you in the mouth if you keep talking,” Garrett said, so evenly that the threat landed worse than if he’d yelled it. “Shut the fuck up.”

Dean blinked. Allie’s hand tightened around his wrist, her expression going sharp in a way that suggested she was deciding whether to remove her boyfriend from the blast radius or let natural consequences finish raising him.

Logan, over Garrett’s shoulder, had stopped mid-sip near the kitchen doorway, eyes wide with the kind of interest usually reserved for sudden injuries. Tucker stood beside him, quieter, watching Garrett’s face instead of the jersey.

Her stomach had started doing something unpleasant. The joke, the stupid harmless little spark Dean had struck and she had fed because it was easier than admitting Garrett had been making her feel too much lately, was suddenly a live wire in her hands.

“It’s Dean’s,” she said, lower now, trying to drag the whole thing back down into sense. “It’s not some random guy’s jersey. He’s literally standing here with Allie. It’s not that deep.”

Garrett’s eyes came back to her, and there was something worse under the anger now, more exposed. Like the jersey had caught on a place he had been trying to keep covered. “Don’t do that.”

“Do what?”

“Act like I’m crazy for having a reaction when you walked into my house wearing another guy’s name across your back.”

The words hit harder than they should have because he said my house and another guy’s name like both things mattered in a way she hadn’t given either of them permission to matter. Her fingers curled once at her side, nails brushing her palm. “You’re acting like I came in wearing an ex’s shirt.”

“You came in wearing Dean’s jersey to piss me off.”

She opened her mouth, then closed it, because the worst thing was that Garrett wasn’t wrong. She had done it to get a reaction. She had wanted him to look. She had wanted, maybe, to make him feel one sharp little fraction of the twist she used to feel every time a girl leaned too close to him in public and he acted like the whole thing didn’t matter.

But she hadn’t expected this. She had expected Garrett’s annoyed grin. A muttered really? Maybe a tug at the jersey, a low comment near her ear, Dean cackling in the background until Allie elbowed him. She hadn’t expected Garrett to look at her like she had placed something bruised between them and pressed down.

“It was a joke,” she said, and this time her voice didn’t have as much bite in it.

“Yeah?” Garrett’s laugh was short and humourless, barely making it out of his chest. “Funny.”

Dean shifted beside them, and Garrett’s head turned a fraction, eyes warning. Dean, to his credit or survival, shut his mouth. It lasted exactly three seconds.

“Okay, not to make this worse,” Dean said, which meant he was absolutely about to make it worse, “but technically she does look great in it, so–”

Garrett moved so fast she barely registered it before his shoulder had turned toward Dean and Allie was between them with both hands up, saying, “Nope. Absolutely not. Nobody is getting punched over cotton-poly blend, thank you.”

Dean stepped back, finally smart enough to look like he understood that Garrett wasn’t playing the role he had written for him. “I’m joking, man.”

“I’m not,” Garrett said.

The living room around them had gone quieter in patches. She could feel attention glancing off them from every side. Her skin prickled under the jersey. All at once, she was horribly aware of her skirt riding high on her thighs, of the boots, of Dean’s name on her back, of Garrett’s eyes and everyone else’s curiosity and the old, sickly-familiar feeling of being seen in the wrong way.

That seemed to be what reached Garrett through the jealousy. His gaze moved over her face, catching on whatever her expression had done before she could hide it, and something in him tightened differently.

“Come upstairs,” he said.

Her chin lifted. “Excuse me?”

His hand twitched at his side like he wanted to reach for her and knew better. “Please.”

The please did something irritating to her ribs. Softened one edge when she had been very prepared to keep both hands around her pride. Garrett looked furious still, but he was holding it with visible effort now, forcing himself back from the part of him that wanted to drag her out of Dean’s jersey by sheer will and probably bad language. 

His voice dropped lower. “I have one of mine upstairs. You can change. I won’t– I don’t care. Just–” His eyes flicked down, then up again, jaw working. “Please don’t stand down here in that.”

The anger in her didn’t vanish, it reorganised. Became something more complicated and warmer at the edges, which was deeply inconvenient because she had been doing so well with offended. “You could have led with that.”

Garrett stared at her for half a second like he was seconds away from saying something stupid and knew it. “Yeah,” he said finally. “I know.”

Tucker’s voice came from behind him, calm and mild as a seatbelt clicking into place. “G.”

Garrett didn’t look back, but some of the tension in his shoulders shifted at Tucker’s tone.

She looked at Allie, who was still holding Dean by the wrist like he was a badly trained dog near traffic. Allie gave her a tiny apologetic grimace that said, with devastating clarity, we may have overcooked this.

Dean mouthed, sorry, which was frankly so rare and unsettling that she almost forgave him on principle.

“Fine,” she said, because the room felt too hot and the jersey had started to feel less like a joke and more like evidence she didn’t want to keep wearing. “I’ll change.”

Garrett’s face didn’t relax, but the relief moved through him anyway, quick and badly hidden. He stepped aside enough to let her pass without touching her, then followed her toward the stairs so closely she could feel him at her back without his hand ever landing there. That was Garrett lately. All this heat and restraint. All this wanting with its hands clasped behind its back.

Behind them, Logan whispered, much too loudly, “So we’re not chirping him right now, right?”

Tucker said, “Read the room.”

Dean said, “I did read it. It said homicide.”

Garrett stopped on the first stair and looked back. “Dean.”

Dean pressed his mouth shut with two fingers and nodded solemnly. Allie smacked his arm anyway.

The stairs creaked under them as they went up, the noise from the party getting duller with each step, bass turning into a thud through the walls, laughter blurring into the old wood and plaster. She kept one hand near the hem of the jersey because the skirt really was incredibly short and because she suddenly needed something to do that wasn’t think about Garrett behind her, angry and jealous and careful enough not to touch.

His room was exactly as it had been the last time she had seen it, which was unfair. Bed half-made in the way men considered close enough. Textbooks stacked on the desk beside a roll of hockey tape and an empty water bottle. A hoodie dropped over the chair. The faint smell of detergent, clean sheets, and Garrett living in a space. It hit her with such force that she paused just inside the doorway, breath catching in a small stupid place she hoped he didn’t notice.

He moved past her without comment and opened his closet, shoulders still tight under his black shirt. For a few seconds he shifted hangers with more force than necessary, then pulled out a Briar jersey with Graham across the back and held it out to her. His name looked different in his hands. Familiar in a way that made her stomach dip.

“Here,” he said.

She took it, fingers brushing the fabric. “Thanks.”

Garrett nodded once, then turned his back immediately, facing the desk with his hands braced low on his hips like he needed somewhere to put them or they might do something unwise.

She looked at the line of his shoulders. Still stiff. Still pissed. Still giving her privacy even though his jaw looked like it had been carved out of annoyance.

A laugh almost slipped out of her, but it snagged on something softer before it made it. “Garrett.”

“What?”

“You’ve seen me naked before.”

His head tipped slightly, but he didn’t turn around. For a second, the party noise filled the space where his answer should have been, muffled bass under the floorboards, someone downstairs yelling Logan’s name like either Logan had done something amazing or unforgivable.

“Yeah,” Garrett said finally, voice lower. “But only when you want me to.”

The music kept thudding. Someone laughed in the hallway. A door opened somewhere and slammed shut again. But inside her body, something small and protected went very still. The kind of stillness that came before a feeling had a name, before it decided whether it wanted to be relief or ache or some awful third thing that made her fingertips tingle around the fabric of his jersey.

She swallowed, looking down before he could somehow see her face through the back of his own head. “Right.”

Garrett’s shoulders moved once with a breath. He didn’t turn.

So she changed. Pulled Dean’s jersey over her head carefully, the fabric sliding up her ribs, cool air hitting her stomach and the bare line above her skirt. For one strange second she stood there in her bra and mini skirt and boots in Garrett’s bedroom, holding his jersey in both hands, and the whole situation felt so absurdly teenage and stupid and emotionally lethal that she almost laughed again. Instead, she tugged his jersey on.

It fell differently. Longer, for one thing. Softer in a way she had no right to notice. It smelled like clean laundry and the closet and a faint trace of Garrett, enough that her body recognised it before she did, a warm little pull low in her stomach. She tucked the front loosely into her skirt the same way she’d done with Dean’s, then looked down at herself and felt something settle despite her best efforts.

“Okay,” she said. “All good.”

Garrett turned. Whatever he’d been prepared to say didn’t survive the sight of her. She watched it fail in real time, his eyes dropping from her face to the jersey, to the hem tucked into the tiny black skirt, to her bare thighs above the boots, then back up again with an effort so visible it made heat climb her neck.

He exhaled through his nose. “Jesus.”

She folded her arms, mostly because if she didn’t, she might do something with her hands that would embarrass them both. “Better?”

Garrett’s eyes snapped to hers, and there was still anger there, yes, but it had been dragged through something darker and more helpless on the way up. “Don’t.”

Her brows lifted. “I’m asking.”

“I know what you’re doing.”

“I’m standing here in your jersey because you almost murdered your best friend over the other one.”

Garrett raised a shoulder. “He deserved it.”

“He’s dating Allie.”

“Congratulations to him.”

“It was a joke.”

Garrett’s mouth tightened again, but this time the anger didn’t flare as sharp. It came out tired around the edges. “I know it was a joke to you.”

She stared at him for a second, then looked away because his room was too small for that kind of honesty. Her gaze caught on the desk, the tape, the textbooks, a pen lying uncapped near the edge like Garrett had abandoned it mid-thought. “Garrett.”

“No, I get it,” he said, though his voice made it very clear he didn’t enjoy getting it. “You and Dean wanted to fuck with me. Fine. Great. Everyone’s hilarious.”

She bit the inside of her cheek. “We didn’t think you’d actually be upset.”

He laughed once, without humour. “Yeah, well. I was.”

“I noticed.”

His eyes flashed. “Did you?”

Her head turned back to him. “Don’t talk to me like that.”

Garrett stopped. The anger in his face faltered, and for a second he looked at her like he’d forgotten where the line was and hated himself a little for stepping on it. He dragged one hand through his curls, rough enough to make them worse. “Sorry.”

The apology came fast, real enough that her shoulders loosened by a fraction.

He dropped his hand, looking at her with all that jaw-clenched frustration and something underneath it that made her want to be gentler than she felt. “I know you’re not my girlfriend right now.”

Her throat moved.

Garrett’s gaze flicked down briefly, then back to her face. “I know that. I know I don’t get to tell you what to wear or who to talk to or whose jersey you put on. I know all of that, okay? I’m trying really hard not to fuck this up by acting like I have a claim I haven’t earned back yet.”

The back of her eyes warmed so quickly she had to blink. Once. Hard.

“But you walked in downstairs with his name on you,” Garrett said, quieter now, and the heat in his voice shifted into something rougher. “And I know it’s Dean. I know he’s with Allie. I know he’s a fucking idiot who thinks ruining my night is foreplay for his own relationship. But for about two seconds, all I saw was you looking like that in someone else’s jersey, and I–” He stopped, jaw working around the rest like it was too ugly to hand over cleanly. “I fucking hated it.”

She looked down at the jersey, at Garrett’s name across her, at the place her fingers had started worrying the hem without permission. Her stomach had gone tight, with recognition, maybe. With the awful tenderness of watching someone tell the truth before he could make it charming.

“I’m sorry,” she said, and it came out smaller than she meant it to.

Garrett’s face softened immediately, which was almost unbearable considering he was still pissed off. “I’m not trying to make you feel bad.”

“You kind of were downstairs.”

He grimaced. “Yeah. I know.”

“You came over and started ordering me to take it off like I’d walked in wearing enemy colours.”

“You did.”

“Dean plays for the same team.”

“Not right now.”

The laugh gets out before she could stop it. Small and stupid and a little wet at the edges. Garrett’s mouth twitched too.

He leaned back against the edge of the desk, folding his arms like he needed the extra barrier. His eyes went to the jersey again, and this time the look did something slow and unmistakable to the air between them. “You look better in mine.”

Her skin warmed under the fabric. “Yeah?”

Garrett’s eyes lifted to hers, dark and steady. “Yeah.”

She took one step closer before she’d fully decided to move. Then another, because Garrett didn’t move away. His gaze stayed on her face now, but she could feel every place he wasn’t looking like a touch. 

The boots, the skirt, his name across her chest. The room seemed too warm suddenly, or maybe it was just her, standing there in his jersey after weeks of careful coffee and cheek kisses and all the almosts they kept stepping around like cracks in the pavement.

“I like this one better anyway,” she said.

Garrett’s expression changed. Something quieter, more dangerous because it didn’t try to hide behind smugness. “Don’t say stuff like that if you don’t mean it.”

“I do mean it.”

His arms unfolded slowly. She watched his hand lift, giving her enough time to step back if she wanted to. She didn’t. His fingers came to her jaw, warm and careful, thumb resting near her cheek like he was relearning the permission there. 

The contact made her breath go shallow. Ridiculous, really, considering they had done so much more than this once. But that was before. Before the coffee shop fights and the public invisibility and the break-up and Drunk Shakespeare and light ice and all of this careful, aching reconstruction.

Now, Garrett’s thumb on her cheek felt like something with weight.

His eyes moved over her face, searching the way they’d started to do lately, as if he was trying to read every small shift before he made a mistake. He still looked wound up. She could feel it in the way his fingers held still instead of stroking, in the tightness around his mouth, in the way his gaze kept dipping to her lips and dragging itself back up.

“Please don’t do that again,” he said, and the words were low, almost a request with the bruise left in.

She nodded once. “I won’t.”

Garrett’s thumb moved then, one slow pass along her cheekbone. “I mean it.”

“I know.” She let her hand come up, fingers wrapping lightly around his wrist. “I didn’t realise it would piss you off like that.”

“It wasn’t just pissed.”

She knew that. She could feel the shape of it now. The jealousy, yes, hot and immediate and almost flattering in the stupidest way, but under that something else. Garrett had been spending weeks trying not to overstep, trying not to touch what he had not been given back, trying to earn every small piece of her trust with coffee orders and public boundaries and not kissing her even when his whole face said he wanted to. And she had walked into a party wearing someone else’s claim as a joke.

Her chest tightened. “I’m sorry,” she said again.

Garrett looked at her mouth. Neither of them moved for a second, then both of them did, barely. A tilt. A shift closer. His hand firmed at her jaw, and her fingers tightened around his wrist as her chin lifted. The space between them thinned into something hot and quiet and overdue, the party downstairs dropping away until all she could hear was the muffled bass through the floor and the unsteady little breath Garrett took through his nose.

His lips were so close she could feel the warmth of him.

The door burst open.

“Oh shit,” Logan laughed.

She jerked back so fast her shoulder hit the closet door. Garrett’s hand dropped from her face like it had been burned, his head snapping toward the doorway with murder already written across his features.

Logan stood frozen just inside the room, eyes wide, one hand still on the knob. Dean was half behind him, peering over his shoulder with the doomed fascination of a man who had never once survived his own curiosity.

For one silent, horrific second, nobody moved. Then Dean’s gaze dropped to the jersey she was wearing. Garrett’s jersey. The grin that began spreading across his face was so slow and so pleased and so full of future consequences that she wanted to throw a shoe at him.

“Oh,” Dean said softly. “Okay. So the plan worked.”

Garrett took one step toward them. “I’m going to kill you.”

Logan backed up immediately, both hands raised. “I didn’t know! He said you had beer in here.”

Dean looked offended. “You followed me.”

“You said beer.”

“I said maybe beer.”

“Both of you,” Garrett said, voice flat with the kind of calm that suggested violence had moved from impulse to schedule. “Out.”

Dean leaned slightly around Logan, because apparently the threat of death only improved his posture. “For the record, G, I do think this is a healthier colour palette on her.”

Garrett moved again. Dean yelped and disappeared into the hallway so fast he almost took Logan with him. 

Logan stumbled back, laughing now because Logan had a brain injury in spirit if not in current medical fact, and shouted, “Sorry! Sorry. Great jersey. Very normal situation,” before Garrett slammed the door in their faces.

The second it shut, the room went quiet again. She stood near the closet with her heart still somewhere in her throat, one hand pressed to her hair even though nothing had happened to it, and Garrett stayed facing the door for a second with both hands on his hips, breathing like he was reminding himself that prison would interfere with playoffs.

“I’m seriously gonna kill them,” he said.

She tried not to laugh. Failed a little. “Please don’t. Tucker would have to do paperwork.”

Garrett turned his head slowly, eyes narrowing at the sound in her voice. “You think this is funny?”

“No.” She pressed her lips together. “A little.”

He stared at her. Then the corner of his mouth twitched despite himself, annoyed and helpless and so Garrett that it made her chest ache. “You’re all awful.”

“Me?”

“You started this.”

“Dean started this.”

Garrett’s brows lifted. “You wore it.”

“Under peer pressure.”

“From Dean?”

“He’s very persuasive.”

“He’s an idiot.”

“He’s Allie’s idiot now,” she said, which made Garrett exhale something almost like a laugh, his head tipping back for half a second as if asking the ceiling for patience and being denied.

The heat between them hadn’t disappeared, it had just been shoved sideways by Logan’s face and Dean’s mouth and the knowledge that the entire downstairs would know, within ninety seconds, that she had gone upstairs in Dean’s jersey and would be coming down in Garrett’s. 

She looked down, smoothing the front of the jersey with both hands. “I should go back downstairs.”

Garrett’s attention came back to her immediately. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.” She swallowed, then looked up. “Before they make it weirder.”

“They’re going to make it weird no matter what.”

“True.”

Neither of them moved.

Garrett looked at her, and the almost-kiss sat between them with its hands folded, patient and unfinished. His eyes dipped once to her mouth again, but he didn’t step closer. Didn’t try to grab the moment back from where Logan and Dean had kicked it across the floor. 

He only ran a hand through his hair and let out a low breath, half frustrated, half amused, all of it so careful it made her feel tender in places she hadn’t agreed to soften. “You okay?” he asked.

She nodded. “Yeah.”

“With…” His eyes flicked to the jersey. “This?”

Her fingers pressed lightly into the fabric at her waist. Graham, tucked against her body. His name, not as a claim, not yet. But as something she had chosen after the joke stopped being funny.

“Yeah,” she said, and this time she let herself smile a little. “I’m okay with this.”

Garrett’s face changed, just slightly. “Good,” he said.

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[kooksandpearls]

garrett graham ❄︎ hydration based situationship.

pairing – garrett graham x nursing student!reader summary – the emergency department is busy enough without garrett graham showing up with fresh ice and boyfriend behaviour. warnings – fluff, nursing clinical/ED setting, hospital setting, teasing, situationship denial notes from me – this was so fun to write hahahah!! thank u for the request, anon!! <3 also not rlly proof read properly – sorry babes! word count – 1k

navigation – masterlist |

The ED nurses figure her out by day three, which feels deeply unfair, because she’s spent three days trying to be professional, helpful, and invisible enough not to get eaten alive by the pace of the department.

It isn’t that Renee and Tasha are unkind. They’re the opposite, actually, which is somehow worse for her emotional stability. 

Renee has the sharpest eyes she’s ever seen and the patience of a saint until someone touches her trauma cart, at which point she becomes the kind of woman men instinctively apologise to before they know what they’ve done. 

Tasha wears pink compression socks with little ghosts on them and can talk down an agitated drunk, prime tubing, bully a resident into rewriting an order, and explain cardiac rhythms to a student without making her feel like her skull is full of soup. They are, in every possible way, terrifyingly cool. They’re also nosy as hell.

“So,” Tasha says, two hours into the shift, while restocking gauze like this is casual and not the fifth time she has circled back to the topic since Tuesday. “The curly-haired one from the other day.”

She doesn’t look up from the chart she’s pretending to understand on the computer. “Logan?”

Renee snorts. “Baby, don’t insult me. The other curly-haired one.”

She clicks into the wrong tab and immediately has to back out. “Garrett.”

“Mhm.” Tasha’s voice goes warm with victory. “Garrett.”

“He’s not my boyfriend.”

Renee leans one hip against the counter, unimpressed in a way that makes her feel twelve years old and badly prepared for a spelling test. “Nobody asked.”

“You were about to.”

“I was about to ask if he always looks at you like that.”

Her face heats fast, crawling up from the collar of her scrub top into her cheeks in a way that makes the whole nurses station feel suddenly overlit. “He doesn’t look at me like anything.”

Tasha hums. “Oh, sweetie.”

“Don’t oh, sweetie me in an emergency department.”

Before Tasha can answer, the automatic doors sigh open near triage, and the morning rush shifts around the sound. A kid crying into his mother’s shoulder. Someone coughing behind a mask. The steady slap of sneakers on linoleum. She glances over because movement has become part of her peripheral nervous system now, and then her whole body does something stupid and bright before her brain catches up.

Garrett’s standing just past the triage desk in a Briar hoodie and athletic shorts, hair still damp at the ends from morning skate, one hand wrapped around the handle of her enormous cream Stanley tumbler like it’s evidence in a crime scene. He scans the department once, all broad shoulders and easy posture, and then spots her behind the nurses station.

His grin arrives first.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Renee says quietly.

She ignores that with every ounce of dignity she has left, which isn’t much, because Garrett’s already walking over with that loose athlete confidence like hospitals are just another place he can move through if he smiles politely enough.

“Hey,” he says, stopping on the public side of the desk. He lifts the cup a little. “You left this in my car.”

“Oh.” She looks at it, then at him, and the ridiculous rush of relief in her chest is so embarrassing she wants to smack herself with a clipboard. “That’s okay. Thank you. It’s been kinda crazy this morning, I hadn’t even noticed I didn’t have it.”

“Yeah, I figured.” His eyes move over her face, quick but not casual. Like he’s checking the placement of all her pieces. Hair coming loose near one ear, badge twisted sideways, pen mark on the inside of her wrist, the faint tightness between her brows she didn’t know was there until his gaze softens at it. “Didn’t notice until I got back in the car after skate.”

“You drove all the way back here for my water bottle?”

“It’s a big water bottle,” he says, like this is a normal defence. Then his mouth tips. “Didn’t want you getting thirsty.”

Behind her, Tasha makes a sound so small it barely counts as a sound. It still makes her want to dissolve into the floor.

She reaches for the tumbler, and Garrett’s fingers brush hers around the handle, warm and familiar and devastatingly nothing. “Thanks, Garrett.”

He doesn’t leave right away. He stands there for one second too long, chewing at his bottom lip like there’s something else sitting behind his teeth. The grin thins into something almost nervous, which is absurd on his face and somehow worse than the flirting.

“I, uh…” His eyes flick briefly past her, toward Renee and Tasha, then back. “Am I still coming over tonight?”

Her stomach dips, enough to make the noise of the department blur at the edges. “Yeah. Yeah, around eight?”

Garrett nods, the relief in him tucked down quickly but not quickly enough. “Sounds good.” His smile comes back softer this time, aimed right at her mouth before he remembers himself. “Bye, baby.”

“Bye,” she says, because her body has decided to betray every defence she’s ever built.

He leaves grinning.

The second the doors close behind him, Renee turns very slowly to look at her. Tasha already has one hand pressed to her chest like she’s just witnessed a proposal in curtain three.

She points at both of them. “Stop.”

“That’s your boyfriend,” Tasha says.

“He’s not.”

“That man brought you a forty-ounce hydration appliance before noon.”

“We just sleep together.”

Renee blinks at her. “Uh-huh.”

“I’m serious.”

“Baby,” Tasha says, far too gently. “I have been married twice and divorced once and I’m telling you right now, men do not drive across campus with a Stanley cup unless they’re in love or being held at gunpoint.”

“He had morning skate nearby.”

Renee lifts her brows. “Was the morning skate in your cupholder?”

She opens her mouth, finds absolutely nothing useful, and closes it again.

Tasha pats the counter once, deeply pleased. “Not your boyfriend. Of course.”

Renee nods, already walking away. “Real casual. Very low stakes. Hydration-based situationship.”

She looks down at the Stanley in her hands, at the little smear of Garrett’s thumbprint on the lid, and hates that she’s smiling before she can stop it.

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[watchtowerlibrary]

The first time I actually crave the slow burn 🫠 It's gonna be so delicious once the acceptance stars

[kooksandpearls]

garrett graham ❄︎ not jealous.

pairing – garrett graham x kitty!reader summary – garrett's not jealous. he's simply marking territory in the upstairs bathroom like a completely reasonable person. warnings – 18+, explicit sexual content, blowjob/oral sex, shower setting, jealousy, hickeys, possessive marking, scratching, strong language notes from me – hi hi babes!! i wrote this a while ago but have had requests for similiar vibes since reopening my requests, so here u go!! word count – 1.2k

navigation – masterlist |

The upstairs bathroom is already too hot by the time Garrett starts muttering again. Steam clouds the mirror in thick, milky patches, swallowing the reflection of them until they’re just shapes in the glass: his broad shoulders, her hands on his back, the shower curtain tugged halfway open because Garrett claims it traps too much heat and she claims he’s a dramatic bitch. 

Water runs down the hard line of his spine and over the scratches there, red and angry in little curved marks that make her stomach twist with guilt for about three seconds before the guilt gets shoved rudely aside by a very inconvenient, very pleased kind of pride.

She drags the soapy washcloth gently over his shoulder blade. Garrett hisses through his teeth. “Sorry, baby,” she says, not sounding sorry enough.

He glances back at her over his shoulder, dark curls plastered damply to his forehead, mouth tilted like he knows exactly what she’s doing. “You’re smiling.”

“I’m being caring.”

“You look like you won a trophy.”

She presses her lips together. “You should stop having such scratchable skin.”

“That’s not a thing.”

“It’s absolutely a thing.”

Garrett turns under the water, taking the washcloth from her before she can pretend to be useful any longer. His hands find her waist, thumbs slipping over wet skin, and he crowds her back against the tile with that lazy, smiling confidence that usually means trouble is either happening now or has been scheduled within the next thirty seconds. “You gonna tell that to your little project partner?”

She laughs before she can stop herself, bright and delighted enough that Garrett’s mouth immediately flattens.

“Oh my God,” she says, tilting her head back against the tile. “You’re still thinking about him?”

“I’m not thinking about him.”

“You’ve mentioned him four times since we got in here.”

“Because he’s annoying.”

She rolls her eyes. “You’ve never met him.”

“I’ve heard enough.”

“You heard Dean say he wants to ask me out.”

“Exactly.” Garrett’s hands tighten at her waist, pulling her closer as water slides between them. “Cute that he thinks he can handle you.”

She looks up at him through wet lashes and lets her mouth curve slowly, because he makes it too fucking easy. “I think he can.”

Garrett stills. “Do you?”

“Mhm.” She smooths both hands up his chest, dragging soap over the firm muscle there, enjoying the way his jaw ticks even as he pretends not to care. “He’s tall. Kind of broad. Seems sweet, actually. And he wants to date me properly, so that’s new.”

His face changes so fast it’s almost worth the risk to her life. One second he’s smug and damp and pretending to be above it, and the next his eyes go darker, his hand sliding around the back of her neck while the other clamps at her hip and tugs her flush against him.

“Not funny,” he says.

She blinks at him, all innocence, even though her heart has started doing something stupid under her ribs. “I’m not laughing.”

“You were giggling.”

She gestures loosely. “That was before you got all caveman. You're so jealous.”

“I’m not jealous.”

“No?” She glances pointedly down at the place his hand is holding her against him like he’s afraid she might evaporate through the grout. “This is just your regular hygiene routine?”

Garrett scoffs, but it comes out thin around the edges. His eyes drop to her throat, then to the mark blooming low on his collarbone from where she got mean with her mouth ten minutes ago. He taps his finger against it once, slow and deliberate, and heat curls through her so quickly she hates him a little for it.

“I’ll repay the favour,” he says, voice lower now. “Then he’ll fuck off.”

Her grin spreads. “Oh, will he?”

Garrett doesn’t answer. He just bends, mouth finding the side of her throat with damp, open heat, and she makes a noise that’s almost a laugh until his teeth catch and turn it into something much less dignified. Her hands fly to his shoulders.

“Garrett,” she says, trying to sound stern and failing because he sucks at the skin just beneath her jaw and her knees briefly forget their involvement in standing upright. “Stop.”

He hums like he hasn’t heard her, one arm banded around her waist, holding her still while his mouth works slow and possessive against her throat. It should be annoying. It is annoying.

It’s also so hot she feels it all the way down her spine, this slick little pull of want that makes her fingers dig into the wet muscle of his shoulders.

When he finally pulls back, his eyes flick over the mark, satisfied and smug enough to be medically concerning. Then he licks over it once, gentle and filthy, and says, “There. Marked.”

She stares at him for half a second. Then she slides one hand down his chest. “You’re so hot when you’re jealous.”

Garrett’s mouth opens around another denial, probably something stupid and insulting to both of them, but she doesn’t give him the chance. She drops to her knees in the wet heat of the shower, palms dragging down his stomach as she goes, and Garrett’s hand shoots out to brace against the tile.

“Jesus Christ,” he mutters.

She looks up at him, water dripping from her lashes, mouth curving. “So hot.”

“I’m not– fuck.” His sentence breaks when she kisses his tip, the slick heat of her hand wrapping around him, slow and teasing at first, because Garrett Graham deserves consequences for many, many things, but especially for pretending he isn’t one wrong look away from dragging her into his bed and calling it casual. 

His head tips back, throat working, the hickey on his collarbone dark beneath the water. She takes him into her mouth and his whole body goes tight.

“Baby,” he breathes, one hand sliding into her wet hair, fingers flexing like he needs somewhere to put all that ruined control. “Holy fuck.”

The bathroom door rattles under a sharp knock.

“Hurry the fuck up, man,” Tucker calls from the hallway, voice muffled but deeply tired. “I gotta shower.”

Garrett freezes so violently she almost laughs around him. She pulls back just enough to press one wet finger to her lips, eyes bright with warning, then takes him back into her mouth.

Garrett’s face crumples. “Yeah,” he chokes out, loud enough for the door and barely human enough to pass as speech. “Uh– yeah, sorry, man. Won’t be a se– second.”

She hums.

Garrett’s hand slaps the tile. “Holy fuck, baby.”

There’s a long silence from the hallway. Then Tucker says, flatly, “I hate this house.”

She pulls off just enough to grin up at him. Garrett looks down at her, flushed and helpless and jealous and trying so hard not to make another sound that his jaw is shaking.

“Don’t,” he whispers.

She kisses the inside of his thigh. His eyes close. Garrett waits until the footsteps retreat, then looks down at her again, water running over his face, mouth parted around a breath that doesn’t quite make it all the way in.

She blinks sweetly up at him. “Still not jealous?”

His laugh comes out wrecked. “Shut up.”

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[watchtowerlibrary]

Sure, sweetheart, not jealous at all 😅

[finelinevogue]

you’ll be okay

summary - you’re the most hated girl on campus because you broke garrett graham’s heart, but no one actually knows the truth.

pairing - garrett graham x ex!girlfriend reader

word count - 3.9k

a/n - this does touch on non consensual kissing, so please beware of that before you dive in

Before

Tell him the truth. You’ve just got to tell him the truth.

You walked into the brownstone off-campus house with a pit of anxiety in your stomach and repeating those words over and over again to yourself.

It’s not your fault. Tell him the truth.

The boys - Dean, Logan and Tucker - were sat on the leather sofas, bottles of beers in hand. You gave them your best smile as you shut the door behind you.

“Hey guys.”

They all looked at each other, like there something that they were trying to psychopathically figure out before replying to you. It was Logan who broke first.

“Hey, Y/N.” Logan almost sounded guilty for answering you.

You let out a nervous smile. The anxiety in your stomach increasing tenfold.

They couldn’t possibly know, could they?

“I-is Garrett here?” You asked, looking between then and upstairs.

Dean scoffed and Tucker nudged him with his elbow, as if to tell him to shut up. “Dean.” Tucker shook his head.

“What?” He furrowed his eyebrows.

“Don’t, man.”

“This is fucking ridiculous.” Dean laughed, but it was more malicious than friendly, “You’re actually serious? You want to speak to Garrett right now?”

Dean’s question was directed at you. Your cheeks flushed and your heart began to race, trying to figure out what this awful atmosphere was about.

“Y-yeah. I just have to tell him something.”

“Yeah you fucking do.” Dean spat out, leaning back on the sofa and looking away from you entirely.

“Sorry, did I do something?” You stepped forwards.

The boys looked at each other again.

Logan was the one to nod his head to Tucker, who was the closest to you. He sighed and shook his head as he pulled out his phone to bring something up for you.

You fiddled with a loose thread on your jumper as you waited in the uncomfortable silence.

You looked towards the top of the stairs.

Just tell him the truth. It’s not your fault.

“Here.” Tucker said, drawing your attention back to him and his phone he was now holding out for you. “Just hit play.”

You looked from the phone to the guys - Dean raising his eyebrows expectantly.

You swallowed your nerves as you prepared for whatever you were about to see.

The video was posted on the Fifth Line Instagram account, with over 4,000 views and 150 comments.

The video started with a girl vlogging her way through the belly of the ice-hockey arena. You didn’t recognise her, but you quickly realised it wasn’t her that you were going to be focusing on.

“What’s going on in there? Music is loud as fuck.” She laughed, walking over to a door and flipping the camera around to peer through the glass window.

You breath hitched as you realised what had been filmed.

“Oh shit.” The girl in the video swore.

The video panned to you being walked back against a wall, being kissed aggressively. Being kissed by someone who wasn’t your boyfriend Garrett.

Your eyes welled with tears as you realised how compromising this clip looked. It only captured maybe three seconds of you being kissed and pushed back, but it was enough to have done the damage.

You looked up from the video to the guys. Logan and Tucker held the heads low, looking at you like they’d never really known you. Dean looked like he never wanted to see you again.

“It’s…”

“Let me guess… Not what it looks like?” Dean questioned.

“Yeah.” Your voice was so quiet.

It had felt like your entire world had stopped rotating. Like gravity itself wasn’t enough to hold you down any more.

You felt like you were going to be sick.

“Has Garrett seen this?” You asked, palms clammy and shaking now.

“What do you think?” Dean said.

It was at that moment the door loudly banged open, making you swivel around to spot Garrett walking in.

He froze in the doorway.

You felt the guys stand up from the couch behind you.

A tear fell from your eye as you made eye contact with him.

Just tell him the truth.

You watched as his jaw clenched and looked away from you momentarily - as if looking at you for too long was too painful.

“Garrett.” You said softly, stepping forwards to him.

Your heart cracked in two when he stepped back though.

“Please go.” He said, his voice cracking.

Any moment now you were going to collapse to the floor, you were sure of it. Your legs had started feeling like jelly and your anxiety was causing your whole body to feel alien.

You shook your head in pleading, more tears falling now.

“Ga…”

“Just go.”

“Please.” You whispered.

“We’re done, Y/N!” Garrett put firmly, “So go.”

After

It had been 4 months since you’d broken up with Garrett. 4 of the worst months of your life.

It had been summer break for a good chunk of that time, but now it was time to go back to college and you were dreading it. The pit of anxiety in your stomach had been a constant ever since that awful day.

You held onto your textbooks like were a lifeline, as you walked into the library.

You kept your head down but you could hear people whispering and laughing at you as you walked past.

You were the most hated girl on campus.

The girl who broke Garrett Graham’s heart.

You’d been called a lot worse too; whore and slut were to name but just a few.

Finding a quiet table at the back of the library, you took off your rucksack and set your textbooks down in front of you.

You briefly looked around the library and noticed a few people looking your way.

After pulling back the chair and sitting down, you tried your hardest to stuff your head in the textbook and work. Nothing was quite ingesting into your brain though, because you were so aware of the people around you looking and quietly gossiping.

You pulled the sleeve of your jumper down over your hand, so you could dig your nails into the back of it like an anchor.

As you tried to focus on the words in your textbook, your mind became focused on the surrounding chatter instead.

“I heard she’d been cheating on Garrett for weeks.”

“She’s such a slut, my God.”

“She fumbled so bad it’s embarrassing.”

“So much nerve to even show her face in public.”

Your leg started bouncing up and down underneath the table. A nervous tick that you couldn’t control.

You flinched when someone walked behind you, worried that they would do something to you.

You gasped when someone roughly pulled out the chair opposite you, causing your fists to curl inwards and your knee hit the underside of the table in surprise.

“Oh shit,” The guy laughed, “She’s actually scared.”

It felt as though your heart was beating too fast.

You were too aware of your surroundings now - the people looking, laughing and someone was even filming.

“Don’t worry sweetheart, I thought you liked the attention.” The guy snickered.

“Shut the fuck up.”

The words were said in your head, but were actually voiced by your ex boyfriend.

It sounded as though he was right behind you. But surely not.

Surely…

“Jesus, dude.” The guy who had been cruel to you rolled his eyes and wandered off. Other people started dispersing then too, keeping their eyes down as though someone was staring them down.

Was Garrett really here?

Had he really just defended you like that?

You got your answer when he came and stood next to your table, holding out your pen you seemingly had dropped on the floor.

He towered over you. Well, of course he did because you were sat down - but he also towered over you when you were stood up too.

His height only added to how small you felt in the moment.

You risked looking up at his face, instantly feeling the rush of warmth through your chest at how beautiful he still was. His soft, kind, eyes and his untamed fury of curly locks.

His eyes kept on yours, his eyes darkening slightly and jaw clenching when he no doubt noticed your pale skin and tired eyes. It was taking everything in your strength to not cry.

“You okay?” He asked, handing you your pen.

You took it without thinking about the abundance of scratches on the back of your hand.

Once you realised your mistake you covered your hand back up with the sleeve of your jumper, and turned away from him and back to your book.

“Garrett, c’mon!” Sounded like Dean calling him.

“Yeah, in a minute.”

“No, now. Coach will run our assess to the ground if we’re late.”

You didn’t need to see him visibly leave to know that he’d gone. The lack of his presence was extremely noticeable and you were once again reminded of how empty you feel without him.

“Dude, what is wrong with you? You’ve been sulking all day.” Logan asked as he plated more of Tucker’s salmon pasta into a bowl.

Garrett looked up from his phone - away from the photo album of you and him that he hadn’t told anyone he still had.

“Nothing.” Garrett said, pocketing his phone and picking up a bowl to plate himself.

“Well you’ve convinced me.” Dean snorted.

Garrett kept quiet, not knowing how to broach the subject of you without pissing of the guys.

After dinner, the guys - along with Allie and Hannah - were all playing ice-hockey video games. It was when Garrett lost for the third time in a row that the guys knew something was truly up.

It was Tucker who paused the game.

“Okay enough. Talk to us, G.” He said.

Garrett chucked the video game controller on the table in front of him and sighed heavily. He leant back on the sofa and rubbed his hands over his eyes.

“Is this about Y/N?”

“Of course it’s about Y/N.”

“Well he can speak for himself.”

“The guy can’t even…”

“Okay enough!” Garrett sat forwards after hearing his friends speak for him.

He clenched his fists in front of him, suddenly thrown back to a memory of you and him in his room.

“What if I become like him?” Garrett asked, the soft glow from his bedroom lamp coating you both in a golden hue.

You had your head laid on his chest, your fingers splayed out around his ribs as you kept each other pulled close.

“You’re not your dad, Garrett.” You told him firmly.

“My fists beg to differ.” He sarcastically joked.

You lifted your head at that, trying to ignore how insanely attractive it was that he had one arm bent behind his head. His other arm ended in a tight fist which he was studying intensely.

You cupped his hand in yours, working your fingers through his tightly closed ones.

Garrett watched on with an intensity in his eyes that you knew to be love.

Once your hand was perfectly intertwined with his, you gave him a soft squeeze. You smiled at him and Garrett felt complete.

“Anytime you make a fist, whether that’s because you’re angry or upset, just remember what it feels like to hold my hand tight, know that you’re not alone, and understand that you’ll never be your dad because you have people around you who love and support you.”

Garrett’s fist unclenched at the memory.

“I’m worried… a-about Y/N.” Garrett started.

The others stopped to actually listen.

Once Garrett realised he had the full attention of his friends - their full support - he realised that no matter what he said or how he felt, his buds would be there for him.

“Worried about her how?” Logan asked.

“I don’t know okay, I just—.” Garrett sighed. “Hannah said she’s barely attending classes.”

Hannah shifted on the sofa, tucking her knees in close to her chin. “It’s true. She only goes to her 9AMs because she knows barely anyone attends them.”

“And today in the library. She looked terrified and flinched at everything. A-and…” Garrett draws in a couple of short breaths as he tries to get out his words, “Her hands.”

“What about her hands?” Dean asked softly.

“They were all scratched. Like a nervous tick or something.”

The guys blew out deep breaths, trying to come to terms with this new information that only Garrett had been too aware to see.

“Shit.” Tucker swore, thinking back on events and realising what his friends were putting down.

“Yeah, shit.” Dean said.

Hannah shifted in her position, turning towards Garrett.

“Garrett… when she came here that night… she was crying, wasn’t she?” She asked.

“Yeah.” Garrett’s gaze remained focused on keeping his fists open.

“And she tried talking to you then?”

Garrett nodded. “But I told her to leave.”

The room went quiet. No one wanted to say what everyone else was thinking. Otherwise, all these months of hate and hurt would have been for nothing - and worse than that, directed at the wrong person.

Allie shifted into Dean’s side. “I never thought she looked guilty.”

Garrett’s gaze flicked to Allie, who was awaiting his gaze with regretful eyes.

“Fuck.” He dropped his head and clenched his fists.

You’re aggressively crossing out another unsuccessful paragraph when there’s a knock at your dorm door.

The fear inside you elevates - worried it’s another puck bunny or worse coming to scare you off campus.

You leave it and return to pen and paper.

The knock at the door disturbs you before you can write anything.

Breathing out carefully, you leave your desk chair, pulling the sleeves of your hoodie down over your hands, before making your way to the door.

Whoever this was you would politely listen to whatever horrible things they had to say and then hopefully they’d leave peacefully.

Your hand shook as you turned the knob - not expecting Garrett with his hand raised to knock on your door again.

“Garrett…” You breathed out in slight relief. He wasn’t as scary as some of the people who had been at your door, albeit you were still concerned he might still have a few choice words left in him.

He takes note of presumably how rough you look, if it’s anything to go by how rough you feel.

Your room is darkly lit and carries a slightly stale smell with how often you hole yourself up in it.

“Can we talk?” He asked.

You don’t say anything, but Garrett takes your gesture of opening the door wider for him to walk through as a yes.

He walked in slowly, assessing a room that he’s been in so many times. Practically all of it is the same - even the trinkets that you’d bought together or photos from trips together on your adventure wall.

You shut your door closed and take a brief moment to collect yourself. You can’t imagine this conversation ending well for you.

What you don’t expect when you turn around is to find Garrett standing over your abandoned desk, reading the words on the page of your journal that he was never supposed to see.

“Oh, let me just…” You rushed over and closed the journal shut tightly. “Please don’t read that.”

Garrett watched you fumble around, trying to rid his gaze of your journal.

“Was…Was that a letter to me?” He asked.

“It’s nothing.” You kept your hand flat on the top of the journal to keep is shut - the pressure of keeping it closed grounding you.

“Y/N.” Garrett softly spoke from beside you, bringing a hand up and over yours.

You watched his fingers dance over yours carefully, like he was assessing where he should carefully place himself. The familiarity of the shape of his hands made you well up, and you had to bite your lip to keep the emotions at bay.

His fingers made the hold on your journal less tense, even though he was only barely hovering.

You got dizzy at the thought of him opening your journal to find the hundreds of lettered entries, addressed to him, apologising for everything.

Your fist curled in on itself at the thought of him seeing that part of yourself.

“Hey.” He said.

He was a solid wall of muscle beside you - one that you couldn’t dare glance at for risk of completely falling apart.

His fingers moved with less care then, weaving forcefully through yours.

“Remember what it feels like to hold my hand tight. You’re not alone. I’m right here.” Garrett repeated the words you had once whispered to him.

He squeezed your hand tight.

And that’s what finally made your legs give out beneath you.

“Hey, woah. Woah, okay.” Garrett caught you before you could fall completely. “I’ve got you.”

His hands wrapped around your waist and held onto you tight.

“I’m so sorry.” You sobbed, your body caving in on itself, “I n-never wanted to hurt you. I’m s-so sorry.”

Your cries were ugly. The kind that shattered Garrett’s heart to listen to.

“No. C’mere.” He brought you over to your armchair, sitting on it with wide legs so he could place you to sit across him. “It’s okay.”

Garrett’s body was a lifeline.

If he weren’t here in this moment, you’re not sure you’d ever come back from it.

The cries echoed around the room, but you were too in your own head to even notice, and Garrett’s grey knitted sweater was becoming wet with tears and snot.

His hand was still squeezed tightly against yours.

“I’m s-so sorry.” You hiccuped out.

“No.” He repeated the word you thought you had misheard before, “No baby, don’t apologise.”

Your head titled up to him, eyes wet and cheeks flushed. You didn’t miss the sparkle in Garrett’s eyes as yours focused to his, but there was no smile.

He shook his head slightly.

“Please don’t apologise.” He spoke so quietly, as though the conversation didn’t need to be heard from across the room.

It was your turn to shake your head.

You inhaled quickly, stuttering over your own breath as you tried to hold back the next sob.

You felt Garrett’s free hand on the curve of your hip, rubbing soothing circles around and around and around.

“Y/N, look at me.” Garrett said, which made you think that whatever he had to say was important.

His gaze looked over your face, bringing your joined hands up so he could wipe a rogue tear off your cheek. You could have sworn that his gaze wandered from your eyes down to your lips, but maybe you were just projecting.

“I know it wasn’t consensual.” Garrett said. You held eye contact with him as his words sunk in. His eyes wouldn’t let you abandon his - holding you strong. “It wasn’t your fault.”

Your breath hitched, but Garrett was ahead already and reminding you to breathe.

After all these months of being so alone and so isolated, hearing someone for the first time tell you that it wasn’t your fault has you falling to pieces.

You’d completely convinced yourself that you were at fault and that you’d done something so unforgivable, yet here Garrett was telling you the complete opposite.

Garrett held you close as you fell apart against him.

So many tears shed for all the moments you’d spent alone fearing that you’d never feel whole again. Tears shed for the relationship that had once been the best thing to ever happen to you. Tears shed for one person to finally believe you - perhaps the most important person.

It was a little while later and you were laid against Garret’s body as he laid on your bed.

You laughed obnoxiously at something he’d just said.

Your eyes still felt a little red-raw from all the crying, but Garrett had held you through every sob and coached you slowly through it.

He made you feel so safe.

You looked up at his face from where your head had been laying on his chest, noticing he was smiling down at you adoringly. “What?” You asked.

“I’m just happy to see you smiling.”

“Well, thanks for making me smile.” You patted his chest.

Your phone beeped on the nightstand before Garrett got a chance to respond. You groaned as you got up off of him and sat at the edge of your bed to check your phone.

The Instagram notification was bold in front of you.

Hannah: Hey! I know Garrett said he was going to stop by and see you this evening. Here if you need anything <3 xx

“Who is it?” Garrett asked, rolling his body onto his side to be close behind you.

“Hannah.” You showed him your phone. He smiled with a nod. “She seems lovely.”

You put your phone back onto the table.

“Yeah, she is.” You nodded carefully, trying to keep the jealousy dead inside of you. You had no right to be jealous if Garrett had moved on after everything. Especially not jealous over someone as wonderful as Hannah. “She’s been good to me these last few months.”

“Mhm.” You nodded, subconsciously driving your nails into the back of your hand and moving them back and forth.

Your mind went to all the places where you wished to never go. The idea of Garrett being comforted by another girl, let alone possibly have kissed or held hands with, was soul crushing.

“But she’s not you.” Garrett’s hand cupped itself over yours to stop the scratching. “No one is.”

You turned your head to face him and noticed he’d sat up behind you now. His body so close to yours and face (lips) closer than it had been in a very long time.

“If you like her…”

“I do. As a friend.”

“But…”

“I’m trying to be all romantic here and let you know that it’s always been you, so shush.” He joked, leaning into more. His gaze kept dropping to your lips.

“It’s okay though, if you have been with someone else. I… I would understand.” You self deprecatingly smiled.

“Mm mmm.” Garrett shook his head, his nose nudging against yours he was so close. “No. It’s only ever been you.”

“Gar…”

“Y/N, this is the part where I kiss you now. Okay?”

Before, he would never have been so polite to ask you for your consent before kissing you, but now - after - it made you only fall for him so much more. Consent is sexy after-all.

“Okay.”

His hand brushed up the back of your neck and pulled your head to close the last inch between your lips and his.

The kiss was like coming home.

He was so familiar in his pillowy, soft, touch, as well as his taste.

You closed your eyes to savour the moment mentally, only hoping that this was only the start of something new.

His lips moved against yours like they knew exactly what they were doing. His kissed you with confidence, which was ridiculously hot. He tilted your head so he could gain the slightest bit more access to your lips, causing you to let out the softest of moans.

Garrett pulled back when he heard the noise, “You okay?” His lips looked pink and fucked, his eyes wild as he waited for you to answer.

“Shut up and kiss me.”

He fell back onto your bed with a laugh, bringing you down with him. “Anything for you, baby.”

[pucksandpower]

controlled burn (part one)

Dean Di Laurentis x Rozanov!Reader

Summary: you don’t tell him your last name. By the time Dean finds out, he’s too far gone to do anything but brace for impact. Falling for the ice-cold, vodka-drinking Russian freshman is one thing. Falling for Ilya Rozanov’s little sister is a death wish. Dean decides he doesn’t care

Warning: 18+ content

Read part two here

The 2000s hits blasting from the speakers are so loud they rattle the floorboards, but Dean is undeniably bored.

He leans against the doorframe of the living room, a red Solo cup dangling loosely from his fingers. The party is packed, a sweaty sea of grinding bodies, spilled beer, and bad decisions, but it’s the exact same crowd as last weekend. And the weekend before that. Dean is a guy who thrives on variety, and lately, the scenery is getting repetitive. Money is no object, and usually, neither are women. He rarely spends a night alone. But tonight? Nothing is catching his eye.

“You look miserable,” Garrett remarks, bumping Dean’s shoulder as he passes by with a fresh keg of beer.

“I’m not miserable,” Dean corrects him smoothly. “I’m uninspired.”

Logan snorts from his spot on the ratty couch. “Uninspired? You literally took twins home on Tuesday.”

“That was Tuesday, Logan. It’s Friday. I’m a growing boy. I need fresh stimulation.” Dean sighs, pushing off the doorframe. “I’m going to the kitchen to find something stronger than this watered-down piss.”

“Good luck,” Tucker calls out over the music. “I think the football team raided the liquor cabinet an hour ago.”

Dean navigates the crowded hallway with the effortless grace of a guy who owns the place. He dodges a couple making out against the thermostat and sidesteps a puddle of questionable origin. As he rounds the corner into the kitchen, the noise level shifts. It’s less thumping bass and more rowdy, escalating shouts.

A crowd is gathered around the center island. Specifically, a crowd of massive, tank-like senior football players. And right in the middle of them is you.

Dean stops dead in his tracks.

You are perched on one of the barstools, looking entirely out of place and yet completely in control. Your hair falls over your shoulders in messy waves, and you’re wearing a cropped leather jacket over a tight top that leaves exactly the right amount to the imagination. But it isn’t just the way you look — though you are undeniably, breathtakingly stunning. It’s the way you’re holding court.

“You are slowing down, big guy,” you say, your voice carrying over the chanting. It’s smooth, slightly raspy, and laced with a heavy, unmistakable Russian accent.

You push a brimming shot glass of clear liquid toward a guy Dean recognizes as Meathead Mike, a defensive lineman who weighs close to three hundred pounds.

“I’m not slowing down,” Mike grunts, looking slightly green around the gills. “I’m pacing myself.”

“Pacing,” you repeat, a smirk playing on your lips. It’s a wicked, self-assured smirk. You pick up your own shot glass. “In Moscow, pacing is for the weak. We drink, or we go home to sleep. Which one are you doing, Mishka?”

Dean is instantly fascinated.

“I’m drinking,” Mike growls, snatching the glass.

You tap your glass against his. “Na zdarovye.”

You toss the vodka back effortlessly, not even a flinch crossing your features. You set the glass down with a sharp clack against the granite. Mike follows suit, but he gags halfway down, coughing violently into his elbow. His buddies groan and slap his back.

“Alright, alright, he’s done,” one of the other linebackers laughs. “Jesus, girl. What are you made of?”

“Mostly spite,” you reply, your face deadpan, though your eyes gleam with amusement.

You glance over your shoulder at a blonde girl standing nervously by the fridge. Your roommate, Morgan, the quintessential all-American girl next door whom you dragged here because you were bored.

“Morgan,” you say, snapping your fingers lightly. “Pass the bottle. I think the offense wants a turn.”

Morgan looks terrified. “Um, I think maybe we should stop? That’s, like, a lot of vodka.”

“It is barely a warm-up,” you insist, reaching over to grab the handle of Smirnoff yourself. You look at the bottle with a mix of pity and disgust.

Dean watches you, completely captivated. He knows the type of girls who hang around Briar parties. They giggle, they flirt, they bat their eyelashes at the hockey players. You are doing none of that. You look like you could buy and sell everyone in this room, and honestly? You probably could.

Six years younger than Ilya Rozanov, the infamous, cocky Boston Bruins center, you are practically a miniature version of him. Ilya brought you to the United States the second you turned eighteen, pulling you out of Moscow and away from your emotionally abusive father and older brother. He bought you a luxury apartment just off the Briar campus, filled your bank account, and told you to get an education — mostly because, in Ilya’s words, “hockey players are dumb, and we need at least one brain in the family.” Ilya spoils you rotten and guards you like a dragon hoarding gold. But right now, nobody in this kitchen knows that.

Dean takes a step forward, sliding into the gap left by one of the retreating football players.

“I don’t think you should waste your time with the offense,” Dean says, leaning his hip against the counter right next to you. He flashes you his trademark, million-dollar smile — the one that usually has girls melting into puddles. “They drop the ball when it counts.”

You pause, the vodka bottle hovering over a glass. You turn your head slowly, raking your eyes up and down Dean’s frame. You take in his messy blond hair, his sharp jawline, the casual but expensive fit of his casual sweater.

Your expression doesn’t change. You don’t melt. You don’t even blink.

“And who are you?” You ask, your tone bordering on bored. “The waterboy?”

A few of the remaining football players snicker. Dean’s eyebrows shoot up. Okay. Not the usual reaction.

“Dean Di Laurentis,” he says, offering his hand. “I live here. Play hockey.”

You look at his hand, then back up to his face. You don’t shake it. “Congratulations on paying rent, Dean Di Laurentis. But as you can see, I am busy.”

Dean lets his hand drop, entirely unbothered. The chase is the best part, and you just handed him a massive head start.

“Busy giving the entire offensive line alcohol poisoning,” Dean notes, glancing at the bottle. “You know, that’s cheap shit. It’ll eat straight through your stomach lining.”

You snort, pouring yourself another shot anyway. “Please. I am Russian. This,” you tap the bottle of Smirnoff, “is practically flavored water.”

“A Russian,” Dean says, stepping a fraction closer. “That explains the accent. What brings you to a sweaty college basement in Massachusetts? Boston isn’t exactly Moscow.”

“Thank God for that,” you mutter under your breath. You pick up the shot glass, twirling it between your fingers. “I go to school here. First semester. Which means I am currently trying to enjoy a party, but people keep talking to me instead of drinking.”

Dean laughs, a genuine, startled sound. “You’re a freshman? Could’ve fooled me. You’re holding court like a senior.”

“Age is a number,” you say dismissively. “Maturity is knowing when a man is trying to hit on you with terrible opening lines.”

“Terrible?” Dean clutches his chest in mock offense. “Ouch. I’ll have you know my opening lines have a very high success rate.”

“Then the women here have very low standards.” You toss the shot back. Again, no chaser. No wince.

Dean shakes his head in amazement. “Okay, color me impressed. You’re completely unbothered by that.”

“I am unbothered by most things,” you reply. You slide off the barstool, landing lightly on your feet. You’re a few inches shorter than Dean, but the way you hold yourself makes you seem taller. You have this undeniable, gravitational pull.

You turn to your roommate. “Morgan. Are we having fun yet, or do you want to go?”

Morgan jumps, startled to be addressed. “Um! I’m having fun! But, uh, maybe no more shots?”

“Fine. No more shots.” You look back at Dean. “See? I am very compromising. A delight to be around.”

“I can tell,” Dean says, his eyes tracking the movement of your mouth. “But you know, you never told me your name.”

“I did not,” you agree.

Dean waits a beat. “Are you going to?”

“No.”

Dean laughs again. He loves this. He is completely, hopelessly intrigued. You are stunning, sharp-tongued, and just the right amount of a bitch. It’s a breath of fresh air. “Come on. Give me something. A fake name? A nickname?”

“You can call me when you have better vodka,” you deadpan. You step around him, your shoulder brushing lightly against his chest. The contact sends a sudden, sharp jolt of electricity straight down Dean’s spine.

“Hey, wait,” Dean says, turning to follow you as you start walking toward the living room. “At least tell me what you’re studying. Let me guess. Business? Political science?”

You don’t stop walking, but you glance back over your shoulder, a patronizing smile on your lips. “Do I look like I want to wear a pantsuit and argue in a boardroom?”

“You look like you’d win every argument,” Dean fires back effortlessly.

“Obviously. But I don’t need a degree for that.” You weave through the crowd with expert precision.

Dean keeps pace, ignoring the people calling his name. “So what is it then? Art history? Bio?”

“You ask too many questions for a hockey player,” you tell him. “Aren’t you supposed to just grunt and hit things?”

Dean grins, stepping directly into your path to force you to stop. “I can do that too, if you’re into it.”

You look up at him, your eyes narrowing slightly. It’s a purely assessing gaze, like you’re weighing his worth on a scale and finding him somewhat lacking, but not entirely useless.

“You are very confident,” you note.

“I have reason to be,” Dean says, his voice dropping a fraction of an octave, turning rougher, more intimate. “I’m a good guy to know around here. I throw the best parties. I know the best places to eat. I can get you out of that dorm and into places you actually want to be.”

“I do not live in a dorm,” you say smoothly. “And I go wherever I want to go.”

Dean’s grin widens. “An off-campus freshman. Interesting. Who’s funding that? Rich daddy?”

A shadow crosses your face so fast Dean almost misses it. The mention of your father in Moscow hits a nerve, pulling at the dark memories Ilya dragged you away from. Your jaw tightens.

“Not my father,” you say, your voice suddenly cold enough to freeze hell over. “My brother.”

Dean instantly realizes he stepped on a landmine. “Hey, I didn’t mean anything by it. Just making conversation.”

“You are making assumptions,” you correct him sharply. You take a step back, the playful banter completely evaporating from your posture. You look at Morgan, who is hovering a few feet away. “We are leaving.”

“Wait,” Dean says, reaching out instinctively. He catches your wrist, his fingers wrapping around the warm, soft skin.

You freeze. You look down at his hand on your wrist, and then slowly bring your eyes back up to meet his. The look you give him is so lethally calm it actually makes Dean’s heart skip a beat.

“Remove your hand,” you say softly.

Dean lets go immediately, holding both hands up in surrender. “My bad. I’m sorry. Seriously.”

You brush off your sleeve, even though he barely gripped you. You are Ilya’s sister through and through, you don’t take shit from anyone, especially not pretty-boy athletes who think they own the world.

“Do not touch me again,” you say.

“I won’t,” Dean promises, and he means it. He watches as you turn on your heel and stalk toward the front door, Morgan trailing anxiously behind you.

“Hey!” Dean calls out, unable to help himself. He takes a few steps after you. “Can I at least get your number? To apologize properly?”

You stop at the front door and look back at him. The coldness has receded a bit, replaced by that same haughty, amused superiority from the kitchen.

“You do not need my number, Dean Di Laurentis,” you call back over the thumping bass of the music. “You are clearly used to girls making things easy for you.”

“And you’re not going to?” Dean asks, a smirk pulling at the corner of his mouth.

You smile — a full, devastatingly gorgeous smile that hits Dean like a physical blow to the chest.

“I do not make anything easy for anyone,” you say.

With that, you open the front door and step out into the cool September night, pulling it shut behind you.

Dean stands in the hallway for a long, silent moment. The party rages on around him, people bumping into his shoulders, girls laughing in his direction, but he doesn’t notice any of it. He is staring at the closed front door, his mind completely blank except for the echo of your heavy Russian accent and the sharp, burning realization that he needs to see you again.

Garrett appears out of the crowd, clapping a hand on Dean’s shoulder. “Hey man, who was that? She completely ghosted you.”

“I don’t know,” Dean murmurs, still staring at the door. “But I’m going to find out.”

Garrett laughs. “Looked like she was about to rip your throat out.”

“Yeah,” Dean says, a slow, entirely genuine smile spreading across his face. He finally turns to look at his teammate, his eyes bright with a sudden, fierce energy. “I think I’m in love.”

***

Outside, the air is crisp, biting at your exposed skin. You pull your leather jacket tighter around yourself as you walk down the sidewalk, the rhythmic click of your boots echoing in the quiet street.

“Oh my god,” Morgan gasps, rushing to keep up with your long strides. “Are you insane? Do you know who that was?”

“Some guy named Dean,” you say dismissively, checking your phone. A text from Ilya sits on the lock screen: Are you home? Drink water. Lock door. Love you.

“Not just some guy!” Morgan insists, practically vibrating with anxiety and awe. “That’s Dean Di Laurentis! He’s, like, Briar hockey royalty. He’s gorgeous, he’s rich, and he literally never gets turned down. You just rejected the hottest guy on campus!”

“He is arrogant,” you reply, typing a quick reply to Ilya: I am fine. Going home now. Do not be annoying.

“Well, yeah, they all are!” Morgan huffs. “But he was so into you! Why did you blow him off?”

You slide your phone back into your pocket and look at Morgan. You like her — she’s sweet and harmless — but she clearly doesn’t understand how the world works. At least, not your world.

“Because, Morgan,” you say patiently, your Russian accent softening in the quiet night air. “Men like that are used to getting what they want the moment they want it. They think the world is a vending machine. You put in a little charm, and a woman falls out.”

“And you’re not a vending machine,” Morgan finishes, nodding slowly.

“Exactly.” You smile, looking ahead down the dimly lit street toward your luxury apartment building. “I am the prize. If he wants me, he is going to have to work for it. And I am going to make him work very, very hard.”

You know exactly what you’re doing. You saw the look in Dean’s eyes when you walked away. The shock, the frustration, the desperate, clawing hunger. It’s the exact reaction you wanted.

Ilya taught you a long time ago that on the ice, you never let the opponent know your next move. You make them chase you. You make them exhaust themselves trying to figure you out, and then, when they’re completely off balance, you strike.

Dean Di Laurentis thinks he’s a player. He thinks this is a game he knows how to win.

But as you walk back to your apartment, a small, triumphant smile playing on your lips, you know one thing for absolute certain.

He has absolutely no idea who he is playing with.

***

The sharp, scraping sound of steel biting into ice is the first thing that actually makes you feel like you can breathe since you landed in America.

You sit in the third row of the arena, the chill of the rink seeping through your designer sweater, and you close your eyes for just a second. The smell of the cold, the faint metallic tang of sweat and Zamboni fumes — it’s universal. It smells like Moscow. It smells like the freezing, dilapidated local rinks where you used to sit huddled in a thick coat next to your mama, her gloved hands wrapped around a paper cup of awful coffee, watching a scrawny, angry little Ilya learn how to check kids twice his size into the boards.

Hockey is in your blood just as much as it is in Ilya’s. Before your mother passed away, the rink was your sanctuary. It was the only place your father didn’t care to go, which meant it was the only place you, Ilya, and your mama were truly safe. Now, there are very few things in this world you genuinely love: Ilya, expensive clothes, fast cars … and this.

“I don’t understand what’s happening,” Morgan complains loudly over the roar of the crowd, pulling you out of your memories. She is shivering beside you, holding a foam finger she bought at the concession stand. “Why are they hitting each other so much? Isn’t the puck over there?”

“It is a forecheck,” you say, not taking your eyes off the ice. “They are establishing physical dominance to force a turnover in the defensive zone. Keep up.”

“I thought we were just here to look at hot guys,” she mutters, taking a sip of her hot chocolate.

“You are here to look at hot guys,” you correct her smoothly. “I am here because I appreciate the sport.”

And you do. But as you watch the Briar Hawks cycle the puck in the offensive zone, your eyes inevitably track back to number sixty-six. Dean Di Laurentis.

You haven’t seen him since the party last weekend. You haven’t texted him, and since you didn’t give him your number, he hasn’t texted you. But on the ice, he is impossible to ignore. For a guy who spends his weekends trying to charm freshmen out of their clothes, he is undeniably lethal on the blue line. He’s a defenseman, playing right side, and his skating is fluid, almost effortless.

“Oh, look,” Morgan gasps, pointing. “It’s Dean! He’s the guy you yelled at!”

“I did not yell at him,” you say calmly. “I simply declined his unsolicited advances. There is a difference.”

“He’s really good, isn’t he?”

You narrow your eyes as Dean receives a pass at the point. He fakes a slap shot, dragging the puck around a sliding defender, and fires a wrist shot through traffic. It clangs hard against the post and deflects out.

“He is decent,” you allow, your voice flat. “But his gap control is inconsistent, and he relies too heavily on his forehand.”

Morgan stares at you blankly. “Is that English?”

“It is hockey,” you reply, leaning back in your seat. “Which is better.”

The buzzer sounds a few minutes later, the scoreboard flashing a 4-3 victory for Briar. The crowd erupts into a deafening cheer, the student section banging on the glass. You offer a polite, golf-clap level of applause. It was a sloppy third period. Briar let up on the gas, allowing two unanswered goals in the final ten minutes. Ilya would have been screaming on the bench if his team played like that.

“Okay, they won! Can we go now?” Morgan begs, teeth chattering. “I can’t feel my toes.”

“We can go,” you agree, standing up and brushing invisible lint off your jeans. “Your toes are weak.”

You navigate the crowded concourse, weaving through the sea of Briar hockey jerseys and drunken college students. You are halfway to the main exit, your mind already jumping ahead to the heated seats in your car, when a voice cuts through the noise.

“Hey! Moscow!”

You don’t stop walking. You know exactly who it is, but you are not a dog to be called.

“Hey, wait up! Come on, I know you hear me!”

Footsteps jog up behind you, and suddenly Dean is stepping right into your path, forcing you to stop or physically walk into his chest.

You pause, looking up at him slowly.

Dean is slightly out of breath, his chest heaving under a crisp, perfectly tailored charcoal suit. His blond hair is still damp from the post-game shower, pushed back casually, and his tie is already loosened at the collar. He looks ridiculously, unfairly handsome, and the smug, triumphant grin on his face tells you he knows it.

“You know,” you say, your accent thick and unbothered, “usually, the players wait until they have left the arena to harass the fans.”

Dean laughs, dragging a hand through his damp hair. “I saw you walking out. Had to run to catch up. I didn’t peg you for a hockey fan.”

“I am full of surprises,” you reply dryly. “Now, if you will excuse me, my friend is freezing to death.”

Morgan, standing a few feet away, gives a tiny, terrified wave. Dean shoots her a dazzling smile that makes her blush furiously, before immediately turning his full attention back to you. The laser-focus in his eyes is intense. It’s the same look he had on the ice.

“So you came to watch me play,” Dean says, his voice dropping into that smooth, confident purr. “I’ve gotta say, I’m flattered. You played hard to get at the party, but you show up to my game? That’s a mixed signal, sweetheart.”

You let out a soft, patronizing laugh. “I came to watch a hockey game, Di Laurentis. You just happened to be on the ice. Do not flatter yourself.”

“Ouch,” Dean says, though his grin doesn’t waver. “You’re killing me here. But hey, we won. You can’t deny we put on a good show.”

“A good show?” You tilt your head, crossing your arms over your chest. You look him up and down, your expression perfectly deadpan. “Is that what you call that third period?”

Dean blinks, the smugness faltering for a fraction of a second. “Uh. Yeah. We got the win.”

“You got lucky,” you correct him seamlessly. “Your team played a neutral zone trap for the first two periods, which was effective against a slower offensive line. But in the third, they adjusted their breakout, and your defense collapsed. You were scrambling.”

Dean is staring at you now. The playful, flirtatious energy completely drains out of him, replaced by genuine, unadulterated shock. “Wait. You actually … you know the systems?”

“I know when a team stops moving their feet,” you say, stepping a fraction closer. You don’t even realize you’re doing it, but the hockey analysis is completely taking over. “Your forwards stopped backchecking, which left you and your partner hung out to dry on odd-man rushes. You were playing on your heels for the last ten minutes.”

Dean’s mouth opens slightly. He looks like he’s just been hit by a truck. “I … yeah. Garrett was pissed on the bench. We gave up the blue line way too easily.”

“You specifically,” you point out, tapping a finger lightly against his expensive suit jacket. “You pinched on the boards with four minutes left. It was a stupid risk. If their winger had been half a second faster, that was a breakaway, and the game goes to overtime.”

Dean swallows hard. He’s looking at you like you just sprouted a second head, but more importantly, he’s looking at you like you are the most incredible thing he has ever seen in his entire life. His eyes track the movement of your finger on his chest, then snap back up to your lips.

“You saw that,” he murmurs, his voice suddenly sounding a lot rougher.

“I have eyes,” you say dismissively. “But the real problem is your transition game. You are fast, I will give you that. But you are predictable.”

“Predictable?” Dean echoes, his competitive streak flaring up. He steps closer, closing the distance between you so that you have to crane your neck slightly to maintain eye contact. “I’m the leading scoring defenseman in the conference.”

“Because you play against college boys,” you fire back, unimpressed. “But you rely entirely on your forehand. Every time you pick up the puck behind the net, you pivot right. Every single time. You never transition to your backhand to make the breakout pass up the left wing.”

“Because my forehand is stronger,” Dean argues, a defensive edge creeping into his tone. “The pass is more accurate.”

“Because your backhand is weak,” you correct him bluntly.

Silence falls between you.

Even the dull roar of the crowd leaving the arena seems to fade into the background. Dean just stares down at you, his green eyes wide, his chest rising and falling visibly under his shirt.

He is completely silent.

For a defenseman who prides himself on his skill, being called out like that should infuriate him. It should make him defensive, angry, or at least dismissive. But you watch as a slow, dark flush creeps up his neck. You watch the way his jaw tightens, and the way his gaze drops to your mouth again, heavy and hot.

Holy shit, Dean thinks. His brain has short-circuited.

He’s spent his entire life surrounded by puck bunnies. Girls who wear his jersey, girls who tell him he played great even when he knows he played like garbage, girls who only care about the post-game parties and the status of hooking up with a Briar hockey player.

And then there is you. Standing in the middle of a crowded lobby, ripping apart his blue-line transitions and calling his backhand weak with a heavy Russian accent and an expression that says you couldn’t care less if you bruised his ego.

He has never been so incredibly turned on in his entire life. It’s actually a little terrifying. His pants suddenly feel uncomfortably tight, a heavy knot of pure lust coiling in his gut.

“My backhand is weak,” Dean repeats slowly, his voice dropping an octave, practically vibrating with tension.

“Very weak,” you confirm, completely oblivious to the internal crisis you are causing him. Or maybe you aren’t oblivious. Maybe you just don’t care. “If you ever make it to the pros, a smart forechecker will notice that in the first period and shut down the right side of the ice. You will be useless in your own zone.”

“Useless,” Dean whispers. He licks his lips, stepping even closer. The scent of his expensive cologne mixed with the faint, lingering smell of his body wash hits you. “God, you are brutal.”

“I am honest,” you reply, though your breath catches slightly as he invades your personal space. You hold your ground, refusing to back up. “Do you want me to stroke your ego and tell you that you are perfect, Di Laurentis?”

“No,” Dean says immediately, and he means it. “I want you to tell me everything else I did wrong.”

You pause, caught off guard for the first time. You expected him to get mad. You expected him to puff up his chest and rattle off his stats. You did not expect him to look at you like he wants to drag you into the nearest broom closet and let you dissect his entire life.

“You missed a wide-open pass to Graham on the power play in the second period,” you say, your voice a fraction softer, the air between you suddenly thick and electric.

“Keep going,” Dean murmurs, his eyes dark, his body angled entirely toward you.

“You … you over-commit on the penalty kill.” You feel a flush rising to your own cheeks now, furious at yourself for losing your composure. Why is he looking at you like that? “You chase the puck instead of holding the box.”

“What else?” Dean asks, his voice practically a gravelly whisper. He reaches out, and for a second you think he’s going to touch you, but he just rests his hand on the wall next to your head, leaning in. “Tell me my gap control is shit again.”

You swallow hard. Ilya warned you about American boys. He did not warn you about this.

“Your gap control is shit,” you say, forcing your voice to stay steady. You lift your chin, meeting his intense gaze head-on. “And if you do not fix it, you are going to cost your team the championship.”

Dean lets out a harsh breath, shaking his head slightly as a slow, wicked smile spreads across his face. “Jesus Christ. Who are you?”

“I am the girl who is leaving,” you say, ducking swiftly under his arm.

The spell breaks. You grab Morgan by the sleeve of her coat, practically dragging her toward the glass doors.

“Wait!” Dean spins around, his dress shoes slipping slightly on the tile. “Seriously! What’s your name? I can’t keep calling you Moscow!”

You push through the double doors, the freezing night air hitting you like a physical wall. You don’t stop, but you look over your shoulder one last time. Dean is standing inside the lobby, framed by the bright fluorescent lights, looking after you with a mixture of desperation and awe.

“Fix your backhand, Di Laurentis,” you call back, a smirk finally breaking through your icy exterior. “Maybe then you will earn my name.”

You turn away, letting the doors swing shut behind you.

“Oh my god,” Morgan gasps as you speed-walk toward the parking lot. “What just happened? What was that? Was that flirting? Because it sounded like you were insulting him, but he looked like he wanted to eat you alive.”

“It was hockey analysis,” you say firmly, though your heart is hammering against your ribs in a way that has absolutely nothing to do with the sport.

“No, that was … that was aggressive sexual tension disguised as hockey analysis,” Morgan insists, pulling her keys out of her pocket. “Y/N, I am not joking. I think you just broke Dean Di Laurentis.”

You reach your car, leaning against the cold metal door as you wait for Morgan to unlock it. You think about the look in Dean’s eyes when you called out his play. The sudden shift from arrogant playboy to entirely, intensely captivated. You didn’t expect him to care about the sport as much as the glory. You didn’t expect him to listen to you.

And you certainly didn’t expect to feel this sudden, terrifying urge to see him again.

“I did not break him,” you say softly, mostly to yourself as you pull open the passenger door. You stare out at the darkened arena one last time, the cold air biting at your cheeks.

“But I think I might.”

***

Inside the arena lobby, Dean is still standing exactly where you left him.

He feels like he’s just been hit by lightning. His heart is pounding against his ribs, his blood rushing hot and fast through his veins. He replays the last five minutes in his head on a loop. The way your eyes flashed when you criticized his transition game. The heavy, intoxicating purr of your Russian accent. The absolute, unshakeable confidence radiating off you.

Garrett walks out of the locker room hallway a minute later, dressed in his own suit, his gym bag slung over his shoulder. He spots Dean standing completely still in the middle of the empty concourse.

“Hey,” Garrett says, walking over and waving a hand in front of Dean’s face. “Earth to Dean. You good, man? You look like you just saw a ghost.”

Dean slowly turns his head to look at his captain.

“Garrett,” Dean says, his voice totally deadpan.

“Yeah?”

“I need to run drills.”

Garrett frowns, confused. “What? Now? We just played a game, dude. We’re going to Malone’s to celebrate.”

“No,” Dean says, shaking his head. He looks back at the doors you just walked through, that wicked, determined smile returning to his face. He has never wanted a challenge more in his entire life. He has never wanted a girl more in his entire life. “I need ice time. Right now.”

Garrett stares at him. “Are you sick? Are you concussed? What drills do you even need to run?”

Dean adjusts the cuffs of his suit jacket, his eyes gleaming.

“Backhand passing,” Dean says simply. “I’ve got a lot of work to do.”

***

The Briar University quad is a rare picture of New England perfection today. The sun is shining, the sky is a crisp, cloudless blue, and the temperature is hovering right around seventy degrees — an absolute miracle for early October.

Because of this, half the student body has decided that classes are optional. The sprawling green lawns are covered with students lounging on blankets, throwing Frisbees, and pretending to study.

You are one of the people pretending to study.

You sit on a plaid blanket under the shade of a large oak tree, a heavy microeconomics textbook propped open on your lap, and a pair of oversized, dark sunglasses resting on your nose. You have a highlighter in one hand, but you haven’t marked a single page in twenty minutes.

It is entirely too loud to focus, mostly because of the pickup soccer game happening fifty yards away.

Normally, you would just pack up and go back to the quiet luxury of your off-campus apartment. But there is a reason you are still sitting here, pretending to read about supply and demand curves.

Dean Di Laurentis is playing soccer.

He is running around the makeshift field with his teammates along with a guy you recognize from a party as Beau, the star quarterback of the Briar football team. They are loud, obnoxious, and taking the game far too seriously for a Thursday afternoon.

“Pass it, Di Laurentis, you puck hog!” Beau shouts, jogging backward as Dean weaves the black-and-white ball between his feet.

“It’s a ball, Beau, not a puck,” Dean fires back, his footwork surprisingly nimble for a guy who spends his life on ice skates. “And maybe I’d pass if you knew how to finish a play!”

“I throw seventy-yard bombs for a living,” Beau laughs, trying to steal the ball. “I finish plenty.”

“Yeah, but your footwork is trash,” Logan calls out from across the grass. “Stick to using your hands, golden boy.”

You watch them over the top of your textbook, hidden safely behind the dark lenses of your sunglasses. Dean is wearing a grey Briar Hockey t-shirt and athletic shorts, his blond hair sticking up in sweaty, messy spikes. He is laughing, completely in his element, shouting trash talk at his friends.

And then, he turns around to jog backward, scanning the perimeter of the quad.

His eyes sweep over the crowds of students, past the girls clustered on a nearby blanket who have been practically drooling over him for the last hour, and land squarely on the oak tree.

He stops. He actually trips over the soccer ball, stumbling forward a few steps before catching his balance.

“Hey, watch it!” Tucker yells as he steals the abandoned ball. “Head in the game, Di Laurentis!”

Dean completely ignores him. He is staring straight at you. Even from fifty yards away, you can see the exact moment the cocky, playful grin melts off his face, replaced by that sharp, predatory focus he had in the arena lobby.

You do not wave. You do not smile. You simply flip a page in your textbook, pretending you haven’t noticed him at all.

“Man, it’s hot out here, isn’t it?” You hear Dean say loudly a moment later.

“It’s seventy-two,” Garrett replies, sounding thoroughly confused.

“Scorching,” Dean insists. “Absolutely boiling.”

You glance up just in time to see Dean grab the hem of his grey t-shirt and pull it over his head in one smooth, practiced motion. He tosses the shirt onto the grass, running a hand through his damp hair, and stands there in the dappled sunlight.

He is built exactly the way a Division I athlete should be built. Broad shoulders, a sculpted chest, and a torso lined with sharp, defined abdominal muscles that disappear down into the waistband of his shorts. He looks like a centerfold for a fitness magazine, and he absolutely knows it.

The group of girls on the blanket nearby actually let out a collective gasp.

You, however, slowly raise an eyebrow behind your sunglasses. Really? “What are you doing?” Logan demands, hands on his hips. “Put your shirt back on, nobody wants to see that.”

“I’m cooling down,” Dean says easily, though he is looking directly at you. “Gotta let the skin breathe, right?”

“You’re an idiot,” Garrett mutters.

Dean ignores them. He leaves the soccer game entirely, jogging across the grass at a slow, deliberate pace. He is making sure you have plenty of time to look. You make sure your eyes are glued firmly to the page about market equilibrium.

“Hey there, Moscow,” a smooth, slightly out-of-breath voice says a minute later.

A shadow falls over your textbook. You wait three full seconds before you slowly tilt your head up. Dean is standing at the edge of your blanket, his chest rising and falling from the run, a bead of sweat tracing a path down his stomach. He has his hands planted on his hips, flashing you that million-dollar, dimpled smile.

“You are blocking my light,” you state plainly.

Dean’s smile widens. He drops down onto the grass, sitting directly across from you on the edge of your blanket, completely uninvited.

“You’re studying,” he observes, leaning back on his elbows. He stretches his long legs out, crossing them at the ankles. “Econ. Boring.”

“It is only boring if you lack the intelligence to understand it,” you reply, picking up your highlighter. “Which, I suppose, explains your opinion.”

Dean barks out a laugh, entirely unoffended. “God, I missed you. Where have you been hiding? I’ve been checking the stands at practice every day.”

“I do not hide,” you say smoothly, turning a page. “And I do not attend practices. I have a life.”

“A life that involves sitting on the quad, reading a textbook, and secretly watching me play soccer?”

“I was not watching you.”

“Right. You were just staring intently in my general direction.” Dean shifts closer, the scent of fresh air, grass, and masculine sweat washing over you. It is entirely distracting. “Did you enjoy the show, at least?”

You pause. You look up from the book, sliding your sunglasses down the bridge of your nose so you can look him directly in the eyes. You let your gaze drop down his chest, over his abs, and back up to his face.

“You took your shirt off in seventy-degree weather,” you say dryly. “It was the most obvious display of male ego I have ever witnessed.”

“Did it work, though?” Dean challenges, a teasing spark in his green eyes.

“I am not a fan of theatrics.” You push your sunglasses back up. “Put your shirt on, Di Laurentis. You look ridiculous.”

“You’re lying,” Dean murmurs. His voice drops into that low, gravelly register that he used at the arena, the one that makes the hair on the back of your arms stand up. He leans forward, closing the distance between you. “I saw the way you looked at me just now. You like the theatrics.”

Your breath hitches slightly, but before you can fire back a cutting remark, a sharp, loud ringing cuts through the tension.

Your phone, sitting on the blanket beside your leg, is vibrating. The caller ID flashes brightly in the sunlight.

You let out a soft sigh, breaking eye contact with Dean. “I have to take this.”

“Boyfriend?” Dean asks, his voice suddenly losing its playful edge. His jaw tightens, a flash of genuine territorial annoyance crossing his face.

“None of your business,” you say smoothly. You pick up the phone and swipe to answer, bringing it to your ear.

Dean doesn’t move. He sits right there, completely invading your personal space, watching you intently. He clearly expects you to get up and walk away, or lower your voice.

Instead, you lean back against the trunk of the oak tree and slip effortlessly into your native tongue.

“Hello, Ilyusha,” you say in Russian, your voice softening just a fraction, the sharp consonants and flowing vowels rolling off your tongue perfectly.

Across from you, Dean practically stops breathing.

His eyes widen, locking onto your mouth. He doesn’t understand a single syllable of what you just said, but the sound of it hits him like a physical blow. Your voice is huskier in Russian, deeper, and the cadence is incredibly intimate.

“Y/N. Little bird,” Ilya’s booming voice comes through the speaker, loud enough that you have to pull the phone away from your ear for a second. “Why did it take you three rings to answer? Are you safe? Is someone bothering you?”

You roll your eyes, though a fond smile touches the corner of your lips. “I am sitting on the grass at school, Ilya. I was reading. Nobody is bothering me.”

You glance at Dean. He is staring at you with an intensity that is bordering on feral.

“Well, except maybe one idiot,” you add, a smirk forming.

Dean shifts his weight, leaning closer. “What did you just say?” He whispers, his voice thick. “Are you talking about me?”

You ignore him.

“An idiot?” Ilya demands, his protective instincts instantly flaring. “What kind of idiot? A boy? Do I need to fly back to Massachusetts and break someone’s kneecaps? Because I have a game in Dallas tomorrow, but I can make the flight tonight.”

“Do not be dramatic,” you sigh, switching your phone to the other ear. “It is just a hockey player. He thinks he is charming.”

“A hockey player?” Ilya groans. “God, Y/N. I told you to stay away from them. They are stupid. They only want one thing. Trust me, I know. I am one.”

“I know you are,” you laugh softly. “I am handling it.”

“You better be,” Ilya grumbles. “But listen to me. You are in college. You are beautiful. You are going to have boys chasing you. I do not like it, but I cannot stop it.”

“You are remarkably self-aware today.”

“Shut up and listen,” Ilya says, though there is warmth in his voice. “I am your brother, so it is my job to threaten to kill them. But I am also realistic. If you find a boy you actually like — which is highly unlikely because your standards are terrifying — you have fun. Do you hear me? Have fun. Use protection. Make him buy you dinner.”

You feel a flush creeping up your neck. Having your older brother give you sex-positive dating advice is always a bizarre experience.

“I am hanging up now,” you tell him, embarrassed.

“Wait, wait! Let me finish,” Ilya laughs. “If he crosses a line, you break his heart. If he makes you cry, I break his legs. It is a very simple system.”

“I understand the system, Ilyusha.”

“Good. Give them hell, little bird.”

“I always do. Good luck with the game tomorrow. Love you.”

“Love you too. Call me this weekend.”

You hang up the phone, tossing it back onto the blanket. You let out a breath, centering yourself, and then you turn your attention back to Dean.

You fully expect him to have a smug comment ready. You expect him to ask who you were talking to, or tease you about the foreign language.

Instead, Dean is staring at you like a starving man looking at a feast.

His pupils are blown wide, almost entirely swallowing the green of his irises. His chest is rising and falling rapidly, and there is a dark, heavy flush high on his cheekbones. He is leaning so far forward that his face is only inches from yours.

“Di Laurentis?” You ask, frowning slightly. “Are you having a stroke?”

“What the fuck was that?” Dean asks, his voice so raw and raspy it barely sounds like him.

“It was a phone call.”

“In Russian.”

“Yes,” you say slowly, as if explaining something to a child. “I am Russian. I speak Russian to my family. This is not a new development.”

“You didn’t sound like that when you spoke English,” Dean breathes, his eyes tracking the movement of your lips. “Your voice … it dropped. It was completely different.”

“It is a different language,” you point out. “The inflection changes.”

“Do it again,” he demands softly.

You raise an eyebrow, your heart suddenly giving a hard, erratic thump against your ribs. The sheer, overwhelming wave of lust rolling off him is palpable. It is thick enough to choke on.

“Do what again?” You ask, keeping your tone carefully neutral.

“Speak it,” Dean says. He reaches out, and this time you don’t pull away when his fingers lightly brush against the side of your knee. The touch sends a jolt of pure electricity straight up your thigh. “Say something else. Anything.”

You look at him, really look at him. You see the desperate curiosity, the absolute fascination. But beneath that, you see exactly what he is thinking.

Dean doesn’t just want to hear you speak Russian. He wants to hear you speak it in his bed. He wants to hear you whisper it in his ear when the lights are out. He wants to know what you sound like when you lose that rigid, icy control.

The realization makes the breath catch in your throat. It is intoxicating. The power you hold over this guy right now is absolute, and you both know it.

You lean forward, mirroring his posture. You let your sunglasses slide down your nose slightly, locking eyes with him.

“You are completely out of your mind,” you say in Russian, your voice a soft, husky murmur.

Dean lets out a ragged exhale, his eyes slipping shut for a fraction of a second. “God. I have no idea what you just said, but say it again.”

“No,” you say, slipping back into English. You sit back against the tree, pulling your leg away from his touch. The sudden loss of contact leaves a cold spot on your skin. “The show is over.”

“Come on,” Dean groans, running a hand over his face. He genuinely looks pained. “You can’t do that to a guy and just stop. It’s cruel and unusual punishment.”

“I told you at the party,” you remind him, picking up your highlighter and turning back to your textbook. “I do not make things easy for anyone.”

“I don’t want it to be easy,” Dean says. The playfulness is completely gone from his voice. It is replaced by a quiet, fierce sincerity that makes you look up again.

He is staring at you, not with the smug arrogance of a playboy, but with the focused, unwavering determination of a D1 athlete who has his eyes on the championship.

“I don’t care how hard you make it,” Dean tells you, his voice steady. “I’m not going anywhere.”

You hold his gaze for a long moment, your pulse hammering a frantic rhythm in your ears. Ilya’s voice echoes in the back of your mind. If you find a boy you actually like … give them hell.

A slow, wicked smirk curves your lips.

“We will see, Di Laurentis,” you murmur.

“Yo, Dean!” Garrett’s voice echoes across the quad, breaking the heavy tension. “Are you playing or are you just going to sit there and bother the girl all day?”

Dean doesn’t take his eyes off you. “I’m busy!” He yells back.

“We’re down a man!” Beau shouts. “Get your ass back over here!”

Dean finally tears his gaze away, looking over his shoulder at his friends. He sighs, running a hand through his hair. “Duty calls. But this isn’t over.”

“It has not even begun,” you correct him.

Dean smiles. It’s a softer smile this time, smaller and much more dangerous. He pushes himself up off the grass, grabbing his discarded t-shirt. He doesn’t put it back on, much to the delight of the girls on the nearby blanket, but simply slings it over his shoulder.

“Have dinner with me,” Dean says, looking down at you.

It isn’t a question. It is a demand.

“I am busy tonight,” you reply without missing a beat.

“Tomorrow, then.”

“I have plans.”

“Saturday.”

“I study on Saturdays.”

“Sunday night,” Dean counters, refusing to back down. “My treat. Any restaurant in the city. You pick.”

You tap your highlighter against the page of your textbook, pretending to consider it. You are pushing him, testing the limits of his patience. Most guys would have walked away by now, their egos bruised.

Dean just stands there, waiting.

“Sunday,” you finally say, your tone conceding an inch. “But I pick the place, and you pay.”

“Deal,” Dean says instantly, looking like he just won the Stanley Cup. “I’ll pick you up at seven.”

“You do not know where I live.”

“I’ll figure it out,” Dean promises, taking a step backward toward the soccer game. “See you Sunday, Moscow.”

“Do not call me that,” you call after him.

“Then give me your real name!” He shouts back over his shoulder, jogging backward.

You smile, looking back down at your textbook. You wait until he is halfway across the quad before you answer, your voice carrying easily over the grass.

“It’s Y/N.”

Dean stops. He turns around, a massive, genuine grin breaking across his face. He points a finger at you, backing away toward his friends.

“Y/N,” Dean repeats, testing the sound of it on his tongue. He nods slowly. “Sunday, Y/N. Be ready.”

You watch him turn and jog back to the game, immediately tackling Beau to the ground in a mess of limbs and laughter.

You let out a long, shaky breath, closing your textbook. Studying is officially impossible now. You pull your knees up to your chest, resting your chin on your arms as you watch the group of boys on the grass.

Dean is laughing, shoving Logan out of the way to steal the ball. He looks carefree, happy, and entirely out of your league when it comes to emotional availability. He is exactly the kind of guy Ilya warned you about. A player. A distraction.

But as Dean suddenly looks over his shoulder, catching your eye from across the field and shooting you a quick, blazing wink, you know exactly what is happening.

You are giving him hell.

And you are enjoying every single second of it.

***

The date is, annoyingly, perfect.

You expected Dean to stumble. You picked an upscale, impossibly hard-to-book French-Asian fusion restaurant in the heart of Boston — the kind of place with a six-month waiting list that you only bypassed because Ilya knows the owner. You expected Dean to look out of place, or complain about the portion sizes, or act like the typical, uncouth college athlete he pretends to be.

Instead, he showed up at your apartment building right on time, wearing a tailored black button-down that made his shoulders look impossibly broad, and a pair of dark jeans that hugged his legs in all the right ways. He opened the car door for you. He ordered wine in flawless, unaccented French. He kept up with your sharp, biting banter effortlessly, matching you insult for insult with that constant, devastating smirk on his face.

He didn’t just survive the test. He passed it with flying colors.

“You look annoyed,” Dean observes as he steers his sleek black SUV off the highway, taking the exit back toward the Briar campus.

“I am not annoyed,” you say, looking out the passenger window at the passing streetlights.

“You’re a little annoyed,” he teases, glancing over at you. The dashboard lights cast a warm glow across his sharp jawline. “You thought I was going to embarrass myself. You thought I’d order chicken fingers and ask for ketchup.”

“I thought you would be a hockey player,” you correct him, turning your head to meet his gaze. “Instead, you were surprisingly tolerable.”

Dean laughs, a rich, genuine sound that fills the quiet interior of the car. “Tolerable. Wow. I’ll have to add that to my resume right under top scoring defenseman.”

“Do not let it go to your head.”

“Too late.” Dean reaches across the center console. He doesn’t ask. He just slides his hand over yours where it rests on your thigh, lacing his long, warm fingers through yours.

Your breath catches slightly, but you don’t pull away. His palm is rough with calluses from his hockey stick, a stark contrast to the soft leather of the car seats and the smooth fabric of your slip dress. The casual intimacy of it sends a sudden, sharp jolt of heat straight to your core.

“So,” Dean murmurs, his thumb brushing a lazy circle against your skin. “The date is over. I paid. I was charming. I didn’t embarrass you in front of the waiter.”

“Barely.”

“Where to now, Y/N?” He says your name softly, testing the weight of it. “I can take you back to your ivory tower. Or …”

He lets the sentence hang in the air, thick and heavy with implication.

You look at his hand holding yours, and then up at his profile. You can feel the electric tension radiating off him. You know exactly what he’s asking, and you know exactly what the answer is. You made up your mind somewhere between the second glass of wine and the way his eyes darkened when you laughed at one of his jokes.

“Your house is on the way,” you say, your voice perfectly steady, though your heart is suddenly hammering against your ribs. “It would be inefficient to drive all the way to my apartment.”

The SUV actually swerves a fraction of an inch as Dean’s hands tighten on the steering wheel. He exhales a harsh, shaky breath.

“My house,” he repeats, as if making sure he heard you correctly.

“Unless you are scared your roommates are awake.”

“I don’t give a fuck if my roommates are awake,” Dean says instantly. He hits the turn signal, taking a sharp left onto the residential street that leads to the off-campus hockey house. “My door has a lock.”

The drive takes less than five minutes, but it feels like an eternity. The air in the car is so thick with anticipation you can barely breathe. When Dean finally throws the SUV into park in the driveway, he doesn’t wait for you. He is out of the car in a flash, opening your door and offering you his hand.

The house is surprisingly quiet. The usual thumping bass and smell of stale beer are absent. As Dean unlocks the front door and ushers you inside, you see exactly one person.

Logan is sprawled on the ratty living room couch, a bowl of cereal balanced on his chest, watching SportsCenter on low volume.

He looks up as the door clicks shut. He sees Dean. Then he sees you.

Logan’s spoon freezes halfway to his mouth. His eyes dart between the two of you, taking in Dean’s dark, focused expression and your thoroughly unimpressed, perfectly manicured appearance.

“Di Laurentis,” Logan says slowly, lowering the spoon. “You brought a girl home.”

“Astute observation,” Dean says, not stopping as he guides you toward the stairs by the small of your back.

“No, I mean, you brought a girl home,” Logan insists, sitting up slightly. “Not a puck bunny. Not a sorority girl. You brought an actual woman who looks like she could murder you and hide the body.”

“I will not hide the body,” you tell Logan calmly over your shoulder as you start up the stairs. “I will leave it in the living room for you to clean up.”

Logan’s eyes widen. He looks at Dean with pure, unadulterated respect. “Good luck, man. You’re going to need it.”

“Shut up, Logan,” Dean snaps, though he is smiling as he pushes you gently up the final few steps and down the narrow hallway.

He opens the door at the end of the hall, pulling you inside, and kicks the door shut behind him. The heavy click of the lock sliding into place echoes in the quiet room.

Dean’s bedroom is surprisingly clean. The bed is large and freshly made, there are no clothes on the floor, and the faint scent of his expensive cedar and citrus cologne lingers in the air.

You barely have a second to take it in before Dean is right in front of you.

The playful banter is completely gone. The energy shifts so fast it gives you whiplash. He crowds you against the heavy wooden door, his hands coming up to bracket your head. He looks down at you, his green eyes completely dilated, dark and hungry.

“I’ve been wanting to do this since you yelled at me in the kitchen,” Dean whispers, his voice rough and vibrating with need.

“I did not yell at you,” you breathe.

“Shut up,” he murmurs, and then his mouth crashes down onto yours.

It is a devastating kiss. There is nothing hesitant or gentle about it. It is pure, unfiltered demand. His lips are hot, his tongue immediately parting your lips, tasting the expensive wine and sweeping inside to claim every inch of your mouth.

A sharp, electric shock rips through your body. You kiss him back just as fiercely, your hands flying up to grip the lapels of his black shirt. He lets out a low, guttural groan, sliding his arms around your waist and pulling your hips flush against his.

He is hard. Achingly, brutally hard against your stomach.

The realization sends a thrill of pure power straight to your head. Ilya taught you to never let anyone dictate the pace of the game. You pull your mouth away from his, leaving him chasing your lips with a frustrated sigh.

“My turn,” you say smoothly.

Before Dean can process what you mean, you grab the collar of his shirt and push. He stumbles backward, completely caught off guard. You advance, pushing him again until the back of his knees hit the edge of his mattress, and he falls backward onto the bed with a soft thud.

Dean looks up at you, his chest heaving, his dark hair messy from your hands. He looks completely thoroughly derailed. “What are you doing?”

“Taking control,” you tell him. You step between his spread thighs, looking down at him with a wicked, predatory smile. “You are very used to running the show, Di Laurentis. But you are playing my game now.”

Dean swallows hard. He leans back on his elbows, watching you with wide, fascinated eyes. “Okay. Show me your game, Moscow.”

You climb onto the bed, straddling his hips. He groans instantly at the friction, his hands twitching at his sides, but he doesn’t touch you. He lets you set the pace.

You reach down, your fingers deliberately slow as you start undoing the buttons of his tailored shirt. You watch his face as you work, taking in the rapid pulse at the base of his throat, the way his jaw tightens with every agonizingly slow brush of your knuckles against his bare skin.

Once the shirt is fully unbuttoned, you push it off his shoulders, letting it fall onto the sheets. You run your hands flat over his sculpted chest, feeling the heavy, frantic thud of his heart beneath his ribs.

“You are impatient,” you murmur, leaning down to press a soft, teasing kiss to the center of his chest.

“I’m dying,” Dean corrects roughly. His hands come up, gripping your hips tightly. “Y/N. Please.”

“Please what?” You ask, your voice dropping into a sultry, teasing purr. You shift your weight, grinding down against his hard length right through his jeans.

Dean’s head throws back, his hips automatically bucking up against you to chase the friction. “Fuck,” he gasps. “Take it off. All of it.”

You smile. You reach down, finding the hem of your slip dress, and pull it up over your head in one smooth motion, tossing it to the floor. You are wearing nothing but a matching set of sheer, black lace lingerie.

Dean stares at you. He actually stops breathing for three full seconds.

“Holy shit,” he whispers reverently. “You are … you are perfect.”

“I know,” you say confidently.

You lean down, capturing his lips again. The kiss is deep, wet, and incredibly hot. You move your hips in a slow, rhythmic grind that has Dean cursing into your mouth. He is letting you ride him, letting you dictate the rhythm, his large hands resting on your waist, guiding your movements but not forcing them.

You reach for the buckle of his belt, your fingers completely steady, but before you can even undo the clasp, the dynamic shifts.

Dean’s patience completely snaps.

“Okay. You’ve had your fun,” Dean growls softly against your lips.

Before you can even react, his hands tighten on your waist. He lifts you effortlessly — like you weigh absolutely nothing at all — and in one fluid, powerful motion, he flips you.

You let out a startled gasp as your back hits the mattress. Suddenly, Dean is hovering over you, his broad shoulders blocking out the overhead light. His eyes are entirely black now, the playful, indulgent boy completely gone, replaced by something dark, dominant, and terrifyingly hot.

“You think you’re the only one who likes control?” Dean murmurs, leaning down so his mouth is a breath away from your ear. “You think you can just climb on top of me, grind against me like that, and I’m just going to lay there and take it?”

“You were doing a very good job of it,” you try to say haughtily, but your voice is suddenly a little breathless.

“I was letting you win the first period,” Dean corrects, his teeth grazing the sensitive skin of your earlobe. “But the game is mine now.”

He doesn’t give you a chance to argue. His hands are everywhere. He unclasps your bra with a single, practiced flick of his fingers, tossing it aside. He takes your mouth again in a bruising, dominant kiss, swallowing your soft gasp as his warm, rough palm cups your breast. His thumb drags firmly over your nipple, and a jolt of pure pleasure shoots straight down to your core.

You arch your back, your hands tangling in his thick blond hair. The icy, untouchable Russian princess act is rapidly melting under the sheer, scorching heat of his attention.

Dean breaks the kiss, moving his mouth down your neck, pressing hot, open-mouthed kisses along your collarbone. At the same time, his hand slides down your stomach, hooking his fingers into the waistband of your lace panties and pulling them down your legs.

He steps off the bed for exactly three seconds. The sound of his zipper dragging down, his jeans hitting the floor, and the tear of a foil wrapper are deafening in the quiet room.

When he comes back over you, he is completely bare, beautiful, and completely focused. He settles between your thighs, his knees pressing your legs wider.

He reaches down, his fingers finding your slick, aching center. He strokes you once, two fingers pressing deep inside, and you let out a sharp, genuine cry.

“You’re so fucking wet for me,” Dean groans, his voice dark with triumph. He leans down, his mouth hovering over yours. “Tell me you want this.”

“I want it,” you breathe, your accent heavy. “Do not make me wait, Dean.”

He doesn’t. He grips your hips, aligning himself with your wet heat, and pushes forward.

He fills you completely in one long, agonizingly slow thrust. You gasp, your nails digging half-moons into the hard muscles of his back as he buries himself to the hilt. It’s incredibly deep, stretching you so perfectly it makes your vision swim.

Dean freezes, a low shuddering groan tearing from his throat. He rests his forehead against yours, his eyes closed, his jaw clenched tight as he fights for control.

“Fuck, Y/N,” he breathes, his body trembling over yours. “You are so tight. So incredibly tight.”

“Move,” you demand softly, your hips instinctively arching up to take him deeper.

Dean’s eyes snap open. “Yes, ma’am.”

He starts to move. He pulls back almost completely before driving his hips forward, burying himself deep inside you again. The friction is immediate and explosive.

“Oh!” You gasp, your head throwing back against the pillows.

Dean sets a brutal, relentless pace. He isn’t rushing, but he isn’t being gentle either. Every thrust is deep, hard, and perfectly angled. He hits the exact spot that makes your toes curl with every single stroke. The skin-on-skin slap of his hips meeting yours echoes loudly in the quiet room, a dirty, incredibly erotic sound.

“Is this good?” Dean asks, his voice thick, thrusting hard into you. “Is my form okay for you, Moscow?”

“Shut up,” you moan, your hands gripping his shoulders desperately.

“You had a lot of opinions about my performance on the ice,” Dean taunts darkly, dropping his head to bite lightly at your neck as he pounds into you. “Critique this.”

“Dean-”

“Say my name again,” he demands, his grip on your hips tightening. He angles his hips differently, grinding hard against your clit with his pelvis as he thrusts deep inside you.

The sensation is so sharp, so overwhelming, that your brain completely short-circuits. The English language entirely evaporates from your mind.

“Bozhe moy,” you cry out, your voice fracturing.

Dean freezes for a fraction of a second, his head snapping up. His eyes are wide, wild with sudden, explosive heat.

“What did you just say?” He breathes, thrusting back into you with sudden, renewed ferocity.

“Da,” you gasp, completely unable to stop yourself. The pleasure is mounting too fast, spiraling out of control. “Da, pozhaluysta.”

“Russian,” Dean groans, the sound completely animalistic. “Fuck, yes. Keep doing that. Talk to me in Russian.”

He speeds up, his thrusts becoming a rapid, punishing rhythm. You are completely lost in it, clinging to his broad shoulders as the world spins around you.

“Sil’neye,” you beg, your nails scratching down his back. Harder. “I don’t know what that means,” Dean rasps, his chest heaving, sweat dripping from his forehead onto your collarbone. “But I fucking love it. Tell me you’re mine. Tell me in Russian.”

“Tvoya,” you sob, the word slipping out as the tension in your core finally snaps. “Ya tvoya.”

The climax hits you like a freight train. You cry out loud, your back bowing off the mattress as wave after wave of intense, blinding pleasure rips through your body. Your inner muscles clamp down hard around his thick length, milking him perfectly.

Dean lets out a loud, raw shout. He drives into you two more times, impossibly deep, and then completely falls apart. He buries his face in the crook of your neck, his body shaking uncontrollably as he empties himself inside the condom, completely surrendering to you.

For a long time, the only sound in the room is the ragged, desperate sound of both of you fighting to catch your breath.

Dean’s heavy weight is crushing you into the mattress, but you don’t care. You feel thoroughly, beautifully wrecked.

Slowly, the haze begins to clear. Dean shifts his weight, pulling out of you with a soft, wet sound, and carefully rolls off to the side to dispose of the condom. When he comes back, he drops onto the mattress beside you, throwing one heavy arm and a leg over your body, pulling you flush against his side.

You rest your head on his bare chest, listening to his heart still hammering against his ribs.

“Wow,” Dean breathes into the quiet room.

“Yes,” you agree softly, your voice still a little raspy.

Dean presses a soft kiss to the top of your head, his fingers lazily tracing the curve of your hip. “You completely lost your mind there at the end, didn’t you?”

You feel a flush creeping up your neck. “I do not know what you are talking about.”

“Liar,” Dean laughs softly. “You lost your English entirely. It was the hottest fucking thing I have ever experienced in my entire life.”

You turn your head, resting your chin on his chest so you can look up at him. His eyes are soft now, completely completely devoid of the cocky arrogance he usually wears like armor. He just looks entirely, thoroughly captivated by you.

“You played a good game, Di Laurentis,” you tell him, your accent soft and thick in the quiet room.

Dean smiles, reaching up to tuck a damp strand of hair behind your ear. “Good enough for a second round?”

You raise an eyebrow, your old, haughty confidence returning in full force. “Do not flatter yourself. Let us see if you can handle the conditioning drills first.”

Dean throws his head back and laughs, a bright, happy sound that makes something warm and completely foreign bloom in the center of your chest. He pulls you up slightly, capturing your lips in a soft, lazy kiss that tastes like contentment and the promise of a very long night.

“Whatever you want, Moscow,” Dean murmurs against your mouth. “I’m not going anywhere.”

***

The house living room smells like stale pepperoni, cheap beer, and the distinct, aggressive musk of four college athletes who have been yelling at a television for the past two hours.

Dean is sprawled in the worn armchair, a long-necked bottle of Corona resting on his stomach. On the ratty couch, Garrett, Logan, and Tucker are packed shoulder-to-shoulder, their eyes completely glued to the sixty-inch screen mounted on the wall.

It is a Tuesday night, which means the Boston Bruins are playing the Toronto Maple Leafs, and in this house, an NHL game is basically a religious event.

On the screen, Ilya Rozanov, the Bruins’ star center and arguably the most terrifying, arrogant, and talented player in the league, intercepts a pass at center ice. With a burst of speed that defies the laws of physics for a man of his massive size, he blows past two Toronto defensemen, dekes the goalie out of his crease, and casually roofs the puck on his backhand.

The goal horn blares through the TV speakers, shaking the floorboards of the living room.

“Holy shit,” Garrett breathes, leaning forward so fast he almost knocks over his beer. “Did you see that edge work? The guy is an absolute machine.”

“It’s disgusting,” Logan agrees, shaking his head in awe. “He makes NHL defensemen look like Pee-Wee players. It’s physically embarrassing for them.”

“And there are still idiots out there who claim Shane Hollander is a better player,” Tucker snorts, reaching for a slice of cold pizza from the box on the coffee table. “Hollander is great, sure. He’s got the golden boy reputation. But Rozanov? Rozanov is a killer. He has zero conscience on the ice.”

“Hollander has better defensive metrics,” Garrett points out, ever the captain. “But yeah, offensively, Rozanov is in a league of his own. If I ever meet him, I think I’d actually ask him to sign my chest.”

Dean laughs, taking a slow sip of his beer. “You literally have a poster of him in your bedroom, Garrett. It’s creepy. You’re twenty-two years old.”

“It’s not a poster, it’s a framed print,” Garrett corrects defensively. “And it’s about respecting greatness, Di Laurentis. Try it sometime.”

Dean just grins, leaning his head back against the armchair. He feels relaxed. Better than relaxed, actually. He feels completely, terrifyingly anchored. It’s been three weeks since that first date with you, and his life has practically flipped upside down. He spends half his nights sneaking into your luxury apartment, and the other half trying to convince you to stay at his place. You are demanding, brilliant, ruthlessly critical of his defensive zone coverage, and the best thing that has ever happened to him.

He hasn’t looked at another girl since the night you called his backhand weak.

On the TV, the broadcast cuts away from the Bruins’ bench celebrating the goal.

“An unbelievable individual effort from Ilya Rozanov,” the play-by-play commentator announces over the roar of the TD Garden crowd. “His tenth goal of the season already, and we’re not even fully into November.”

“And you know who’s loving it up there?” the color commentator chimes in. “Let’s take a look up at the Bruins’ friends and family suite.”

The camera cuts from the ice to the luxury boxes high above the lower bowl. The shot zooms in on two young women sitting in the plush front-row seats, leaning over the glass barrier to look down at the ice.

Dean’s brain instantly short-circuits.

He stops breathing. The bottle of Corona slips dangerously in his grip.

It’s you.

You are right there on the sixty-inch screen, wearing a flawless black leather jacket over a form-fitting white top. Your hair is styled in perfect waves, and you are currently in the middle of an animated, laughing conversation with the woman sitting next to you.

“Whoa,” Logan says, leaning forward. “Who are they? The one on the left is gorgeous.”

“Shut up, John,” Dean croaks, his voice cracking horribly.

The broadcast graphics flash at the bottom of the screen, highlighting the two of you.

“That’s Svetlana Vetrova on the right,” the commentator explains cheerfully. “Daughter of the legendary Soviet goaltender Sergei Vetrov. She and Rozanov grew up together in Moscow.”

The camera pans slightly, focusing entirely on your face as you laugh at something Svetlana says.

“And with her is Ilya Rozanov’s younger sister,” the broadcaster continues, the words echoing through the dead silent living room like gunshots. “She just moved to Boston this fall to attend university locally. The Rozanov siblings are famously close. Ilya practically raised her, and rumor has it he is incredibly protective.”

The TV screen shows Ilya skating back to the bench. He looks up toward the suite, pointing a gloved finger directly at you. You smile, rolling your eyes affectionately, and give him a small, sarcastic golf clap.

In the house, the silence is so heavy it could shatter glass.

Garrett’s jaw is practically on the floor. He slowly, mechanically turns his head to look at Dean.

Logan and Tucker follow suit, their eyes wide with absolute, unadulterated horror.

Dean is frozen in the armchair. All the blood has rushed out of his face, leaving him pale and dizzy. His heart is hammering a frantic, terrified rhythm against his ribs.

He thinks about the way he pushed you against his bedroom door. He thinks about the sheer, insane volume of highly explicit texts he has sent to your phone in the last forty-eight hours. He thinks about the massive, bruised hickey he left just below your collarbone two days ago — a hickey that Ilya Rozanov could probably see with his naked eye from center ice.

“Dean,” Garrett whispers, his voice trembling slightly. “Is that …”

“Yes,” Dean says hollowly.

“That’s Moscow,” Tucker confirms, sounding like he’s at a funeral. “That’s your girl.”

“She didn’t tell me,” Dean gasps out, clutching the beer bottle like a lifeline. “She told me her brother paid for her apartment! She never said her brother was the most dangerous player in the National Hockey League!”

“You’re sleeping with Ilya Rozanov’s little sister,” Logan says, the reality of the situation finally crashing down on him. A slow, hysterical laugh bubbles up in his chest. “Dean. He is going to literally kill you. He is going to break your legs with his bare hands.”

“I have a poster of her brother in my room,” Garrett says, staring blankly at the wall. “I’ve been in the same room as you two while you were making out, and I have a poster of her brother on my wall.”

“What do I do?” Dean demands, panic finally settling in. He drops the beer onto the side table and runs both hands through his hair, gripping the blond strands tightly. “Do I text her? Do I ask why she didn’t tell me? Do I change my name and move to Mexico?”

“You can’t move,” Tucker says solemnly. “Rozanov has Russian mob connections. He will find you.”

“He does not have mob connections!” Dean yells, though his voice pitches up nervously. “Does he?”

“Dude, he led the league in penalty minutes for three consecutive seasons,” Logan points out, highly unhelpful. “He shattered a guy’s jaw last year just for looking at his goalie wrong. If he finds out you — Briar’s biggest, sluttiest defenseman — are hooking up with his baby sister? You’re dead. They’ll never find your body.”

Dean stares at the television screen. The broadcast has moved on, showing a replay of the goal, but Dean can’t see the puck. All he sees is his own impending doom.

He is so incredibly fucked.

***

Two hours later, you are sitting in a private booth at one of the most exclusive steakhouses in Boston.

The post-game adrenaline is still buzzing in the air. Ilya is sitting across from you, casually dressed in a dark designer sweater that stretches tight across his massive shoulders. He has a faint, purpling bruise on his jaw from a high stick in the second period, but his mood is absolutely electric.

“I told you,” Ilya says, cutting into a massive, rare ribeye steak. “Toronto defense is weak this year. They leave the middle of the ice wide open. It is insulting.”

“You showboated on the breakaway,” you point out, sipping your sparkling water. “You did not need to go to the backhand. The five-hole was open.”

“I am an entertainer, Y/N,” Ilya replies smoothly, chewing his steak. “The fans pay a lot of money to see me play. I must give them a show.”

You roll your eyes, picking at your truffle fries. You love him, but his ego takes up ninety percent of any room he walks into. Still, the dinner is nice. Sibling bonding time is rare during the NHL season, and you cherish the moments when it’s just the two of you, speaking Russian and acting entirely normal.

“Sveta looked well,” you say, changing the subject. “I hear she is thinking of taking a job with the Bruins.”

“She is good,” Ilya nods. “She asks about you. She says you are distracted lately.”

You pause, a fry halfway to your mouth. You lower it back to the plate, keeping your expression completely neutral. “I am not distracted. I am adjusting to a new country and a new curriculum. Economics is demanding.”

Ilya stops chewing. He swallows, rests his forearms on the heavy mahogany table, and pins you with a dark, intensely knowing look.

“Do not lie to me, little bird,” Ilya says softly, his heavy accent wrapping around the Russian words. “You have been living here for months. You were not distracted in September. But the last three weeks? You are checking your phone during the game. You are smiling at your screen.”

“I look at memes,” you lie smoothly.

“You do not understand American memes,” Ilya shoots back without missing a beat. “So, let us skip the part where you insult my intelligence. Who is putting that smirk on your face?”

You let out a slow sigh, leaning back against the leather booth. You knew this conversation was coming. Ilya is overprotective on a good day, and completely tyrannical when it comes to the men in your life. You intentionally haven’t told him about Dean because you wanted to enjoy the early stages without your brother accidentally ending Dean’s hockey career.

“It is nothing serious,” you say carefully, sticking to Russian so the waiter passing by won’t understand. “Just a boy from the university.”

Ilya’s eyes narrow instantly. “A boy. Does this boy play a sport?”

“That is irrelevant.”

“It is highly relevant. If he is a hockey player, I need to know immediately so I can arrange an accident on the ice.”

“Ilya.” You give him a sharp, warning look. “I am nineteen years old. I am allowed to have fun. You told me to have fun.”

“I told you to have fun with respectable men,” Ilya argues, jabbing his steak knife in your direction. “Not college athletes. They are animals. They do not know how to treat a woman.”

“He treats me very well, actually,” you fire back, defending Dean instinctively. The memory of Dean’s complete devotion — both in and out of the bedroom — flashes through your mind. “He takes me to nice places. He is polite.”

“Polite,” Ilya snorts, taking a large gulp of his red wine. “Sure. And what does this polite boy think is happening between you two? Does he know it is casual? Because men like that, they get attached. They get possessive.”

“He knows,” you say smoothly, though a tiny flicker of doubt sparks in your chest. Does Dean know it’s casual? He certainly hasn’t been acting casual lately. He acts like he owns you, and worse, you find yourself letting him.

“He knows,” Ilya repeats sarcastically. He shakes his head, cutting another piece of steak. “I worry about you, Y/N. You play these games, but eventually, someone gets hurt. You cannot just keep things casual forever. Eventually, you have to commit or walk away.”

You stare at your brother. The sheer hypocrisy of his statement actually leaves you speechless for a moment.

You slowly pick up your glass of wine, swirling the dark red liquid. You look at Ilya over the rim of the glass, a slow, lethal smirk curling the corners of your mouth.

“You are giving me advice on commitment?” You ask, your tone dangerously soft.

Ilya pauses, a flicker of unease crossing his features. “I am your older brother. It is my job to give you advice.”

“Interesting,” you note, leaning forward and resting your elbows on the table. “Because as far as I can tell, you have been in a situationship for the last six years, and you still refuse to put a label on it.”

Ilya’s jaw drops slightly. The smug, overprotective older brother act completely shatters. A dark, furious blush creeps up his neck, disappearing into his hairline.

“I do not know what you are talking about,” Ilya says rigidly.

“Oh, please.” You take a sip of your wine, enjoying the sudden shift in power. “How is Jane?”

Ilya actually chokes on his wine. He coughs, grabbing his napkin and pressing it to his mouth, his eyes watering.

You watch him without an ounce of pity. You have known about “Jane” for years. You know exactly who “Jane” is. You know that Jane is not a woman, and you know that Jane happens to be a certain golden boy captain of the Canadian national team who plays in Montreal. You know that Ilya and Shane Hollander have been hooking up in secret hotel rooms across North America for years, wrapped up in a bitter rivalry that is a very thin cover for a desperate, consuming obsession.

Ilya refuses to admit it out loud, but he knows that you know.

“Jane is fine,” Ilya grits out finally, glaring at you across the table.

“Good. Tell her I say hello,” you say pleasantly. “And tell her that if she ever breaks your heart, I will break her legs. That is the system, yes?”

Ilya stares at you. For a long, tense moment, the air between you crackles with unspoken threats and sibling stubbornness.

And then, slowly, the tension breaks.

Ilya lets out a low, rumbling laugh, shaking his head. He wipes his mouth with the napkin, looking at you with a mixture of immense pride and total defeat. You really are his exact replica.

“You are a menace, Y/N,” Ilya says softly.

“I learned from the best,” you reply smoothly.

Ilya sighs, raising his glass of wine toward you in a gesture of surrender. “Fine. You win. I will stop asking about the boy from university. For now. But if he hurts you, Y/N, I am serious. I will end him.”

“He will not hurt me,” you say confidently, clinking your glass against his. “I would never give him the power to do so.”

“Za zdarovye,” Ilya murmurs.

“Za zdarovye.”

You take a sip of the expensive wine, feeling a rush of affection for your brother. You handled him perfectly. He is backed off, your secret is safe, and your casual arrangement with Dean remains uninterrupted.

But as you set your glass down, your phone buzzes in your purse.

You pull it out, glancing at the screen under the table so Ilya can’t see.

It’s a text from Dean.

Actually, it’s six texts from Dean, sent in rapid succession.

Dean: Tell me right now you’re not actually Ilya Rozanov’s sister.

Dean: Holy shit.

Dean: They showed you on the broadcast.

Dean: Garrett is hyperventilating into a paper bag.

Dean: Why didn’t you tell me?

Dean: Are you with him right now? Don’t let him look at your neck.

You stare at the screen. Your carefully constructed, compartmentalized life is suddenly colliding in real-time.

You look up across the table. Ilya is casually cutting into his steak, completely oblivious to the absolute meltdown happening on your phone. He is relaxed, happy, and entirely unaware that his beloved little sister is sleeping with a hockey player.

You look back down at the screen, your thumb hovering over the keyboard.

A tiny, wicked thrill races down your spine. The game just got a lot more interesting.

You: I am having dinner with him now.

You: Do not panic, Di Laurentis. He does not know about you. Yet.

You hit send, slide the phone back into your purse, and pick up your fork, completely unbothered.

Across town, Dean receives the text.

He stares at his phone screen for a full minute, the words burning into his retinas. The terrifying confidence of your reply does nothing to soothe his racing heart.

“Well?” Logan asks nervously from the couch. “What did she say?”

Dean slowly lowers his phone, looking at his three best friends. His expression is completely haunted.

“She told me not to panic,” Dean whispers.

“Oh, you’re dead,” Tucker nods sagely. “That’s exactly what people say right before they execute you.”

“Can I have your signed Marchand stick when you die?” Garrett asks, entirely serious.

Dean ignores them. He falls back against the armchair, pressing the heels of his hands into his eyes. He is terrified. He is absolutely, completely terrified of Ilya Rozanov finding out that Dean has had his hands all over his little sister.

But beneath the terror, beneath the very real threat of physical violence, there is another feeling. A feeling that Dean can’t ignore, no matter how hard he tries.

He thinks about you sitting across from the most intimidating man in the NHL, calmly texting him, completely in control of the situation. He thinks about the way you challenge him, the way you speak Russian against his skin in the dark, the way you make him want to be better, faster, stronger just to earn a shred of your approval.

Dean drops his hands, staring blankly at the ceiling of the hockey house.

He is terrified. But he isn’t going to run.

“I’m keeping her,” Dean says suddenly, his voice quiet but incredibly firm.

The three guys on the couch stop talking. They stare at Dean like he has just lost his mind.

“Dean,” Garrett says slowly. “Did you hear what we just said? Her brother will end your career. He will end your life.”

“I don’t care,” Dean says, sitting forward. The panic is fading, replaced by that fierce, undeniable stubbornness that makes him the best defenseman in the conference. He grabs his beer, taking a long pull. “Let him try. I’m not letting her go.”

Logan sighs, rubbing his temples. “We’re going to need to buy so many deadbolts.”

Read part two here

[kooksandpearls]

garrett graham ❄︎ just this.

pairing – garrett graham x nursing student!reader summary – garrett’s father shows up at a game, and the aftermath hurts worse than the black eye. warnings – mentions of domestic violence, abusive father, childhood trauma, emotional breakdown, crying, panic response, hockey injury/black eye, strong language notes from me – i've had a few requests for this moment, and wanted to write it v carefully! i took a lot of inspiration from the scene where garrett tells hannah abt his dad <3 word count – 7.5k

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The thing about sitting in Garrett Graham’s letterman jacket at a Briar hockey game was that it made people stupid. Not her, obviously. She was being incredibly normal about it. Mature, even. 

She'd only rolled her eyes twelve times since they’d left the parking lot, which, considering Lucy had made a full production out of tugging the jacket collar up around her face and going, “Oh my God, babe, do you smell that? Commitment,” felt like a real exercise in restraint. 

Monique had been worse, because Monique had a quiet voice and a deadpan delivery. She kept looking over with her chin tucked into her scarf, eyes flicking from the jacket to the ice, then back again, like she was watching an organism evolve in real time.

“He is not my boyfriend,” she said, for what had to be the fourth time, settling deeper into her seat like the plastic could open up and swallow her if she pressed hard enough.

Lucy, sitting on her left with her knees angled toward her and a cup of something hot steaming between both hands, made a sympathetic little noise that had absolutely no sympathy in it. “Of course.”

“He isn’t.”

“Right,” Monique said. “He just kissed you goodbye in front of half the hockey house and gave you his jacket because you shivered once.”

“I was cold.”

“And he, famously, is the only man at Briar with access to outerwear.”

She huffed, sinking her chin into the collar because the arena was freezing and because, unfortunately, Garrett’s jacket was stupidly warm. It smelled like cold air and detergent and that clean, sharp soap from the bathroom at the hockey house, with something underneath that was just him in a way she was trying very hard not to examine in public. 

“You’re both being unbearable.”

Lucy brightened. “Because we love you.”

“Because you’re obsessed with my downfall.”

“Same thing.”

Down on the ice, the team was warming up, bodies cutting through the pale scratch of skate marks, pucks snapping hard off sticks and boards, the sound ricocheting up into the stands like little bursts of thunder. 

It always amazed her a little, how different Garrett looked out there. Like someone had taken the boy who sprawled across the couch at the hockey house with his knee nudging hers, stealing fries from her plate, and sharpened him into something clean and fast and almost vicious. He moved like he belonged to the rink. Like the cold had been made for him.

She spotted him before he spotted her, which felt like winning something small and embarrassing. He was skating backward near centre ice, helmet tipped enough that she could see the dark mess of his curls escaping beneath it, mouth moving around something he was saying to Logan. 

Logan shoved him lightly with one gloved hand, Garrett shoved him back harder, and then Garrett’s gaze drifted up toward their section like he’d felt her looking. It was ridiculous, how quick his face changed.

One second he was all hockey captain focus, jaw set, shoulders loose, stick held easy in one hand. The next, his grin cracked open bright enough that Lucy made a tiny gagging sound beside her. He lifted his chin at her, smug and warm at the same time, and she gave him a wave that was supposed to be casual and came out entirely too fond. 

His eyes dropped, caught on the jacket around her shoulders, and the grin did something worse. Softer. More private. Like he was trying to pretend he didn’t like it and failing so badly he should’ve been embarrassed.

“Oh, babe,” Monique said under her breath. “That is a boyfriend.”

“Shut up.”

“He saw you in his jacket and almost forgot he had legs.”

“Shut up.”

Lucy leaned over her knees, waving down at the ice with a wide grin like she was trying to get them married before the first whistle. “Garrett! We think you’re very brave for not having a girlfriend!”

Her stomach dropped straight into her shoes. “Lucy.”

Garrett, mercifully too far away to hear, only pointed his stick up in their direction before turning back toward the drill. But he was still grinning. The asshole.

By the time warmups started winding down and the arena filled properly, the air had shifted into that restless pre-game buzz that made even the metal railings feel charged. Students packed into rows with painted faces and cheap signs, somebody behind them was already yelling at a player who hadn’t done anything yet, and the announcer’s voice came in and out over the speakers while the lights washed everything in cold white. 

She had just turned her head to answer Monique, who was asking if she wanted to split fries at intermission, when an older couple paused at the end of their row.

The man looked familiar in the vague, unsettling way people did when you’d seen their face somewhere but couldn’t place the context. He was tall, broad through the shoulders even under his coat, with a square jaw, silver threaded through his hair, and the kind of presence that made space feel like it ought to rearrange around him. 

The woman beside him was polished, pretty in a neat, expensive way, her smile already prepared before she’d fully made eye contact.

“Oh– sorry,” she said automatically, shifting toward Lucy to make room. The jacket bunched at her elbows as she moved. “There’s space here.”

The man shook his head once, not dismissive, but close enough to it that her body noticed before her brain did. “It’s fine.”

He stepped past her, his knee brushing the edge of the row, then stopped halfway through lowering himself into the seat when his eyes landed on the jacket. The Briar lettering, Garrett’s number stitched into the sleeve.

Something in his expression flickered. Recognition, maybe. Possession, almost, though that was a strange thing to think about a jacket.

“Graham?” he said.

Her hand tightened slightly around the cuff before she realised she was doing it. “Mhm.”

He looked at her properly then. It was a quick look, assessing, the kind of look she’d seen from attending physicians when they walked into a room and decided in half a second whether you knew what you were doing. It didn’t feel rude enough to call rude, which made it worse somehow.

“Phil,” he said, holding out his hand. “Garrett’s father.”

For a second her brain went perfectly blank, like someone had dropped a sheet over every thought she owned. Phil. Garrett’s father. Garrett’s father, sitting next to her, with his hand out, while she was wearing Garrett’s jacket and had spent the last twenty minutes arguing that he wasn’t her boyfriend.

“Oh,” she said, and immediately wanted to walk into traffic. “Uh. Hi.”

His hand was firm around hers. Too firm, maybe, or maybe she was being ridiculous because her nervous system had just been handed a situation it hadn’t studied for.

She gave him her name, then remembered to smile, then hated that she had to think about smiling, because there was nothing actually wrong. People met parents. Normal people met parents. Girls met the parents of boys who were not their boyfriends all the time, probably. Maybe. Fuck.

Phil repeated her name like he was filing it away. “This is my fiancée, Cindy.”

Cindy leaned forward slightly, her smile warmer than his but still careful around the edges. “Lovely to meet you.”

“You too,” she said, and meant it enough. Cindy seemed nice. She had a gentle voice, pretty earrings, a hand resting lightly in her lap. Normal. Fine. Everything was fine.

Lucy, to her credit, had gone unusually still beside her, which meant either she was trying not to say something insane or she had also felt the temperature around them change by a few degrees. Monique gave a polite smile and then looked at the ice with the laser focus of someone pretending very hard not to eavesdrop.

The lights dropped. The crowd roared. The starting lineup began. She did what she always did when Garrett’s name came over the speakers. She cheered, because she liked seeing him win and because he was impossible not to cheer for when he skated out with his chin lifted and that loose, cocky glide like the entire arena was a room he’d already talked his way into owning. 

He came over the boards with his stick in one hand, shoulders squared, helmet low over his eyes, and she cupped her hands around her mouth, yelling loud enough for Lucy to laugh beside her. “Graham!”

Garrett looked up. For half a second, he found her and everything was exactly the way it had been during warmups. His face opened, instinctive and bright, because he had seen her. Then his gaze moved one seat over.

The grin fell off his face so fast it barely looked like an expression changing. It looked like something had been cut. Her hands lowered slowly from her mouth. 

His body went wrong in this tiny, awful way, one shoulder tightening, his stick hand flexing once, jaw locking hard beneath the cage of his helmet. From this far away, with the arena loud and the lights sharp and bodies moving everywhere, nobody else would’ve noticed, but she noticed. 

She noticed because she had watched Garrett relax under her hands on a couch, had watched him half-asleep in a kitchen at midnight, had watched him come back from games buzzing and smug and high on adrenaline. She knew the way his confidence usually sat in his body.

This wasn’t that. His eyes flicked back to her. Sharp. Caught. Like he’d walked into a room and found a door missing. She lifted her hand a little, uncertain, the motion barely more than a question.

Garrett’s mouth moved around something she couldn’t hear. Then Logan skated into his shoulder, saying something to him, and Garrett snapped his head away like he’d been caught staring. The anthem started. Everyone around them stood.

She stood too, because her body knew what to do even if the rest of her had gone strange and cold.

“You okay?” Lucy murmured, so low it barely made it past the noise.

“Yeah,” she said, eyes still on Garrett. “I just– yeah.”

Phil didn’t say anything. He stood with his hands folded in front of him, looking down at the ice with a flatness that made the fine hairs at the back of her neck lift.

The first period was bad. Bad in the way Garrett wasn’t where he was supposed to be inside his own body. His skating was still sharp, his passes still clean enough that anyone else might not have caught the seams coming loose, but she could see it in the half-second too late he turned his head, the unnecessary shove after the whistle, the way he kept taking contact like he wanted it to hurt. 

He was playing with his shoulders too high, jaw too tight, head whipping up toward the stands every time the puck moved out of his reach. Toward her. No, not toward her. Toward the seat next to her.

The first time he slammed another player into the boards hard enough to make the glass rattle in front of a whole section of screaming students, Lucy jolted beside her and muttered, “Jesus Christ.”

Monique’s mouth pressed into a line. “That was… a lot.”

She didn’t answer. Her fingers had found the edge of Garrett’s sleeve and were worrying at the stitching, rubbing the seam back and forth under her thumb until it started to feel raw. 

She kept waiting for Phil to react like a father. To lean forward. To swear under his breath because his son was losing his head. To look worried, even annoyed in a normal sports-parent way. Phil only exhaled through his nose.

It was quiet, almost nothing beneath the noise of the crowd, but she was close enough to hear it. Then he shook his head once, slow and disappointed, like Garrett had missed an open net in a peewee game instead of driving himself visibly off the rails in front of everyone.

Cindy glanced at him. “Phil.”

“He knows better,” Phil said, eyes still on the ice.

The words came out too controlled, worn smooth by use, like they belonged in a room where nobody else was supposed to hear them.

On the ice, Garrett clipped someone behind the play and got shoved back for it. The whistle blew. A ref’s arm went up. The crowd erupted into boos before the penalty was even fully called.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Logan barked from somewhere near the boards, loud enough that she caught it more by shape than sound.

Garrett didn’t look at the ref. He looked up. Right at her.

His face was flushed from exertion, mouth open around a hard breath, but his eyes were too dark from here, too fixed, and something in them made the noise around her go thin and far away. She could feel Lucy watching her now. Monique too. Phil was perfectly still beside her. The ref pointed Garrett toward the box.

Phil’s mouth tightened. “Undisciplined.”

It landed in her chest in a way it shouldn’t have. One word. Nothing, really. But her body did that quiet, clinical thing it sometimes did on placement, when a patient said something that didn’t match their injury, or a family member answered too quickly, or a bruise sat in the wrong shape under someone’s sleeve. Her brain started lining up details without asking permission.

Garrett didn’t talk about his dad. Garrett joked about everything until he didn’t. Garrett, who let her steal his hoodies and his food and half his bed, had never once said, You should meet my father.

Garrett, who could take a chirp from Dean, a shove from Logan, a full-body collision from a six-foot-three defenseman and grin through it, had looked up at the stands and gone pale under the arena lights because his father was sitting beside her.

The penalty clock started. She swallowed, and it felt like trying to get down a mouthful of cotton.

“I’m gonna…” she started.

Lucy touched her wrist under the jacket, gentle and immediate. “Yeah.”

Monique nodded once, already shifting her knees aside. “Go.”

She slipped out of the row with the awkward, whispered apologies of someone trying to move through packed seats without making a scene. Phil didn’t stand. He didn’t even really move his legs. She had to squeeze past him, Garrett’s jacket brushing his coat, and the whole time she could feel his attention on the side of her face.

“Nice meeting you,” Cindy said softly, and it was the first thing anyone in that little pocket had said that sounded human.

“You too,” she managed, then kept going.

The stairs down from the stands felt longer than usual, steeper, the concrete humming with the crowd above her. The arena had always seemed fun from the seats – cold and loud and bright, full of ritual and noise – but underneath it, past the ushers and the concession smell and the taped signs pointing toward restricted areas, it became something else. More industrial. Cinderblock walls, rubber mats, the metallic tang of skate blades and old ice, the sour-sweet smell of sweat and gear drifting from the corridor that led toward the locker rooms.

She wasn’t technically supposed to be there. She knew that. She also knew enough of the arena by now, had been kissed against enough back hallways and walked past enough equipment carts with Garrett’s hand warm at the small of her back, that nobody stopped her when she hovered near the mouth of the corridor and tried to look like she belonged.

The first period ended with the buzzer tearing through the building. A few seconds later, the team came off the ice in a rush of blades and noise and male anger, helmets shoved up, sticks clattering, voices overlapping. Someone slammed a glove into the wall. A coach barked something she couldn’t make out. 

Logan came through first, red-faced and furious, snapping, “What the fuck is up your ass, G?” over his shoulder.

Garrett followed behind him. He looked worse up close. He wasn’t hurt, not physically, anyway, aside from the usual flush and damp curls plastered to his forehead and the little nick at his cheek where someone’s glove must’ve caught him. 

But there was something too tight about him, something barely leashed beneath the pads and jersey, his breathing hard enough that his chest moved like he’d been sprinting. His eyes were flat with anger until they hit her. Then it all broke at the edges.

He stopped so abruptly Dean nearly ran into the back of him. “Jesus, Graham–”

Garrett shoved his gloves and helmet into Logan’s chest without looking at him.

Logan caught them on instinct, still scowling. “Yeah, sure, I’ll just hold your shit. Great talk.”

Garrett was already moving. She barely had time to step forward before he was in front of her, too close and somehow not close enough, his hands coming up like he wanted to touch her everywhere at once and couldn’t decide what was allowed. 

He settled on her waist first, then her elbows, then the sides of the jacket like he was checking that it was still around her. His palms were damp through the sleeves. His breathing was loud between them.

“Hi,” he said.

It was so wildly, heartbreakingly wrong as an opening that she almost laughed. 

“Hi,” she said, much softer.

His eyes moved over her face, quick and frantic in a way he was clearly trying to hide and failing. “You okay?”

That made her hand come up on its own. “Me?”

“Yeah.”

“Garrett.” Her fingers slid into the damp curls at his hairline, pushing them back from his forehead the way she had done half a dozen times in rooms where his biggest problem was pretending he didn’t like being fussed over. “Baby, what happened?”

His eyes shut for a second when she touched him, like his whole body had been waiting for permission to unclench and could only manage it in pieces. When he opened them again, they were still too bright, too focused.

“Please move.”

Her stomach dropped. Her hands started to come away from his face. “Oh. Yeah, sorry–”

“No.” His hands caught hers immediately, fast enough that she startled, but he softened his grip the second he realised. He brought her hands back to his face himself, pressing her palms to his cheeks like he could anchor her there. “No, not– fuck. Not you. Seats. Don’t sit there.”

She stared at him. “What?”

“Get your friends and move. Don’t sit there.” His voice cracked around the last word, barely, but she heard it. Garrett heard it too; she watched the flash of frustration cross his face, aimed inward, sharp and embarrassed. “Please.”

Behind him, the corridor was still moving. Players filing past, coaches calling, Dean hovering near the locker-room door with his helmet tucked under one arm and his brow furrowed in a way that looked too serious on him. 

Tucker had slowed a few feet away, his mouth set, eyes flicking between them like he was noticing more than he wanted to. Logan, still holding Garrett’s gloves, had gone quiet.

She tried to keep her own voice low. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know. He just sat next to me, and then he saw the jacket, and I didn’t–” Her fingers tightened slightly against his jaw. “I didn’t mean to overstep if you didn’t want me to meet him.”

Garrett shook his head before she’d even finished. “It’s not that.”

“I swear, I wasn’t trying to make it a thing.”

“I know.” He said it too quickly. Fierce, almost. His thumbs moved once against her wrists, a small, restless stroke, like he was trying to reassure her while standing there with every muscle in his body pulled tight enough to snap. “I know. I don’t care that you met him. I mean, I care, but not like that. I just–” He stopped, jaw working. His eyes cut toward the tunnel that led back to the ice, then back to her. “I don’t want you sitting next to him.”

The fluorescent light overhead hummed. Somewhere down the hall, a coach yelled, “Two minutes!”

She looked at Garrett’s face. Really looked. There were things she could ask. A normal girl might have asked them. What do you mean? Why? What happened with your dad? 

But she wasn’t standing in a normal moment, and she wasn’t stupid, and the body learned its own language when you spent enough time reading other people’s fear in hospital beds. 

She knew what a person looked like when they were angry because anger was easier to hold than panic. She knew the tiny, devastating difference between protective and afraid. She knew what it meant when a grown man couldn’t stop checking the location of another grown man in a crowded building.

Her mouth went dry. She didn’t let her face change too much. That felt important. Garrett was watching her like he expected something to happen if she understood too quickly.

“Okay,” she said.

His shoulders moved with a breath he didn’t quite release. “Okay?”

“Yeah.” She nodded, slow and steady, because something in him needed steady more than it needed questions. “I’ll text Lucy and Monique. We’ll move sections.”

His fingers flexed at her waist. “You don’t have to leave the game.”

“I know.”

“I just don’t want–”

“I know,” she said again, and she didn’t know the details, not really, but she knew enough for now. Enough to understand this wasn’t about him being embarrassed. Enough to understand that whatever Phil Graham was, whatever he had been, Garrett didn’t want him beside her in a place where he could see but not reach. “We’ll move. I promise.”

Garrett’s mouth pressed shut. He turned his head just enough to kiss the centre of her palm. The gesture was so soft it hurt.

He shuddered on the breath after, barely visible under all the pads and noise and anger, and she had the sudden, awful urge to take him somewhere quiet and lock every door between him and the rink. 

Instead, she brushed her thumb over the cheekbone beneath his eye, feeling the damp heat of him, the faint scrape of stubble, the hard pulse ticking at his jaw.

“Graham,” Dean called from the locker-room doorway, voice rougher than usual. “We have a fucking game to play, man.”

Garrett didn’t look away from her. “Yeah.”

“Now would be good.”

“Yeah, I heard you.”

Dean’s eyes flicked to her. For once, he didn’t make a joke. That, more than almost anything else, made her chest tighten.

She lifted her brows at Garrett, trying for something like normal because normal was a gift she could give him in pieces. “You okay?”

The answer was obviously no. They both knew it. Garrett nodded anyway, because he was Garrett and because there was a game and because whatever had just opened between them was too raw to put words inside with half the team watching.

“Yeah,” he said, then swallowed. “We’ll– tonight, okay? I’ll–”

“Don’t explain now.” Her thumb moved once more over his cheek, and she let her voice soften around the command, because he listened better when he thought she wasn’t letting him off the hook entirely. “Just go win.”

Something in his face loosened by a fraction. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

He bent before she could decide whether that was a terrible idea in the middle of a hallway full of hockey players and coaches and fluorescent lighting, and kissed her properly.

It wasn’t the kind of kiss he usually gave her in public, quick and obnoxiously smug, designed to make her roll her eyes and make his friends groan. 

This was quieter. Messier at the edges. His mouth warm and urgent on hers, one hand sliding up to the side of her neck, the other still fisted in the side of his own jacket around her. She kissed him back because there was nothing else to do with all the feeling in her chest, because if he needed to come back to himself through her mouth for three seconds in a cinderblock corridor, she could give him that.

When he pulled back, he didn’t go far. His forehead rested against hers, helmet gone, hair damp, breath warming her lips. “Thank you,” he said, so low it barely existed.

She swallowed. “Go, babe.”

His mouth twitched. It was tiny. Barely there. But it was Garrett enough that she felt her own lungs remember what they were for.

“Graham,” Dean snapped, but there was relief threaded through it now. “I swear to God, if you make me drag you into this room by your jockstrap–”

Garrett huffed, the sound scraping out of him half-laugh, half-breath. He kissed her forehead once, quick and hard, then stepped back. His hands lingered until the last second, fingers sliding off her wrists like he hated letting go, and then he turned, caught his gloves when Logan shoved them at his chest, and jogged toward the locker room.

Logan watched him go, then looked at her. For a beat, neither of them said anything. Then Logan lifted Garrett’s helmet slightly, like a sad little toast. “He’s gonna be less of a dick now, right?”

She let out a breath that nearly became a laugh. “God, I hope so.”

“Cool. Because he was doing the whole tortured captain thing and it was fucking up the vibe.”

“Logan,” Tucker said quietly.

“What? It was.”

Dean, from the doorway, pointed at her with two fingers. “You. Move seats. Tell your friends too.”

“I know.”

His expression softened, quick and uncomfortable, like sincerity made his skin itch. “Good.”

Then they were gone, swallowed by the locker room and the burst of voices inside, the door swinging shut behind them.

For a few seconds, she just stood there in the corridor with Garrett’s jacket heavy around her shoulders and the cold from the rink crawling along the floor. Her hands drifted up to the top of her head, fingers interlocking there, elbows out, like she needed to physically hold herself in place. The breath left her in one long, uneven puff.

“Holy fuck,” she whispered to no one.

“So that’s…” Garrett’s voice thinned out before it reached the end of the sentence, like it had snagged somewhere behind his ribs. He was sitting with his back against the headboard, one knee bent under the covers and one stretched out in front of him, still in the black sweatpants he’d pulled on after his shower, his hair damp and curling messily over his forehead. The bruising around his left eye had darkened since they’d left the arena, blooming purple-black beneath the bone, the skin there swollen enough to make him look a little unfamiliar if she stared too long. “Yeah.”

The hockey house had finally settled beneath them, the late-night noise thinned down to the occasional creak of floorboards, the muffled thump of someone closing a cabinet downstairs, the low murmur of voices from the living room that would rise for a second and then sink again like the boys were trying, badly, to be subtle about giving Garrett space. 

His bedside lamp was the only light on, soft and yellow across the rumpled sheets, catching on the water glass on his nightstand, the edge of his phone, the pile of discarded gear near his closet that still smelled faintly like ice and sweat and the metallic air of the rink.

She was sitting beside him with one leg folded underneath herself, close enough that her hip pressed into his thigh. Her hand had been in his hair for the last few minutes, fingers moving slowly through the damp strands at the back of his head, not because she had any real plan for comforting him, but because stopping felt impossible. Like if she stopped touching him, the room might tilt too far in one direction and take him with it.

She took a breath, careful and quiet, then leaned in and pressed her mouth to the bare slope of his shoulder. His skin was warm beneath her lips. Too warm, maybe, or maybe her body was just paying attention to everything now – the tension in his neck, the way his hand was curled loosely against the sheet, the uneven drag of his breathing as he stared at the wall opposite his bed and looked like he was seeing something that wasn’t there.

“Thank you for telling me,” she said.

Garrett nodded once. His throat moved. “Yeah.”

She let her mouth rest against his shoulder for another second before lifting her head. There were a hundred things she could have said, and almost all of them felt either too small or too big. I’m sorry felt thin. That’s awful felt obvious. You didn’t deserve that felt true, but she didn’t know if truth was something he could hold yet without flinching. 

So she stayed beside him, fingers still working gently through his hair, and asked the question that had been sitting carefully in the back of her mouth since he’d started talking. “Does anyone else know?”

His eyes flicked down to the duvet. The corner of it was caught beneath his hand, twisted tight in his fingers now, white-knuckled in a way he probably didn’t even realise.

“Logan,” he said after a moment. “Just Logan. I mean…” He swallowed, the sound rough. “The guys know I don’t–” His mouth pulled in a faint, humourless line, like even the phrase felt ridiculous for the size of it. “They know I don’t get along with my dad. They know he’s a dick. That’s all.”

She nodded, because that made sense in a way that made her chest hurt. Garrett could live with people thinking Phil Graham was an asshole. He could live with sharp jokes, with vague references, with a clean, manageable version of the story that didn’t require anyone to look too closely. 

He could live inside the gap between what the guys knew and what had actually happened, because Garrett was good at taking pain and turning it into something people could stand to be near. A chirp. A closed door. A shrug that said nothing to see here.

She pressed another kiss to his shoulder, softer than the first. “Okay.”

Garrett made a sound that was barely a breath. At first she thought he was going to speak. His mouth opened slightly, his brow drawing together, and she felt him pull in air against her side like he was trying to push something down before it could come up. 

Then his face changed. A crack through the careful flatness he’d been holding since the words had started coming out of him. His eyes squeezed shut, his lips pressed together, and his chin dipped toward his chest with this tiny, defeated shake like he was angry at himself for not being able to stop it.

“Oh, Garrett,” she whispered, and that was all it took.

He broke quietly. His shoulders folded inward first, as if his body was trying to make itself smaller despite every inch of him being built like a wall, and then the first sob dragged through him so hard she felt it before she heard it.

He turned toward her like he wasn’t fully deciding to, like some older, younger part of him had simply reached for the nearest safe place, and she caught him before he could apologise for needing it.

“Come here,” she murmured, already pulling him in.

Garrett went with a kind of helplessness she’d never seen from him. His forehead dropped into the curve of her shoulder, his arms coming around her waist, fingers fisting in the back of her shirt like he needed something to hold onto and hated that he did. 

She wrapped herself around him as much as she could, one hand sliding up to the back of his head, palm firm over the damp curls, the other across his shoulders where all that muscle and strength was shaking under her touch. 

He was too big for her to hold the way she wanted, too broad, too solid, but she tried anyway. She tucked her cheek against his temple and kept him there while he cried into her shirt, each breath leaving him broken and uneven.

“You’re okay,” she said, low and steady, though her own throat felt tight enough to bruise. “I’ve got you. You’re okay.”

He shook his head against her. “I couldn’t–” His voice tore on the word, and his hand tightened at her back. “I couldn’t protect her.”

Her eyes closed.

“My mom,” he said, and it came out smaller than anything she had ever heard from him. “I tried. I swear to God, I tried, but I was–” He sucked in a breath that didn’t go anywhere useful. “I was a kid. I couldn’t do anything. I couldn’t make him stop.”

She held him harder, her fingers pressing into his hair, her other hand spreading wide over the back of his shoulder. “Garrett.”

“I’d hear it and I’d just– fuck, I’d just stand there sometimes. I’d freeze. Or I’d go in and he’d look at me, and I knew it would be worse, but I still–” His voice collapsed into another sob, rough and furious and devastated all at once. “I couldn’t protect her.”

She shook her head against his, because the blame in his voice was so old and so deep that it made her stomach turn. It had lived in him for years, packed behind his ribs, disguised under trophies and goals and that bright, cocky grin he wore like armour.

“You were a child,” she said, and her voice came out firmer than she expected. “Garrett, you were a kid.”

He didn’t answer. His breath stuttered into her neck.

“You shouldn’t have had to protect anyone from him,” she said. “That was never supposed to be your job.”

His fingers flexed in the fabric of her shirt, and for a second she thought he might pull away. He didn’t. He stayed folded into her, face hidden against her shoulder, and she kept her hand at the back of his head because he seemed to need the pressure there. Something to push against. Something that told him where the room was.

“I don’t want to be him,” he said, almost inaudible.

She pulled back just enough to try to see his face, but he kept his eyes down, lashes wet and clumped, the bruising under one eye making everything about him look rawer. His mouth trembled once before he clenched his jaw like he could force it still.

“I don’t want to be him,” he said again, more ragged this time. “I don’t want that in me. I get so fucking angry sometimes, and tonight I was–” He dragged a hand roughly over his face, then winced when his knuckles caught near the bruise. “Fuck.”

“Hey.” She caught his wrist before he could do it again, thumb slipping over the inside where his pulse hammered too fast. “Look at me.”

He shook his head, but only barely.

“Garrett,” she said, softer now. “Please.”

It took him a second. It took three. Then he lifted his eyes. She hated what she saw there, because someone had put that kind of fear in a boy and then let him grow around it like it was just another bone. 

Garrett Graham, who could strut across campus like he owned gravity, who could grin his way through almost anything, who could charm a room without even standing up straight, was looking at her like he was waiting for her to realise he was dangerous.

She brought his hand to her lap and held it between both of hers.

“You’re not him,” she said.

His face twisted.

“You’re not,” she repeated, and she didn’t make it soft this time. She made it certain. “You're not him.”

“You don’t know that.”

“I do.”

“You don’t.”

“I do,” she said again, because this was one thing she could give him without hesitation. “I know you. I know how careful you are with people even when you’re pretending you aren’t. I know how you move Logan’s shoes out of the hallway when he’s drunk so he doesn’t trip over them. I know how you check the stove when Tucker falls asleep on the couch. I know you pretend Dean annoys you and then still save him the last slice of pizza because he gets pissy when he’s hungry. I know how you touch me.” Her voice caught, but she swallowed around it, leaning closer until her knee pressed into his thigh. “Garrett, you have never made me feel afraid of you. Not once.”

His eyes went wet again.

“You’d never hurt someone like that,” she said. “You’d never hurt me like that.”

The sound he made then was worse than the first sob because it sounded like relief and pain arriving at the same time. His face crumpled before he could stop it, and he folded back into her, harder this time, arms wrapping around her so tightly she almost couldn’t breathe. 

She didn’t care. She let him hold on. She held him back, one hand cupping the back of his head, the other moving slowly over his spine, feeling each shudder work through him and disappear into the space between their bodies.

For a while, there was only that. His breath against her neck. Her fingers in his hair. The lamp humming faintly. A car passing outside and washing headlights briefly across the ceiling. The ordinary world continuing in rude little pieces while Garrett cried.

Eventually, the sobs thinned. His breathing stayed uneven, but the worst of it loosened, leaving him heavy against her, drained in a way that made him feel younger and older all at once. 

She kept touching him until he shifted, and even then she didn’t let go immediately. He was the one who pulled back first, dragging in a rough breath and wiping at his face with the heel of his hand.

“Sorry,” he said, hoarse. “Fuck. Sorry.”

She shook her head.

He looked away, jaw tight again, embarrassment rushing in to fill the space grief had left behind. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to–”

“Hey.” She caught his face between her hands before he could retreat all the way into himself. Carefully, because of the bruise. “No.”

His eyes flicked to hers.

“No,” she said again, quieter. “You don’t have to apologise.”

Garrett let out a shaky breath through his nose, like he wanted to argue and didn’t have enough left in him to do it properly. “I just–”

“I know.”

“I hate this.”

“I know.”

He closed his eyes under her hands. For a second he leaned into her palms so fully that her chest ached. Then he opened them again, gaze dropping to her mouth, her chin, anywhere but directly into whatever softness he was afraid she had for him.

“I’m sorry about tonight,” he said. “At the game. I’m sorry I acted like that.”

She brushed her thumb lightly along the unbruised side of his face. “You were freaked out.”

“That doesn’t make it okay.”

“No,” she said, because he was right and because she cared for him too much, in whatever unnamed, inconvenient way that lived between them, to pretend otherwise. “But I get why it happened.”

His throat moved. “I didn’t want him near you.”

“I know.”

“I saw you sitting there, in my jacket, and he was right there, and I couldn’t–” He broke off, frustration pulling at his mouth. “I couldn’t think. I just kept looking up and thinking, get away from him. And then I’d look back at the play and I’d be out of position, and then I got mad because I was out of position, and then I–” He shook his head. “It was stupid.”

“It wasn’t stupid.” She kept her hands on him, steady even when he looked like he wanted to fold away from the tenderness. “It was a lot.”

He let out something close to a laugh, but there was no humour in it. “That’s one word for it.”

She leaned forward until her nose nudged gently against his, careful of the swelling near his eye. “And you still came through.”

His brow creased.

“You did,” she said. “You moved me. You went back out. You played. You won.”

His mouth trembled, just once. He looked down, and she watched him fight the tears coming back, his face tightening with the effort of keeping it together. “Yeah.”

“Yeah,” she echoed.

A long breath left him. His shoulders dropped a little with it, not relaxed, but less braced. He looked exhausted now, the adrenaline gone, the game gone, the confession gone, leaving only the boy under all of it sitting in the low light with a black eye and red-rimmed lashes and too many years of silence sitting open between them.

She slid one hand down to his chest, feeling the slow, uneven thud of his heart beneath her palm. “Do you need anything?”

Garrett shook his head.

“You sure?”

He looked at her for a moment, and there was something unguarded in it that made her breath catch. Then he reached for her, one hand settling at her waist and pulling her closer by degrees like he was asking without words. “Just this.”

Her eyes softened. “Okay.”

He shifted down the bed first, moving slowly like every part of him hurt more now that he had stopped holding himself so tight. She went with him, letting him guide her into the space beside him as he eased onto his back, then his side, then changed his mind and pulled her against his chest. 

It was clumsy in the way exhaustion made things clumsy, knees tangling under the covers, his breath hitching when her elbow brushed a sore spot from the game. She murmured an apology, and he shook his head into her hair, arm tightening around her middle.

The room settled around them again. She tucked herself against him carefully, cheek resting above his heart, one hand laid flat over his ribs. His skin was warm through the thin cotton of his shirt, his breathing still uneven but gradually finding a steadier rhythm under her ear. 

She kissed the edge of his jaw because it was there and because she couldn’t reach every place in him that hurt, but she could reach that. 

Garrett’s fingers flexed once at her back, then smoothed slowly over the fabric of her shirt, not quite a caress, more like he was reminding himself she was real.

For a long time, neither of them spoke. She stared at the soft blur of his room in the darkened edges beyond the lamp – the open textbook on his desk, the half-empty bottle of water, the heap of hoodie on the chair, the game tape paused on his laptop from earlier in the week – and tried to make the pieces of him fit around what he had told her. 

The boy who had tossed her his jacket that afternoon because she’d shivered. The captain who had come apart on the ice at the sight of his father beside her. The child who had stood in a house and listened for his mother. The man holding her now.

Her training wanted to make categories. To name responses. To trace the line between trigger and reaction, between fear and anger, between what a body remembered and what a mouth could bear to say. 

But this wasn’t a case study, and Garrett wasn’t something to be understood from a distance. He was under her cheek, breathing carefully, his arm heavy across her back, his fingers curled into the side of her shirt like he might wake up and need proof she had stayed.

So she let the clinical part of her go quiet. She pressed her palm a little more firmly to his ribs.

Garrett’s chin dipped, lips brushing the top of her head. “You okay?” he whispered.

The question hurt, somehow. That he could be lying there hollowed out and still asking after her.

She nodded against him. “Yeah.”

“You sure?”

She closed her eyes. “I’m sure.”

His hand moved once over her back. She waited until his breathing had slowed more, until the tension in his stomach eased under her hand, until the house beneath them was nothing but distant pipes and settling wood and the occasional muffled voice. 

Then she lifted her head just enough to press a kiss to his chest, above his heart, and settled back down.

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[hs-is-loml]

Long Before We Knew. (gg44)

Pairing: garrett graham x best friend!fem!reader

Summary: when a ridiculously sized water bottle hits you in the back of the head during your first week of college lectures. you never expected the culprit to become your best friend, his roommates to become brothers, and a crowded table to feel like home. everyone knew that what you and garrett had was something special. well, everyone except the both of you.

Warnings: best friends to lovers trope. no mention of y/n, but the nickname Missy is used a lot to refer to the reader. found family. seriously, so much fluff. one kiss. two rather stupid idiots in love.

a/n: i’ve risen and written this as a comeback fic. admittedly, i wrote this in a span of three days, and you can tell when i was hungry while writing it. or the fact cherry coke is my favorite. also my inspiration for the nickname came from an off campus interview where i heard stephen say missy. (let me know your thoughts on this! i would love to hear them:)

Word count: 6.9k

masterlist

Music blared as you walked into the Boys’ house, which was home to Dean Di Laurentis, John Tucker, John Logan, and Garrett Graham. A blur of drunken college students and bodies pushed together in random small spaces that they thought fit for privacy passed by as you made your way to the kitchen to grab a drink. 

You checked in the fridge, knowing there would be a stock of mini cherry Coke cans waiting for you. A grin grew on your face as you reached for one.

“Missy!” you heard someone call from behind. You grabbed a can and turned away from the fridge to the sound of the voice. “Missy, Missy, we were wondering when you were stopping by,” Dean tutted as Beau and Logan were beside him with smugness written across their faces.

“As if I would miss seeing drunk Tucker and Logan,” you joked as you walked towards them. “Maybe we can convince Tucker to make ricotta tortellini for dinner tomorrow. You know he’ll feel bad if he agrees tonight and doesn’t go through with it.”

“I’m picking up what you’re putting down, and I will go find Tucker to give him another beer.” Logan saluted you as he went to grab a new beer and locate Tucker.

“Am I invited to this dinner tomorrow?” Beau quipped to Dean.

“I don’t know, man. Are you?” Dean teased. “Missy, here is the woman of the house. You’ll have to ask her,” Dean jutted his thumb in your direction.

Beau turned to face you and pouted as he asked, “May I please come over for dinner tomorrow night?”

“Excuse me, I do not live here,” you mocked in defense. “But, yes, you are invited to family dinner.”

"Don't even start with that," Dean waved you off.

“Family dinner?” Beau questioned you and Dean.

Dean let out a laugh, “Yeah, Tucker and Missy have been alternating in cooking on Sundays, and now it’s family dinner,” as if that explained why you and the boys considered it family dinner. 

“Garrett invited me over to dinner at the beginning of sophomore year, and Tucker was cooking tortellini. We were all hanging out afterward, and I told them how I would cook more if I wasn’t in the dorms. I hated cooking in the dorms because the smell lingered way too long,” you started. “Anyways, he cooked dinner that night, and the next weekend I cooked, so it just kind of became a cycle. A routine.”

“Why haven’t I been invited to family dinners until now?” Beau raised a brow at Dean. “I would’ve brought something!”

You let out a giggle at his dramatics. “Yeah! Why didn’t you invite Beau?” you goaded.

“Not you too, Missy,” Dean groaned into his drink. The red solo cup is blocking the view of his face. 

Allie approached you guys and poked at Dean’s side, causing him to choke on his drink. You and Beau try not to laugh, but the second you look at each other, the laughter spills out. “What are you guys going on about?”

“Family dinner,” Dean answered her.

“Is Tucker cooking tomorrow or Missy?” Allie pondered for a moment. “Oh, wait! She cooked last weekend, so Tucker’s definitely cooking.”

“Missy wants to get him drunk tonight, so we can get him to agree to make tortellini tomorrow,” Dean explained the plan to Allie as he pulled her into his side. “You know he’ll feel bad if Missy asks and he doesn’t follow through with it since she made her famous dish last week per his request.”

Beau quit mid-laugh the second he comprehended that Allie had been attending these family dinners. “Am I the only one not attending these dinners?” he called out, exasperated. 

“Dean should’ve invited you earlier.” Garrett slapped a hand to Dean’s shoulder as he joined you all.  

“G, not cool, man.”

Garrett made his way to you with a new can of cherry Coke in hand. “For the lady,” he presented it to you and took the empty can. He set it down on the counter before turning back to you. “I’ve been wondering where you were, but I found you with these bozos and Allie.”

“Beau is very upset that he hasn’t been in attendance for family dinners on Sundays,” you whispered to him as he snuck an arm around your shoulder. 

Your eyes were on Dean and Beau as they started going at it again, but this time Allie joined Beau’s side. Dean’s eyes flared open with joking betrayal. “Babydoll, not you too. Please.”

“You want to make rounds?” Garrett asked softly, leaning down to speak into your ear. 

“Yeah, I want to check in with Tucker. Make sure Logan is getting him drunk, so we can get Tuck’s delicious ricotta tortellini.”

Garrett guided you away from the group in the kitchen. You both navigated through the living room in search of the fellow housemates. You see Tucker downing a beer and Logan immediately offering him another, which Tucker greedily took into his hands. Logan winked at you knowingly as you and Garrett approached the pair. 

“How you feeling, Tucker?” Garrett asked him, amused. 

“Great, G!”

“You’re cooking dinner tomorrow, right?” you questioned, trying to seem like you weren’t sure.

Tucker scratched his head and looked at Logan, who gave him a nod. “Yeah! Of course I am,” he blurted out.

You unconsciously leaned your head against Garrett’s shoulder. “Do you have anything specific in mind?” You glanced over to Logan with a slight smirk. 

“Dude, you should totally make tortellini again!” Logan suggested.

Tucker immediately started shaking his head, “Absolutely not. Do you have any idea how long that takes to make?”

“But, Tuck, you know how that’s my favorite! Won’t you even think about it?” You pull away from Garrett’s side to go to Tucker with the biggest pout you managed to put out. 

Tucker took one look at your face, then another at Garrett, and he folded quickly. “Yes, I will,” he sighed, knowing there was no point in saying no to you. “Only because you’re my favorite.”

You let a short cheer out and pressed a kiss to Tucker’s cheek. “You’re the best, Tuck!”

“Enough of that,” Garrett interjected you two, and he gently grabbed your hip to pull you back beside him. 

“Mr. Best Friend is jealous that I’m going to steal your heart, Missy,” Tucker joked.

Logan doubled over in laughter, fully shaking with amusement, “Oh, you know that a way to a woman’s heart is food.” 

“Might just take Missy right from you.” Tucker playfully reached out for you with a smirk, pinching at his cheeks.

Garrett’s grip on your hip tightened just enough for you to notice. Heat flooded your cheeks, and you felt like the room was getting hotter by the second. You should’ve been used to the jokes by now, but being Garrett Graham’s best friend since freshman year came with lots of teasing.

The day you and Garrett met was in a history lecture, and he was sitting behind you. When class ended on the last day of the first week, you were still gathering your stuff, and Garrett was getting up to head out. In a rush to grab his ginormous water bottle, he brought it up, and it hit you right in the back of the head.

The professor whose name you hadn’t quite remembered yet just dismissed class, and the usual chaos of shuffling backpacks with everyone gathering their things filled the room. You remained seated as you were putting away your notebook and trying to search for your headphones in your backpack. With your head slightly tucked down, you weren’t really too aware of your surroundings, and something had smacked into the back of your head.

Thunk.

It wasn’t hard enough to hurt badly. Just hard enough that it made you jump. You let out a surprised yelp and gently rubbed the sore spot before putting your arm back down.

“Oh shit.” You heard some mutter behind you. Garrett instinctively reached to touch the back of your head with his free hand but retracted, realizing it probably isn’t appropriate to do that to someone you’ve just met, even less so after you accidentally hit them in the head. “I’m so sorry,” he blurted out.

You turn around, and a guy is staring at you in complete horror. It was only a few seconds later when you realized that he was the new hot shot hockey player. Which from what you’ve seen on The Fifth Line, there was a bit of emphasis on the player part.

The expression on his face caught you off guard.

He genuinely looked like he thought he just committed a crime. 

You shook your head, amused despite the small sting. “It’s okay! Things happen.” You laughed off, softly giving him a smile, trying to let him know you weren’t mad. 

Somehow, the poor guy looked even more distressed. 

“No, seriously,” he says. “Are you okay?”

You glanced at the water bottle that is ridiculously large. 

Then back at him.

“Yes, totally.”

“No, seriously.”

“I am serious.”

“I just hit you with my water bottle.”

You laughed at the redundancy. “It was a light tap.”

He doesn’t seem reassured whatsoever. “I know that’s got to hurt a bit.”

“Nothing I can’t handle.”

He frowned. 

You could practically see him trying to decide whether you’ve secretly suffered a concussion. The thought almost made you laugh again. 

“Seriously,” you told him. “It’s okay.”

“Why do you have to be so nice?” he grumbled, and the look on his face made this far funnier than it should be. 

“You seem to be more upset about this than I am,” you teased, watching as his shoulders slumped. 

“That’s probably true,” he mumbled softly as he kept eye contact with you. There was a twinkle in his eye that you just knew was trouble.

“There he is.”

“What?”

“The normal person.” You get a laugh from that, escaping before he could stop it.

“I should probably introduce myself.” His lips quirked into a smile as he shook his head.

“Officially?”

He paused, confused, “What?”

“I know who you are, Garrett Graham.”

His expression fell blank for a split second before he quickly recovered it with a grin. “So you do.”

“People tend to know you when that’s the only name you hear people cheering at hockey games this year,” you confessed to Garrett.

“You’re very observant.”

“More like I have eyes and ears,” you grinned back at him.

He dropped his head into one hand with a slight chuckle. “Well, I apparently know much less about you than you know about me.”

“That sounds right.”

“So let me make it up to you.”

“By how exactly?” You quirked an eyebrow at him.

“Coffee,” he offered. 

You pretended to think about it, but mostly because you’re curious what he would do.

“Coffee?” you repeated in question.

“I owe you.” 

“You really don’t.”

“Oh, c’mon. I’m buying you coffee.”

You smiled, “Okay.”

His eyebrows lifted. “Okay?”

“Sure,” you answered again.

“Just like that?”

“Just like that.”

He looked suspicious for a moment, like he thought there was a catch. You decided not to tell him there is one. Namely, that he still didn’t know your name. And you’re not intentionally volunteering it. You finished gathering your stuff and started to head toward the exit.

He followed right behind you.

The hallway outside is crowded with students weaving between classes. He made a quick step around you to be ahead, so he could hold the door open for you as you left the lecture hall.

Still no name. You took a short look at him, and you could tell he’d noticed. 

The occasional glance he sent your way confirmed it.

You don’t say anything. 

Neither does he.

The silence stretched all the way out of the building. Then a voice called out, “There you are, G!” A tall blond jogged towards you two. “Thought you vanished.”

Your water bottle assailant immediately groaned, “Unfortunately not.”

The blond glanced between you and Garrett. His gaze immediately stuck to you, and a faint smirk played at the corner of his lips. “Oh.”

“No.” Garrett immediately shut him down.

“Oh, absolutely.”

“It’s not–” Garrett was cut off, and the blond ignored him completely. You could tell that they were good friends.

“Who’s your friend?” he asked Garrett with a growing smile. A dangerous smile. Before either of you could answer, he added, “And why does she look like she knows every embarrassing thing you’ve ever done, G?”

You laughed, and Garrett pointed at you. “That’s exactly the problem.”

The blond stuck out his hand. “I’m Dean,” he introduced himself jokingly formally.

You reciprocated by shaking his hand, “Nice to meet you.”

“You too, beautiful.”

You playfully rolled your eyes and decided that it was time to put the poor guy out of his misery. You tell Dean your name while purposely trying to keep your attention on him rather than Garrett. 

Dean repeated your name out loud. “Nice.”

From the corner of your eye, you caught Garrett repeating your name quietly to himself like he was trying to memorize it. 

Cute. You thought to yourself.

Then Dean glanced between the two of you again, “So what happened with Missy here?”

You blinked at the nickname. “Missy?”

Garrett groaned again, and you were ignored by the two. “No.”

Dean pointed at him knowingly, “You did something! Because when I walked up, you looked like you’d spent the last ten minutes apologizing.”

“He basically has,” you snorted.

“Exactly,” Dean grinned. “So I figured he’d messed something up.”

“Maybe not messed anything up but a first impression,” you pretended to ponder as you rubbed the back of your head, hoping that it would mess with Garrett. You hid your laugh when you saw that he noticed your little joke.

Garrett looked ready to walk directly into traffic just to distance himself from the embarrassment from you and Dean.

You laughed, and when you glanced back over to Garrett, you caught a look on his face. A wide grin. The one that says he’s just had an idea. Probably a terrible one while you guys were at it.

You narrowed your eyes at him, “What now?”

“What?” he tried to play it off.

“You have that look.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Yes, you do,” you insisted.

Dean stopped mid-walk as he burst out laughing, “Oh shit, G. She’s already figured you out.”

That’s when Garrett said, “Nothing, Missy.” You stopped walking. He kept going.

Dean nearly choked. 

“Don’t.” You shook your head at him, but you were talking to Garrett.

“Don’t what?” he responded.

“That.”

“What?”

“Missy.” Garrett’s smile turned innocent. Entirely too innocent. “You literally just learned my name,” you told him.

“Yeah.” 

“And?” 

“And that’s not it,” he said as if it were the most obvious thing. 

Dean was at the point of laughing so hard that he was barely breathing. 

Garrett just shrugged. 

You should probably have been annoyed. Instead, despite yourself, you fought a smile. Because somehow the nickname sounded ridiculous enough to work. Then, judging by the look on Garrett’s face, there was no chance he was going to let it go.

“Coffee,” you said, shaking your head.

“Coffee,” he agreed.

Somehow, before you’ve even made it to the coffee shop, the nickname Missy is already stuck.

By the time that Garrett invited you to hang out with his friends in his line, the two of you had long since become inseparable.

At some point, coffee turned into study sessions.

Study sessions turned into lunch, which led to spending entire afternoons together.

Somewhere along the way, the nickname still followed you.

No matter how many times you complain. No matter how many times you reminded Garrett, you did have an actual name.

To Garrett (plus Dean), you would always be Missy,

Which is why you weren’t surprised when he texted you one Friday afternoon midway through the semester. 

You rolled your eyes as you read his last text and scanned around your room to search for this man’s colossal bottle. How did he forget it? Beats you.

Bingo. 

You found the bottle and headed out to finally make introductions to Garrett’s friends. Who has been bugging Garrett the moment they found out he was hanging out with a girl and not hooking up with her. 

The house itself is exactly what you would have expected when four college freshmen are given a place together. It’s not particularly messy, but it felt lived in. 

The kind of place where people actually spend time together and enjoy each other’s company instead of disappearing into separate rooms 24/7.

The front door barely closed behind you before Dean appeared.

“There she is!”

You pointed at him, “You’re responsible for the nickname.”

“And proud of it,” he cheesed, that kind smile that is always so infectious that you felt your own lips curling.

Garrett appeared behind him. “You absolutely should not be.”

“She still answers it.”

You hated that he was right.

The grin he gave you says he knows it too. 

A few moments later, you’re introduced to the remaining roommates. John and John, or better known as Tucker and Logan. 

The pair bombarded you with questions, and within five minutes, they somehow learned your major, favorite coffee order, and your favorite drink.

“You seem normal enough,” Logan deemed as a proclamation as you guys talked in the living room. 

“Excuse me?”

“I expected worse,” he shrugged.

You looked at Garrett and asked the other boys, “What exactly has he been saying about me?”

Each of the boys quipped a response.

“A lot.” 

“Enough.”

“Some would say too much.”

“I hate all of you,” Garrett muttered under his breath.

“You’ll fit right in,” Logan finished.

By the end of the night, you all were sprawled across the living room arguing over movies and laughing so hard at shared stories that your stomachs started to hurt.

You sat on one side of the couch with Garrett. You were leaning against him while you were talking to Tucker and Logan about the best Batman movie. Garrett was talking to Dean about some girl Dean saw working at Malone’s. Garrett had his arm loosely wrapped around your waist, and his hand was messing with the hem of your shirt.

At some point, you realized something. 

You didn’t feel like a guest.

It was almost like you’d always been there. 

And judging by the way nobody bothered treating you differently, the guys seemed to feel the same way too.

It was the start of sophomore year, and your presence in the Boys’ house was now such a regular occurrence that you had a drawer in Garrett’s room, a toothbrush next to his, and under the sink, he had a bottle of your perfume. 

When you’d pointed it out the first time, he’d shrugged. “You forget stuff.”

“I won't forget perfume.”

“You might.”

“I won’t.”

“Baby, it’s there just in case.”

He claimed that he just wanted you to be comfortable and feel at home, but you knew one of the real reasons was that he was obsessed with seeing your stuff in his room. 

You thought that people would get better about your and Garrett’s friendship, but it seemed that people could never fathom the fact that Garrett Graham had a girl best friend.

Frankly, sometimes you couldn’t believe it yourself. 

As much as the rest of the boys in the line teased you, they were fiercely protective of you and defended you against any rumors that people tried to start. It is endearing how much you and the boys treated each other like family. 

Something you would never admit out loud is the fact you knew that you and Garrett crossed the boundary of best friends a long time ago. Sure, you were attracted to him and cared for him like no other, but his constant saying that he doesn’t have time for a girlfriend really messed with your head. 

You loved him. There was no doubt about it. You tried putting yourself out there and dating, but a lot of the time, guys weren’t interested when they found out your best friend was Garrett Graham.

It didn’t help that Garrett’s love language is physical touch. He constantly found ways to be close and touch you, whether it was an arm around your shoulder, holding your hand in his lap under the table when you and the boys hung out at Malone’s, or a hand that always found your back or hip when you guys navigated through crowds. 

Even with that, there were the puck bunnies to consider, the numerous girls who seemed to gravitate to Garrett the second he flashed that damned smile. But they wouldn’t be able to say they knew him. They didn’t know his favorite band, what major he’s pursuing, how he liked his coffee, or what his mother’s name was. But you did. Of course, you knew him like the back of your hand. 

“Missy, do you know where my–” Garrett’s voice from the bathroom snapped you out of your thoughts. 

You responded before he even finished his sentence: “Bub, your phone is still charging by the bed.”

You were sitting by the window, and the book you were reading had long been forgotten in your hands. You set it aside near a couple of other books you kept there. 

Garrett walked out of the bathroom with his hair still damp from the shower he had just taken, and a towel wrapped around his waist. You hadn’t looked over to him yet as you were folding a blanket that you kept by the window. He watched you with a soft gaze, and a smile budded on his lips.

He went over to the bed and tapped on his phone to check the time. His wallpaper flashed at him. It was a photo of you in the kitchen blowing out your birthday cake candles when he and the boys surprised you with a mini celebration last semester. 

“Hey, we should probably head down soon. I think Tuck is done cooking dinner,” he suggested. “Let me put something on, and we can go.” He went to his closet to grab some clothes. 

You nodded at him and grabbed your phone. “I’m going to head down now to see if he needs any help.” You pressed a kiss on his jawline when you headed out of the room.

You wandered down to the kitchen. “It smells like a restaurant in here.”

“Of course, with Tuck cooking,” Dean said as he carried a case of beers to the fridge. 

“I’m making tortellini,” Tucker called out on the stove.  

Your eyes scanned the room and saw several pots going at once and the counters covered with ingredients. It almost looked suspiciously professional.

“You need any help with anything, Tuck? I’m all yours.”

“Don’t let G hear you say that.” Logan chuckled as he walked into the kitchen, holding something behind his back. 

“Whatcha got, Logan?”

“You know we’d never forget about you.” Logan brought his arm around to his front, revealing a case of mini cherry cokes. 

“You guys are the best.” You buttered them up with a cheesy smile. 

He took one from the case before handing it to Dean to put in the fridge. “For the lady,” he exaggeratedly presented the can to you while bowing. 

“Why, thank you, kind sir.” You accepted the drink in curtsy. 

“Where’s G, man? Foods ready to be served, and his ass is still in his room,” Tucker howled out as he started serving the plates.

You expected to hear a response, but you noticed the silence rather quickly. You looked up from opening your can and saw all three of the guys staring at you for a response. “Why are you guys looking at me?” You blurted. 

“Well, where is he?” Dean prompted. 

“Up in his room.”

“Why is he not down here with us?” Logan added.

“You guys know that I’m not his keeper, right?” you groaned exasperated.

The boys all mirrored the same look that screamed, “Are you being serious right now?”

“I’m not!” Your voice cracked at the delivery, causing the others to laugh.

“What are you all laughing about?” Garrett’s voice broke through the laughter. 

Silence fell upon the room for a few short moments before Dean made a joke: “Just about Missy’s obsession with cherry cokes.” He held up another can to set on the table. 

“G took you long enough, man,” Logan greeted Garrett.

“We were just about to start with you,” Tucker playfully told him.

You all crowded around the old kitchen table. Nobody bothered about matching plates or utensils. One of the chairs wobbled, and Dean had the luck of getting it for the night. You were seated next to Garrett, close enough for your knees to knock into each other and neither of you cared to move. 

The meal was perfect.

You took one bite.

Then another.

Followed by another.

“This is the best thing I’ve ever had,” you praised.

Tucker laughed, “What?”

“I’m not kidding, this is heaven,” you hummed happily.

“Babe, if you think this is heaven, maybe I can show you what real heaven feels like,” Dean dramatically winked at you knowing that it would get on Garrett’s nerves.

“Quit it,” Garrett told him but turned his attention to Tucker, “I told you she’d love it.”

You narrowed your eyes between the pair, “You discussed this beforehand?”

“Obviously,” Garrett stated.

“You are all weird,” you declared to the room.

“And yet you’re here with us on a Sunday night,” Logan bemused.

You pointed your fork at each of the boys, “I regret befriending you all.”

“No, you don’t,” Garrett affirmed.

“No, I don’t,” you admitted with a smile creeping on your lips.

The table fell quiet for a half second. Not awkward. Just one of those moments that everyone wanted to take in and keep as a treasured memory. Everyone glanced at each other with fondness. 

The moment faded when Dean threw a bread roll at Garrett.

If someone were to ask you what your favorite meal is, this would still be the answer.

Maybe not fully because of the tortellini. Which was genuinely incredible. 

It was because of this. The table. The laughter. Logan arguing with Dean. Tucker pretending not to be pleased with himself that everyone kept going back for seconds (and thirds and fourths for the fellow hockey men). Garrett stealing food directly off your plate despite having an identical serving. 

You felt like you always belonged there.

The tortellini just became attached to the memory. After dinner, everyone helped to clean up. Or at least claimed to. Dean somehow managed to disappear. Tucker offered moral support rather than actual labor for once in the night as he sat on the counter, keeping you guys company. You and Garrett ended up doing most of the dishes. Logan cleaned the counters quietly.

“You know I wish I cooked more,” you said to no one in particular. 

Tucker glanced over. “You cook?”

“A little.”

“A little means yes.”

You shrugged, “I used to a lot when I was home, but with the dorms the smells lingered too long, and just not enough space.”

“That’s fair,” Tucker hummed.

“And cooking for one kind of sucks,” you whispered but it was loud enough for the boys to catch it. 

“It does,” Garrett nodded.

“Nobody asked you, bub,” you retorted.

“I’m supporting you.”

“More like interrupting,” you kid.

Tucker laughed, you brought your gaze to him. “You should cook here.”

You blinked at him, “What?”

Dean chose that exact moment to reappear, “Absolutely.”

Logan pointed dramatically, “I second this.”

“You guys haven’t even tasted my cooking,” you cautioned them.

“We’re willing to take risks,” Garrett grinned at you.

The look made you suspicious. “Oh no.”

“What?” Garrett questioned with false innocence. 

“You have an idea.” 

The other three just watched the banter between you two.

“I always have ideas,” Garrett claimed.

“That’s worse,” Logan whispered to Tucker.

You looked around the kitchen. At the house. At the boys who were crowded into it. There was a familiar comfort that you don’t remember forming. And for the first time, the idea didn’t feel strange.

It felt natural.

“Okay.”

“Done.”

By the end of the night, Sunday family dinners existed. 

Every Sunday.

One week Tucker cooked. The next week you did. On a rare occasion, Dean, Garrett, and Logan teamed up to cook for the night.

Nobody was allowed to skip without a legitimate emergency.

Dean attempted to argue that hungry bunnies counted as an emergency. That one earned him a slap on the back of the head from the other three. 

The dinners became routine. Then tradition. 

Followed by something more. People started planning their schedules around them. Sometimes new people were invited.

Bad weeks felt easier knowing when Sunday was coming.

Good weeks feel better when there are others to celebrate with.

By the end of the semester, everyone stopped pretending. Not about the dinner, but about you and Garrett. The two of you still insisted that you were strictly best friends. 

Everyone else nodded along, desperately waiting for one of you to say something about it.

Because whenever someone looked around the table, the picture was always the same.

Garrett grabbed you a cherry Coke every time he reached for his one beer for the night without thinking.

You saved him a portion when he was running late.

The pair of you always sat beside one another.

Nobody said anything. Mostly because they knew that you both would deny it.

But every Sunday, around that crowded table, the rest of the house watched the two of you and thought the same thing. 

That you two loved each other. That you lived better being next to each other. 

“Yo! Missy, do a shot with Beau and me,” Dean shouted from the kitchen, setting out the shot cups.

Before you replied, you looked to Garrett, and as if he could read your mind. “Just spend the night. It's not like you were planning to go home anyway. Go enjoy yourself.”

“Thanks, handsome.” You pressed a quick kiss against the edge of his jaw. “What is it?” you questioned when you went over to Dean and Beau.

“A shot,” Dean answered. 

“Very informative.”

You looked toward Beau, maybe the only responsible person in the house right now. He glanced up to hand you the shot. “Don’t ask me. This was all him.”

Dean’s grin was concerning. You groaned dramatically, “I feel like this is a bad idea.”

“It absolutely is,” Logan agreed.

“Not helping, Logan,” you murmured under your breath. 

Dean wiggled his shot. 

You turned your head to look back at Garrett. Automatically. The same way you always did. In a way, you didn’t realize you did so often, but Garrett noticed. One look and he already knew exactly what you were asking. 

The corner of his mouth lifted. “You’ll be okay. I’ll take care of you, baby,” he reassured you.

“Will I?” You smelled the shot, causing your nose to scrunch up.

“Probably.”

“Probably?” He laughed at your echo as he shuffled over to you guys.

“If Dean somehow tricks you into doing more than one…” he trailed off, looking at Dean, who was setting up even more shots. 

“I heard that, G,” Dean quipped at him.

“I’ll drag you upstairs before you make any life-ruining or altering decisions,” Garrett finished. 

There was a certainty in it that made you smile. It was the thing that always settled something inside you. No matter the situation, you knew that Garrett would take care of you.

Not because he thought you couldn’t take care of yourself. Just because that’s what the two of you did for each other. 

The same way you always made sure he wasn’t overworking himself with practices, games, studying, etc. The same way you brought him his protein shakes to practice when he forgot. 

The same way you both somehow always knew when the other needed support before having to ask for it.

“You ready, Missy?” Dean winked at you.

“Yup,” you cheered with Beau and Dean. You downed the shot, and Garrett was already next to you with a chaser to help.

“One day you’re going to explain this thing between you two,” Dean pointed at you and Garrett. 

“Never,” you and Garrett said simultaneously.

Logan nearly doubled over laughing.

Tucker giggled to himself, having found his way over to the kitchen a few moments before.

Dean looked personally offended.

And Garrett just looked at you with the same twinkle in his eye from the moment you first met. 

The party died slowly with people filtering out in groups. The music was playing low. Empty cups and bottles accumulated on every available surface. By three in the morning, the Boys’ house was mostly quiet.

Tucker was passed out on the couch nearly an hour ago. He mumbled something about tortellini right before knocking out. 

Around the same time, Logan disappeared upstairs after making sure everyone downed a water bottle and some ibuprofen.

Dean was last seen stealing leftover pizza before vanishing into his room.

You were gathering the scattered trash left around the house, with Garrett following you with a trash bag in hand. You two worked your way around the house, making sure that nobody broke anything and didn't say anything about it.

You headed upstairs when Garrett went to throw out the bag outside. 

You found yourself curled into the corner of Garrett’s bed, wearing one of his hoodies that ended up living in your drawer here just for you to wear. You nursed another bottle of water. Not because you got particularly drunk. Because Garrett had handed it to you without asking before you went upstairs. 

The room was dim except for his lamp. Your drawer was half-open. A pair of your socks were sticking out. Your charger is plugged into the wall. 

There is so much evidence of you in this room now that it would be impossible to explain away. Not that either of you really tried to anymore. 

Garrett entered the room and headed straight to grab a pair of sweats. He went over to the bathroom. 

He came back out now shirtless, just in his sweats, and he threw his clothes into the hamper, which landed right on top of yours. 

Garrett sat beside you on the bed. Close enough that your arms brushed against each other. 

Neither of you said much for a while. 

The silence wasn’t awkward. It never really was. It was one of your favorite things about him. The ability to simply coexist together.

Eventually, he glanced over, “Tired?”

“Exhausted.”

“Did you have fun tonight?”

“I always do with you.” Your body started to lean into him.

Garrett brought you into his chest. The smell of your perfume overtook his senses. 

“Ready to go to bed?” he hummed into your hair.

You nodded gently and tore yourself from his grasp to look him in the eyes. Your gaze traveled from his lips to his eyes. Suddenly, neither of you was looking away. 

Something shifted. Not all at once. Just enough. Enough that you felt it, and you knew he did too. 

Garrett exhaled slowly. “Can I tell you something?”

The question snapped you out of your daze because Garrett sounded nervous. He never sounded like that around you, not anymore. 

His laugh was quiet. A little disbelieving. Like he was debating with himself.

Then he shakes his head, “I think I’ve been trying not to say this for months, hell, since the moment you cooked dinner for all of us while we were at practice back in sophomore year.”

Your heart immediately started beating faster. “Okay.”

“I keep telling myself we’re fine just the way we are.”

You blinked, “We are fine.”

“We are,” he smiled. “That’s part of the problem.”

You stared at him, and the room felt like it was getting warmer by the second. 

Garrett ran a hand through his hair. “I like you.”

“Wow.”

“What?” he quirked his brow at you.

“That sounded odd,” you giggled to yourself in disbelief. 

“It didn’t,” he defended weakly.

“It definitely did.”

“It really didn’t.” he shifted closer. “I mean it.”

Your chest hurts in the best possible way. “I know you do.” He froze at your confession.

Not because he’s told you before, but because he’d shown you. 

Every coffee he gave you when he knew you stayed up late studying.

Every late-night conversation in his room pretending that what you guys had was a normal friendship. 

Every time he remembered something small.

Every time he made space for you in crowded places.

Every time his eyes searched for yours after he scored a winning goal. 

Every time he looked at you like you were the best part of his day. 

You already knew, but hearing it made it real.

“What?”

You smiled, “I know.”

His expression looked almost offended. “You were supposed to be surprised.”

“You have a bottle of my perfume under your sink.” 

“In my defense–” you cut him off.

“You gave me a drawer.”

“You needed a drawer. How else were you supposed to stay over so often?” he shrugged.

“Maybe.” You reached for his hand. The movement was natural, like everything else with him. “I like you too.”

The room went still. Garrett stared back at you. “You do?”

You snickered. “Seriously?”

“I just want confirmation.”

“You have been my favorite person since the moment you almost concussed me freshman year.”

He covered his eyes with his hand. “Okay, moment ruined.” But when he uncovered his face, the smile that spread across his lips was devastating. Warm and content. Happy.

“So?”

“So what?” 

You shifted closer. “What does this mean for us?” You pretended to ponder. “Hm.”

“Missy.”

“I think…” You cocked your head to the side. “This means we should probably stop pretending we’re just friends.”

Garrett laughed. A real laugh. The kind that only came out around people he felt completely comfortable with. “Yeah.”

“Yeah?” you repeated. 

Then he leaned forward, slowly. His hand settled against your cheek. And when he kissed you, it didn’t feel new. It felt like something you’ve been waiting for a very long time. 

When you finally pull apart, both of you are smiling. A little stunned. Definitely giddy. Garrett rested his forehead against yours. “So we’re not telling them.”

You softly chuckled to yourself, “Absolutely not.”

“They’re going to be unbearable.”

“Especially Dean.”

“He’ll claim responsibility.”

“Too bad it’s thanks to your ridiculous bottle.”

He groaned, “We are keeping this to ourselves.”

“Agreed.” 

The agreement lasted less than eight hours.

The next morning, the kitchen smelled like coffee and bacon. 

Logan was standing at the stove.

Tucker was sitting by the counter with his head in his hands. 

Dean was eating cereal directly from the box. 

Nobody looked particularly awake. You shuffled into the kitchen wearing another one of Garrett’s hoodies, which wasn't unusual. 

Garrett followed a minute later. Also not unusual. 

Nobody paid attention.

Logan continued cooking his bacon. 

Tucker still hadn’t lifted his head up yet.

Dean kept munching on the cereal.

Garrett walked directly to the coffee pot. Also normal.

He poured a cup. He added exactly the amount of cream and sugar you liked. He carried it over to you. Still normal.

“Morning, Missy.” You heard Logan call from the stove.

“Morning,” You replied.

You accepted the mug from Garrett. And without thinking or planning, you leaned up and pecked his lips. Quick. Easy.

And not normal. 

The room went silent. The silence lasted exactly two seconds. 

Then Dean practically launched out of his chair, “I KNEW IT!”

You immediately dropped your head. “No.”

“YES.”

“It has been like six hours.”

“I KNEW IT.”

Garrett groaned. 

Dean pointed to himself, “This happened because of me.”

“It absolutely did not,” Garrett remarked. 

“I brought you together.”

“You really didn’t,” you laughed.

Tucker finally lifted his head and studied you and Garrett for a moment. Then nodded, “About time.”

Garrett pointed at him, “Thank you.”

“No problem,” Tucker muttered as he dropped his head back down.

Dean looked betrayed. “That’s all you have to say?”

“What else is there to say?” Tucker’s voice was muffled. 

“They’re dating!” Dean proclaimed.

“They’ve been emotionally dating for like over a year,” Logan shrugged off. 

“Fair,” you mouthed to Garrett. 

Logan flipped another piece of bacon, completely unfazed. “Bacon’s almost done.”

The room erupted.

Dean started shouting. Garrett was laughing. You nearly spilled your coffee when Dean came up to pick you up in a spin, barely giving you time to set down the mug. Garrett made quick work of grabbing it out of your hands. “I call being the godfather to your future children.”

Life seemed to be put back into Tucker, and Logan flipped around, pointing the tongs at Dean. “No man, that’s not how that works.”

Tucker looked more alive than ever. “My sous chef would never pick you, dude.”

Dean sat you down on the counter and immediately started arguing with the other two. 

And standing next to you was Garrett. His shoulder pressed against yours while he handed your coffee back. 

You realized something. Nothing felt different. Not really. The house was still home. The boys are still family. 

Garrett was still your favorite person.

The only difference was that now everybody knew it, including you and Garrett.

[watchtowerlibrary]

best friends to lovers - i'm in. it's perfect. no notes. 💌

[ilyahugs]

just one time

word count: 4,907 ship: Garrett Graham x reader rating: PG-13 summary: Your brother's best friend should be off limits. Probably. Right? TW: slightly uncomfy situations for reader at a party notes: idk seeing belmont dance to 'girls' unlocked something in me, enjoy i guess (along with the three anons who've been asking lol) notes2: gifs are from this gifpack :) notes3: wrote a lot of nick leister x reader (my fault london) fics, if that's your thing

One thing about Briar U is that they know how to throw a party. 

This isn’t your school, but since your brother has been going here since he was a freshman, you’re practically a connoisseur of these house parties. You know your junior year should probably be spent locking down your future but…there’s something about being tucked into an off-campus residence, loud music pulsing in your veins, familiar tipsy faces you’ve gotten to know over the years, drinks that are always too sweet and snacks that are always too salty—you love it. You fucking love it. 

Wearing a silky black slip dress and a jean jacket, paired with your favorite high-top Converse, you head through the open front door of where your brother stays with some of his hockey teammates. You smile when you spot Dean and Logan playing an intense game of air hockey, moving towards the kitchen to see if you can find your brother or anyone else you might recognize. The place is packed, bodies shuffling through various states of being drunk. There’s too loud laughter and conversation and the utter, familiar chaos pulls the corners of your lips up in amusement. 

Shifting past a couple that won’t stop making out against the fridge, you peruse the open bottles of liquor, grabbing a random red cup to look in. Seems clean…ish. Before you can pour something inside of it, a hand comes from your right and yanks it right out of your hand. 

“I wouldn’t, ribbit.” 

You roll your eyes towards the ceiling at the familiar nickname that’s been yours for the past three years. Turning, you lean your body against the counter, face to face with Garrett Graham.

Hockey legend. Your brother’s best friend. Your utter pain in the ass—and completely off limits (and probably out of your league). 

“Are you ever going to stop calling me that?” 

Garrett purses his lips, pretending to think about it, “You ever going to stop rescuing frogs roadside?” 

Your cheeks pink, “That was one time.” 

He smiles, something warm and affectionate that reaches directly between your ribs and threatens to tug them apart. You’ve known Garrett as long as you’ve had the nickname, as long as your brother’s been going to school here. They’re both on the same hockey team and became close friends. Garrett has been to family dinners, he’s been to holidays, he’s gotten you birthday and Christmas gifts, he’s comforted you over ex boyfriends who didn’t deserve your attention, he’s walked you to your car on late nights at Malone’s, he’s bought you coffee with that sixth sense that knows when you need a pick-me-up, he’s shared inside jokes and driven you home when you were too drunk to get there yourself. Hence the frog nickname. 

One ride a few years ago, one frog in the middle of the road rescued, one nickname tied loosely to your entire being forever. 

You can pretend you hate it. But you don’t. 

You glance down at the closed can of alcoholic seltzer as it’s placed into your hand, “I saved you a grape one.” 

You really hate that, however. How thoughtful Garrett is, how kind and silly and funny he can be. It’s truly unfair. That you’re friends with someone your brother considers his bestie and that he…he can’t be anything else to you. You’re pretty sure your brother wouldn’t care but Garrett doesn’t see you like that. Why would he? 

It’s a bad day to have eyes. You trail them over his form, trying not to be obvious. He’s wearing something that shouldn't be so groundbreaking, and yet the black jeans paired with a simple black tee somehow makes your entire body throb. Heat skitters right through your veins like liquid honey, gaze snagging on the gold chain he’s always got on resting on his sternum and tight curls brushing against his forehead. 

Your fingers itch to tuck them out of the way. You instead pop the seltzer can open; much safer. “Thanks. Have you seen my brother?” 

Garrett inclines his head down the hallway, “Think he’s outside losing in a game of flip-cup.” 

“Amateur.” 

His chest rumbles with a laugh and he reaches to tug the end of your jean jacket, pulling you closer. You convince yourself it’s so that you can hear him over the loud music, “You want to be on my team then? We’ll crush him.” 

“Oh so you want an easy win, captain?” You tease, “That doesn’t sound like you.” 

Garrett scoffs, leaning his head down, eliminating the height difference that he has over you. You draw a breath into your lungs, ignoring how the cologne mixed with familiar laundry detergent slips straight up your nose, 

“Just one time won’t hurt, will it ribbit?” 

Despite your better judgement, you find yourself smiling.

—

As suspected, you absolutely dominate flip-cup. There’s three rounds and a lot of laughter and when you get to the finish line (again, utterly victorious), you tip the contents of the red cup (which you’ve filled with the grape seltzer that Garrett gave you) past your lips. There’s obnoxious cheering and arms over your shoulders and you’re giggling at your brother gaping at you from his third cup (two behind). 

“You didn’t tell me that’s what you were going to college for,” He tosses out but he’s laughing. “Professor of Flip-cup.” 

“Shut up,” You laugh at the play-on words for the teaching degree you’re going after, shaking your head as you set the cup down. 

You feel a gaze tied to you, like the pull on some sort of invisible string, glancing up to the other end of the table where Garrett is watching with a fond smile. He crinkles his nose, making a soft laugh flutter out of your chest before your attention has to go back to your brother—who is stumbling towards you and placing both of his hands on your shoulders. 

“I’d say you cheated but I feel like that goes against sibling comradery." 

You shake your head, “You’re the only person I know who can use ‘comradery’ in a sentence while fucked up.” It’s practically been straight liquor in the other cups he was playing with, “How bout some water?” 

He shakes his head, taking a step back and nearly drawing you over with him, “Don’t kill my buzz.” 

Another laugh spills out, “What about enjoying your buzz horizontally?” You look over your shoulder to call for Garrett but he’s already there, a warm weight behind you, reaching for your brother’s one arm. 

“C’mon, let’s get you to your room, champ.” 

You skirt under Garrett’s grasp, letting him step forward to support your brother’s weight by guiding his arm around his shoulders. Tucker, nearby, steps in on the other side to help. You smile gratefully at them, following them inside as your brother rambles about the unfairness of his younger sister beating him in flip-cup. 

“Has to be against the rules somehow.” He grumbles. 

“She’s like a year younger than you, dude.” Garrett defends your honor with a laugh before you can step in. He tosses you a wink and then helps your brother maneuver the steps towards the upstairs bedrooms. 

A soft hum leaves your chest, wanting to follow them but then realizing it’d probably be best if you got your brother some aspirin. There really is nothing worse than a hangover. You wander towards the kitchen, grabbing a glass of water and the bottle of pills before heading upstairs. When you get to the doorway of your brother’s room, you can hear him talking to Garrett, which is somehow him thanking his bed for not spinning like the entire room is. 

But then you catch the tailend of another comment— “Keep an eye on her. Please? She’s—” 

Garrett is quiet a moment before you can picture him nodding, “Yeah, you know I will.” 

You swallow over something familiar that curls up from your stomach, something that gets caught in your throat and tastes too much like acid. You try to blame it on the amount of alcoholic seltzers you’ve had but you know it’s not that. The thing is, comments like that between your brother and Garrett shouldn’t bother you. Your brother has always been protective of you; you’re incredibly close, you look out for one another. You’ve got matching feather tattoos on your arms because ‘birds of a feather flock together’. 

It’s not what he says, exactly. It’s moreso…it’s Garrett’s reply. 

Garrett, who’s always been your friend too in a lot of ways. Him keeping an eye on you shouldn’t dig under your skin either. There’s nothing wrong with that, with Garrett having your back. But it’s…it’s because your brother asks, because you’re the ‘little sister’ in this situation, because Garrett is unwillingly making you sound like some sort of responsibility he has to take on—

It feels like bugs crawling under your skin. It feels like disappointment and guilt. It feels like feelings never reciprocated sagging like a heavy load. 

Turning to head back downstairs, you disappear into the havoc of the downstairs party before Garrett and Tucker come out of the bedroom. 

—

Despite the sourness sitting in the bottom of your belly, you spend the night with other friends. There are plenty of girls that also go to Briar U that you’ve interacted with over the years, a solid three faces that you wish you saw a lot more often than you did. Going to a different school usually doesn’t bother you, even though you feel like you have a lot more connections here than your own college. It’s not too far from Briar U, but the small distance is probably a blessing in disguise …otherwise it’d probably be way more obvious that you have a crush on someone you can never have. 

You’re not saying you don’t believe you’re a catch for anyone who might want you, it’s not that at all. You consider yourself someone who’s pretty and smart and capable of standing up for themselves. You don’t take shit from anyone, you laugh freely, you enjoy what you enjoy without apologizing for it. But…

Sometimes it feels like Garrett is so far out of your league, someone who fills up an entire room without trying, who smiles easily and flirts and makes jokes that shouldn’t be funny but somehow are. He’s gorgeous—dark bedroom eyes, tall with broad shoulders, someone filled out athletically thanks to years of training his body, and curly hair that is somehow never styled yet always attractively a mess. Unfair really. Because it’s not just his looks, which somehow makes it worse. He’s a gentleman; he’s thoughtful and actually listens to you when you talk; he remembers things, things you’d never think were important but are. He’s kind and soft and incredibly loyal. 

And…

And he’ll probably never see you as someone other than your brother’s younger sister. 

Your smile is pulled into a full grin when your friend, Mya, tugs your arm above your head to spin you on the dance floor. A laugh leaves your chest, the bass of the music pulsing and living under your skin. You close your eyes to it, moving along with the beat, taking a shot from your other friend Stella when she hands them out. 

You tip it back, a cough following, shaking your head as you set the small cup down. The liquor sits like a weight in your belly and you know you should balance it out with water, not wanting to be completely trashed at this party. The last thing you want to do is have to spend the night by sleeping on the couch (questionable) or on the floor in your brother’s room (uncomfortable). 

You pull yourself away from your friends, slipping into the kitchen. You’ve lost your jean jacket a while ago, just the slip dress clinging to the curves of your body. You hum, running a hand along the side of your neck, reaching for a clean cup in the cabinet to grab yourself some cold water from the fridge. 

A body comes up behind you, too close, almost pressing into your spine. You turn a little, frowning at the unfamiliar guy that’s standing near you like he knows you. You blink, sipping on your water, leaning your back into the counter, 

“Sorry, did you need in the fridge?” You ask. 

He shakes his head, his gaze slipping down your body. He’s handsome in that sort of cookie-cutter way—short brunette hair, glazed blue eyes, full lips. He’s drunk or high, or a combination of the two, grinning lazily at you in a suggestiveness that makes your stomach clench. 

Clearing your throat, you’re intent on moving but he sidesteps you, his body blocking your own. He’s much taller than you, towering in a way that’s supposed to make you feel small. And you hate that it does. “I saw you dancing. Those moves are something else.” 

Your eyebrows draw together, not bothering thanking this guy for a terrible pick-up line, “Yeah,” You clear your throat, “Well, if you’ll excuse me.” 

“Wait, I was thinking you could teach me some moves—” His hand comes down onto the counter, boxing you in. 

“No,” You cut him off.  A full sentence. You don’t owe him an explanation. 

Which he clearly doesn’t like; his entire demeanor changes. His eyebrows draw together, his hand wrapping around your wrist, “Don’t be fucking rude.” 

You open your mouth to say something else, trying to pull your arm out of his grasp but Garrett comes up behind him, seemingly out of nowhere. He clamps a hand down on his shoulder, yanking him backwards. He’s at least a head taller than this guy, manhandling him like a ragdoll. 

“Are you deaf?” His voice is as cold and unforgiving as ice, “Because she was pretty clear with the word ‘no’.” 

You draw in a breath, your heartbeat in your ears because despite holding your ground, you hate that you were beginning to feel panicked. Even though the party is packed, even though you know people here, no one enjoys the feeling of being ignored, of being backed into a corner. Claustrophobia unwinds from your ribs as Garrett creates that distance again between you and this asshole. He steps closer as silent support, yet doesn’t invade your space. 

The guy stumbles back, annoyed and scoffing in your direction, “Maybe tell your girlfriend not to wear a dress that’s an open invitation next time.” 

You can tell the exact moment that Garrett sees red. His nostrils flare, his shoulders straighten, the muscle in his jaw flexes and even though you’re reaching for him, even though you’re saying his name, Garrett turns in a quick snap. His fist goes flying, connecting with this dick’s nose. You wince, hearing the crunch of bone, the guy folding like a cheap shirt. He crumples into the island counter, whining about his face and you reach out to gently wrap your arm around Garrett’s forearm to keep him in place. 

“Fucking bitch.” The jerk spits, though you’re not sure if it’s directed at you or Garrett. You hold onto him just in case, not wanting things to get worse. 

Garrett’s chest is heaving, barely controlled anger once again fizzling directly underneath the surface, “Get the fuck out of my house.” 

Nearby, Dean and Logan hear the commotion and what Garrett says. They reach for the idiot who’s moaning about his nose and hustle him towards the front door. Swallowing over an emotion in your throat, you tug on the bottom of Garrett’s shirt. 

“Garrett.” 

But he won’t stop watching the guy getting kicked out of his house, like he needs to see it in order for it to be true. You reach up on your toes, touching his jawline. His gaze instantly comes back to you, softening when he realizes how shaken up you are. Putting on a tough front is one thing but…you can’t hide the after effects of adrenaline crackling underneath your skin. 

Your fingers tremble as you trail them along his cheek, eyeing his knuckles, “You’re bleeding.” 

He flexes his fingers, shrugging his one shoulder. He doesn’t talk for a moment and you wonder if that’s because he’s still too angry. You’ve seen him like this a handful of times on the ice, the way a shadow passes over his eyes, the way it lives on his face, like it’s somehow sucking the life out of him. You know about the relationship with his dad, the broken pieces that his parents have left behind, the way Garrett thinks that no one will be able to handle those shards with their bare hands. 

You guide his chin between your fingers, forcing him to look at you, “Come with me.” 

“I’m fine.” He manages to say. 

“Did I make it sound like it was a choice?” 

A flutter of a smile pulls the corners of Garrett’s mouth, the tension in his shoulders dissipating as he nods and follows you towards the bathroom. You step to the side so that he enters first and once you’re inside, you close the door behind you. 

Motioning him to lean against the sink, you draw in a breath that centers your nerves, trying to ignore how massive Garrett feels tucked into this space with you. His tall and lean body rests against the sink, flexing his fingers again as he looks at his bloody knuckles. You tap his leg so he shifts and you’re able to look under the sink for washcloths—perfect. 

“You’re okay?” He asks. 

A small smile at your success lives on your features as you wet the washcloth in warm water. You can feel Garrett’s gaze on your face, tracing over your form. It’s intimate in a way you wish it wasn’t. You clear your throat, moving to stand in front of him, gently picking up his large hand in yours to look at his knuckles. 

“Yeah, I’m fine.” You assure him, the shaking from before mostly disappearing. “You didn’t need to do that.” 

A scoff leaves his throat, “Don’t, ribbit.” 

“I’m serious. I can take care of myself.” 

And you don’t think Garrett is somehow questioning that? Maybe it’s not about that at all. His eyebrows draw together and he winces as you begin cleaning his knuckles, “I’m not gonna let any asshole talk to you like that. I’m just not.” 

Distantly, you know that’s not what set Garrett off in the first place; that this guy put his hands on you and wouldn’t take ‘no’ as an answer. Could you have handled it? Probably. Was it good that Garrett stepped in? 

You nod softly, letting out a slow breath, “Would hate for you to do something stupid like break your fingers on an asshole’s face, lose your prince of hockey reputation.” 

A laugh slips out of his mouth, seeming to wrap around your entire body with warmth, “Oh so you think I’m a prince.” 

Your cheeks pink and you really hope that the blush isn’t visible in this dim-lit bathroom which, once again, feels far too small. You can feel the heat of Garrett’s body along your own like an intimate caress. 

“I think you’re an idiot,” You mumble, chewing your lower lip. You’re satisfied that his knuckles don’t look too bad, setting the washcloth aside.

“Am I gonna make it, doc?” 

A small smile twitches at your mouth, “Might have to amputate the whole arm, just to be safe.” 

He raises his eyebrows, a laugh stumbling out, “Probably best you’re not going to college to be a doctor.” 

You hum, your chest feeling warm. Your gaze snags onto his for a long moment and you can’t stop yourself from lifting your hand and touching some of the curls near his forehead, “You don’t have to throw your fist at anyone just because my brother said to keep an eye on me.” 

Garrett’s eyebrows arch, “You think that’s why I did that?” 

You shrug your one shoulder, unaware of what other reason there could be. Your gaze averts down to your wrist, red marks on your skin from that dick grabbing you. You run your fingers over the touch, clearing your throat in the silence. 

Garrett shifts, reaching out and touching your chin. He clasps it between his fingers, tipping it up, forcing your eyes to meet his. His thumb draws a shape along your jaw, his mouth parting as he looks at you, really looks at you. 

“You think the reason I do anything is because you’re my friend’s younger sister?” 

For once, you find yourself sort of blinking at him, words caught somewhere hiding behind your teeth and under your tongue. You think about moments you’ve had with Garrett, things over the years that have felt insignificant but…maybe they’re not. The way he’s constantly giving you his jacket when you forget your own, or picking food up from Malone's when he knows you’ve got a big test to study for, the way he’s tucked you into into his chest when you’re biting your lip hard, trying not to cry, the way he’s danced with you to ridiculous songs, or has always had your favorite snack on hand at his place, how he’s taken you to horror movies your friends won’t see with you, how he’s held your hand, a lazy intertwining of fingers, for no point other than to just have that contact between the two of you. 

–all these things you thought Garrett might be doing because you’re his friend’s sister, because you and him are friends too–

And yet, he seems to be telling you that…

Garrett smiles a little; can see the moment where the spark of a thought catches fire, his thumb tracing over your lower lip. 

“Just one time I wish your thoughts weren’t so loud in your head,” He teases, both of his hands cupping your face. 

Well he’s finally got his wish. There are zero thoughts spinning around in your brain, just a warm static, like the grayish snow that falls over the TV when a channel is lost. A roaring of flames. A washing machine spinning sounds between your ears, a wave crashing over a shore. Absolutely nothing other than the heartbeat on your tongue, the warmth of Garrett’s hands covering your skin, and the way your fingers curl in the fabric of his shirt to pull him close. 

The way you kiss him. 

There’s the tiniest moment of hesitation before Garrett is standing to his full height from where he was leaning against the sink, his arms wrapping around your waist. Your body molds to his, your fingers threading through his hair. There’s a full bodied shudder when Garrett’s tongue slips into your mouth, when he rolls it against his own, when he lifts you up and turns to place you onto the sink. 

The entire thing creaks under your weight and soft squeak leaves your throat as you think it might come crashing down underneath you. A laugh slips out, joining with Garrett’s, his hands on your hips to keep you in place. 

“Bad idea.” You mumble. 

Garrett steps between your legs, his nose brushing yours in a bunny kiss, “The sink or the kiss?” 

You chew on your lower lip, shrugging your one shoulder, “I dunno, I’ve probably had better kisses than that one.” 

He scoffs out a laugh, running a hand through his curls, pursing his lips, “Damn alright,” His gaze falls back to yours as he leans in and presses a kiss to the corner of your mouth, “Guess I’ll just have to try harder.” 

“I guess you will.” You smile, the words barely out of your mouth before he’s kissing you again. 

—

You try to convince yourself that kissing Garrett will just be the one time. This one night. 

He’s given you a t-shirt to wear to sleep in, he’s given you his bed, insisting he’ll sleep on the floor (he won’t—you pull him to the other side where he sprawls out on top of the covers). You stare at the ceiling and count the glow in the dark stars that are stuck to paint, a small smile pulling at your mouth. Your lips are buzzing with the sensation of his kiss, skin warm with where his hands were lingering. 

His hand rests along your hip, trailing to rest on your stomach until you turn and tuck yourself back against him. He molds himself along your body, his chin resting on your shoulder, planting kisses on your neck that tickle but the last thing you want him to do is stop. 

And it’s then you know that it’ll never be just this one time. 

—

The morning comes slow and the house is quiet. You head downstairs while Garrett is still sleeping, intent on making coffee. Tucker has already made a pot and is wandering around the living room and kitchen collecting trash from the party. It’s not as bad as you’ve seen it before but still, you wince. There’s nothing worse than waking up to a mess left behind by a bunch of strangers. 

You grab a trashbag in solidarity after adding cream and sugar to your mug. While you take a few sips from your coffee cup, Tucker offers you a small smile when you go to pick up forgotten red cups and empty bottles. You fill up one trash bag, moving to take it outside. Garrett intercepts, coming down from upstairs. He’s in a pair of gray sweatpants, no shirt, and half asleep. He rubs his one eye before reaching for the trash bag, 

“Don’t worry about it, ribbit.” His voice is gruff from sleep, stoking heat in your lower belly. 

 Pushing that aside, you insist, “I want to help,” and look over your shoulder at what’s left. They could easily crank out a clean house in like…two hours, if they all pitched in. 

He smiles, stepping down all the way to where you’re standing. His fingers brush through your hair, pushing it over your shoulder, “I got you, go see if Tucker is into making pancakes this morning.” 

You purse your lips, Garrett’s gaze snagging on your mouth. He leans down and presses a soft kiss there; seems like something he’s unable to stop himself from doing. He pulls away, going to take the trash to the back to toss it out—

And your brother stands there on the steps, raising his eyebrows at the soft interaction he’s caught. 

Your heart hammers in your chest, your mouth opening and ready to…explain somehow. Not to apologize, because you’re not sorry for this fading line in the sand completely disappearing. He shakes his head, raising his hand to stop you,

“I thought it would have been sooner.” 

You blink at him because what? That’s…really the last thing you expected him to say. “Are you fucking kidding me?” You let out a laugh, your hand settling on your chest, resting over your fluttering heart. 

Your brother shrugs, glancing down the hallway to where Garrett is coming back inside, “Just seems like something’s been going on for a while, I was just trying to see who made the first move.” 

You chew on the inside of your cheek, “Me, I guess. Or…I dunno. It was a joint effort.” 

He makes a face, “Damn. I owe Dean fifty bucks.” 

Your mouth falls open even though a scoff of a laugh tumbles forth. Garrett slides up beside you, hooking his arm around your shoulders, taking a long look at your brother, “You look like shit.” 

“Fuck you, Graham.” There’s warmth as he speaks, an amused eyeroll following as he passes you both to head into the kitchen, “Tuck, please tell there will be pancakes.” 

You can hear Tucker chuckle and you turn underneath Garrett’s arm to face him. He looks down at you with a small smile, leaning until his nose brushes yours. You can’t stop yourself from threading some of your fingers through the curls near his forehead, pushing them back even though you know they’re not going to stay. 

“Apparently there was a bet going on,” You say wryly. 

“Unsurprising.” He comments, glancing into the kitchen as your brother helps Tucker with breakfast, “Though disappointing I couldn’t put money towards it.” 

You smack his chest, a laugh bubbling out of his lungs as his fingers hook around your wrist, bringing your hand to his lips. He presses a kiss to your knuckles, keeping you close. A slow breath leaves your chest, your arm loosely wrapped around his waist, thumb tracing up and down his spine along his lower back. It’s like you both were waiting for this moment, a wave of everything that was unspoken settling against your skin. Something that somehow has always been there yet tucked behind uncertainties and doubt. 

“I guess we’re kinda bad at this.” You joke, watching Garrett resting your shared hands against his chest. Your stomach flutters when you feel the beat of his heart underneath your fingertips.  He presses a kiss to the corner of your mouth, “I dunno, I think I’d rather be bad at this together than good at it with anyone else.” 

A smile threatens to split your face in half at his ridiculous promise, shaking your head, “That is—” 

He cuts you off with a kiss, his one hand squeezing yours while the other holds itself to your waist. You’re so glad this isn’t just a one time thing. 

[alierecss]

you had me at wrong number | Dean Di Laurentis

summary: what starts as a wrong number nude becomes something neither of them planned for. a week of texts, a facetime call neither of them hangs up from, and a party where jealousy finally shows its hand you and dean end up somewhere that doesn't have a name yet but feels like the beginning of one.

warnings: explicit sexual content, sexting, nudity, oral sex (f receiving), edging, dom!dean if you squint, jealousy, slow burn compressed into one week, strangers to whatever this is, dean diLaurentis being shameless about it, probably slightly ooc dean

author's note: hii i'm back! i know i've been mia this week and i missed you guys, but i come bearing gifts. this one is long, it's explicit, it's a little self indulgent and i had so much fun writing it. as always your comments and reblogs mean everything to me, let me know what you think

It was a slow Thursday night and you should have been studying.

But the list of TikToks was genuinely unstoppable, and you had been meaning to put your phone down for at least ten minutes, but you just couldn't, and then your phone beeped with a text from an unknown number.

unknown number: it's missing you…

unknown number: thinking about what we did last night at the bathroom of malone's. can we repeat that?

The picture that followed was so far from PG it made you quiver.

It showed a male body cut from the head down, a well defined torso, white boxers sitting low on his hips, left hand gripping himself while the right held his phone up to the mirror. You were a little shocked honestly. It was quite girthy. That couldn't be the right word but it was the one your brain produced and you were going with it. Not that you were going to pay a compliment to this unknown manwhore who was sending you unsolicited nudes at 7pm on a Thursday night. Also last night? This meant he was hooking up with people in a bathroom on a random Wednesday? Malone's dirty, sticky floored, one broken lock bathroom at that. Manwhore was definitely the right word.

yn: wrong number dude

Three dots appeared immediately.

unknown number: aw babygirl don't be telling lies ik you liked what we did last night

You stared at the screen.

yn: babygirl? ew

yn: also last night i was asleep by like 9pm

unknown number: oh geez i didn't know i sent an accidental nude to a nun

yn: fuck off. i just like to go to bed early

unknown number: sure you do sister

You made a face at your phone. The audacity. The complete and total audacity of this person.

yn: at least i'm not some dirty manwhore hooking up in malone's disgusting bathrooms on a wednesday night

unknown number: gosh. slut shaming. that's a low even for you

yn: you don't even know me?????

Three dots appeared. Disappeared. Appeared again. Disappeared again. You stared at the screen. Appeared.

unknown number: fair point

A pause. Then:

unknown number: so who are you then, early bedtime girl

You should not be entertaining this. You should put the phone down, go back to your notes, pretend this never happened. You had a reading you hadn't even opened yet and a paper outline due Friday morning.

And yet.

yn: someone who now knows more about you than she ever wanted to

unknown number: be honest

unknown number: did you like it

You made a sound that was almost a laugh. Almost.

yn: goodbye

unknown number: that's a yes

yn: it's a goodbye

unknown number: same thing

You put the phone face down on your desk. Picked up your highlighter. Read the same sentence four times without absorbing a single word of it. Outside your window someone was playing music too loud and down the hall your roommate was on a call and everything was completely normal and you were sitting here with your highlighter hovering over the same sentence like an idiot.

Your phone buzzed.

unknown number: i'm dean by the way

unknown number: since we're basically intimately acquainted now

You flipped it back over before you could decide not to.

yn: we are not intimately acquainted

unknown number: i mean

unknown number: you've seen my left hand and dick

yn: i hate you

unknown number: you don't even know me?????

You stared at him throwing your own words back at you. Felt something move through your chest that was warm and annoying and completely unwelcome.

Then, against every instinct you had, against every reasonable self-preserving impulse in your body, you typed:

yn: …yn

Three dots. Then:

unknown number: yn

unknown number: pretty name for a nun

yn: i will block you

unknown number: no you won't

You put the phone down. Stared at the ceiling.

The worst part was he was right.

You didn't block him.

You also didn't text him first. That was the rule, and you held it with both hands because it was the only rule you had left and without it the whole thing became something you'd have to think about seriously, which you were not prepared to do. You did not text him first, not once, in the three days that followed. He always started it. A meme at 11pm with no context. A "hey nun" at 2pm on a Friday when you were between classes and your phone buzzed and your stomach did something you pretended didn't happen. A "what are you doing" on Sunday afternoon that you answered before you'd fully processed that you were doing it.

It was nothing. It was just texting. People texted. It meant nothing.

dean: okay but genuinely what are you wearing right now

You were in your roommate's oversized sweatshirt, frog socks, and a hair clip that was losing a structural battle. You looked down at yourself.

yn: why

dean: just curious

dean: academically

yn: academically.

dean: i'm a curious person yn. intellectually invested in you as a human being

yn: you're so full of shit

dean: okay but what are you wearing

yn: something you'd find very disappointing

dean: try me

You looked down at yourself again. The frog socks. The sweatshirt that reached your mid thigh. The hair clip dangling precariously off a chunk of hair that had given up.

yn: an oversized sweatshirt

dean: okay

dean: what else

You felt something shift in the air of your room. Subtle. Like pressure changing before rain.

yn: socks

dean: what kind

yn: …frogs

dean: okay that's genuinely adorable

dean: what's under the sweatshirt

You should have put the phone down. You were capable of it. It was a documented skill you possessed.

yn: why don't you tell me what you think is under the sweatshirt

You sent it before you could think about it too hard. Three dots appeared immediately, like he'd been waiting.

dean: oh so we're doing this

yn: i didn't say that

dean: you kind of said that

yn: i said tell me what you think. that's not confirmation of anything

dean: fine

dean: i think you're wearing something small. something comfortable that you'd never admit you wear for any reason other than comfort but that fits you really well

dean: i think about what's under that sweatshirt more than i should probably admit

The sentence landed before you could brace for it.

yn: you think about that

dean: since the minute you said wrong number dude and didn't block me

dean: yeah

Your room felt very small. You were very aware of the specific square footage of it suddenly.

yn: that's insane

dean: probably

dean: take the sweatshirt off

yn: absolutely not

dean: why not

yn: because i don't do this

dean: yn you've been doing this for twenty minutes

Annoyingly, infuriatingly, completely accurate.

yn: if i take a picture you better not be weird about it

dean: i will be so normal

dean: the most normal i have ever been in my entire life

yn: dean

dean: yn i promise on my life

You looked at yourself in your phone camera for a long moment. The grey bralette under the sweatshirt. The lamp light. You looked good. You looked like yourself which was the best you could say about most things.

You took the sweatshirt off. Took the picture before your nerve ran out. You made sure to adjust the bralette so you boobs could look better in the picture. You sent it.

Immediately wanted to be unconscious.

Three dots appeared. Stopped. Appeared. Stopped. Appeared. Stopped.

dean: okay

dean: so

dean: i need a minute

yn: you said you'd be normal

dean: i lied. i'm so sorry i completely lied

A picture came through forty seconds later and you were not prepared for it.

Same mirror but this time he was not wearing any boxers, just some towel wrapped around his hip, hanging very low, so low you could see that he had shaven recently, which was its own problem. But this time he wasn't doing anything. Just standing there, one hand braced on the bathroom counter, head tilted down, face still out of frame. The line of his stomach, the cut of his hips, and the very obvious, very clear, very present fact that he was already hard and making absolutely no attempt to hide it.

Your mouth went dry.

dean: you started it

yn: i didn't start anything

dean: yn

yn: what

dean: take the bralette off

yn: you first

The picture came through in under fifteen seconds. You made a sound. You were glad you were alone.

It showed him, in what you think it was his bed. The towel still there but now it was not covering him anymore, and you could see the total of his nature. He took the picture from the side, so you could see the way his member was hitting on his abs.

dean: your turn

Your hands were not steady. You were aware of that and chose to file it under irrelevant. You reached back, unclasped it, let it fall somewhere on your bed. Took the picture fast. Sent it before the part of your brain responsible for self-preservation could intervene.

dean: god

dean: yn

yn: what

dean: i've been thinking about this since thursday and somehow it's still better than what i had in my head

dean: which was already pretty good

yn: stop

dean: i'm not going to stop

dean: can i tell you what i'd do if i was there right now

yn: …yes

What followed was not brief. It was not vague. It was not tasteful. Dean DiLaurentis typed the way he apparently did everything else, with complete shameless commitment and an almost offensive amount of specificity and detail. He told you exactly where he'd start. How long he'd stay there. What he'd say while he did it. What he'd do when you tried to rush him. What he'd do when you tried to be quiet about it. He was detailed in a way that made your face hot and your thoughts go static and your hand move south without you fully authorizing the journey.

yn: you're really good at this

dean: i know

dean: are you touching yourself right now

yn: …maybe

dean: yeah?

yn: shut up

dean: i'm not saying anything

dean: keep going

dean: tell me what you're doing

yn: no

dean: yn

yn: i said no

dean: okay

dean: then i'll keep telling you what i'd do

He did. In more detail than before. More specific. He described it like he had all night and no intention of rushing any part of it and the combination of his words and your own hand and the particular airless quality of your room at 11pm on a Sunday had you pressing your face into your pillow trying to muffle yourself.

yn: dean

dean: yeah

yn: i hate you

dean: no you don't

dean: are you close

yn: …yes

dean: good

dean: don't yet

You stared at the screen. Your hand stilled involuntarily.

yn: excuse me

dean: you heard me

yn: you can't tell me what to do

dean: yn

yn: what

dean: wait

yn: dean i swear to god —

dean: wait

dean: send me a voice note

dean: wanna hear you when you come

You waited. Hating him. Breathing. Staring at the ceiling with your hand completely still and your entire body in open revolt.

dean: okay

dean: now

It took approximately thirty seconds and you were embarrassingly loud about it for someone who lived in an apartment with a roommate.

You lay there after staring at the ceiling, heart rate doing its slow return to baseline, phone resting on your chest going up and down with your breathing.

yn: i hate you so much

dean: that's fair

dean: for the record i just had to take a very cold shower

dean: so

yn: good

dean: yn

yn: what

dean: you're really pretty

Not hot. Not sexy. Not any of the words he'd been using for the last forty minutes. Pretty. Quiet and simple and completely unprepared for.

yn: goodnight dean

dean: goodnight yn

You put your phone down. Stared at the ceiling. Thought about the word pretty and how he'd said it like it was just a fact he was reporting. Like he wasn't performing anything.

You were in so much trouble.

It was Tuesday night, almost midnight, and you couldn't sleep.

You'd been lying there for an hour doing the thing you did when your brain wouldn't cooperate, cycling through everything unfinished, everything not tight enough yet, everything that still needed work. Your Political Science thesis proposal. Your reading for Thursday. The general low hum of being someone who wanted things badly and couldn't fully turn that off even at midnight even when there was nothing productive to do with it.

You were not thinking about Dean. You were specifically not thinking about the fact that it had been two days since Sunday and your phone had been quiet and the rule was the rule and you were fine.

Your phone lit up.

Not a text. A FaceTime request.

dean d.

You stared at it. One ring. Two rings.

Third ring.

You answered.

His face filled your screen and you understood immediately why he'd stayed out of frame in the photos. It would have been unfair to include it. Blue eyes, slightly messed up hair, the particular look of someone lying in bed at midnight who had picked up the phone and just called without letting himself think about it too hard. He was in a grey t-shirt and he looked — a lot. He looked like a lot.

He looked at you for one second and the corner of his mouth moved.

"Frog socks," he said.

You glanced down involuntarily then looked back at the screen. "You can't even see my feet."

"I assumed."

"That's —" You shifted against your pillow, propping the phone up against your lamp so you didn't have to hold it. "Hi."

"Hi." His voice was different out loud. You'd built a version of it in your head from the texts and the reality was lower, warmer, slightly rough with lateness. "You weren't asleep."

"No. You couldn't sleep either?"

"No." He shifted, adjusting how he was holding his phone. Behind him you could see the ceiling of what was presumably his room, dark except for the ambient light from outside his window. "I kept almost texting you."

"Why almost?"

"Didn't know what to say." He looked at the camera. "Figured this was harder to overthink."

"Is it?"

"Little bit." The corner of his mouth again. "You look —"

"Don't."

"I was going to say you look like you've been staring at the ceiling."

"Oh." You felt something unknot in your chest slightly. "Yeah. Thesis stuff."

"What's wrong with it?"

"The argument isn't tight enough yet. I know what I want to say but the through line isn't —" You stopped. Looked at him. "Why are you calling me at midnight to talk about my thesis."

"I'm not." He held your gaze. "I'm calling you because I've been thinking about Sunday and I handled what came after badly and I wanted to —" He paused. "I don't know. See you I guess."

The words landed quietly. See you. Not text you. See you.

"You went quiet for two days," you said.

"I know."

"After everything you said Sunday."

"I know." Something moved through his face. "It freaked me out a little."

"What did."

"Sunday." He exhaled. Ran a hand through his hair, briefly out of frame, back. "It stopped feeling like a bit somewhere. And I woke up Wednesday and I didn't know what to do with that so I did nothing. Which was —"

"Cowardly," you said.

He looked at you. "Yeah."

"You said you weren't a coward."

"I said I don't think of myself as one." His jaw moved. "There's apparently a gap."

You looked at him on your screen. His face in the low light of his room, honest and slightly tired and not performing anything. You'd been talking to him for a week and this was the first time you'd seen him and somehow he looked exactly like you'd expected and completely different at the same time.

"I'm bad at this," you said.

"At what."

"At —" You gestured vaguely at the phone. "This. Whatever this is. I don't usually —" You stopped. Started again. "I keep things separate. School and everything else. I don't text strangers at midnight and I definitely don't —" Another stop.

"Send pictures to them?" he said.

"I was going to say trust them." You watched something shift in his expression. "But yeah. Both."

He was quiet for a moment. Looking at you on his screen the way you were looking at him on yours.

"I keep things separate too," he said finally. "I'm pretty good at it usually. Compartmentalizing." He paused. "You're bad at staying in a compartment."

"Is that a complaint?"

"No." He said it immediately. No hesitation. "It's really not."

Outside your window the rain had started, that slow Tuesday night rain that made everything feel very still and very enclosed, and your lamp cast its amber light across your bed and Dean's face was on your phone screen and it was almost midnight and none of this was something you'd planned for.

"Tell me something true," you said. You didn't know why you said it. It came out before you'd decided to, which was becoming a pattern with him.

He looked at you for a long moment. Something working through his face.

"I haven't wanted to be a lawyer since I was about sixteen," he said. "I've been pre-law for three years and I haven't told anyone that."

"Not anyone?"

"Not anyone who'd have an opinion about it." He held your gaze.

"Why are you telling me?"

"Because you asked for something true." A pause. "And because you're bad at staying in compartments so I figure I might as well return the favor."

You smiled. Couldn't help it. Small and involuntary and probably visible on his screen.

"Your turn," he said. His own mouth doing the thing. "Something true."

"I'm terrified of wanting things too much," you said. "Policy work, the thesis, all of it. I've been building toward it since I was seventeen and sometimes the wanting is so loud I can't hear anything else and that scares me. Because if it doesn't work —" You stopped. Steadied. "It's a lot to carry around."

"Yeah," he said quietly. "I get that."

"You?" You looked at him. "You walk around like nothing touches you."

"Yeah." Something moved through his face. "That's a choice."

You held his gaze on the screen. The rain outside. Both of you quiet for a moment.

"What do you actually want," you said. "If you could just — want something."

He was quiet for a long time. Long enough that you thought he wasn't going to answer. The dots of his thinking visible on his face even through a screen.

"Hockey," he said finally. Quiet. Like he was saying it carefully. "I want to coach. Not eventually, not as a retirement plan — I want to work with players. I want to be on the ice, watching someone figure something out, building something. I played all through high school and college and I was good but not good enough to go anywhere with it and I think —" He paused. "I think I'd be good at the coaching side. I see things. What players need. What's missing."

"Dean —"

"It's stupid," he said. "I know it's —"

"It's not stupid."

"It's not exactly the future my parents planned for me."

"Dean." You looked at him on your screen. His face slightly guarded, waiting. "It's brave. Knowing what you actually want when everyone around you has already decided what you should want — that's brave. That's exactly what that is. Don't minimize it."

Something moved through his face. Slow and significant.

"Yeah," he said. Very quietly. Like a decision being made. "Okay."

He looked at you for a moment. Something soft in his expression now, different from before, the careful guardedness of it gone.

"(Y/N)."

"Mm."

"Why don't we know each other."

Something moved through your chest. Quiet and warm and a little painful around the edges.

"What do you mean," you said.

"Like — why is this the first time we've actually talked. How does that happen. You're clearly —" He shook his head slightly. "You're a lot. How have I been on the same campus as you and not knowing."

"I don't know," you said softly.

"I feel like I've been missing something and I didn't know what it was until five days ago when I sent a nude to the wrong number."

You laughed. Out loud, alone in your room at midnight, genuinely laughed. He smiled at the sound of it, something lighting up in his face that made your chest ache slightly.

"That is the most unhinged sentence anyone has ever said to me," you said.

"But you know what I mean."

You did. That was the thing that kept catching you off guard — how much you understood what he meant, how readily, how little you had to translate.

"Yeah," you said. "I know what you mean."

"Okay." He settled back against his pillow, phone propped up now. "Good."

A pause. Softer than the ones before.

"What does your name stand for," he said.

You smiled at your phone in the dark. "That's for me to know."

"And me to find out?"

"Don't push it DiLaurentis."

"You googled me."

"I was being safe. You sent me a nude."

"What did you find."

"That you're annoyingly good looking in photos and you are on the Hockey team" You paused. "Which tracks, apparently."

Something in his expression. Warm and quiet. "Annoyingly good looking."

"I said what I said."

"(Y/N)."

"Goodnight Dean."

"Tell me about the thesis," he said. "The through line thing. What's not connecting."

You looked at him. "You don't want to hear about my thesis."

"(Y/N)." He looked at the camera. Steady. "I called you at midnight. I want to hear whatever you want to say."

So you told him. About the argument, the framework, the part that wasn't landing yet. He listened with his head tilted slightly on the pillow, and he asked questions that were better than they had any right to be, and at some point you stopped noticing you were talking to a screen and started just talking to him.

He talked too. About hockey, about watching players and seeing the gap between what they were doing and what they could do, about the specific satisfaction of being the person who helped close that gap. He talked about it differently than everything else, less careful, more alive, the words coming faster and easier.

"See," you said.

"See what."

"You lit up. Just now."

He looked at the camera. Something soft moving through his face. "Yeah."

"Do that," you said. "Wherever it takes you. Do that."

He looked at you for a long moment.

"Okay," he said quietly. Like a door opening.

The rain outside. Both of you quiet. The comfortable kind of quiet that didn't need filling, that felt like something rather than the absence of something.

"I'm glad you called," you said finally.

"Yeah?"

"Yeah."

"Even though it's —" He checked something offscreen. "12:53."

"Even though."

A pause. Warm. Unhurried.

"You should sleep," he said.

"You should sleep."

"I will if you will."

"Fine."

Neither of you moved to hang up. Your lamp. The rain. His face on your screen, relaxed now in a way it hadn't been at the start of the call, the careful control of it dissolved, just him. Just the person underneath all of it, lying in the dark talking to you.

"Dean."

"Yeah." His voice had gone slow. Tired in the good way.

"Don't go quiet again after this."

"I won't." Immediate. Certain. "I promise."

"Okay."

"Okay." A pause. Barely anything. "(Y/N)."

"Mm."

"You're really pretty."

You closed your eyes. Felt yourself smile against your pillow.

"Goodnight Dean."

"Goodnight."

You didn't hang up. He didn't hang up. Your lamp on, the rain going, his face on your screen quiet and still. At some point the silences between words got longer. At some point you stopped filling them. At some point your eyes got heavy and you stopped fighting it and the rain outside was the last thing you were aware of before you weren't aware of anything.

You fell asleep with his face on your screen.

He was still there when it happened. He watched your breathing slow, watched the moment your face went fully still, the lamp casting its light across you, your hair half out of the clip, the sweatshirt. He stayed there longer than he probably should have, just — watching you sleep. Feeling something settle in his chest that had been restless for longer than a week. Longer than he'd been paying attention to.

He turned his own light off eventually.

Lay in the dark with your face small and quiet on his screen, the rain still going outside your window, and thought about hockey and thesis arguments and the way you'd said do that like you meant it, like you'd decided something about him that he was only just deciding about himself.

His phone died at 3am. The call cut out silently.

Neither of you noticed.

He didn't text on Wednesday.

You noticed at 11am between classes, phone in hand, no notification. You noticed at 3pm coming back from the library. At 7pm making dinner, stirring pasta on autopilot, checking your phone and putting it face down and checking it again ten minutes later like something might have changed. At 10pm in bed, lamp on, the specific silence of a phone that wasn't going to buzz.

You didn't text first. The rule was the rule and you were keeping it.

Thursday was the same. Nothing. You told yourself it was fine. You told yourself it had run its course — a week of wrong number texts and one FaceTime call that had ended with both of you falling asleep and that was a nice thing, a strange thing, a thing that had apparently meant more to you than it had to him, and that was okay. That was information. You were a person who dealt well with information.

You were a very good liar when you needed to be.

Friday night your friend Maya texted the group chat about a party at Phi Delta. You said no. Maya sent a voice note that was forty seconds of your name in escalating tones of disbelief. You said fine.

You wore the black top, which Maya had called fondly the slutty top. Not for any particular reason. Just because it fit.

The party was exactly what parties always were too loud, too warm, cheap beer and someone's vanilla candle losing the fight. Maya disappeared within five minutes and you got a drink, found a wall, and told yourself you were having a perfectly fine time.

You were fine. Everything was fine.

You were doing your idle party scan when you saw him.

Dean.

Across the room, red cup in hand, laughing at something. Dark green shirt pushed up at the sleeves, hair slightly messed up, looking easy and comfortable the way he always looked from what you'd gathered, like every room had been built specifically around him. He looked like the last two days of silence had cost him absolutely nothing.

You looked away.

Took a sip. Looked at your phone. Looked at nothing.

Looked back, because you were apparently incapable of basic self-governance, and that's when you saw her.

Dark hair. Good smile. Hand on Dean's arm with the comfort of someone who had a map of him. She leaned up and said something in his ear and he tilted his head toward her and laughed and your chest did something immediate and ugly.

And then your brain, unhelpfully, connected the dots.

The ease between them. The specific body language of two people who had been somewhere private together. The way she touched his arm like she'd done it before and expected to do it again.

thinking about what we did last night at the bathroom of malone's.

Her.

You looked away. This time you meant it. You pushed off the wall and went to find the kitchen.

Across the room, Dean laughed at something Jessica said and heard approximately none of it.

He'd seen you the second you walked in. Black top, drink in hand, finding your spot against the wall with the self-contained ease of someone who didn't need the room to come to her. He'd seen you and something in his chest had done something immediate and then Jessica had said something and he'd laughed on autopilot and thought I need to go over there and then thought about the two days of silence and wondered if you'd even want him to.

He was going to go over. In a minute. He just needed to figure out what to say first.

Jessica's hand on his arm, sliding slightly. "You okay?"

"Yeah." He scanned the room. "Sorry. Yeah."

He looked back to the wall.

You were gone.

The kitchen was quieter, the music muffled through the walls, someone's abandoned game on the counter. You made yourself a drink and leaned against the far counter and tried to look like someone who was completely fine and at a party by choice.

"You look like you're doing very complex math."

You turned. Tall, broad shoulders, easy to look at. He was looking at you with mild amusement, red cup loosely in hand, clearly also just occupying the kitchen for no particular agenda.

"That obvious?" you said.

"Little bit." The corner of his mouth lifted. "Bad night or just bad party?"

"Neither. Just needed a minute."

"Yeah." He nodded like that was a complete and reasonable explanation. "I get that." He shifted his weight, easy. "I'm Garrett."

"(Y/N)."

"You go here?"

"Yeah. You?"

"Yeah." He leaned against the counter beside you, comfortable distance, just companionable. "What are you studying?"

"Political Science. You?"

"Business." He tilted his head. "So you're either going to run the country or make everyone's lives very difficult in an official capacity."

You laughed despite yourself. "Those aren't mutually exclusive."

"Fair point." His eyes were warm. "You know anyone here or are you flying solo tonight?"

"My friend Maya. She evaporated within five minutes."

"Classic." He grinned. "I came with my housemates. Two of them are definitely playing beer pong." He glanced through the kitchen doorway into the main room, something briefly crossing his face. "One of them is around."

You followed his glance without thinking. Through the doorway. Across the room. And found those blue eyes doing a very focused scan of the party that landed on the kitchen doorway and stopped.

You looked back at Garrett. He wasn't looking at the room anymore. He was looking at you, easy and present, no agenda.

He had absolutely no idea.

"So Political Science," he said. "What do you actually want to do with it?"

"Policy work. Education reform specifically."

"That's —" He looked genuinely interested. "That's actually really cool. I have a cousin in education, she'd probably lose her mind talking to you." He leaned against the counter, unhurried. "Do you like it? Like genuinely, not the resume answer."

You looked at him. It was a good question. A real one.

"Yeah," you said. "It's the first thing that ever made me feel like I was pointed at something."

"I get that." Something moved through his expression. "Hockey did that for me. It does that for me—" He shrugged, easy.

The conversation kept going, easy and warm, moving through things the way good conversations did when you weren't trying to have one. He was kind of funny in an uncomplicated way, interested without being performative about it, and you'd stopped scanning the room and stopped thinking about tall blonds and started just talking to this person who was genuinely good at talking to people.

At some point he said something that made you laugh and you leaned toward him slightly to hear it better over the music bleeding in from the main room and he leaned toward you and you were close, just close, just the natural physics of a loud party and a good conversation, and —

"(Y/N)."

Low. Tight. From the kitchen doorway.

You looked up.

Dean was standing there. Hands in his pockets. Jaw doing significant structural work. His eyes moved from you to Garrett to the distance between you and back to your face in a sweep that took half a second and communicated quite a lot.

Garrett straightened. Looked at Dean. Looked at you. Looked back at Dean.

You watched the understanding move across his face slowly, like something assembling itself piece by piece. His eyes tracked between the two of you once, barely perceptible.

He didn't move away from you.

"Dean." Warm. Genuinely pleased to see his friend. No agenda yet — just Garrett being Garrett. "Hey, man. Do you know (Y/N)? Political Science. Really interesting."

"We've met," Dean said.

"Have you." A statement. He glanced at you, something in his expression recalibrating.

"Briefly," you said. "Hey," you said pleasantly.

"Hey," he said. Something moved through his face. "You look —"

"Garrett was just telling me about the house," you said, turning back to Garrett.

Garrett, to his credit, looked genuinely angelic. "Was I?"

"You were about to."

"Right." Garrett nodded seriously. "Yeah, so there are four of us. Me, Tucker, and two others." He paused. "Dean actually."

You turned back to look at Dean with an expression you kept very neutral.

Dean looked at Garrett with an expression that said several things, none of them printable.

Garrett looked back at Dean with the innocent open face of someone who had made a choice and was at peace with it.

"Housemates," you said. "Fun."

"It's great," Garrett said warmly. "Really great. We're very close. Like brothers almost."

"That's nice," you said.

"It is," Garrett agreed. "Dean especially. Very important to me. I would hate for anything bad to happen to him."

"Garrett," Dean said.

"Just saying."

You looked at Dean. He looked at you. The kitchen felt very small.

A beat. Jessica appeared in the kitchen doorway behind him.

You felt her before you saw her — the atmospheric shift of someone entering a room with an intention. She stood in the doorway with her drink and her dark hair and her eyes moving between you and Dean with an expression that was very calm and very assessing. Her hand found Dean's arm again, light, proprietary.

Dean didn't look at her. He was looking at you.

Jessica looked at you. One sweep. Taking stock. Her hand pressed slightly on Dean's arm.

He shifted his weight. Almost imperceptibly. Away.

Her expression didn't change but something behind it did.

"Can I talk to you," Dean said to you. Not a question.

"I'm in the middle of a conversation."

"(Y/N) —"

"Garrett was talking."

"I really was," Garrett said. He had his drink raised to his lips. His eyes were very bright.

"(Y/N) —"

"We were in the middle of something."

"We really weren't," Garrett said helpfully. "I mean — we can be. (Y/N) seems great. I'm happy to continue."

Dean looked at his housemate with an expression of profound betrayal.

Garrett smiled at him with profound innocence.

You set your cup down on the counter and looked at Garrett. He was cute. He had a good smile and an easy energy and under literally any other circumstances you'd have been happy to keep talking to him all night. You looked at him now and then you looked at Dean — jaw tight, eyes on you, something desperate moving underneath all that control — and you made a choice.

You turned back to Garrett. Leaned against the counter so your shoulder was almost against his. Looked up at him. "So the house," you said. "How many bedrooms?"

Garrett blinked. Recovered admirably. "Four. Dean's is the —"

"(Y/N)." Dean's hand was on your arm, light, just fingers. Same as before. "Please."

Dean looked at his housemate with an expression that Garrett received with complete serenity.

"Two minutes," Dean said to you.

"I'm fine here."

"(Y/N)."

"You didn't text," you said. Pleasantly. Conversationally. Like you were noting the weather.

Something moved through his face. "I know —"

"Two days."

"Phone works both ways, you know."

Your mouth opened. Closed.

"What are you," you said, "my divorced dad?"

Garrett made a sound behind his cup. Not quite successfully contained.

Dean stared at you. The controlled expression cracking slightly, something underneath it that was almost a laugh that he was visibly, effort fully refusing to let happen.

"I —" He stopped. Reset. "That's —"

Jessica's hand dropped from his arm.

"(Y/N)." Dean's voice lower now. The control fraying properly at the edges. Something real pushing through. "I know. I know I should have texted. I kept picking up my phone and putting it down because I didn't know how to say —" He stopped. Looked at you. "Can we please go somewhere that isn't the kitchen?"

"I like the kitchen."

"Garrett —" He looked at his housemate.

Garrett looked back at him with the expression of a man fully at peace with his choices.

"I'm not going anywhere," Garrett said pleasantly. "Spiritually this is my kitchen."

"You don't live here —"

"Spiritually, Dean."

Dean looked at the ceiling. Looked back at you. His face doing something complicated and unguarded and very much not the easy composed version from across the room twenty minutes ago.

And then his eyes moved past your shoulder and something in them changed. Went very still.

You turned.

Jessica was still in the doorway. She wasn't looking at Dean anymore. She was looking at you with an expression that was perfectly calm and perfectly clear and said everything without saying anything. She knew. She didn't know who you were or what had happened but she knew what Dean's face looked like right now and she knew it wasn't about her.

She looked at Dean one more time. He met her gaze. Something passed between them — not unkind, just final. She turned and walked back into the party without a word.

The kitchen went quiet.

Garrett looked at the doorway. Looked at Dean. Looked at you. Took a long slow sip of his drink.

"Garrett," Dean said. Not looking away from you. "I need you to leave."

A pause.

"Yeah, okay," Garrett said. He pushed off the counter. Looked at you with a smile that was warm and genuine and knew entirely too much. "It was really nice to meet you, (Y/N)."

"You too, Garrett."

He looked at Dean. Something in his face that was fond and exasperated and rooting for him all at once. "You got this," he said quietly.

Then he walked out of the kitchen and you heard him immediately start talking to someone in the main room, easy and unbothered, like nothing had happened, like he hadn't just witnessed the complete dismantling of his housemate's composure in real time.

You looked at Dean.

He looked at you.

Just the two of you and the muffled music and the kitchen counter and everything that had been said and not said for a week.

"Talk," you said.

"Jessica," he said. "She's the one from Malone's. I need you to know I didn't invite her tonight, I didn't answer when she texted, I came here and she was just already —"

"I know who she is," you said.

Something moved through his face. "You figured it out."

"Yeah."

"When?"

"When I saw you with her." You kept your voice even. "Body language. The way she touched your arm." You paused. "The way you let her."

"(Y/N) —"

"I don't have a claim on you," you said. "I know that. We've been texting for a week. You don't owe me anything."

"That's not —"

"I was jealous." You said it clearly. Cleanly. Looking right at him. "I saw you with her and I knew who she was and I was jealous and I hated myself for it and then I went and talked to your housemate like an idiot."

"You didn't know he was my housemate."

"I kept talking after I found out."

Something moved through his expression. Warm and wrecked at the same time. "I know you did."

"I was making a point."

"You made it very effectively." He took a step toward you. Not touching. Just closer. "I was watching from across the room."

"I know."

"The whole time."

"I know, Dean."

"You and Garrett were —" He stopped. His jaw. "You were close."

"We were talking."

"And then you were laughing and leaning toward him and I was standing across the room watching it and I —" He shook his head slightly. "I hated it. I really hated it. Which I have no right to feel given that I didn't text you for two days."

"No," you said. "You don't."

"I know."

"You fell asleep on that call," you said. "And then you didn't text."

"I know." His voice dropped. "I know. I woke up Wednesday and my phone was dead and I plugged it in and I thought about texting you and I didn't know how to say — what that call was. What Sunday was. I didn't know how to say any of it in a text so I said nothing. Which was —"

"Cowardly," you said.

"Yeah." He held your gaze. "There's a gap between who I think I am and how I acted this week and I know that and I'm sorry. I'm really sorry, (Y/N)."

You looked at him. His face close and honest and tired of holding it all together.

"How long did you stay on the call?" you said.

He looked at you for a moment. "Until my phone died."

"What time was that?"

"3 a.m."

You held his gaze. Felt something in your chest do the cracking thing, the hairline fracture spreading just enough.

"You watched me sleep," you said.

"For a while," he said quietly. "Yeah."

The kitchen. The music. His face.

"Don't go quiet again," you said. Not angry anymore. Just — asking. "Whatever this is. Don't do that again."

"I won't." Immediate. "I promise I won't."

You looked at him for a long moment.

"Your place or mine," you said.

His whole face changed at once.

"Yours," he said. "Please."

"Say goodbye to Garrett."

"Garrett can —"

"Dean."

He was already texting with one hand, the other finding the small of your back to steer you out of the kitchen.

From somewhere in the main room a whoop rang out. Unmistakably Garrett. Followed by Tucker's voice saying "What?" and Garrett saying something you couldn't catch and Tucker apparently losing his mind entirely.

Dean closed his eyes for exactly one second.

"Your friends," you said.

"I know," he said. His hand warm at your back. "Come on."

The Uber was six minutes away and you spent all six of them standing outside in the November cold, not talking, which should have been awkward and wasn't. Dean stood close enough that your arm was against his, and the cold air bit at your shoulders and neither of you moved away from it or from each other. The party noise muffled behind the door. The street quiet ahead of you.

"You're doing the math thing," he said.

"Garrett told you about that."

"Garrett tells me everything. Mostly when I don't want him to."

"He seemed like a good person."

"He's the worst." A pause. "He's genuinely the best. Don't ever tell him."

The Uber pulled up. Dean opened the door and you got in. Dean folded in after you and the door shut and the back seat was very warm and very small and his leg was against yours from knee to mid thigh, solid and warm. The driver pulled out without a word. Some low music from the front. The city moving past the windows in intervals of light and dark.

Neither of you moved away from each other.

You stared out the window. Felt him looking at you periodically. Didn't look back. Could feel the quality of his attention like a hand on your shoulder — present, focused, pointed entirely at you.

"(Y/N)."

"Mm."

"I've been thinking about you for two days." His voice low, just for the back seat. "I'd be in class and just — thinking about the call. What you said. The way you said it."

"You could have just texted," you said.

"I know."

"Would have been considerably easier than all of this."

"Yeah." His mouth moved. "But you talked to Garrett."

"I didn't know he was your housemate."

"And when you found out?"

You turned your head to look at him. Close in the back seat, the city lights moving across his face.

"I was making a point," you said.

"You made it." Something heated in his expression. Something that hadn't been there in the kitchen — the composure fully gone now, replaced by something more direct. "It worked."

The Uber slowed. Your building. You got out, Dean behind you, the lobby, the elevator. The numbers going up in the quiet. You watched the display and not him and felt him watching you and not the display.

Your floor. Your door. Your keys, which you managed.

The door opened. You stepped inside. Reached for the lamp.

Dean stepped in behind you and the door clicked shut and before you could find the switch his hand caught yours in the dark — gentle, just his fingers wrapping around yours, stilling them.

"Hey," he said. Right behind you. Close.

You turned around.

He was right there. Closer than the hallway at the party, closer than the Uber, close enough that you had to angle your chin up to find his face in the dark. And you'd been building him in your head for a week from a torso in white boxers and a voice you'd invented for his texts and the FaceTime call that had felt like finally, and the reality of him — close, in the dark of your apartment, looking down at you with an expression that wasn't performing a single thing — was a lot. It was genuinely a lot.

"Hi," you said.

"Hi." His thumb moved across your knuckles. Once. "You okay?"

"If you ask me that one more time —"

"(Y/N)."

"I'm okay," you said. "I've been okay. I'm very okay and I'm going to need you to stop asking and start —"

He kissed you.

Not tentative. Not exploratory. Immediate and certain, his hand coming up to cup your jaw, tilting your head back, kissing you like he'd made a decision and the decision was this, specifically and completely this. You kissed him back and got your hands into the front of his shirt and pulled and he made a sound against your mouth that did significant and lasting damage to your nervous system.

He walked you backward through your apartment with a confidence that suggested he'd clocked the layout the second the lights came on. His mouth didn't leave yours except to drag briefly to your jaw, your throat, the soft place just below your ear that made you pull in a sharp breath.

He came back to it. Of course he came back to it.

"Dean —"

"Yeah."

"Bedroom is —"

"I know." He did. His hand found the hem of your black top. He pulled back just far enough to look at you in the low light from the window, asking without asking.

You lifted your arms.

He pulled it over your head and dropped it somewhere and then just looked at you. The way he'd said pretty over text, that same undone quality, like he was actually stopped by it. Like it required a moment.

"What," you said.

"Nothing." He reached out and traced your collarbone with two fingers, just the path of it, watching his own hand. "Just —" He exhaled. "Yeah."

"Eloquent."

"Shut up." He walked you the rest of the way to the bedroom. The backs of your knees hit the bed. You sat. Looked up at him. Reached for the hem of his shirt and he helped you pull it off and then he was standing there in your lamplight and you finally had the full picture — not a mirror, not a photo, not a screen. Just him. Looking down at you with blue eyes and a mouth that wasn't smiling and something in his face that was only for this room, only for right now.

You pulled him down by his belt loop.

He pressed you back into the mattress and took his time about it in a way that directly contradicted the energy of the last hour. He kissed your throat, your collarbone, the curve of your shoulder, hands moving over you with a patience that was a choice, deliberate, made with full awareness of what it was doing to you.

"You said you weren't going to go slow," you managed.

"I said a lot of things." His mouth against your sternum. Moving lower. "I'm revising."

"Dean —"

"(Y/N)." He looked up at you from where his mouth was making its way down your stomach, chin resting just below your ribs, eyes dark and entirely calm. "I've been thinking about this for a week. I'm not rushing it."

"I will actually —"

"You'll what." One eyebrow. "Finish that sentence."

You couldn't. Your brain had stopped producing complete sentences approximately thirty seconds ago.

"That's what I thought," he said, and moved lower.

He was good at this. You'd had data suggesting he would be: the texts, the specific confident detail of them, but the actual reality of his mouth and his hands and the focused attention he brought to learning you was something else entirely. He figured out what worked faster than felt fair. What made you grip the sheets and what made you forget you were supposed to be quiet and what made you say his name like it was the only word you currently had access to.

His hands on your hips. Pressing down. Holding you in place with a firmness that made your breath go unsteady.

"Dean." Strained. "Dean I'm —"

"I know." He didn't stop. Didn't adjust. Kept going with the same patient devastating focus until you were pulling at his hair and had completely abandoned the project of being quiet about any of this.

"I'm going to —"

He pulled back. Just enough. The loss of it was almost criminal.

"Are you serious," you said to the ceiling.

"Very." He pressed a kiss to your inner thigh, unhurried, like he had all the time in the world and your sanity was not his problem. "You did this to me Sunday."

"You told me to wait —"

"And now I'm returning the favor." He looked up at you again. Blue eyes, completely unbothered, completely in control in a way that was profoundly unfair given the current situation. "Problem?"

"Yes," you said. "Significant problem. I have several —"

"(Y/N)."

"What."

"Ask nicely."

You stared at him. "Absolutely not."

He smiled. It was a terrible smile. It was a fantastic smile. He pressed another slow kiss to your thigh and you made a sound that surrendered significant ground in this negotiation.

"Dean." Through your teeth. Barely holding it together.

"Yeah."

"Please."

"Please what." Infuriatingly calm. His thumb drawing a slow circle on your hip. "Be specific."

"Please," you said, "don't stop."

"Since you asked so nicely."

He moved back and you stopped being capable of organized thought entirely.

When it finally tipped over the edge your hand was fisted in his hair and you were considerably louder than you'd planned and you felt him smile against you which should have been annoying and was not even slightly.

He came back up. Hovered over you, forearm by your head, looking down at your face with an expression that was heated and soft and something underneath both that you didn't have the capacity to name right now.

"Hi," he said.

"Hi." Breathless. "You're the worst."

"You're welcome."

You grabbed the front of his hair and pulled him down and kissed him, which he allowed for approximately two seconds before he took over, and his hand moved to your waist and lower and you shifted against him and felt exactly what you'd seen in that photo a week ago and made a sound against his mouth.

"Dean."

"Yeah."

"Now."

"Yeah." He reached past you. Nightstand drawer, you'd already told him with your eyes and he'd already known. "Yeah."

He paused. Looked down at you. Something moved through his face, not quite a smile, something more than that. Something that felt like recognition.

"Left side," he said.

"Don't read into it."

"I'm not reading into anything."

"Good."

"I'm just —"

"Dean."

He kissed you once. Quick and certain and warm. "Right."

The thing about the texts was that he'd told you exactly who he was in them. Exactly how he operated. And he delivered on all of it, present in a way that felt total, attentive in a way that tracked everything, adjusting without being asked, paying attention in a way that made it feel specific to you rather than general, like he was interested in you specifically and not just in the thing itself.

His hands, which you'd had opinions about since Thursday.

The low way he said your name when he meant it, not as punctuation, just — yours. Like it meant something to say it.

At some point you said his name like a question and he said yours back like an answer.

At some point his forehead dropped to yours and you both stayed there for a moment, just that, just breathing, and neither of you moved to change it.

At some point everything tipped and he said your name against your temple and you pressed your face into his shoulder and felt the whole week, the wrong number and the texts and the call and the two days of silence and the party and the kitchen and Garrett's chaotic loyalty and Jessica's quiet exit and the Uber and his hand in the dark finding yours — all of it moving through you and landing somewhere soft.

The room quiet. Lamp still on. Both of you horizontal, breathing slowing back to something normal, the particular warm stillness of a room after something that mattered.

Dean was on his back. You were beside him, your shoulder almost against his, staring at the ceiling. Outside the November cold. Inside just the lamp and the quiet and the sound of him breathing next to you.

"(Y/N)."

"Mm."

"You okay?"

You turned your head. He was already looking at you, head turned on the pillow, close enough to see every detail of his face you'd been denied for a week — the line of his jaw, his eyes in lamplight, darker and quieter than across a party room, the thing in his expression that wasn't performing anything at all.

"You have to stop asking me that," you said.

"Probably." He didn't look away. "You okay?"

You looked at him for a long moment.

"Yeah," you said. "I'm really good actually."

Something in his face settled. Like something he'd been holding released.

"Good," he said quietly.

A pause. Comfortable. Easy.

"Garrett is going to be unbearable," you said.

"For the rest of my natural life." He paused. "He's going to tell Tucker."

"Is Tucker worse?"

"Tucker is going to make a bracket." Another pause. "Tucker is going to frame a bracket."

You laughed. Actually laughed. He smiled at the ceiling, small and private and genuine.

"Dean."

"Yeah."

"Don't go quiet again."

He turned his head. His expression did something you felt in your sternum.

"I won't," he said.

"I mean it."

"I know." He moved his hand across the space between you. Found yours on the sheets. Wrapped his around it, loose and warm, like it was the most natural thing. "I won't."

You looked back at the ceiling. His hand around yours. The lamp. Outside the city doing whatever the city did at this hour, indifferent and ongoing.

"Dean."

"Yeah."

"The coaching thing." You felt his hand go slightly still. "You should tell your dad."

A long pause.

"(Y/N) —"

"I mean it. Not being a lawyer. Hockey. Coaching. The thing that makes you light up when you talk about it." You turned your head to look at him. "Tell him."

He looked at the ceiling. His jaw moved. Something working through his face that was complicated and real and not resolved yet.

"Yeah," he said finally. Very quietly. "I know."

"You know?"

"I know." He exhaled slowly. Turned his head to look at you. "I've known for a while. I just —" He shook his head slightly. "I needed someone to say it out loud I think."

You held his gaze.

"Consider it said," you said.

Something moved through his face. Soft and significant.

"Yeah," he said. "Okay."

Outside the November cold. Inside the lamp and the quiet and his hand around yours and something that didn't have a name yet but felt like the beginning of one.

"What does your name stand for," he said.

You smiled at the ceiling. "Goodnight Dean."

"Tell me."

"Goodnight."

"I'll ask Garrett. First thing tomorrow."

"Garrett doesn't know."

"I'll make something up. Tell the whole team."

"You don't have a team yet."

"I will." He said it simply. Certain. Like a door that was already open. "I will."

You looked at him. Felt something in your chest that was warm and a little terrifying and completely worth it.

"Goodnight," you said softly.

"Goodnight (Y/N)." A pause. His thumb moving across your knuckles, once, slow. "Whatever it stands for."

You closed your eyes.

His hand around yours.

You were in so much trouble.

You were so okay with that.

[watchtowerlibrary]

I love how Garrett is just so comfortable being in the middle of this, and just there for the vibes 😅

[kooksandpearls]

garrett graham ❄︎ questionable choices.

pairing – garrett graham x nursing student!reader summary – garrett doesn’t want a girlfriend. nursing school doesn’t leave room for a boyfriend. upstairs sounds like the perfect compromise. warnings – 18+, smut, first hook-up, casual sex, alcohol mention, protected sex, praise, dirty talk, hair pulling, mild ex-related emotional baggage notes from me – last post for today 🫣 but thought it was about time i posted this pairings first time!! enjoy!! <3 word count – 10.8k

navigation – masterlist | taglist

The first thing Garrett Graham does when he gets home is ruin the music. The shift is immediate enough to feel like a crime in at least three rooms at once.

One second the hockey house is pulsing with some glossy, bass-heavy club song that has half the girls in the living room shouting along to words they only know in pieces, and the next there’s a rough scrape of guitar rolling through the speakers, heavy and familiar, Metallica cutting through cheap vodka, sweat, perfume, beer foam, and the damp winter cold still clinging to the boys as they push through the front door after the game.

A cheer goes up anyway, because the boys won and because Garrett Graham's just walked in with a split in his grin, damp curls pushed back from his forehead, and the kind of post-game energy that makes the whole house turn toward him like he’s brought the win in with him physically. Which, in a way, he has. 

The Briar hoodie is half-zipped over his chest, his hair still shower-wet at the ends, his cheek faintly red where someone’s glove or shoulder had caught him in the third period.

He has one beer in his hand within twelve seconds of entering the room and Dean yelling something obscene into his ear within fifteen.

She watches all of this from the couch with Monique’s thigh pressed warm against hers and Lucy leaning forward to shout over the music about some guy from their psych elective.

She should probably be listening better. She had been, before Garrett came in and changed everything about the room by existing in the doorway with that stupid easy grin.

She knows who he is, obviously. Everyone knows who Garrett Graham is. Briar hockey captain, star forward, walking campus landmark. She’d known he was hot before tonight in the same abstract way a person knows water is wet and clinical paperwork is designed by sadists, but there’s a difference between seeing someone across campus in athletic gear with three teammates around him and seeing him walk into his own party already smiling, already loose, already being wanted by half the room and not looking especially pressed by it.

She’s not blind. She’s also not a nun, despite the fact that clinical rotations have recently made celibacy feel less like a choice and more like an accidental lifestyle outcome.

Garrett Graham is hot. Objectively. Annoyingly. In that golden-boy hockey-player way that should be too obvious to work but does anyway because he carries it like he’s in on the joke.

Broad shoulders, sharp grin, dark curls, the kind of body built by early mornings and ice and being slammed into boards often enough to develop either resilience or brain damage. Probably both. 

He looks like someone who knows exactly how many girls at this party have already thought about his mouth tonight, and the worst part is that he doesn’t even seem smug in a lazy way. He seems amused. Like everyone else is playing a game he learned years ago and can still win drunk, tired, and half-distracted.

She would fuck him. This isn’t a moral failing. This is simply data.

She’s heard enough girls talk about Garrett to know he’s not one of those men whose reputation has been inflated by proximity to a jersey.

Girls talk, and they talk worse in bathrooms when they think no one useful is listening. She’s heard things. Good things. Very specific things, actually, some of which had made her stare very hard at her own reflection while washing her hands because there’s a difference between knowing a man is attractive and finding out from a girl in a tiny red top that he knows what to do with his mouth and doesn’t need to be coached into caring whether you come.

Useful information, frankly. And he doesn’t want a girlfriend, which is also useful.

That part matters more than it probably should. Garrett Graham not doing girlfriends is practically printed on the campus map at this point, tucked somewhere between the rink and the library. 

It makes other girls roll their eyes or take it as a challenge, like every charming emotionally unavailable athlete is secretly a lock waiting for the right girl to break the mechanism. She doesn’t have that kind of schedule.

She has labs and placement and a care plan due Monday and a pharmacology quiz she’s pretending not to think about while sitting on this couch in a top that shows more cleavage than her anatomy professor would probably consider academically relevant.

She doesn’t want a boyfriend. She had one. Recently enough that her body still occasionally goes tight around old memories it refuses to finish processing at convenient times. Shitty is one word for him. Incredibly shitty is closer.

The kind of ex who leaves behind little dents in the way a person reacts to praise, touch, questions, silence. The kind she has no interest in unpacking at a hockey house party while Metallica plays and some guy in the kitchen attempts to open a beer bottle with the edge of the counter.

So, no. She doesn’t want anything complicated. She wants a good time. She wants stress relief. She wants to remember that her body can be a place something nice happens, instead of just the thing she drags between lectures, placement, the grocery store, and bed. 

She wants to kiss someone who won’t ask about her five-year plan. She wants to be touched without being studied for damage. She wants, in the blunt private part of herself she’s not interested in dressing up, to get fucked properly and go home with a story she doesn’t have to turn into anything.

Then Garrett changes the music to Metallica, and she mouths along to the first verse without meaning to. That’s, apparently, where the trouble starts.

He notices from across the room. He’s standing near the speaker with Dean and Logan, taking a pull from his beer, and his eyes cut across the couch almost casually, like he’s just sweeping the room. They land on her mouth. She knows they land there because she feels it. A tiny hot flick of awareness across the skin, ridiculous and immediate. She stops mouthing the words half a second too late.

Garrett’s grin changes.

“Oh, God,” Monique says beside her, not subtle at all. “Captain America has spotted you.”

“He’s not blond,” Lucy mutters.

She should look away. She doesn’t. Garrett lifts his beer toward her in what could technically pass as a toast if everyone involved were committed to pretending subtlety still exists, and she raises her own cup back before taking a sip that tastes like cranberry vodka and bad decisions.

Five minutes later, he’s in front of the couch.

“Didn’t peg you for Metallica,” he says, because apparently Garrett Graham opens conversations like he’s already halfway through them.

She tilts her head back to look up at him, which is unfair because he’s even better from this angle. Taller than expected, warm from the room and the game, cheeks still a little flushed, curls drying messy over his forehead. “You didn’t peg me as anything. You don’t know me.”

His grin widens, delighted by the correction. “That’s true.”

“Strong start, though.”

“I’m usually better.”

“Are you?”

“Yeah.” He drops onto the couch arm beside her like he’s been invited, one knee bent, beer balanced loosely in his hand, his body angled toward her in a way that feels casual until it doesn’t. “Give me a minute.”

She should be annoyed by the confidence. She is, a little. Unfortunately, it’s working on several very humiliating levels.

Monique and Lucy, traitors with excellent survival instincts, last another thirty seconds before manufacturing a reason to leave. Something about drinks. Something about the bathroom. Something about how they’ll be right back, delivered in voices that mean the opposite so loudly that even Garrett looks amused as they disappear into the crowd.

“Subtle friends,” he says.

“Deeply. They’ve been trained in espionage.”

“Good girls.”

“Mm. Not always.”

His eyes flick to her mouth again. It’s not long. Barely a second. Just enough to tell on him before he brings them back to her eyes with that smooth athlete recovery, like a player who knows exactly how close he came to losing the puck and still wants credit for keeping it. She feels the look sit low in her stomach, warm and spreading, and tries very hard not to smile like an idiot.

They talk for twenty minutes. It should be less easy than it is. Garrett’s exactly as cocky as expected, but not in the dull way. Not in the way men get when they think confidence can substitute for listening. He actually listens. He asks what she’s studying and then makes a face when she says nursing, like the word has exhausted him.

“Brutal,” he says, leaning back into the couch, one arm stretched along the back behind her without touching yet. “You guys are always carrying, like, seven textbooks and a haunted look.”

“That’s pretty accurate.”

“Clinical rotations?”

“Yeah. Labs too. Exams. Placement. Occasional will to live, but it’s inconsistent.”

He laughs into his beer. “So this is your night off?”

“This is me making questionable choices for balance.”

“That what I am?” His mouth curves. “A questionable choice?”

She looks at him for a beat too long, because his mouth is right there and because his gaze has dipped again, this time lower, to the neckline of her top where the fabric is doing exactly what she hoped it would do when she put it on. He catches himself, eyes bouncing back up, but she saw it. 

“Maybe,” she says.

Garrett’s grin goes slower. “Maybe’s not bad.”

“Maybe’s generous.”

“Wow. Mean.”

“You look like you can handle it.”

“Usually.”

There’s a little heat under the word, tucked neatly enough that anyone else might miss it. She doesn’t. Her fingers tighten around her cup. Somewhere across the room, Dean’s shouting about something. The music hits a heavier part of the song, guitar thick and grinding through the floorboards. 

Garrett’s knee is close to hers now. Close enough that if she shifted by an inch, denim would touch bare skin. She wonders, briefly and terribly, if he kisses the way people say he does. If he’s all that controlled heat up close. If the girls in the bathroom were exaggerating or simply too stunned to provide complete peer-reviewed data.

Garrett’s eyes move over her face again, slower now, his grin fading into something more focused. “You always stare like that?”

She lifts her brows. “Like what?”

“Like you’re deciding something.”

“I’m a student nurse. I’m assessing risk.”

His mouth twitches. “And?”

“High.”

“Yeah?”

“Probably worth monitoring.”

He laughs, and that stupid pleased warmth moves over his face when she gives him something back. Like he likes the push. Like girls probably giggle and touch his arm all night, but he likes when she makes him work half an inch for it.

He takes another sip of beer, but his eyes stay on her. “Did you wanna go upstairs?” he asks, so casually that it almost loops around into politeness. “It’s quieter.”

It’s not subtle. It doesn’t need to be. Her body answers before her brain finishes enjoying the question. A small, sharp tightening low in her stomach. Her pulse suddenly obvious in her throat, wrists, mouth. 

She glances toward the kitchen as if Monique or Lucy might materialise with moral guidance, then remembers both of them would probably give her a thumbs-up and ask for details later with the focused attention of scientists documenting a rare event.

Garrett waits. He doesn’t lean closer. He doesn’t put a hand on her thigh. He just watches her with that half-smile softened at the edges, giving her just enough room to say no that the yes in her body feels like hers.

She nods. “Yeah.”

His grin flashes. “Yeah?”

“Don’t make me say it twice.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it.” He stands, then holds a hand out to her.

It’s such a small thing and so annoying that it works. His palm is warm when she takes it. Big, callused in places, rough along the fingers in a way she doesn’t need to notice as much as she immediately does. He helps her up like he has no doubt she can stand on her own and also no intention of missing an excuse to touch her.

Garrett leads her through the party without rushing. Past the kitchen, where Logan’s leaning over the counter laughing at something Tucker says. Past two girls in Briar shirts who watch Garrett’s hand around hers with expressions that make her feel, briefly and shamefully, like she’s won something. Which is ridiculous. He’s not a raffle prize. He’s a man with commitment issues and a very nice mouth.

Still.

The stairs are narrow and crowded, bodies shifting around them, someone sitting halfway up with a cup balanced on one knee and the glazed expression of a person who has either made peace with gravity or lost to it. 

Garrett looks back once as he starts up, his thumb brushing over her knuckles. “You good?”

The question lands warmer than it needs to. She nods. “Yeah.”

“Cool.”

Cool. As if his hand isn’t wrapped around hers. As if she’s not staring at the back of his neck, because the skin there disappears under messy curls and she’s just enough imagination to picture putting her mouth there. As if her heart isn’t doing something deeply stupid for a woman who had, thirty minutes ago, been very clear with herself about wanting uncomplicated stress relief.

The hallway upstairs is dimmer and hotter, muffled by shut doors and bodies and the thump of music through the floor. Garrett guides her past a bathroom with light spilling under the door, past a half-open bedroom where someone’s sitting on the floor scrolling through a phone, then stops at the end of the hall.

“Just in here,” he says, pushing open a door.

His room is more Garrett than she expects, which is an insane thought because she doesn’t know him well enough to know what more Garrett means. Still, it fits. Clean enough in the places that matter, messy in the places that don’t. 

Textbooks on the desk. Hockey tape on the dresser. A hoodie thrown over the chair. A laundry basket in the corner with one sleeve hanging over the side. The bed’s unmade, navy sheets twisted toward the wall, pillow dented. It smells like detergent, cold air from the cracked window, and him under it, soap and deodorant and boy.

Garrett closes the door behind her.

The party drops to a dull animal pulse beyond the walls. The air in the room shifts around the two of them. She’s standing just inside his door, Garrett’s hand still warm around hers, and he turns toward her with that easy, almost careful look again, like he’s about to say something. Maybe ask if she wants a drink. Maybe make another joke. Maybe do the polite ramp-up that men do when they think women need a few more seconds to pretend they’re less eager than they are.

She doesn’t have the patience for it. She steps into him and kisses him first. It’s immediate and a little hungry and probably reveals far too much about the state of her semester, her dry spell, and her ability to make impulsive decisions while wearing a low-cut top at a hockey party.

Garrett makes a small sound against her mouth, surprised enough that his hand tightens once around hers before he lets go and catches her waist instead. Then he gives it back.

Oh.

That’s the first clear thought she has, and it’s barely a thought at all. Just oh, because Garrett kisses like he doesn’t need to prove he knows how and somehow proves it anyway. 

His mouth opens over hers, hot and confident, one hand sliding to the small of her back while the other cups her jaw, fingers gentle but sure as he angles her face up to him. He tastes like beer and mint gum and the night air still caught somewhere in him from coming home after the game. His lips are softer than they have any right to be. His body is not.

She fists both hands in the front of his hoodie and pulls him closer, and Garrett laughs once into her mouth, low and pleased, before the sound turns into something rougher when her teeth catch his bottom lip.

“Fuck,” he mutters.

It goes straight through her. Then his hands are on her ass, full and shameless, pulling her tight against him as he walks her backward. She bumps into something hard at hip height – his desk, she realises distantly – and Garrett keeps her there, pressing in, enough to make the edge of it bite lightly into the backs of her thighs.

“Jesus,” he says against her mouth, breathless enough to sound almost impressed. “You always do that?”

“Kiss people?”

“Attack people.”

She laughs, and it comes out unsteady because his hands are still on her and his hips are right there and the front of his body is warm and solid between her thighs. “You invited me upstairs.”

“I did.”

“So.”

“So,” he repeats, and kisses her again like that has settled the matter.

The kiss goes messier fast. There’s no delicate way around it. Garrett’s hand slips from her jaw to her throat, resting there with his thumb along the line beneath her chin so he can guide her where he wants her. 

The touch should probably make her think of her ex. The fact that it doesn’t, not really, not in any way that sticks, feels so good it almost scares her. Garrett’s hand is warm and confident and easy to move away from if she wants, but she doesn’t want. She tips her head back into it, letting him tilt her face up, and his mouth gets deeper, slower, his tongue sliding over hers until her knees go embarrassingly soft.

“That okay?” he asks, barely pulling back, his thumb still at her throat.

She nods too fast. “Yeah.”

His eyes flick over her face. He looks a little darker like this. Less golden-boy from across the room, more flushed and close and focused, mouth wet from hers, curls falling forward. “Yeah?”

“Garrett,” she says, because if he makes her explain how okay it is while he’s standing between her legs looking like that, she’s going to lose whatever remains of her dignity.

His grin comes back, but there’s heat under it now. “Right.”

He kisses down her jaw before she can say anything else, and her head tips sideways on instinct. His mouth is warm against her skin, open and unhurried at first, then less so when she makes a small sound. His lips find the tender spot beneath her ear, then the line of her throat, then lower, over the place where her pulse is doing something embarrassing.

One of her hands slides into his hair. It’s a mistake. His curls are soft, still damp at the ends, and when she tugs lightly Garrett’s hips press into hers on reflex. The pressure of him between her thighs makes her breath leave in a short, broken little exhale.

“Careful,” he murmurs.

She wants to laugh at him. She really does. Instead she pulls his hair again, a little harder.

Garrett’s hand tightens at her waist. “Okay,” he says, voice dropping. “So not careful.”

“Not really my brand.”

“Good to know.”

Then he lifts her onto the desk. It happens so smoothly that she doesn’t even have time to make a sound until she’s already seated on the cool wood, thighs spread around his hips, her hands flying to his shoulders. 

A pen clatters off the edge and hits the floor. Something else – a notebook, maybe – slides sideways under her palm. Garrett doesn’t look away from her face. He steps in close, hands bracketing her hips, and tugs her forward until the edge of the desk meets the backs of her thighs and his body fits between them.

“Is this your study desk?” she asks, breathless, because her mouth has decided humour is the only thing standing between her and complete personal collapse.

“Sometimes.”

“That feels unsanitary.”

His grin flashes. “You wanna stop?”

She looks down between them, at his hands on her thighs, the press of him against her, the way her own knees have already hooked loosely around his hips. Then she looks back at his face. “No.”

“Great,” Garrett says, and kisses her again.

The desk is a terrible place to make good decisions. It puts her at the perfect height for him to get too much of what he wants too easily. His mouth on hers, his hand at her jaw, then her throat again, tilting her back enough that she has to trust the desk and his arm around her waist. His thumb strokes once along the side of her neck, and the touch sends a slow heat down her spine, pooling low and insistent.

He kisses like he’s paying attention, not just kissing because a girl is in front of him and willing, but noticing what makes her breath catch, what makes her nails press into his shoulder, what makes her knees tighten around his hips.

He kisses her mouth until she’s soft and open, then drags his lips back to her throat when she starts getting too loud, like he enjoys the cause and also the management of the effect.

She had thought, coming upstairs, that it would be fun. Hot. Simple. Garrett Graham’s room, his hands, his reputation tested for accuracy. She hadn’t accounted for him being this present. This annoyingly good at making her feel like the only thing in the room even while a party shakes the floorboards below them.

She rolls her hips once, mostly because the need to relieve the pressure has become unbearable. Garrett’s breath breaks against her neck. His hands flex on her thighs.

“Fuck,” he says again, softer this time. “You’re gonna be a problem.”

She smiles, half-drunk on the compliment, half too turned on to pretend she doesn’t love it. “You brought me up here.”

“Yeah, well.” He lifts his head and looks at her mouth like he’s considering biting it. “I make bad calls sometimes.”

“On the ice too?”

His eyes flick up. “You watch hockey?”

“I like hockey.”

The interest on his face is immediate and deeply male. “Yeah?”

“Don’t look so touched.”

“I’m not touched.”

“You are. You look very moved.”

“I’m just glad you have taste.”

She laughs, and he kisses the sound out of her, smiling into it for half a second before the heat takes over again. His hand slides under the hem of her top, palm finding bare skin at her waist, and she sucks in a breath at how warm he is. 

His fingers spread over her like he’s been waiting to get under fabric since the couch. Maybe he has. Maybe every glance at her mouth and cleavage, every casual sip of beer, every easy line had been leading here, to his desk and his hand on her skin and his hips pressing forward just enough to make her forget which sentence she had been about to use.

Then his mouth is at her throat again, moving lower, lips dragging over the hollow above her collarbone, and the whole thing starts to tilt too fast toward something that needs saying before their clothes are all over his floor.

“Just so we’re clear,” she says, breath coming unevenly, one hand still in his hair. “I don’t want a boyfriend.”

His mouth pauses against her neck, warm and damp, and then he lifts his head just enough to look at her. His pupils are blown wide, his lips swollen, his breathing not quite steady. The sight of him like that almost makes her forget what point she’s making, which is probably dangerous and exactly why the point needed making.

He blinks once, then nods. “Great.”

She nods too. “Great?”

“Yeah.” His hand is still under her top, thumb resting at her ribs. “I don’t want a girlfriend.”

“Good.”

“Perfect, actually.”

“Perfect.”

They nod at each other like two extremely reasonable adults who are definitely not flushed and panting on a desk while Metallica plays downstairs. Garrett’s mouth twitches first. She bites her lip, which is a mistake because his gaze drops there immediately.

“Glad we cleared that up,” he says.

“Me too.”

“Very mature of us.”

“Incredibly.”

His hand moves higher by an inch. Her breath catches. Garrett’s grin fades again, attention narrowing in that way that makes the air feel warmer.

“Take off your clothes,” he says, low and direct, and somehow not crude because he’s looking at her like he wants to watch every second of it.

Her body answers before modesty can even pretend to be useful. She reaches for the hem of her top and pulls it over her head. 

Garrett’s eyes drop. There’s no smooth recovery this time. No quick bounce back to her face. He looks. Properly. At the dark lace of her bra, at the curve of her breasts above it, at the way her breathing is making the cups shift slightly because she cannot seem to get enough air into her lungs. 

His jaw goes a little slack for half a second before he catches himself, but not fast enough. The attention hits her like touch. Hot, visible, almost embarrassing in how much she likes it.

“Well,” he says, voice rougher. “Fuck.”

She laughs, but it gets caught halfway when his hands slide up her sides, thumbs tracing the line beneath her bra. “That’s your review?”

“I’m still drafting.”

“You’re usually better?”

“Give me a minute,” he says, echoing himself from downstairs, but his mouth is already on her before she can answer.

He kisses her over the lace first, which is unfair. Completely unfair. His lips press to the top of one breast, then the other, warm and open-mouthed, his hands steady at her back while she grabs at the edge of the desk and tries very hard not to make a noise loud enough for the hallway. 

He looks up at her once from under his lashes, and the expression on his face is so smugly pleased that she would call him annoying if his tongue had not just dragged over the skin above her bra and wiped her brain clean of language.

“Garrett,” she manages.

“Yeah?”

“That door locks, right?”

He pauses. His eyes lift toward the door, then back to her, and for one terrible second she thinks he’s going to say no. “It does,” he says, and steps back only long enough to turn the lock.

The click lands in the room like permission. He pulls his hoodie off on the way back to her, and then his shirt underneath, and she has a brief, stupid moment of gratitude that she’s sitting down already. Because the rumours, as it turns out, didn’t fully prepare her for the reality of Garrett Graham shirtless. 

The broad shoulders. The cut of his chest. The flat, hard plane of his stomach. The light bruising near one rib from the game, purple at the edge, proof of something brutal and physical that only makes him look more like himself. She must stare too long, because Garrett lifts his brows.

“Assessing?” he asks.

She swallows. “Risk is increasing.”

His grin is immediate. “Worth monitoring?”

“Extremely.”

He steps back between her thighs, and this time when he kisses her, there’s skin everywhere. Her palms spread over his chest, warm and hard under her hands, and Garrett makes a low sound when her nails drag lightly down his stomach. It’s small, almost bitten back, but she hears it. Feels it. Files it away with an internal satisfaction so bright it borders on unprofessional.

He reaches behind her for the clasp of her bra, then pauses. “Okay?” he asks.

The word is simple. A check, low and rough, his hands warm at her back. Something in her chest goes tight and then loosens.

“Yeah,” she says. “Okay.”

The clasp gives under his fingers. The straps slide down her arms, and then her bra is somewhere on his floor, and Garrett’s looking at her again like he’s briefly forgotten every line he has ever used on another girl.

“Still drafting?” she asks, because the silence is making her feel too naked in a way that has very little to do with clothing.

His eyes come back to hers. Darker now. Warmer. “I think the review’s gonna be positive.”

She laughs, breathless, and his mouth finds hers at the same time his hands cup her breasts.

The sound she makes is small and immediate, caught half in her throat, half in his mouth. Garrett groans like that did something to him. Like her not being composed is its own reward. His thumbs move slowly, then with a little more pressure when her back arches, and he breaks the kiss only to lower his mouth to her chest.

It’s too much in the best way. His mouth hot over her nipple, his tongue, the graze of teeth careful enough to make her gasp and grab his hair. His hands hold her steady when her hips roll forward again, searching for friction, and this time he gives it to her, pressing himself between her thighs until the seam of her shorts and the hard line of him make her head tip back.

“There?” he murmurs against her skin.

She nods, but that’s not enough for him because he lifts his head, one hand coming back to her jaw.

“Words,” he says, not stern, but sure. Captain voice, some tiny traitorous part of her brain supplies, and that absolutely doesn’t help.

“Yes,” she says, a little too quickly. “There.”

His smile is slow enough to be mean. “Good.”

“Don’t say it like that.”

“Like what?”

“Like you’re proud of yourself.”

“I am proud of myself.”

“You’ve done very little.”

That’s a lie. They both know it. Garrett’s eyebrows jump anyway, delighted, and then his hand slides from her jaw to the back of her neck, pulling her in until his mouth brushes hers.

“Yeah?” he murmurs. “That a complaint?”

“No.”

“No?”

She shakes her head, their lips almost touching. “More of an observation.”

“Smart girl.”

The phrase shouldn’t hit like it does. It’s probably the nursing student in her, exhausted and overpraised only by rubrics and under-caffeinated professors, or it’s the fact that his hand is at her neck and his body is between her legs and he’s just called her smart like it belongs in the same room as wanting her. 

Whatever the reason, it goes through her hard and warm. Garrett notices. His eyes sharpen slightly, like he’s just watched a puck change direction.

“Oh,” he says softly, and that is dangerous.

“Don’t.”

He grins. “Didn’t say anything.”

He kisses her again before she can answer, and it’s rougher now, heat biting through the teasing. His hands go to the button of her shorts, then pause again with his fingers tucked at the waistband. She nods against his mouth before he can ask. Garrett exhales like he felt the answer in his own body.

They come off awkwardly because shorts are not romantic and his desk is not, in fact, designed for efficient undressing. She nearly kicks him in the thigh. He laughs. She tells him to shut up. He catches her ankle and kisses the inside of it, which is so unexpected and stupidly hot that the next insult evaporates right off her tongue.

Garrett drags her closer by the backs of her thighs, and the laugh disappears from both of them at the same time. Because now she’s in just her underwear on his desk, and he’s shirtless between her legs, and the party downstairs may as well be happening on another campus. 

His thumb traces the edge of the lace at her hip, slow enough that her stomach trembles. His gaze follows the movement. She watches his throat work once.

He hooks one finger beneath the elastic. “These?”

She looks at him. The room is warm. Her skin feels too awake. There’s a tiny voice in the back of her head that sounds unfortunately like caution, but it’s not saying no. It’s just noting the size of the moment because it’s been a while, because the last person who touched her left behind shadows she does not feel like introducing to Garrett Graham on a desk. Because wanting this and being ready for it are not always the same thing, except right now, in this room, they seem close enough to touch.

She reaches for his belt instead of answering directly. Garrett’s breath catches. That feels good. Better than good. It puts something back in her hands.

“Yeah,” she says. “Those.”

His eyes hold hers for one more second, checking for something beyond the word. Whatever he sees must satisfy him, because his mouth comes down on hers again and the rest of their clothes become a problem they solve badly and with a lot of breathing. 

His belt. His jeans. His boxers. Her panties. His laugh when her fingers fumble once. Her muttered, “Don’t be smug,” followed by his immediate, deeply smug, “Never.” The condom from his drawer, because at least one man in this house has prepared for something besides protein intake and chaos. His hands on her hips. Her legs around his waist.

He carries her from the desk to the bed like she weighs nothing. Hockey player, she thinks dizzily, arms locked around his neck, mouth pressed to the side of his jaw because she cannot stop kissing whatever part of him is closest. He drops her onto the mattress with more care than the gesture suggests, following her down before the bounce has settled.

For a second, with him above her and the room dim and the house still loud beneath them, the pace breaks. Garrett’s forearm braces beside her head. His other hand slides over her waist, then her thigh, then back up again like he’s mapping what he has been trying not to stare at since the couch. 

She looks up at him and catches a strange little flicker in his expression. Something aware, like he’s realised she’s not just some girl in his bed, even if that’s technically and conveniently what both of them are agreeing to make this.

She doesn’t know what to do with that. So she hooks her leg higher over his hip and says, “You always this slow?”

Garrett’s face clears into a grin so bright and wicked that relief moves through her right alongside the heat.

“Baby,” he says, dipping his head until his mouth is at her ear, “you have no idea how nice I’m being.”

Her breath catches. “Then stop.”

He goes still enough that she feels it. His mouth grazes her cheek when he pulls back, eyes searching hers. “Yeah?”

“Yeah,” she says, softer this time. “I mean, don’t be a dick about it. But yeah.”

His laugh is a low breath against her mouth. “Got it. Very clear instructions.”

“I’m good at instructions.”

“Good.” He kisses her once, slower than before, then again, deeper, and when he shifts against her, the joke leaves her body in one clean sweep, because there’s the heat of him against her, and then there’s the sight of him reaching for the condom.

Garrett sits back on his heels for half a second, tearing the foil open with his teeth because he’s decided to be exactly the kind of cliché that works because he looks like that while doing it, bare chest flushed, curls falling into his eyes, mouth still red from hers. 

His shoulders move under the warm bedroom light as he rolls it on, one hand braced briefly at the base of himself, jaw tightening around a breath he doesn’t quite let out.

She watches like an idiot, like a woman who’s forgotten she has eyelids. like the last several months of not being touched have gathered into one tight, humiliating knot under her ribs and are now watching Garrett Graham’s hand move with the focused awe of a medical student witnessing a miracle and a crime at the same time.

He glances up and catches her. His mouth curves slowly. “You good over there?”

She has enough dignity left to close her mouth. Barely. “Don’t start.”

“I didn’t say anything.”

“You looked like you were about to.”

“I was just checking on you.” His grin widens, far too pleased with himself, and he crawls back over her with the easy, controlled strength of someone who’s spent most of his life learning exactly what his body can do. His hands slide along the outside of her thighs, over the backs of her knees, spreading her wider as he settles between them. “Very caring of me, actually.”

“You’re a humanitarian.”

“I’ve been told.”

“By who?”

“Many women.”

She groans, rolling her eyes toward the ceiling, but it comes out thin and breathless because he’s right there, all heat and weight and hard muscle, his hips nudging hers, his mouth finding the corner of her jaw like he can feel the exact moment she needs him close enough to stop thinking. “God, you’re annoying.”

“Yeah,” he murmurs, and kisses the spot beneath her ear. “You keep saying that.”

“You keep being annoying.”

“You’re still naked in my bed.”

She would argue harder if he weren’t sliding one hand under her thigh, lifting her leg a little higher against his waist. The movement opens her more, changes the angle before he’s even inside her, and her breath catches so sharply that Garrett’s teasing drops out of his face. 

His forearm braces beside her head. The other hand stays at her hip, thumb moving once over the skin there, a small grounding stroke that lands in a place embarrassingly deeper than skin. “Hey,” he says, lower now. “Still good?”

She nods, too quickly, then remembers his thing about words and tries not to hate how much she likes that he’s already made it a thing. “Yeah. I’m good.”

“Yeah?”

“Yes, Garrett.”

His grin flickers at that, warm and wicked. “Bossy.”

“Please don’t make me regret having standards.”

“Oh, I love standards.” He dips his head and kisses her, softer than the words, mouth warm and slow until her fingers loosen from their death grip in the sheet and climb back to his shoulders. “Big fan.”

Then he shifts, and the first press of him makes the whole room narrow to the exact place where their bodies meet. Her hands clamp down on him immediately. Nails catching at his shoulders, then sliding over his back, trying to find somewhere to put the sudden overwhelming fact of him. Because she had known. She had seen. She had made reasonable visual estimates. She had spent the last five minutes pretending not to be deeply affected by the evidence.

Knowing is different from this.

Garrett pushes in slowly, so slowly it feels almost mean, his jaw locked and his eyes fixed on her face like he’s studying every flicker, every caught breath, every tiny shift of her mouth. It stretches her open in increments, heat and fullness and pressure blooming through her so intensely that her head tips back into the pillow and the sound she makes is barely a sound at all, more like her body dropping something fragile.

“Oh my God,” she breathes, and her hands move on him again, one to his bicep, one dragging down his back, not sure whether she wants to pull him closer or push him away or just leave marks somewhere to prove she survived this.

Garrett stills instantly. “Too much?”

“No.” The word comes out fast, almost offended, because even overwhelmed she has priorities. She opens her eyes and finds him above her, brows drawn, mouth parted, the cocky set of him interrupted by genuine restraint. “No. Just– fuck. You’re…”

His mouth twitches despite the tension in his jaw. “I’m what?”

“Do not make me compliment your dick right now.”

A laugh breaks out of him, rough and startled, and the movement shifts him a fraction deeper. Her whole body tightens around him in response, a gasp punching out of her as her fingers dig into his shoulder.

Garrett’s laugh dies in his throat. “Jesus Christ.”

“Don’t laugh,” she gets out, though she’s not sure if she’s scolding him or begging him.

“I’m not. I’m really fucking not.” His forehead drops close to hers, breath warm against her mouth. He slides his hand from her hip to the side of her face, thumb brushing her cheekbone with a steadiness that makes her body, traitorous and desperate, loosen by half a degree. “Relax. You got it.”

She makes a sound that’s probably meant to be sarcastic and ends up nowhere near language.

His mouth grazes hers. “Atta girl. Just breathe for me.”

The praise goes through her so hard she clenches again before she can help it, and Garrett’s eyes almost roll shut. His hand tightens briefly at her jaw.

“Oh, you like that,” he murmurs, voice gone darker, rougher around the edges.

“Shut up.”

He hums, pecking her lips once. “Yeah, you do.”

“Garrett.”

“I know. I know.” He kisses her before the argument can build properly, mouth soft and deep, and keeps pressing in by slow degrees, stopping whenever her breath catches too sharp, moving again when her hips shift up like some impatient, greedy part of her has decided the stretch is worth the ache. “So good. You’re doing so good.”

Her brain doesn’t survive that intact. It simply doesn’t. The words, his weight, the steady patience of him, the heat between her thighs, the fact that he’s watching her like this is not just sex but some very important game he has every intention of winning by learning her properly. 

All of it gathers and gathers until he finally bottoms out and her body takes him all at once, full enough that her mouth opens around a gasp she can’t swallow. For a second, neither of them moves.

Garrett’s face is close above hers, flushed and tense, his eyes darker than they were downstairs by the couch, his breathing held too carefully in his chest. She can feel the restraint in him. Feel the way his hips want to move and don’t. Feel the tiny tremor in the arm braced beside her head.

It does something horrible and hot to her. Something almost worse than if he’d just been cocky through all of it.

She kisses him. It’s clumsy at first because she’s still adjusting, still catching up to her own body, but Garrett kisses her back immediately, like the waiting has cost him something and her mouth is the first permission he can take.

His hand slides to the back of her neck, fingers spreading there as he deepens it, and then he shifts her leg a little higher against his waist.

The angle changes. She moans straight into his mouth.

Garrett freezes, then exhales a sound that’s almost a laugh and almost a groan. “There?”

She nods, breathless against his lips.

His nose brushes hers. “Can I move?”

The fact that he asks it like that, low and rough and barely holding together, with his body already buried in hers and his thumb stroking once at the side of her neck like he’s giving her every chance to stay in control, makes some foolish, tender, inconvenient thing move under all the heat.

“Yeah,” she whispers. “Move.”

Garrett nods once, like the word has landed somewhere physical in him.

The first few strokes are slow. Almost careful. Deep enough to make her breath hitch each time, steady enough to let her body catch up around him. He watches her face at first, eyes flicking between her mouth and her eyes and the little furrow that keeps appearing between her brows when the pleasure goes sharp. 

He kisses her there once, right between them, which should be too sweet for the fact that he’s currently inside her, except somehow it only makes the whole thing feel hotter. More specific. More dangerous.

She can feel him everywhere. The stretch, the drag, the warm weight of him above her. His chest sliding against hers, the muscles in his back moving under her palms, the faint bite of his breath near her jaw. 

The bed creaks under them, not loudly enough to compete with the party downstairs, but enough that the sound keeps catching in the corner of her awareness and making her body tighten around him with the absurd knowledge of where they are. 

Garrett Graham’s room. His bed. Music beneath the floorboards. People laughing downstairs. His door locked.

He presses his mouth to her neck when her breathing gets uneven, and she turns into it, one hand in his hair, the other clawing lightly down his back when he hits that same place again.

“Fuck,” she gasps, not meaning to be so loud.

Garrett’s hips stutter. “Careful.”

She would very much like to care. Unfortunately, he does it again. Her head tips back. “Oh–!”

His hand comes up, covering her mouth for half a second, more instinct than command, and the gesture sends such a vicious little spark through her that her body tightens around him before either of them can process it.

Garrett groans, low and wrecked. “Holy shit.”

Her eyes go wide over his hand. His grin appears slowly, and it’s filthy. Delighted. Almost boyish, if boyish can include the kind of look that makes her entire nervous system offer its resignation. 

He takes his hand away and replaces it with his mouth, kissing her hard enough to swallow the next sound. “Didn’t peg you for loud,” he murmurs against her lips.

“I’m trying to be quiet.”

“You’re doing a terrible job.”

“It’s been a while,” she snaps, or tries to, except it comes out too breathy to have any real bite.

His eyes flick over her face again, sharper now, catching the edge of what she’s said and whatever sits underneath it. Not pity, not that, if anything, it’s satisfaction braided with focus, like he’s just been handed another piece of the puzzle and intends to treat it with the seriousness it deserves.

“Yeah?” he says, voice lower. “That why you’re so worked up?”

She glares at him, but it’s less effective when her legs are wrapped around his waist and she can barely breathe. “Don’t sound so pleased.”

“Baby, you pounced on me.” His hips roll again, slower this time, deeper, and her nails scrape down his back. “I’ve been pleased.”

“Asshole.”

“Yeah.” He kisses the corner of her mouth. “You want it harder?”

The question is so blunt it punches the air out of her. She stares at him for a second, cheeks hot, body hotter, and for reasons she’s absolutely going to blame on the dry spell, the music downstairs, and Garrett’s stupid mouth, she cannot quite make herself answer.

His grin softens into something more controlled. “Use your words.”

She huffs a laugh, embarrassed and turned on and annoyed by the exact ratio of both. “Yes.”

“Yes, what?”

“Garrett.”

“What?” He kisses under her jaw, smugness warm against her skin. “I’m being thorough.”

“Yes,” she says, louder, fingers tightening in his hair. “Harder.”

“There we go.”

He builds into it, like he’s testing how much she actually wants, how much her body can take before the noises change shape. But Garrett is big, and strong, and horribly aware of both facts, and once he understands that she likes the weight of him, likes the pressure, likes the way he can pin her open without making her feel trapped, he stops treating her like something breakable and starts treating her like something he wants to make a mess of.

Her body loves it. The harder rhythm. The way his hips snap into hers with enough force to push her up the bed until he has to hook an arm under her and drag her back down. The way he catches her knee and pushes it higher, opening her up until every thrust hits deep enough to make the room flash at the edges. The way he murmurs little things against her mouth, against her throat, half praise and half self-control unraveling.

“Fuck, that’s it.” His voice is rough, breathing uneven now. “That’s what you needed, huh?”

She cannot answer. Truly, it’s not her fault. The words are somewhere, presumably, but Garrett keeps hitting that place inside her with such awful precision that all she can do is cling to him and gasp like language is a skill she once had in high school and then abandoned.

He seems to take that personally, in the best and worst way. “Yeah,” he says, almost to himself, mouth at her jaw. “Thought so.”

It feels too good. It’s been long enough that she had forgotten sex could be this much body. This much sound. This much heat spreading under her skin until she feels flushed everywhere, sensitive everywhere, the old tightness in her chest and shoulders dissolving into the messy slap of skin and the creak of the mattress and Garrett’s breath catching every time she drags her nails down his back. 

He keeps finding it. That spot that makes her toes curl and her stomach pull tight and her voice come out higher than she means it to. Again. Again. Again, like he has a map and a grudge.

“Garrett,” she gasps, louder than she intends.

His mouth crashes over hers immediately, but he is smiling into it. “You trying to let the whole house know?”

“I’m trying to survive.”

He groans, forehead dropping to hers for half a second. “Jesus, don’t say shit like that.”

“Why?”

“Because I’m trying to last longer than six minutes.”

The laugh that breaks out of her is so startled and breathless that it turns into a moan halfway through when he thrusts again. Garrett laughs too, low and rough and proud of himself, then kisses her until the humour melts back into heat.

And it’s fun. Even like this, even with her body slick and strung tight and his jaw clenched from holding back, there’s laughter under it. There’s Garrett being smug and her telling him to shut up and both of them failing to pretend they don’t like the other one’s mouth. 

There’s nothing heavy in the room, nothing sharp-edged enough to draw blood. Just want, and sweat, and stupid little jokes bitten into kisses, and Garrett Graham proving several pieces of bathroom gossip correct in a way she may have to send a formal thank-you note for later.

Then he changes the game entirely. One second he’s above her, solid and hot and driving into her until her thoughts are slippery, and the next his arm locks around her waist and he rolls them. 

She gasps, clutching at his shoulders as the room flips, and then she’s on top of him, knees braced on either side of his hips, hands planted against his chest.

“Oh my God,” she breathes, because the angle is different, the fullness shifting deeper, heavier, making her thighs tremble before she has even moved properly.

Garrett lands beneath her with a grin that should be illegal. His curls are spread over the pillow. His chest is rising hard, skin flushed, mouth swollen, eyes taking her in like the view has improved his quality of life.

“Hi,” he says.

She stares down at him, panting. “Hi?”

“Still with me?”

“Barely.”

His grin widens. “Good.”

He sits up enough to get his mouth on her chest, one arm looping around her back to hold her to him, and the movement forces her down around him in a slow, helpless grind that makes both of them swear at the same time. 

His hands find her waist, then her hips, guiding her into a rhythm before she can overthink the mechanics of it. Which is good, actually, because her thighs are already shaking and her brain has moved most of its remaining resources to the single overwhelming fact of him inside her from this angle.

She wraps her arms around his shoulders and moves. It’s messy at first. Too eager, not smooth enough, her knees sliding on the sheet, her breath catching every time she sinks down too fast and takes him deeper than she’s prepared for. 

Garrett doesn’t seem to mind. Garrett seems, if anything, violently invested. His hands flex at her hips, helping without taking over, his mouth moving over her breasts, tongue hot and deliberate until her back arches and her rhythm falters.

“Fuck,” she pants, fingers tangling in his hair. “Feels so good.”

He lifts his head, eyes dark, mouth wet. “I know,” he says. His hands tighten at her waist, guiding her down harder. “Fuck, you feel incredible.”

It’s breathless and blunt and dragged out of him by the look on his face, by his hands pulling her closer, by the way his hips keep lifting to meet hers when his restraint slips. It makes something bright and hot flare under her ribs. 

She drops her forehead to his, riding him with her arms locked around his neck, panting into the small space between their mouths while he kisses her in pieces whenever either of them gets close enough.

The party downstairs disappears. The whole world goes down to the slide of him in her, the ache in her thighs, his hands dragging over her back, her body moving because stopping feels impossible now. 

Garrett’s teeth graze her jaw. His mouth finds her throat. He says something that might be her name or might just be a curse and it makes her clench around him so hard his fingers dig into her hips.

“Shit,” he groans. “Okay. Okay, hold on.”

She blinks at him, dazed. “What?”

His grin comes back, strained at the edges. “Trust me?”

That’s a stupid question to ask a girl he met properly forty minutes ago. Worse, her body answers yes before her brain can come online.

Garrett rolls them again. This time there’s no mistaking the strength in it. He shifts her under him like it’s nothing, like she weighs nothing, like the bed and her body and the entire hot mess of the room are things he can arrange exactly how he wants. Firm and sure and so fucking hot that the sound she makes when her back hits the mattress is almost embarrassing.

“Yeah?” he asks, already reading her face.

She nods quickly, breath wrecked. “Yeah.”

“Good.”

Then he hooks her legs over his shoulders. Her eyes almost roll back before he even moves. The stretch, the angle, the sudden deep press of him when he leans forward – it’s obscene. Actually obscene. 

Her hands fly to his forearms, then the sheets, then back to his arms, needing something to hold while he looks down at her with a grin spreading slow across his face like he knows exactly what he’s done.

“There?” Garrett asks.

She makes a sound that’s not a word.

His grin gets worse. “That a yes?”

“Right there,” she gasps, finally, because pride has lost all funding and vacated the building. “Don’t stop.”

Garrett’s expression flashes with satisfaction so intense it should annoy her. It does annoy her. It also makes her clench around him again, so her body has betrayed the cause.

He doesn’t stop. He fucks her like that, deep and hard and focused enough that the air keeps leaving her in broken little sounds she cannot control. The angle is devastating. Every thrust hits the same place, the one that makes her vision go soft and her fingers claw at his forearms, the one that pulls heat tight and fast through the low centre of her body until she can barely keep her eyes open. 

Garrett watches her through all of it, flushed and breathing hard, curls falling over his forehead, mouth open around rough little curses every time she tightens around him.

“That’s it,” he says, voice thick. “Fuck, that’s it. Right there, huh?”

She nods, frantic now, legs shaking against his shoulders. “Don’t stop. Garrett, don’t–”

“I’ve got you.” His hand slides between them again, thumb finding her clit with the kind of precision that makes her sob, actually sob, one sharp little sound punched out of her before she can catch it. “Come on, baby. Let me have it.”

The words hit at the exact wrong time, or the exact right one. There’s no way to tell. Her body pulls tight, tighter, every nerve narrowing to him, his voice, his thumb, the brutal perfect drag of him inside her, and then it breaks open.

She comes hard enough that the room blanks at the edges. Her back arches. Her hands scramble for him, one locking around his wrist, the other twisting in the sheet. Garrett groans above her, hips losing rhythm for the first time as she clenches around him, and the sound of him nearly tips her into another wave before the first has finished. 

He keeps moving through it, not as controlled now, more desperate, his face dropping toward her thigh where it rests near his shoulder, mouth pressing there in a hot, messy kiss like he needs somewhere to put the feeling.

“Fuck,” he grits out. “Fuck, you’re–”

He doesn’t finish the sentence. He follows her with a broken groan, hips driving in deep once, twice, then stilling as he comes, shoulders tense and shaking slightly under her hands. His head dips, breath hot against her skin, and for a second all she can hear is the rush in her own ears, the muffled thud of music downstairs, the violent uneven breathing of both of them trying to become people again.

Garrett eases her legs down carefully. That’s the first thing she notices when thought starts returning in pieces. The care of it. His hands sliding her calves from his shoulders, lowering them to the mattress, his palms moving over her thighs like he’s checking she is still attached to herself. 

Her legs feel boneless. Her whole body does, really. Warm and damp and used in the best possible way, heart still pounding hard enough that she can feel it in her fingertips.

He leans down and kisses her. It’s slow. Almost ridiculous after everything. His mouth presses to hers with a softness that makes her chest do something inconvenient, and she kisses him back because she has no energy left to pretend anything. His lips move over hers once, twice, then he pulls back just enough to breathe against her mouth.

“Oh my God,” she says, because that’s the official post-Garrett Graham vocabulary.

He laughs, low and pleased and exhausted. “Yeah?”

She turns her head slightly into the pillow, smiling despite herself. “Don’t.”

“I didn’t say anything.”

“You said yeah like you were fishing.”

“I was absolutely fishing.”

“At least you’re honest.”

“Only after sex.”

She laughs again, breathless and hoarse, and Garrett’s grin softens as he looks down at her. For a second it’s quiet. Too quiet, maybe. The kind of quiet that could become something if either of them were stupid enough to let it.

He pulls out carefully, and even that makes her inhale, sharp and oversensitive. Garrett’s hand comes to her hip at once, thumb brushing there. “Sorry.”

She shakes her head. “It’s fine.”

He gives her a look.

She huffs. “Good fine. Not bad fine.”

“Important distinction.”

“Very.”

He deals with the condom, tying it off and disappearing just long enough to toss it in the bin by his desk with impressive aim, which he absolutely notices himself doing. When he comes back to the bed, still naked and smug and far too pleased with his own athleticism, she lifts a weak hand.

“Do not brag about that.”

He points at the bin. “That was clean.”

“Garrett.”

“What? You like hockey. You should respect accuracy.”

“I respect silence.”

“Liar.”

He climbs back onto the bed, and she expects him to flop down beside her, maybe make some obnoxious comment, maybe reach for his jeans. Instead he pulls the sheet up first, dragging it over her hips, then higher until it covers her stomach and chest. The gesture lands somewhere soft and private, made worse by the fact that Garrett seems to do it without thinking.

She watches him through the loose fall of hair over her face. He notices that too, because Garrett Graham’s most irritating quality isn’t the mouth or the abs or the competence with which he has just rearranged her understanding of casual sex, but the noticing.

“What?” he asks.

“Nothing.”

“Bad nothing or good nothing?”

She gives him a look. “You’re very invested in categories.”

“I like knowing where I stand.”

“On top of your own bed, mostly naked.”

His grin flashes. “Good place to stand.”

Then he kneels beside her and pushes her hair off her forehead, fingers brushing damp strands back with a gentleness that feels wildly out of proportion to what they’ve just done. His thumb traces once near her temple. Her eyes close before she can stop them, her body willing to embarrass her in every available genre tonight.

“You good?” he asks, quieter now.

She nods, eyes opening again. A smile pulls at her mouth, lazy and stupid and completely beyond her control. “So good.”

Garrett’s face changes. The grin goes less showy, more pleased in a way that looks almost boyish. Like he’s been praised for something that mattered. Which is absurd, because they’re adults and this isn’t a skills assessment, except part of him still looks like he’s put that answer somewhere important.

“Yeah?” he says.

She groans. “You’re fishing again.”

He catches the back of her neck and pulls her up just enough to kiss her. It’s not like the kiss by the door. Not like the desk or the one right before he moved inside her. This one is slower, warm and indulgent, his mouth smiling faintly against hers until she gives in and smiles back. 

His fingers stay at her nape, holding her there with easy pressure, and when he pulls away, he doesn’t go far.

“That was so fuckin’ good,” he murmurs.

The words move through her in a slow, heated wave, different from before now that her body is loose and satisfied and embarrassingly receptive to praise. She looks up at him, still close enough that their noses nearly brush. “Yeah?”

Garrett nods, eyes flicking over her face, down to her mouth, back up again. “Yeah.”

There’s something too bare in that little pause after. A room after thunder. A body after adrenaline. The seconds after a joke has been made and neither person has found another one fast enough. 

She can feel the shape of the thing they agreed this wouldn’t become sitting somewhere near the foot of the bed, patient and smug and wearing his hockey number.

So she does the sensible thing and pokes his chest with two fingers. “Good review?”

Garrett’s grin comes back so fast it almost looks like relief. “Five stars.”

“Oh, gross.”

“Would recommend.”

“You’re never speaking to another woman again if that’s your line.”

“Probably for the best.” His hand slides under the sheet to rest on her waist, warm and heavy, casual like he has every right to be there. “I’m retired now.”

She snorts. “After one round?”

His eyebrows lift. The room changes again. Instantly. She feels it in the hand at her waist. In the way his gaze drops to her mouth and lingers. In the fact that her own body, traitorous little thing, gives a faint, interested pulse despite being wrecked and oversensitive and probably in need of water.

Garrett’s thumb moves once over her skin. “One round?” he repeats, voice dropping into that dangerous, amused register.

She realises too late what she has done. “Oh no.”

“Oh yes.”

“I meant… eventually.”

“Sure you did.”

She blinks. “I have friends downstairs.”

“They abandoned you twenty minutes ago.”

“I have dignity.”

“That one’s debatable.”

She laughs, and Garrett kisses her again, quick and warm and infuriatingly pleased, before drawing back with that bright golden-boy grin doing entirely too much damage in the low light of his room.

“Relax,” he says. “I’ll get you water first.”

She stares at him. Garrett’s grin widens. And watching him climb off the bed with all the unbearable confidence of a man who knows exactly what he just did and fully intends to do better next time, questionable might have been underselling it.

❄︎ ❄︎ ❄︎

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... and the legend begins