iaheybaee

[iaheybaee]

i like faceclaims ONLY IF they ARE NOT super known celebrities like sabrina, gracie or tate

i like when they just get some random girl from insta or tiktok and just stick with her🤞🤞

okay this may be controversial, SO HEAR ME OUTTTTTT

but is anyone else lowkey tired of reading f1 smaus where the "reader" is written ao specifically, and has a faceclaim, and sometimes even a NAME? like, call me crazy, but thats basically just an oc at that point.

like, i saw a smau recently that had sabrina carpenter as the faceclaim, and the "reader" had her exact discography and celebrity friends and all?? like, that's not an x reader fic anymore, atp thats just a sabrina carpenter x charles leclerc fic.

idk, maybe its just my opinion, but like, i find it funny when things are tagged "x reader" and then the "reader" literally has a faceclaim. like, idk about the rest of ya'll, but i am NOT tate mcrae, sabrina carpenter, or jenna ortega💔

JUST MY OPINION DONT COME FOR ME ‼️

[iaheybaee]

crying and screaming

IM SO SORRY GUYS I SWEAR IT JUST HAPPENED, I COULDNT HELP MYSELF PLEASE FORGIVE ME

touchy subject — mv1

written blurbs

max verstappen x !ex leclerc reader

charles leclerc x !sister reader

paris was quieter than monaco ever could be. the streets hummed with strangers’ voices, the cafés filled with cigarette smoke and jazz, and your little apartment smelled faintly of turpentine and lavender. here, you could disappear—into canvases, into the blur of color that never asked questions, never reminded you of what you couldn’t give.

it had been years since you left the world you once knew—years since max, years since the silence of pregnancy tests lined up like accusations on the bathroom counter. paris made it easier to forget. or at least, easier to pretend.

until charles called. until he said home. until you found yourself with a ticket to the monaco grand prix clenched between your fingers, and the dull ache in your chest stirred again. some wounds never healed. some names remained touchy subjects.

(a/n) : lulu texted me this idea at like 4 am one night and i couldn't not. so everyone blame her for your tears and forward all therapy bills to her! (also based off the song touchy subject by peach prc)

⚠️warning(s) : mentions of miscarriage, infertility, overall sadness and heartbreak, mental illness (depression, suicidal thoughts)

𓇢𓆸

𓇢𓆸

The light in Paris has a way of softening everything. Even the sharp edges of your grief blur a little when the sun filters through the tall studio windows, catching in the haze of the paint dust. Barefoot on the cool wooden floor, you stand before the canvas, brush in hand, staring at the shape you’ve been avoiding finishing.

A child’s silhouette, faceless. Sketched in muted pastels, reaching for something just out of frame—something you can’t quite bring yourself to paint in. Your chest tightens as you drag another stroke of pale yellow across the canvas, more an exhale than a choice.

The studio is quiet. Just the hum of the street below, the clatter of cutlery from the café on the corner. You’ve built your life around this quiet, and most days it feels enough. Most days, Paris is far away from the world you left behind.

Until your phone buzzes against the messy worktable. You almost don’t look. You’ve trained yourself not to—friends know better than to interrupt, and strangers rarely get this far. But the name glowing on the screen makes your stomach flip.

Charles.

You hesitate, brush still clutched in your hand, paint drying between your fingers. For a moment, you consider letting it ring out. You know why he’s calling—you can feel it in your bones. Monaco. Home. A place that isn’t really home anymore.

Still, you swipe across the screen. “Allô?”

“Chérie,” Charles’ voice is warm, careful in a way that tells you he knows this is fragile ground. “How are you?”

You don’t answer right away. Instead, you stare at the faceless child on the canvas and feel the ache climb higher in your throat. Charles doesn’t press—he never does.

Finally, you manage, “Working.”

There’s a pause, the sound of him breathing. Then, gently, “Would you… would you come home for Monaco? Just this once.”

It is a touchy subject—he knows, you know, the both of you dancing around the words neither of you say aloud. That race isn’t just a race. It’s a reminder. A risk. A place where ghosts might still be waiting for you in the crowd.

You squeeze your eyes shut, phone pressed to your ear, and let the silence stretch.

That same silence stretches so long you almost think Charles will let it drop. You almost want him to. But his voice comes through the speaker again, softer this time.

“You don’t have to stay long. Just the weekend. It would mean a lot to me.”

You swallow hard, your eyes fixed on the faceless child on your canvas. The weekend. Monaco. The words tighten like a band around your ribs.

“Charles…” Your voice breaks before you can finish.

He hears it. Of course he does. “I know, chérie,” he says quickly, gentle as if he’s handling glass. “I know it’s hard. I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t important. But it’s home. It's my home race. And I miss you. Arthur misses you.”

As if on cue, another voice cuts in, faint in the background but unmistakable. “She won’t say yes to you,” Arthur teases, before his tone softens, “Hey, sœur. Please come. It’s Monaco without you again, and it doesn’t feel right.”

You close your eyes. You can picture them perfectly—Charles pacing the kitchen, phone pressed to his ear, Arthur leaned against the counter, mouthing words at him until he finally gave in and grabbed the phone too. You can picture their faces if you said no.

“I can’t promise I’ll be fun,” you whisper.

Charles laughs softly, the sound weighted with relief. “We don’t need you to be fun. We just need you to be there.”

Arthur adds quickly, “We’ll protect you, okay? No parties, no pressure. Just us. Family.”

You drag the back of your hand across your cheek, not even realizing you’ve been crying until the smear of paint leaves a streak of yellow across your skin.

Family. You exhale shakily, the fight draining out of you.

“…Alright,” you breathe. “I’ll come.”

Both brothers react at once—Charles with a loud exhale, Arthur with a triumphant, “Yes!” that makes you almost smile through your tears.

𓇢𓆸

The first miscarriage was at seventeen.

You were too young, too uncertain, and Max’s career had just begun to bloom. His face was splashed across news sites, his name filling commentary boxes. A baby then would have been impossible, unfair. You were both devastated, of course, but you tried to tell yourselves it was fate—life saying not yet. You whispered in the dark that another chance would come when the timing was better.

But as the years passed, that chance never arrived. Month after month, the same ritual. Quiet hope. Waiting. The test. The silence. Negative. Always negative. The bathroom became a graveyard of white plastic, little windows that screamed failure in faint blue lines. You hated the way you could never stop buying them, as if the next one might finally be different.

One memory still clings, sharper than the rest:

You were on the bathroom floor, knees drawn up, cheek pressed against the cool tile as though it might ground you. The stick lay across your lap, and even before you could bring yourself to look, you already knew. When your eyes finally flicked down, the empty result window confirmed what your body had already told you.

Max found you there. He didn’t say anything at first, just lowered himself onto the floor beside you. His large frame folded down awkwardly in the cramped space, but he stayed there, his hands reaching for you, warm and steady. He tipped your chin up so you would look at him, his thumbs brushing gently at the tears that had begun to fall.

“Next time, liefje,” he whispered, voice rough but gentle, pressing his forehead against yours. “Next time will be ours.”

You wanted to believe him. You clung to those words like they were a lifeline, repeating them in your head as you curled into him, letting him hold you against his chest. He smelled like laundry soap and aftershave, like safety.

But in the weeks that followed, you avoided mirrors, couldn’t bear to look at the hollow curve of your stomach, the way your hands twitched when you saw children in the street. And when “next time” came, and then came again, the result never changed.

The bathroom became your battlefield, its tiles bearing witness to your whispered prayers, his murmured reassurances, the endless cycle of waiting and disappointment.

And though Max never blamed you—not once, not even when his jaw was tight and his eyes gave away the grief he tried to hide—you blamed yourself. Each negative test felt like proof, a reminder carved into your ribs that you couldn’t give him what he wanted most.

That was when the cracks began to show, even if you both pretended not to notice.

𓇢𓆸

flashback

There was a time when hope had felt real enough to touch. You remember it in shades of pale yellow and soft grey, the colors you and Max had picked out one winter evening when the future seemed certain. The test had been positive for once—finally—and you both clung to it like it was a promise.

You spent hours in that spare room, taping the edges of the walls, laughing when Max accidentally left a streak of paint across his cheek. He kissed you with it still there, lips tasting faintly of chemical sweetness.

“This will be perfect,” he murmured, rolling the paintbrush over the wall with exaggerated care, as though your child would notice crooked strokes. “They’ll love it.”

You smiled then, sitting cross-legged on the plastic-covered floor, a hand resting protectively over your stomach. The air smelled like fresh paint and dreams. For the first time in years, you let yourself imagine—tiny socks, bedtime stories, a laugh that was some mixture of the two of you.

But the walls dried. And so did that dream. Weeks later, you sat in the same room, hollow and silent, staring at the cheerful colors that mocked you from every corner. The air still smelled faintly of paint, but now it made your stomach turn.

Max was the one who suggested repainting. He didn’t say why, just pressed the new cans into your hands with a small, strained smile. Neutral colors. Just in case.

You painted over it together, but this time there was no laughter, no streak of yellow on his cheek, no playful kisses. Just silence and the scratch of rollers against the wall. Covering the hope up felt like burying it.

By the time the last coat had dried, the room was nothing again—just a spare room with bland walls. But to you, it was a grave.

And even years later, when you moved out and the house was sold, you could still see that room whenever you closed your eyes. The baby gate Max had bought—just in case—leaning in the hallway. The yellow walls bleeding through the grey no matter how many coats you rolled. The ghosts of the angels you never got to meet, still haunting the corners of the home you’d once built together.

𓇢𓆸

The winter in Austria had been Max’s idea. A quiet cabin tucked into the mountains, far from circuits, flashing cameras, and the endless chatter of the press. Just you, him, and the snow that fell in steady sheets outside the frosted windows.

For a little while, it felt like peace. You wore his oversized hoodie, curled on the couch with a book while he stoked the fire. The world felt smaller there, safe, contained in the rhythm of his presence—the smell of woodsmoke clinging to his hair, the sound of his laughter echoing in the high wooden rafters.

One night, after dinner, you both stood outside on the porch. The snow drifted soft and silent, flakes catching in his lashes, his breath misting the air. He pulled you close, tucking you against his side, his chin resting atop your head.

“Do you ever think about it?” he asked suddenly, his voice quiet, tentative.

“About what?” you murmured, though you already knew.

“About… being parents. Finally having a family.”

The words landed heavy, sinking into the snow at your feet. His tone was soft, almost dreamy, but there was a certainty there too, a yearning you couldn’t mistake.

You turned your head, studying him in the pale glow of the porch light. His eyes were on the horizon, far away, like he could already see it—himself with a child in his arms, the family he always dreamed of.

Your throat tightened.

“Of course,” you said, forcing a smile that didn’t quite reach your eyes. “Sometimes.”

He looked down at you then, his lips curving into a tender smile, and kissed your forehead. “I think you’d be amazing. The best mother.”

The guilt gnawed at you, sharp and merciless. You tucked yourself closer to him, hiding your face in his chest so he wouldn’t see the tears gathering in your eyes. He held you tighter, mistaking the silence for warmth instead of the truth—your fear that no matter how much you both wanted it, you would never be enough to give it to him.

The snow kept falling, quiet and endless, covering everything in white.

𓇢𓆸

The breakup wasn’t dramatic. There were no raised voices, no slammed doors, no words flung in anger. Just the quiet hum of the apartment, the muted lights reflecting off the floor, and the weight of what neither of you wanted to say.

You sat on the couch, legs pulled close, hands tangled in the throw draped across your lap. Max sat beside you, shoulder brushing yours, silent but present. You could feel the tension coiled between you, the years of hope, disappointment, and love that had built into something fragile and sharp.

He looked at you, as if waiting for the words you both knew were coming. His hands rested on his knees, fingers flexing, unable—or unwilling—to reach for you. You wanted to touch him, to feel the warmth that had once been enough to carry you through anything. But tonight, even his arms would not be enough.

“I…” you start, voice low and trembling, “I can’t do this anymore.”

He blinks, searching your face, but doesn’t speak. He doesn’t interrupt. He waits.

“You’re…” The words stick in your throat. You swallow, forcing air through the lump. “You’re everything I could ever want. You’ve been… perfect. But I can’t watch you keep waiting for something I can’t give. And I… I can’t keep pretending it’ll be different.”

A silence stretches between you, heavier than any fight, filled with the ghosts of months and years of failed attempts, of whispered prayers and empty tests, of hope that had never materialized.

Max’s lips press together. His hands finally move, resting over yours on the blanket. He doesn’t speak yet, just lets you feel the weight of him holding space for you, for what must happen.

Tears slip down your cheeks, warm and wet against your jaw. You wipe them roughly, ashamed of how much this hurts, ashamed of loving him enough to let him go.

“I wanted it to be enough,” you whisper, almost to yourself. “I wanted to give you everything you’ve ever wanted… but I can’t.”

He swallows, the faintest quiver in his jaw betraying the steel of control he’s trying to maintain. His voice, when it comes, is a whisper too, barely audible over the hum of the radiator.

“I know,” he says. “I know.”

The apartment feels suddenly colder. You both stay on the couch, pressed close yet so achingly apart, sharing the grief without needing words. It’s not anger that fills the room—it’s heartbreak, quiet and unrelenting.

You finally rise, hands trembling, and gather the courage to face the inevitable. “I’m sorry,” you murmur. “I love you. But I can’t do this anymore.”

He doesn’t stop you. He doesn’t beg. He only nods, the faintest flicker of a smile passing over his face, ghostlike, before the sorrow settles back in.

And in that quiet, in the muted light of the apartment that had once been your sanctuary, it ends. Not with a bang, not with fury—just with the echo of love that could not survive the weight of what was impossible.

𓇢𓆸

present day

And that’s how you ended up in Paris—away from everything. Away from the pain, the grief, the constant ache of him. Away from Max, from the dreams you couldn’t give him, from the nursery that never was, from the whispered prayers and empty tests, from the life you both had imagined and lost. You built a world there, full of canvases and paint, of streets that smelled like coffee and rain, of small victories that didn’t demand a child to validate them.

But now, sitting in the cab, suitcase at your side, you feel every one of those ghosts tugging at your chest. Your stomach is tied in knots, twisting and uncoiling in a rhythm you recognize too well. Monaco is your home, or at least it used to be, but it’s not the same without him. Without the life that was supposed to be yours with him.

The cab lurches forward, and you press your forehead to the window, staring at the blur of Paris as it rushes past. You try to breathe, to steady yourself, but your mind won’t stop replaying the memories: the miscarriage at seventeen, the nursery you painted and repainted, the winter getaway in the snow where he confessed his dreams, the final night on the couch when you whispered the words that broke you both.

Your hands curl into your lap. You wish you could vanish, disappear back into your studio, sink into the silence and the paint. But Charles and Arthur—gentle, insistent—made sure you agreed. Just a weekend, they said. Just their home race. And somehow, even through the tight knot of anxiety coiling in your stomach, you told yourself it was fine. That you could do this.

The plane takes off, and your stomach flips again. Each cloud below is a memory rising to meet you, each mile closer a test you didn’t ask for. You clutch your bag, and for the first time in years, you realize that leaving Paris doesn’t mean leaving your past behind. It follows you, silent and insistent, all the way to Monaco.

And you wonder if you’ll be able to survive seeing him again, seeing the life you could never have, seeing what he built without you.

𓇢𓆸

The moment you step out of the airport, the warm Monaco sun hits your face, but it doesn’t quite chase away the tight knot in your stomach. You’re tense, guarded, bracing yourself for a weekend that feels like walking back into a dream you’re not sure you want to have.

And then you hear them.

“Finally!” Charles calls, barreling toward you with his arms wide. His grin is bright, teasing, the kind of smile that makes it impossible not to soften. “Do you even remember where to go, or should we carry you?”

Arthur is right behind him, hands stuffed into his pockets, trying to look casual but failing entirely. “You took your sweet time,” he says, mock stern, though the warmth in his eyes gives him away.

Before you can protest, Charles sweeps you into a hug. His arms are impossibly strong, but gentle, holding you like he could shield you from everything the world throws your way. You press your face against his shoulder and inhale—the familiar scent of him, faintly cologne, faintly home, makes something inside you unclench just a little.

Arthur crouches slightly and drapes an arm over your other side. “Missed you,” he murmurs. “Way too long.”

You laugh softly, breath catching in your throat. It’s awkward and clumsy, like you’ve forgotten how to be close to anyone in the real world. But with them, you remember. With them, the tight, anxious coils in your stomach start to loosen, replaced by warmth that fills the spaces grief had carved out.

Charles steps back slightly, still holding your hands. “No pressure,” he says, voice low. “Just… us. Okay?”

Arthur squeezes your shoulder, a reassuring weight. “We’ve got you. Always.”

For the first time since Paris, you let yourself exhale, a genuine smile creeping onto your face. You lean into them both, letting their laughter and gentle teasing wrap around you like a blanket. Maybe the weekend will be hard. Maybe seeing Max will hurt. But right now—right here—you’re exactly where you belong. And for the first time in a long time, it feels a little like home.

𓇢𓆸

Alexandra knew just how much you needed this before the chaos of Monaco could swallow you whole. She found you wandering the balcony that morning, hair mussed from restless sleep, shoulders tight with tension. Without a word, she took your hand and led you to the car, the city sparkling in the early light as if trying to remind you there was beauty in the world.

The museum smelled like polished stone and history, quiet in a way that made your chest unclench just slightly. You wandered through the halls, your fingers brushing over the smooth edges of sculptures and the delicate frames of paintings, feeling the weight of the past settle into the spaces around you. Alexandra stayed close, never hovering, just moving alongside you, letting you absorb it all at your own pace.

“You look… tense,” she said softly, finally breaking the silence. Her voice wasn’t judgmental. It never was. Just honest, caring.

You shrugged, staring at a painting of a stormy seascape. “It’s… everything,” you admitted. “Being back here. Seeing… him.”

Alexandra stepped closer and rested her hand lightly on your back. The contact was grounding, a reminder that you didn’t have to carry the weight alone. “YN,” she said gently, “you gave him so much already. You were enough. You still are. Don’t let this weekend make you forget that.”

A sob escaped before you could stop it, small and raw. Alexandra didn’t flinch. She didn’t ask you to stop. Instead, she wrapped her arms around you, letting you lean into her warmth. You pressed your face to her shoulder, the museum’s quiet hum wrapping around you like a protective cocoon.

“I hate it,” you whispered against her coat. “I hate feeling… like I failed. Like I lost him. Like I’m just… gone from that life.”

Alexandra held you tighter. “You didn’t fail,” she said firmly. “You loved him the best way you could. That’s more than most people get to give. And you’re not gone—you’re right here. You’re alive, you’re brilliant, you’re beautiful. And you’re allowed to feel everything without letting it define you.”

You exhaled shakily, letting her words sink in. The weight in your chest eased just a fraction, like a tide pulling back slightly. You pulled back to look at her, eyes glistening, and Alexandra gave you that small, knowing smile she always did—the one that reminded you you weren’t alone, not ever.

“Promise me something?” she asked, brushing a stray strand of hair from your face.

“What?”

“Promise me you won’t vanish this weekend,” she said, half teasing, half serious. “Promise me you’ll let yourself be here, let yourself breathe, let yourself be taken care of when you need it.”

You nodded, the tightness in your throat loosening with a tentative, fragile smile. “I… I’ll try,” you whispered.

“That’s enough for now,” she said, pulling you into one last hug before letting go. “Just try. We’ll face the rest together.”

You spent the next hour wandering the museum side by side, the silence no longer heavy but comforting, punctuated by soft laughs at odd details in paintings, whispered commentary on sculptures, and the occasional squeeze of Alexandra’s hand as you moved past a particularly poignant piece. It wasn’t a cure for the pain that awaited you in Monaco, but it was a moment of safety, a pocket of calm where grief could breathe without consuming you.

And for the first time in days, you let yourself feel something other than dread: a fragile, shimmering sense of hope that maybe, just maybe, you could survive this weekend intact.

𓇢𓆸

The roar of the crowd vibrates through your chest, a pulse that mirrors your own heartbeat. Charles has just crossed the finish line, hands raised, the checkered flag waving, and for a brief, shining moment, the world feels light and electric. You cheer, laugh, and leap forward, your arms wrapping around him as he skids to a stop, grinning ear to ear.

“You did it!” you shout, voice cracking with pride and relief. He lifts you slightly off the ground in a triumphant spin, and for a heartbeat, all the heaviness you carried seems to dissolve into pure joy. You can’t remember the last time you felt this unreservedly happy.

The champagne sprays, the photographers snap, and Charles’ team swarms around, and it feels like everything is exactly as it should be.

And then—just as the crowd begins to dissipate, the cheering fading into murmurs—you see him.

Max.

Not alone. He’s holding the hand of a little girl, maybe five or six, her other hand clutching the sleeve of his partner, laughing as she tugs him toward a stroller where another infant lies sleeping. Your stomach drops. Your breath catches.

You freeze. The world tilts. He has a life you didn’t know existed—a family you weren’t a part of. The smiles, the children, the soft domesticity of it all…it’s like a knife twisting in your chest.

Panic rises, sharp and immediate, and before you even think, you’re bolting from the stands, weaving through the thinning crowd, your chest tight and your head swimming.

Alexandra’s hand is on your arm in an instant. “YN—wait, stop, breathe!”

But you’re already moving, and she lets you go, letting you rush toward the building, toward the one place that still feels safe. Maman is there, waiting in the lobby with open arms, her eyes immediately catching yours. “Chérie?” she whispers, concern threading through her voice.

You don’t answer. You collapse into her embrace, tears streaming before you can even stop them. Alexandra joins immediately, sliding her arms around you from the other side, grounding you with her warmth.

“I didn’t… I didn’t know…” you choke out, voice barely audible. “He has… children. He… he has a family now.”

Alexandra’s hand rubs soothing circles across your back. “I know, mon ange,” she murmurs. “I know. It’s okay. You’re safe. You’re not alone.”

Pascale brushes the hair from your face, pressing her cheek against yours. “You’re allowed to feel this. Every bit of it. We’re here. We’ll hold you through it.”

And for the first time since seeing Max, you let yourself truly crumble. The grief, the heartbreak, the longing—it pours out, raw and unrestrained. Pascale and Alexandra hold you, two anchors in the storm, letting you sob without judgment, without expectation. Minutes stretch, heavy and endless, but somehow tender. Slowly, the panic begins to ebb, replaced by a fragile sense of safety. You’re still aching, still spiraling in the quiet aftermath of a world you didn’t see coming—but here, in the arms of the people who love you most, you are held. And for the first time in hours, it feels like you might just survive this.

𓇢𓆸

The room feels impossibly quiet after the chaos of the track, the echoes of cheering still ringing faintly in your ears. You collapse onto the bed, limbs trembling, the sobs you’ve been holding in all weekend finally breaking free. Pascale sits beside you, soft and steady, hands resting lightly on your back, waiting until you’re ready to let her in.

“I just… I just want to be a mom,” you whisper, voice breaking, barely audible over the sound of your own ragged breathing. “I want… I want to give someone what you gave to us. To Charles and Arthur. I want to…”

You can’t finish the sentence. Your chest heaves, tears streaming freely down your face, and every word feels like it rips something raw open inside you.

Pascale leans closer, wrapping her arms around you, holding you as if she could somehow keep the pain from reaching the parts of you that hurt the most. “Oh, mon amor,” she murmurs, voice thick with her own grief. “I know. I know exactly how much you wanted that. I see it in you every day.”

You curl into her, shivering, as the weight of years of grief presses down on you. “I thought… I thought I’d be ready, I thought… it’d happen for me. But it never does. And now… now he has this life. And I… I wasn’t part of it. I can’t… I can’t give him that. I can’t give anyone that.”

Pascale presses her cheek to your hair, fingers threading through the strands as if she could absorb some of the sorrow. “Oh, mon bebe. It’s not your fault. None of this is your fault. You’ve given so much already—your love, your heart, everything you are. That’s enough. Always.”

“But it’s not enough,” you whisper, the sobs shaking your body. “It never is. I see him, with his girls… and I feel like I’m just… nothing. Just a memory, a shadow of what could have been.”

Pascale tightens her hold, rocking you slightly in the quiet of the room. Her own tears mingle with yours as she whispers, “You are not nothing. You are everything. You are strong, you are loved, and you are more than capable of giving love—more than you’ll ever know. It’s just… not always the timing we wish for.”

You shake your head against her shoulder, chest trembling. “I wanted it to be me. I wanted it so badly. And now… now I feel like all those years, all that love, all those prayers—they were for nothing.”

“Not for nothing,” Pascale whispers fiercely, voice cracking. “Every tear, every hope, every heartbreak… it’s made you who you are. And you are incredible. You are full of love, YN. And anyone who is lucky enough to be loved by you, even just a little, is already blessed beyond measure.”

You close your eyes, letting yourself be held, letting the sobs shake out all the grief you’ve buried for so long. The ache in your chest is still there, jagged and raw, but Pascale’s arms are steady, unyielding, a tether to the world when everything feels like it’s slipping away.

And for the first time in days, maybe weeks, you let yourself be broken without shame, letting her heart break with yours, knowing that even in this darkness, someone loves you unconditionally.

You whisper again, voice raw and trembling, “I just… I just wanted to give someone a life. Just like you gave to us.”

Pascale kisses the top of your head, holding you tighter. “I know, chérie. I know. And I’m so, so proud of you. Always. Even in the pain, always.”

And in that moment, curled in the warmth of your mother’s arms, the grief doesn’t feel quite so alone.

𓇢𓆸

The next morning, you wake with the sheets tangled around you, your body still trembling from the night’s tears. The room feels too quiet, too empty, like the air itself is holding its breath, waiting for you to fall apart again.

A knock at the door is hesitant, gentle.

“YN?” Charles’ voice floats through the wood, soft and careful. “Are you… are you awake?”

You sit up slowly, hugging your knees to your chest. “Yeah,” you whisper, your voice barely carrying.

The door opens, just a crack, and Charles slips inside first, his eyes immediately finding yours. Arthur follows close behind, arms crossed loosely but tense, like he’s bracing himself for whatever storm might come.

“Hey,” Charles says, voice low, careful. He sits on the edge of the bed, not crowding you, just close enough that you feel him there. “We just… wanted to check on you. Make sure you’re okay.”

You laugh, bitter and small. “Okay?” The word catches in your throat. “I’m… I’m not okay.”

Charles exhales slowly, as if he’d been holding his own breath for this confession. “We know. We can see it, YN. We know it’s been… really hard.”

Arthur steps closer, crouching slightly so he’s level with you. “Talk to us,” he says quietly. “We’re not going anywhere. No judgment. We’re here.”

You look down at your hands, fingers digging into your knees. The words you’ve been holding in for months, maybe years, claw at your throat. Your chest feels like it’s being squeezed by invisible hands, the weight of it pressing you down into the mattress.

“I… I’ve been struggling,” you whisper finally, voice cracking. “A lot. I’ve been… depressed. For months, maybe years. And sometimes… sometimes I have thoughts… dark thoughts. Thoughts I shouldn’t have. But I can’t stop them.”

Charles and Arthur exchange a glance, eyes soft but fierce with concern. Charles reaches out, letting his hand hover over yours before gently taking it. “YN,” he says, voice thick, “you don’t have to carry this alone. None of it. You’re not alone in this. Ever.”

You shake your head, tears spilling down your cheeks again. “I know I should be stronger. I know I should just… get over it. But I can’t. Every time I see him, every time I think about… everything I can’t have… it just… it crushes me. And I feel guilty for feeling like this, like I’m… failing.”

Arthur sits on the other side of you, one hand resting lightly on your shoulder. “You’re not failing,” he says softly, though his own voice cracks a little. “You’re human. You’re grieving. You’re hurting. That doesn’t make you weak. That makes you… real. That makes you us. You’re allowed to feel everything. And we’ll help you carry it when it’s too much.”

Charles nods, squeezing your hand. “You’re loved, YN. Every single day. And you don’t have to pretend to be fine. You don’t have to hide the dark parts from us. We’ll hold them with you. We’ll stay with you, no matter what you feel.”

Your body shakes as the sobs come again, louder this time, but they are no longer just yours. They spill into the warmth of your brothers’ presence, their hands, their arms, their unwavering eyes. And for the first time in a long time, the crushing weight of the grief doesn’t feel quite so impossible.

“I… I don’t want to feel like this anymore,” you whisper brokenly, burying your face in Charles’ shoulder. “I don’t want to hurt inside all the time. I don’t want to be… stuck.”

“You’re not stuck,” Charles murmurs, holding you tighter. “We’re here. You’ll never be stuck as long as we’re around.”

Arthur leans his forehead against yours, soft and grounding. “We’ll get through this. Together. One breath at a time.”

And in their arms, the raw, heavy ache doesn’t disappear—but it feels lighter. Shared. Held. Loved.

𓇢𓆸

You wake gasping, your chest tight and your body trembling. The remnants of the dream cling to you like smoke, thick and suffocating. It’s a memory you thought you’d buried—Max’s voice from years ago, the echo of the final night on the couch, your own words twisting in your mind like knives. “I can’t watch you keep waiting for something I can’t give…”

Your hands clutch the sheets, trying to anchor yourself to the present, but the room spins and your breath comes in short, panicked bursts.

A soft knock on the door, almost hesitant, pulls you back. “YN?” Charles’ voice is low, careful. “Hey… wake up? Are you okay?”

You barely manage a whimper, head pressing into the pillow. The shadows of the nightmare still wrap around your ribs, and you can’t stop the tears that streak down your face.

Before you can even process it, he’s there, sitting on the edge of the bed, arms outstretched. “Hey… it’s okay. I’m right here.” His hand rests lightly on your back, firm and grounding. “Breathe with me. Just… breathe with me.”

You follow the rhythm he sets, shakily at first, chest heaving, tears soaking the pillowcase. Charles leans closer, his voice soft and steady. “It was just a dream. You’re safe. I’m here. I’ve got you.”

You bury your face into his chest, the sound of his heartbeat echoing against your ear, a steady drum that tethers you to the present. “It… it felt real,” you whisper, voice breaking. “I thought I could forget… but it came back. It always comes back.”

“I know, I know,” he murmurs, pulling you closer. “And it’s okay to feel it. It doesn’t make you weak. It makes you human. You’ve carried so much, and you’re allowed to let it out. Right here, right now.”

You squeeze him tight, sobs wracking your body, every ounce of grief, fear, and longing pouring out. Charles doesn’t flinch. He doesn’t pull away. Instead, he rocks you gently, whispering reminders over and over: “You’re not alone. You’re safe. I’m right here. I’ve got you.”

Slowly, the panic begins to ebb, replaced by a fragile sense of calm. The nightmare still lingers in the corners of your mind, but Charles’ presence is a lifeline, a warmth you can cling to when the darkness presses in.

You murmur, voice trembling but softer now, “I’m scared… I don’t want to feel like this anymore.”

He tilts your chin gently, eyes meeting yours. “I know, mon ange. I know. But you don’t have to be alone in it. Not for a second. We’ll face it together, okay?”

You nod, head resting back against his shoulder, letting his strength hold you, letting the room’s shadows and the nightmare dissolve into the safety of his arms.

𓇢𓆸

It starts small, in the quiet of the living room after breakfast. You sit curled on the couch, a blanket wrapped around your shoulders, and the four of them—Charles, Arthur, Pascale, and Alexandra—gather around you like a protective circle. Their faces are full of concern, soft eyes that carry patience, love, and just the right amount of insistence.

“We’ve been talking,” Alexandra begins gently, “and we think… maybe it’s time you speak to someone. A professional. Someone who can help you carry this grief safely, so it doesn’t eat you from the inside.”

You shake your head, voice barely above a whisper. “I… I don’t know if I can. I feel like if I do, it’ll make everything real. That I’ll have to face it all… fully.”

Pascale leans forward, placing her hand over yours. “YN, it’s already real. You’ve been living with this pain for so long. Carrying it alone isn’t fair to you. You deserve help. You deserve someone to guide you through it without judgment.”

Arthur chimes in, softly but firmly. “You’re not weak for asking for help. None of us would ever let you feel alone through this, but a therapist… they can give you tools we can’t. And we’ll be here too.”

Charles is quiet for a moment, watching you with those steady, unwavering eyes that always make you feel seen. Finally, he says, “I’ll go with you. Every single session, if you want me to. You won’t be alone in it.”

You look at him, heart hammering, tears threatening to spill. “Every session?”

“Every single one,” he says, voice firm but tender. “We face this together. I’ll sit there with you, hold your hand, whatever you need. You’re not doing this alone.”

You blink, swallowing against the lump in your throat, the weight of their love pressing down on you in the most grounding way. Alexandra squeezes your arm, Pascale rests a comforting hand on your shoulder, Arthur leans just close enough to brush a kiss to your temple. “You’re going to be okay,” Alexandra whispers. “We’ll make sure of it.”

For the first time in years, you allow yourself to imagine a path forward—tiny, uncertain, and shaky—but real. Maybe you can learn to grieve without it consuming you. Maybe you can feel the ache without letting it define you. Maybe you can start to breathe again.

“I… I’ll try,” you whisper finally, voice raw. “I’ll try therapy… if Charles goes with me.”

Charles smiles softly, brushing a strand of hair from your face. “Always,” he says. “Always with you.”

And in that moment, surrounded by the people who love you most, the fear that’s haunted you for so long loosens just a little. There’s hope here, fragile but glowing, that one day the grief won’t feel like a storm you’re drowning in—but a river you can navigate, with steady hands and the people who’ll never let you go.

𓇢𓆸

The waiting room smells faintly of lavender and paper, quiet except for the soft hum of the air conditioning. Your fingers twist in your lap, heart hammering like it might escape your chest. You glance at Charles, sitting beside you, calm and steady, and somehow just seeing him there steadies the storm inside you.

“You ready?” he asks softly, brushing a thumb over your hand.

You nod, voice tight. “I think… I think so.”

The therapist’s office is warm, sun filtering through sheer curtains, filled with soft tones and the faint smell of books and coffee. You sink into the chair, shoulders trembling, hands gripping the arms tightly. Charles sits beside you, close enough that when your body starts to shake, you can lean against him, draw strength from him.

The therapist smiles gently. “YN, you don’t have to rush. You’re safe here. Whatever you want to share is okay.”

You inhale shakily, the words you’ve kept bottled for years trembling on the edge of your lips. “I… I feel like… I’m failing,” you whisper, tears brimming. “Like… like I’ve failed myself, failed… everyone I love… failed him.”

Charles’ hand presses over yours, warm and grounding. “You’re not failing,” he murmurs softly. “You’re human. That’s all.”

The therapist nods encouragingly. “You’re grieving a life you hoped for, YN. That’s incredibly painful. It’s not about failing—it’s about loss, and processing it safely. Can you tell me more about that pain?”

And then it all comes tumbling out—the miscarriages, the failed tests, the nursery painted and repainted, the winter getaway in the snow, the night on the couch when you whispered the words that broke both of you. The grief you’ve carried in silence for so long, every loss and every hope you thought you could swallow alone, spills into the room in raw, jagged waves.

Charles squeezes your hand with each pause in your voice, grounding you. When your shoulders shake with sobs, he shifts closer, letting you lean into him, whispering softly, “I’ve got you. Every word, every tear. I’m right here.”

The therapist nods, gently guiding you to breathe, to acknowledge each feeling without judgment. “It’s okay to feel all of this,” she says. “It’s okay to mourn the things you can’t have. You’re allowed to feel the heartbreak without letting it consume you.”

You close your eyes, letting the truth of that settle in, a fragile thread of relief threading through the raw ache. For the first time, you realize the grief doesn’t have to be a solitary weight—you can bear it with someone else, step by step.

Charles leans in, whispering against your hair, “You’re brave, YN. So brave. And you’re not alone. Not now, not ever.”

The session continues, slow and deliberate, every word a release, every tear a small exhale of years of suffocated pain. And through it all, Charles doesn’t leave your side, a constant anchor, reminding you that even in the darkest, rawest moments, you are held, you are seen, and you are loved.

By the time you leave the office, the ache hasn’t vanished—but it’s lighter. Manageable. Shared. And with Charles beside you, each step forward feels just a little less impossible.

𓇢𓆸

Weeks have passed since the rawest, heaviest waves of grief. Therapy has slowly become a lifeline, helping you breathe through the pain instead of letting it swallow you whole. You wake most mornings with a fragile sense of hope, a quiet pulse that maybe life can feel full again, even if it will never be the same.

That afternoon, you find Alexandra in the hotel café, sipping tea with her usual calm, effortless grace. You watch her for a moment, then gather your courage.

“I… I’ve been thinking,” you start, voice tentative. Alexandra looks up, curious, giving you her full attention. “About my art. About… maybe doing an exhibition.”

Her eyes light up immediately, and she leans forward, a smile tugging at her lips. “Really?”

You nod, fidgeting slightly with your sleeve. “Yes. I mean… I’ve been working so much in Paris, and it’s been… personal, but maybe it’s time to share it. Maybe… I want people to see it, to understand it—or at least feel something. I don’t know if I could do it alone, though.”

Alexandra reaches across the table, her hand brushing yours. “YN… this is amazing. You absolutely should. And you’re not alone. I can help you with everything—the curation, the layout, the opening… I know how it works. We’ll make it perfect, together.”

You take a deep breath, letting the warmth of her confidence seep into you. “You’d… help me?”

“Of course,” she says, her eyes soft but sparkling. “I’ve seen your work, YN. I know what you’re capable of. This is your story. Your heart, your soul, your pain—it all belongs on those walls. People will see it, and they’ll feel it. I’ll make sure of that.”

Something stirs in your chest—a mix of excitement and nerves, fragile but alive. The idea of letting the world see your art is terrifying, but Alexandra’s unwavering support makes it feel… possible.

“Okay,” you say finally, a small but genuine smile tugging at your lips. “Let’s do it. Let’s make it happen.”

Alexandra beams, eyes lighting up. “Yes! I knew you could do this. We’ll plan the opening, the layout, the lighting… every detail. You’ll shine, YN. And I’ll be right here with you.”

For the first time in weeks, the weight inside your chest feels lighter, steadier. The grief is still there, quiet in the corners—a reminder of all you’ve endured—but it doesn’t rule you anymore. Instead, there’s hope, anticipation, and a fierce pride in your own strength.

As you lean over sketches and discuss placements, color schemes, and themes, Alexandra laughs softly, teasing you about obsessing over tiny details. You laugh too, genuinely this time, feeling the warmth of friendship, trust, and shared passion wrap around you like a protective blanket.

In that moment, you realize—you’re reclaiming yourself. Not just as you, the woman who loved and lost, but as you, the artist, the creator, the person capable of transforming pain into beauty.

And with Alexandra by your side, believing in you and guiding you, you feel—finally— that you turned the grief into something beautiful.

𓇢𓆸

The gallery hums with soft murmurs, footsteps echoing over polished wood floors, the warm glow of spotlights illuminating your work. Every canvas, every brushstroke, every fragment of your heart spilled onto the walls—it’s all here, alive, breathing. You stand near the entrance, a glass of water trembling slightly in your hand, and glance around.

Charles is leaning casually against a pillar, but his eyes are sharp with pride, watching you with a grin that could light up the entire room. Arthur is beside him, more relaxed than usual, but every so often his gaze flicks to you with quiet admiration. Pascale floats near the back, her hand occasionally brushing yours, her eyes shimmering with tears she refuses to shed fully. Alexandra is beaming, utterly radiant, holding a clipboard in one hand and a glass of champagne in the other, whispering excited comments about lighting and placement, but never letting you feel alone.

It’s surreal. Months ago, you could barely imagine stepping out of your Paris studio without being swallowed by grief. And now… this. The culmination of late nights, therapy sessions, self-doubt, and raw emotion, all turned into something people are seeing, feeling, connecting with.

“YN,” Alexandra says softly, tugging you aside for a moment. “Look at this. Everyone is… captivated. They can feel it. You’ve done something incredible here.”

Your chest tightens, a mix of pride, relief, and lingering sorrow. “I… I can’t believe it. I didn’t think I could do it. I didn’t think I’d ever feel like this again.”

She squeezes your hand. “You did it because you are stronger than you think. And because you let yourself be loved, surrounded, supported. You’re shining, YN. Don’t forget that.”

You nod, blinking back tears, and turn back to the crowd. Conversations hum around you—people discussing your brushstrokes, your color choices, the raw honesty in every piece. You smile at their words, but your heart skips a beat when your phone buzzes quietly in your pocket.

A voicemail.

Your thumb hesitates over the screen. The contact name makes your breath catch. Max.

Hands trembling, you press play. His voice, familiar and impossibly distant, fills the quiet space of your mind.

“YN… hey. I… I just wanted to say I heard about the exhibition. I know… it’s been a long road, and I know things have been… complicated between us. But I wanted you to know I’m proud of you. Really. You’ve turned everything—the pain, the grief, all of it—into something beautiful. You deserve… I mean, you always deserved this. And I hope… I hope you know that. Take care of yourself. I’m… I’m happy for you.”

The sound of his voice cracks something inside you. Pride, grief, longing, relief—all tangled together into a tight knot in your chest. Your eyes sting with tears that burn behind the lids, and you press the phone to your chest, trembling.

Charles is immediately beside you, his hand steady on your shoulder. “YN?” he asks softly, concern knitting his brow.

“I… it’s Max,” you whisper, voice barely audible. “He… he left me a voicemail. He’s… proud of me. He… he said he’s happy for me.”

Arthur steps closer, brushing a hand across your back. “That doesn’t have to hurt,” he says gently. “It’s acknowledgement. Closure. Recognition. You don’t have to carry the rest of it with you anymore.”

Pascale wraps an arm around your waist, her other hand brushing your hair from your face. “He’s proud, chérie. But this—this exhibition, this moment—is yours. Yours, entirely. Nobody can take this from you. Nobody. Not him, not anyone.”

Alexandra nudges you playfully, though her eyes glisten. “And I’d argue, if he’s proud, imagine what the rest of the world thinks.”

You swallow hard, tears spilling over, and take a deep, shuddering breath. For the first time in so long, you feel the grief and longing coexist with pride, accomplishment, and love from those who truly matter. You glance around the room—the people here, the family who never left your side, the friends who believe in you—and for the first time, the ache doesn’t feel so heavy.

“It’s… it’s really mine,” you whisper, voice raw. “All of it. Even with him… even with everything that came before.”

Charles leans down, pressing a gentle kiss to your temple. “Yes. Every bit of it is yours. And we’ll be here for every next step too. Every single one.”

You nod, finally letting yourself smile through the tears. The exhibition continues around you, the crowd’s murmurs and laughter a soft symphony in the background, but in this moment, the weight of the past has lifted just enough for you to breathe. To celebrate. To live.

And as you stand there, surrounded by the people who love you most, and hear the faint echoes of Max’s voice in your mind, you realize—you’ve survived the heartbreak, the grief, the longing. You’ve taken all of it and transformed it into something radiant, something real, something entirely your own.

This is your moment. Your triumph. Your life. Your grief.

And finally, it feels like it belongs to you.

𓇢𓆸

[iaheybaee]

THISSSS DESTROYED MEEE I LOVE THIS

in between ⛐ 𝐎𝐏𝟖𝟏

oscar’s heard every joke in the book: irony, opposites attract, doom-and-gloom meets happily-ever-after. he just nods and says, “we make it work.” short, clipped, but it’s the truth. somehow, you and him fit.

ꔮ starring: divorce attorney!oscar piastri x wedding planner!reader. ꔮ word count: 20.4k. (!!!) ꔮ includes: romance, friendship, light angst. alternate universe: non-f1. mentions of food, alcohol; profanity. set in new york, pining... yearning..., idiot best friends in love, a bout of miscommunication, sunshine/grumpy trope, carmen & george name drop. title from gracie abrams’ in between. ꔮ commentary box: nobody talk to me about the word count. this is one of my favorite tropes of all time, and i always thought my pipe dream romcom novel would sing a similar tune to this. until that day comes, we see it play out in fanfiction 🩷 this fic means a lot to me, so if you ever decide to consume this behemoth: thank you in advance!!! 𝐦𝐲 𝐦𝐚𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐭

Oscar spots them before you do.

You have your nose in your tablet, scrolling through sample menus and floral arrangements, completely oblivious to the couple two tables over who are clearly yours. Matching mood boards, latte art going untouched, the sort of soft hand-holding that suggests they’ve already merged Spotify playlists. You’ve got that look you get when you’re planning someone else’s Happily Ever After: focused, bright-eyed, borderline evangelical.

Oscar, on the other hand, believes in love the way he believes in Wi-Fi on the subway. Pleasant in theory, disastrous in practice. And, as your best friend, he sees it as a public service to intervene before strangers spend years in litigation over who gets the air fryer. 

When he recognizes the telltale signs of a newly engaged pair, he leans forward, forearms on the table, voice warm but edged with professional mischief. “Congratulations,” he says. “When’s the big day?”

They share a look. The woman says, “Oh—we haven’t set a date yet.”

“Well,” Oscar says, lowering his voice just enough to feel conspiratorial, “whenever it is, make sure you get a prenup. Best gift you can give yourselves, trust me. Think of it as insurance. Romance-proof.”

The fiancée’s smile falters. The fiancé tilts his head, as if trying to work out if Oscar’s joking. He isn’t. By the time you glance up, the conversation is mid-sentence and heading straight for a cliff. “Piastri!” you snap, sliding out of your chair like a general striding into battle. “What the hell are you doing?”

He sits back, lazy grin in place. “Just offering professional advice. You know. Free consultation.”

The couple look between you and him, confusion thick enough to stir into their cappuccinos. “Do you know him?” the groom-to-be asks carefully.

“Unfortunately,” you grit out. “That’s Oscar. He’s a divorce attorney. Which explains why he’s trying to assassinate your wedding before it even starts.”

“I’m not assassinating,” Oscar protests mildly. “I’m safeguarding. Big difference.”

You plant your hands on your hips. “You’re meddling. Again.”

The bride-to-be laughs nervously, still unsure if this is a bit. Oscar reaches into his jacket pocket, produces a sleek business card, and slides it across the table toward them with the kind of flourish usually reserved for magicians revealing the queen of hearts. Oscar Jack Piastri, it says. Associate Attorney at Brown & Stella, PLLC. 

“In case you change your mind,” he says. His tone is maddeningly polite, as though he’s offering directions to the nearest subway station.

You snatch the card before it can land. He raises both hands in mock surrender, pushes back from his chair, and retreats to his own table by the window. He glances at you one last time; you look like you’re resisting the urge to throw a sugar packet at his head. Turning back to your clients, you smooth your skirt and force a professional smile. “So,” he hears you say, as if the last sixty seconds never happened, “let’s talk about the wedding.” 

Oscar, nursing the last of his coffee, watches you slip into that peculiar rhythm you have. The one that’s equal parts dreamy and surgical. You’re talking to the couple now, voice low but animated, eyes alight. They lean in, enchanted, and Oscar can’t decide if it’s the story you’re selling or the way you sell it.

Your pen glides over your notepad as you sketch out ideas. Ivy-wrapped arches, candlelit dinners, first dances under fairy lights. You tilt your head as you listen, nodding with the kind of reverence usually reserved for religious confessionals. You treat their love like it’s sacred, like you believe in it. And maybe that’s what gets him.

It’s been a while since Oscar has been in love with you, after all.

Not that he’s admitting it aloud. He never has, never will. But it was there, once. 

Back in high school, when he’d sit two rows behind you in AP Lit and pretend he wasn’t staring while you debated the symbolism of a green light with a ferocity that could scare lesser mortals. You were sunshine with sharp edges, a hopeless romantic who didn’t mind being right about everything. He was the cynic with a dry remark always cocked and ready. You butted heads over everything. Song lyrics, cafeteria pizza, the proper ranking of Bond actors. He thought it was exhausting. He also thought it was the best part of his day. Somewhere along the way, you grew into different lives but kept orbiting the same way. Maybe that’s why it works. You stayed in love with love; he stayed skeptical. 

Present-day Oscar, watching you now as you light up over centerpieces and seating charts, feels that old pull in his chest. It’s not a sharp ache anymore. It’s softer, settled. This—what you have now—is the best possible result. A withstanding friendship, no messy confessions to ruin it. He can sit here and admire you without wanting more, without needing to risk what you’ve built.

The couple laughs at something you’ve said, and you beam, scribbling down notes. Capturing lightning in shorthand. Oscar smirks into his empty cup. 

Let them have their fairytale, he thinks. He’s already got his.

Hours later, Oscar’s halfway through drafting an email to a client when your shadow falls across his table. He doesn’t look up right away. He’s learned this is part of the performance. You standing there, arms crossed, foot tapping just enough to register as a warning sign. He lets you stew for a moment, because he knows you like to deliver your charges with maximum dramatic timing.

Finally, he glances up, all false innocence. “Problem?”

“You ambushed my clients,” you say point blank. 

“Ambushed is a strong word,” he says, clicking his laptop closed. “I prefer ‘enlightened.’”

You slide into the chair opposite him, the scrape of wood on tile sharper than necessary. “They came here to talk about centerpieces, not contingency clauses.”

Oscar leans back, folding his arms. “And yet, contingency clauses are what keep centerpieces safe in the event of an irreconcilable breakdown. No one wants a custody battle over a floral arrangement.”

You roll your eyes, but there’s no real heat behind it. “You owe me for that.”

“Oh? What’s the damage?”

“Dinner tonight. My pick.”

Oscar pretends to weigh his options, tapping his fingers on the table. Honestly, for all his stubborness, he can’t remember the last time he said ‘no’ to you. “Fine,” he concedes. “But if you pick that vegan place again, I’m bringing a steak in a to-go box.”

You grin, victory claimed. “Noted.”

It’s easy, this back-and-forth. Always has been. The two of you were the only ones in your friend group who stayed close after college; everyone else scattered across the map, swallowed by jobs and relationships and time zones. You’d kept in touch through blurry FaceTime calls and the occasional holiday reunion, but when you both ended up in New York, it wasn’t even a discussion. The apartments across the hall were open; you took one, he took the other. Done, dusted. 

And now, you’ve built a life that overlaps without ever feeling crowded. M-W-F dinners (alternating who cooks, though Oscar’s idea of cooking is Thai takeout artfully decanted onto ceramic plates). Quarterly road trips, usually with you in charge of the playlist and him complaining about it until track five, when he inevitably starts humming along. Sunday mornings, one of you knocking on the other’s door with a coffee and a headline to discuss. Emergency grocery runs, emergency advice, emergency laughter in the hallway when neither of you can remember why you were mad in the first place.

There’s the spare key that’s changed hands so many times it barely qualifies as ‘spare.’ There’s the unspoken agreement to check in after long days, even if it’s just leaning against opposite doorframes. And there’s the strange comfort of knowing that no matter how messy his cases get or how stressed your wedding timelines become, the other is just a few steps away.

Oscar picks up his coffee, takes a long sip, and watches you fish your phone out of your bag, already scrolling through dinner reservations. He knows you’re thinking of places that will irritate him just enough to make it fun. He should probably dread it. Instead, there’s a part of him—small, quiet—that wonders if this is what people mean when they talk about home.

When it comes down to it, Oscar doesn’t actually remember agreeing to pizza. One moment, you were tucking your phone away with that mysterious, self-satisfied look you get when you’ve made an executive decision. The next, he was being ushered out of Arrow Central, corralled into the stream of foot traffic like a particularly unwilling briefcase.

“Is this my punishment?” he asks as you stride ahead, skirt catching the late-summer breeze. “Public humiliation via grease stains?”

“It’s called dinner,” you toss over your shoulder, weaving through pedestrians without slowing down. “Also, you like this place.”

“I like the idea of it. I like it when I’m not wearing a suit that costs more than your entire outfit.”

“Your dry cleaner will survive. Also, rude.”

You’re an odd pair. He’s always known it. You, with your free-flowing skirt and unshakable knack for making mismatched colors look like a deliberate choice; him, in his uniform of suit and tie, the kind that announces courtroom even when he’s just standing in line for coffee. Somehow, walking side by side down these blocks, it’s never felt like a mismatch. It’s only you and him. An established unit.

The pizza joint isn’t fancy. Red vinyl booths worn to a soft shine, the faint smell of oregano and melted cheese baked permanently into the walls. It’s the kind of place where the outside world blurs out the moment you step inside. The air is noisy in that particular New York way: clatter, conversation, the hiss of the oven door. No one here cares about job titles, or what you wear, or whether you spent the day dismantling marriages or assembling them.

You claim a booth by the window with the casual entitlement of someone who has done it a hundred times. “Same order?”

He raises an eyebrow. “You mean the one you pretend is ours but is actually just yours?”

“It’s called a compromise.”

“It’s called you ordering half with pineapple and daring me to complain.”

“You always eat it,” you counter, already flagging down the waiter.

Because it’s easier than arguing, he thinks, though he’d never hand you that victory. Besides, he’s learned you have a habit of leaning across the table mid-meal and swapping slices without warning, like his plate is just an extension of your own. 

The order arrives, steam curling off the cheese. You’re already halfway into a story about a florist who nearly set her arrangement on fire with an ill-placed candle display, your hands sketching shapes in the air as if the details need choreography. Oscar props his chin in his hand, letting the words spill over him. 

There’s a rhythm to this—to you. The bickering, the shared meals, the comfort in the background hum. It’s the kind of thing you don’t notice you’re missing until it’s gone. At some point, you slide the first slice his way without looking. He takes it, because he’ll take anything and everything you think to give. Even the ones he claims he doesn’t want. 

The walk back is unhurried, partly because you stop at every other storefront, and partly because Oscar doesn’t mind. Tonight’s detour is a bodega window that hasn’t changed since the Obama administration, but you stand there studying it as if the oranges might suddenly reveal a plot twist. He lingers just behind you, watching your reflection in the glass, the curve of your mouth lit faintly by the streetlamp. Not that he’s about to say anything sentimental. He’s not that foolish.

By the time you make it back to the apartment building, you’re rifling through the layers of your bag. Oscar leans on the wall, arms crossed. This is the dance: you muttering about receipts and lip balm, him tossing in the occasional dry remark, neither of you breaking the rhythm.

“Lose them again?” he says, purely for sport.

“They’re in here somewhere. Don’t act like you’ve never—”

“I have a system,” he interrupts.

“You have a filing cabinet for a personality.”

“Which is why I’m never locked out.”

You glance up, one eyebrow raised. “Except that one time—”

“That was a faulty lock,” he deapdans. “And slander.”

The keys appear with a metallic jingle, your victory grin annoyingly smug. “Saturday, movie night?”

“Depends. Is it going to be another three-hour period drama where the only action is people sighing over teacups?”

“You loved that one.”

“I tolerated it.”

“You cried.”

“Allergies.”

You unlock your door, turning to fire off one last line: “Friday dinner, Saturday movie. Don’t forget.”

He watches you vanish inside, the door shutting with a soft click. The hallway feels oddly warm, filled with the low hum of pipes and the faint scent of your perfume. He imagines years of this—key hunts, snide comments, plans penciled in without asking—and a strange steadiness roots itself in his chest. 

When he finally turns his own key, he tells himself he wouldn’t mind if this were it for the rest of his life. Standing in the quiet of his apartment, he almost believes he truly will be okay with nothing more, as long as he gets nothing less.

It’s Saturday night, and Oscar’s already questioning his life choices before the opening credits even hit. He should have seen this coming. He should have known. Years of empirical evidence suggested that “You pick the movie” was never actually a gift—it was a trap. Yet, here he is, sitting on your couch, holding a paper plate with a cupcake you’d baked, watching the title card for Maid of Honor flash on the screen.

He glances at you. You’re tucked into your corner of his sofa, skirt draped over your knees, smug in that way people are when they’ve won a battle you didn’t know you were fighting. He takes a bite of the cupcake. It’s good in that sickly sweet way. Irritatingly so. “You’re not even trying to hide your agenda,” he says.

“What agenda?” you say, faking innocence so badly it should be a crime.

Two hours and several predictable plot twists later, the credits roll. You stretch, all casual, and then drop it: “So… have your thoughts on marriage changed?”

Oscar sighs. Not just a sigh. An exhale steeped in years of repetition. “Why do I even let you pick movies?”

You tilt your head, smiling just enough to make it worse. “I’ve been good. I haven’t asked in, what, six months?”

He levels you with a look. “Three.”

“Six,” you insist.

He leans back into the couch, shaking his head. This is familiar territory. Uncharted for most friendships, but well-trodden for you two. He thinks about all the other times: in cafés, on road trips, once while he was battling in an IKEA bookshelf you swore you could assemble yourself. Always the same question, always the same dance. “You’re relentless,” he says, the slightest hint of annoyance tingeing his tone.

“And you love me for it,” you retort.

The thing is—well, yes. He does. But Oscar isn’t about to scream that from the rooftops.

Oscar stacks the empty cupcake plates, balancing them like evidence exhibits, and heads for the sink. His sleeves are already halfway rolled before you even follow, trailing after him with the tenacity of a lawyer smelling a weak spot in the witness’s story. You prop yourself against the counter at just the right distance to be distracting. Not enough to be obvious, but close enough to make him aware of you in his peripheral vision.

“You can’t tell me Maid of Honor didn’t soften you up even a little,” you say, voice pitched with a teasing lilt that masks a pointed challenge.

“I can, and I will,” he replies, turning on the tap. The water hisses over porcelain, steam curling into the air. “You’re forgetting I’ve got a canned answer for this, refined over years of ambushes like tonight.”

“Oh, the infamous speech,” you say, shit-eating grin widening. “Do I get the deluxe edition tonight?”

He smiles faintly, eyes fixed on the plate he’s rinsing. “C’mon, you know this story. Grew up watching my parents’ marriage collapse in slow motion. Ten years of silences, slammed doors, and holidays you could cut with a knife. Was old enough to Google the numbers, and surprise, surprise. Half of all marriages end in divorce. The odds for second marriages? Worse.”

You grimace, as if he’s told you cupcakes are a controlled substance. “You know that’s depressing, right?”

“It’s realistic,” he says, scrubbing at a fork with the methodical rhythm of someone who likes his thoughts as tidy as his cutlery. 

Soap, rinse, stack. Facts don’t break hearts. They just prevent them from getting too ambitious.

The hem of your skirt sways as you shift your weight, brushing your legs in an idle, thoughtless way that’s absurdly distracting. “Or maybe you just like having an excuse,” you say. 

He exhales through his nose, resisting the temptation to glance at you too long. Leaning there with your hair slipping loose around your face, you look maddeningly like you belong in his kitchen. It’s an alternate timeline he’s already filed away in the ‘unwise’ drawer. “Or maybe,” he says, rinsing the last plate and shaking off the water, “some of us don’t believe in signing legally binding contracts for feelings.”

You hum. Low, thoughtful, not remotely deterred. It’s the sound of a wheel turning, of a strategy in motion. He’s not sure if you’re trying to change his mind or just enjoying the act of cornering him. 

Oscar slides the last plate into the drying rack, flicking suds from his hands and briefly feeling like the conversation is over. Safe. Ready for you to pivot to some other harmless hill to die on. 

Instead, you lean forward, bracing your elbows on the counter, eyes gleaming with a challenge he’s already certain he won’t like. “Alright,” you say, deliberate and smug. “I’ll drop it forever if you give me one wedding.”

He freezes mid-motion, wrist dripping over the sink. “I’m sorry. One what?”

“One wedding. Just one. To change your mind.” You say it with the same breezy cadence as a promotional offer. Limited time only! Terms and conditions apply! Cancel anytime!

The words take their sweet time sinking in. When they finally do, it’s like something snaps in his chest. He starts to laugh. Not polite, not even dignified. Full-bodied, doubled over, holding the edge of the counter because his knees apparently no longer feel trustworthy.

“You—” He tries, fails, tries again. “You want to—” A wheeze interrupts him, laughter tearing through the attempt. “—undo two decades of carefully cultivated cynicism with… a catered buffet and bad DJ remixes?”

You smack his arm in mock outrage, which has the exact opposite effect. He’s gone. Helpless. The kind of laughter that shakes his ribs and leaves him gasping for air, his eyes blurring with the kind of tears he refuses to admit exist.

“God, you’re—” He presses the heel of his palm to his face, still grinning like an idiot. “—ridiculous. So, so ridiculous.”

You’re still watching him with that infuriating calm, as if you’d known this was exactly how he’d react. As if the laughter was, in some small way, the point.

Oscar’s still teary-eyed and winded when he straightens, managing, “Alright, but what’s in it for me?”

The pause is telling. He can see the gears in your head stalling. You’ve clearly lobbed this dare without a single contingency plan. “What do you mean, ‘what’s in it for you’?” you ask, as though the proposition of staging an entire wedding purely to sway his opinion should be incentive enough.

“I mean,” he says, leaning back against the counter because his sides hurt too much to support him, “you’re asking me to gamble my time, dress up, and endure whatever Pinterest-board fever dream you’ve been hoarding. That’s a high-stakes request. I want terms.”

You cross your arms. “Fine. What do you want?”

You, some quiet voice chirps in the back of Oscar’s head. He assassinates its source immediately. “What do I want?” He taps his chin, feigning thoughtfulness, as he fights down a grin. “I dunno. You tell me.” 

“You can choose the movies for six months,” you try, “or I’ll pay for the next roadtrip.” 

“Wow. Nice to know what my views on matrimony are worth to you.” 

“Oscar.” 

The thought occurs to him like a lightning strike. “If I’m not convinced by the end of this wedding, you have to admit, on record,” he says, the words falling out of him in a stream, “that marriage doesn’t guarantee a happily ever after.”

Your mouth falls open. “That’s—”

“A direct contradiction of your tagline, yes,” he cuts in, feigning sympathy. “Weddings: The first chapter of your happy ever after. Catchy, but tragically optimistic.”

The man has no shame. You stare at him for a beat too long, probably weighing the public humiliation against the joy of watching him eat cake in formalwear. His expression doesn’t waver. If anything, it sharpens with the smugness of someone who knows he’s cornered you. Eventually, you sigh. “Alright. You’ve got a deal.”

He extends his hand, but just as your fingers brush his, he pulls it back with a shake of his head. “No, no. Not like this. If we’re doing this, we’re doing it my way.”

You arch a brow. “Your way being…?”

“Contract,” he says, already heading for his desk. “Drafted, signed, possibly notarized. Witness signatures optional but encouraged.”

“You’re unbelievable.”

“And yet,” he calls over his shoulder, tapping the spacebar to wake his laptop, “you still want to marry me off.”

Oscar knows the second you text him the address that this isn’t going to be a normal afternoon. 

The day’s plans are not in the city. It’s at that suspiciously photogenic park wedding photographers swear by for its natural light and timeless atmosphere, which is code for: there will be at least three other couples here today in matching beige, posing like they invented romance. Still, Oscar doesn’t expect this. To be standing ten feet away from Carmen Mundt and George Russell, whose faces he only half-remembers from yearbook spreads stuffed with pep rally candids and overwrought prom photos.

“You didn’t tell me this was going to be a high school reunion,” he says flatly, hands buried in his coat pockets. He watches George dip Carmen for the photographer, the scene so perfectly manufactured it could be the poster for a holiday rom-com. All that’s missing is a fake snow machine. 

You’re crouched two feet away, adjusting a loose strand of Carmen’s hair over her shoulder for ‘balance.’ Oscar doubts ‘hair balance’ is an actual, measurable metric, but you treat it with the seriousness of a NASA launch. “Hm?” you murmur, not looking at him.

“This couple. Russell. Mundt. You’re telling me this wasn’t intentional?” He leaves the question hanging in the crisp air, because if there’s one thing he knows about you, it’s that plausible deniability is rare currency.

You glance over your shoulder, catch the exact look he’s wearing—the one that says he’s about five seconds from declaring this whole wedding experiment null and void—and straighten. “Oh, no. God, no. Total coincidence. I didn’t even realize until they sent their headshots.”

“Headshots.”

“Pre-wedding portraits. Same thing.” You wave toward Carmen and George, now forehead-to-forehead beneath the draping limbs of a willow tree. “Also, you didn’t go to our prom. You can’t call it a reunion.”

“Because I had the foresight to avoid things like this,” Oscar says, sweeping his hand toward the setup: the strategically rumpled picnic blanket, champagne flutes brimming with something so pale and fizzless it might as well be Sprite, and the pièce de résistance—a rented golden retriever who looks like it would rather be anywhere else.

You sigh, a soft, apologetic puff that—much to his irritation—makes him feel like he’s being the difficult one here. “Look, I swear, it’s not some nostalgia trip,” you say patiently. “They booked me months ago. And they’re nice people. You’ll like them.”

Oscar’s about to tell you that liking them is irrelevant to the point when George dips Carmen again. She’s laughing into the collar of his sweater, eyes shut, the sound carrying just far enough to make the whole tableau feel uncomfortably genuine. Oscar isn’t sure he likes that. Still, there’s no denying it: they look happy. Annoyingly, effortlessly happy. If this is the couple you’ve chosen to chip away at his long-held dogmas, maybe you’re not just playing matchmaker. You’re playing chess.

The shoot winds down with the photographer packing up lenses in meticulous slow motion, and the rented golden retriever trotting off to its handler with the air of an exhausted professional. Carmen and George spot Oscar before he can retreat to the safety of the car. In hindsight, it’s inevitable. Oscar’s tall, and he’s been loitering in plain sight. George waves, cheerful in that easy, quarterback-turned-finance-guy way, and Carmen’s smile is the same one that made her prom photos look like toothpaste ads.

“You’re Piastri, right?” George says, extending a hand that could probably still throw a perfect spiral. “We thought we recognized you.”

Oscar glances at you, already halfway through winding up a polite smile. “Right,” he says, shaking George’s hand. “From high school.”

Carmen laughs. “I can’t believe this is happening!” 

Before Oscar can prepare himself, George cocks his head, all innocent curiosity. “So, how long have you two been together?”

There’s a beat—long enough for Oscar to hear the faint click of your brain short-circuiting—before you blurt, “Oh, we’re not—” at the same time he says, “Absolutely not.”

You both stop, glance at each other, and promptly talk over each other again, this time with clarifications that only make it worse. Something about being friends, something about just helping out. Oscar’s aware it sounds exactly like the sort of thing people say right before announcing their engagement. Carmen’s grin turns knowing. George looks amused in a way Oscar finds faintly irritating.

You recover first, smoothing it over with a smile that’s maybe three watts too bright. “We work together. Sort of. Different fields.”

“Opposite fields,” Oscar adds, because precision matters. Especially when one’s career revolves around making the difference between amicable and messy sound like a legal argument.

“Oh?” Carmen tilts her head to Oscar. “What do you do?”

“I’m a divorce attorney.” 

The effect lands exactly as expected: first the blink, then the snort of laughter, then the delighted realization of the irony. The wedding planner and the divorce attorney. George, grinning, throws out, “So… she starts the story, and you end it?”

“Something like that,” Oscar replies, letting the corner of his mouth tip up just enough to make it unclear whether he’s joking. 

Out of the corner of his eye, he catches you looking at him with that expression that’s part amusement, part something softer. He tells himself it’s just your way of keeping the bit going. But the truth is, the warmth that flickers through him says otherwise, and it’s annoyingly hard to shake.

Carmen’s smile could power a small city when she says, “You should join us for dinner. Our treat.”

That’s a bold assumption. Oscar has at least four solid excuses queued up, none of them true but all perfectly plausible. He’s already flipping through the list when you look at him. Not just look. You deploy the full arsenal: tilted head, softened grin, those eyes doing that thing that could disarm a firing squad. 

And that’s it. Game over. He exhales, already hearing the gavel in his head. “Sure,” he says, because apparently his willpower folds faster than bad origami when you’re involved.

Dinner turns out to be… something. A bizarre theatre production where Carmen and George play the leads in a romance so committed it borders on parody. They feed each other, trade bites back, and laugh in perfect sync, like they’ve been secretly training for the Olympics in synchronized infatuation. 

Across from them, Oscar sits beside you, playing the role of vaguely polite companion. He holds the door, pours your water, throws in the occasional wry remark that Carmen misses entirely but earns you a small laugh. George squeezes Carmen’s hand mid-story. “You two must have so much fun being friends.”

Oscar chews his food slowly, buying time, then deadpans, “Oh, sure. Nothing says fun like contract law and flower arrangements.”

You kick him lightly under the table. He pretends not to notice, but the curve at the corner of his mouth gives him away. Underneath all the polite detachment, he’s hyper-aware of how close your arm brushes his, of the way your laughter curls somewhere in his chest.

Carmen and George launch into a greatest-hits reel of their history. Promposals, senior pranks, late-night drives. The nostalgia is so sweet it’s practically crystallizing in the air. You lean in to listen, smiling in all the right places, your hair brushing your cheek. Oscar leans back in his chair, arms crossed, the picture of practiced disinterest. But when your knee bumps his again, he doesn’t move it away. If anything, he leaves it there.

Later, the apartment hallway is quiet except for the faint hum of an old ceiling light that flickers like it’s paid by the hour. The air smells faintly of takeout—someone’s stir-fry, maybe—and there’s a scuffed shoe print on the wall opposite your door that Oscar can’t stop noticing. You’re in front of your door, patting down your bag like the keys might have sprouted legs and made a break for it. He leans against the wall, watching you with the same patient skepticism he reserves for opposing counsel mid-argument.

“So,” he says, drawing the word out, “that was… dinner.”

You glance up briefly, distracted. “Dinner was fine. You were the problem.”

He lets out a low laugh. “I was polite. Mostly.”

“Polite is a strong word,” you mutter, rifling through your bag. A pen falls out. A crumpled receipt. Half a packet of mints, which you don’t offer him.

“Carmen and George are intense.” He pauses, pretending to search for a diplomatic synonym, but gives up. “Like a rom-com no one asked to sit through.”

That gets you to smile before you toss out, almost absently, “What if we’d been like that? Back in high school?”

The words land heavier than you probably intended, though they sound casual enough. Oscar freezes for half a second, just long enough for the thought to lodge somewhere inconvenient. 

What if he went to prom? No, more than that. Asked you to prom. Asked you out in between reads of The Catcher in the Rye and Pride and Prejudice. Would you have stayed together throughout college, throughout his time in law school? Would you have been the annoying kind of high school sweethearts posting about about seven-year anniversaries?

Would you have been happy? (He knows he would have been.) What if, what if, what if. 

“What if,” he echoes, not quite a question, not quite agreement.

You don’t elaborate. He doesn’t press. It’s not the kind of conversation you dismantle under the buzzing light of a hallway that smells like someone else’s leftovers. Your keys finally appear. You flash him a victorious smile and an off-tune sing-song of ‘good night’ before slipping into your apartment, door clicking shut behind you.

Oscar stays where he is. His eyes linger on the door as the hum overhead grows louder, or maybe it’s just the absence of your voice making the silence feel bigger. He tells himself he’s only standing there because he’s tired, that moving takes effort after a long night. But the truth is simpler: He stays because he wants to.

Oscar’s commute is, like most of his mornings, unremarkable. Train, sidewalk, coffee, the whole civilized crawl toward another day of dissolving other people’s happily-ever-afters. 

The train rocks along, every stop unloading a tide of commuters in a mix of suits, sneakers, and faces wearing that blank morning mask, all moving as though on the same reluctant conveyor belt. He wears the same look, though his coffee at least pretends to help. A man two seats over is watching videos without headphones. Oscar imagines citing him for cruelty.

The city’s already in motion by the time he hits the sidewalk. Shop shutters halfway up, buses sighing at curbs, a street vendor shouting in two languages at once. He sidesteps a puddle, considers the physics of how that much water exists on a perfectly dry street, and joins the slow drift toward the firm.

His office hums its usual chorus: phones ringing somewhere down the hall, printers coughing up paperwork, the faint scent of burnt espresso curling out of the break room. Janine at reception looks up from her desk, bright as a storefront window display. “Morning, Oscar.”

“Morning, Janine. Bribed the coffee machine yet?”

“Gave it a stern talking-to,” she says. “It’s ignoring me.”

Mick is leaning against a doorframe ahead, looking like a man allergic to chairs. “Got the Delaney file?”

“Do I look like I bring work home?” Oscar asks.

“Yes,” Mick says, without hesitation.

Frederik’s in the bullpen already, sleeves rolled, surrounded by the mild chaos of three open case files and a half-eaten muffin. “Your client’s at two,” he says.

“Perfect,” Oscar replies. “Plenty of time to remember why I chose this noble profession.”

His office is exactly as he left it. Papers stacked in controlled disorder, legal tomes on one side, mugs on the other that have begun to resemble a science experiment. The desk tells a quieter, stranger story if you bother to look closely.

A Post-It stuck to the monitor in your handwriting. Half a grocery list, half a doodle of a cat with questionable anatomy. A worn Polaroid from high school, the two of you barricading at an All Time Low concert. A single black hair tie looped carelessly around his pen jar, forgotten or maybe not.

He doesn’t touch any of them right away. Boots up his computer. Skims his calendar. Pretends to be a man with a normal Tuesday ahead of him. But his gaze keeps catching on the hair tie, like it has its own gravitational pull. You don’t put something like that in a drawer. You leave it out where you can see it, and pretend you don’t know why. Eventually, he picks up the Post-It, rereading it again as though it might have changed overnight. It hasn’t. Still absurd. Still you. He delicately puts it on the stack of other Post-Its you’ve left him this past month. 

Oscar’s afternoon is the kind of appointment that would give most junior associates hives. High-asset divorce, two parties who can’t even agree on the shape of the conference table, let alone custody. He sits at the head of the long, too-polished wood, flanked by Mick on one side, Frederik on the other, both of them looking like they’re preparing for trench warfare.

Across from him: the soon-to-be-exes, glaring through their respective attorneys. Their glares are precise. Practiced. They’ve probably been rehearsing in the mirror. The couple—Arthur  and Dana—sit on opposite ends of the table, as if physical distance will keep the arguments from ricocheting. Spoiler: it won’t.

Dana leans forward, jabbing a finger at the paperwork. “He’s keeping the cabin? After everything? That cabin was mine before we even—”

Arthur cuts in, voice sharp. “Yours? You didn’t even like going there unless the Wi-Fi worked. Which it never did, by the way.”

Oscar sets his briefcase down, calm to the point of suspicion. “Let’s try to avoid turning this into a wireless connectivity debate,” he says. “We’re here to divide assets, not discuss rural internet speeds.”

Dana huffs, crossing her arms. “Fine. Then I want the dog.”

“You didn’t even walk the dog! I walked him every morning.”

“Because you were always up at five to doomscroll!” 

Oscar glances at Mick, who’s taking notes on the far side of the room. “Remind me why we haven’t separated visitation for the dog yet?” asks Oscar, as if it’s a matter of national concern. 

Mick shrugs. “Because they can’t agree on who buys the treats.”

“Let’s focus.” Oscar doesn’t raise his, because he doesn’t need to. 

There’s a rhythm to these sessions, and he’s the metronome. Every word measured, every concession framed as a strategic victory, every flare-up dampened with a tone that’s just this side of condescending. It works. It always works. When one spouse snaps about the other’s spending habits, Oscar doesn’t flinch. He slides in a question that reframes the conversation into something quantifiable. When the other starts to cry, he doesn’t do the sympathetic head tilt. He keeps it moving. Efficiency isn’t coldness. It’s survival.

He’s not unemotional, though he lets people think that. What he is now—this calm, this precision—was learned the hard way. Back when his parents’ divorce was a slow-motion implosion and he’d been all shouting, all shaking hands, all wanting someone to pick a side and stick to it. He remembers the heat of that anger, the way it never helped. Now it’s gone, dissolved into something sharper, more useful.

The session ends with signatures and clipped handshakes. The couple leaves without looking at each other. He’s already halfway through making notes when his phone buzzes with a text from you. lol it’s us ^^, it says. 

It’s a TikTok. From the thumbnail, it seems to involve two animated penguins. Oscar can feel the corner of his mouth pulling upward despite himself. Professionalism, temporarily postponed. He pockets the phone without opening it yet, saving the video you sent like a cigarette after a long day. Something small and certain to cut through the taste of other people’s endings.

Oscar takes the train home in that post-work daze everyone wears like a second suit. Sshoulders heavy, tie slightly askew, head still full of someone else’s marital collapse. He tells himself it’s fine. It’s just the job. It’s not like he hasn’t seen worse, and it’s not like he hasn’t learned how to compartmentalize. Except, of course, he has. That’s the whole problem.

Despite all his cultivated detachment, some afternoons get under his skin. Watching two people dismantle the life they built together isn’t exactly uplifting, no matter how cleanly you draft the paperwork. He knows he’s good. Clinical, precise, quick on his feet. ‘Good’ doesn’t make it pleasant, though. The arguments echo longer than he’d like, little splinters lodging in his thoughts.

By the time the train slows near his stop, he’s already trying to shake it off, to think about dinner, laundry, anything else. He steps out into the evening air, which smells faintly of rain on concrete, and heads down the block toward home. That’s when he sees you. Through the big glass windows of Arrow Central, you’re at one of the tables by the back. Headset on, utterly absorbed. Your fingers move in quick bursts over the keyboard. You’re singing some song he can’t hear, your mouth shaping the lyrics with unselfconscious precision. 

You’re in your own world, and he’s the idiot standing on the sidewalk watching it like a scene from a movie. He doesn’t know how long he’s there. Long enough for the windows to start fogging slightly from the inside, long enough for him to realize that people probably walk by and think he’s lost. 

You look up eventually. Your eyes land on him, widening in surprise before they light up. The change is instant, like flipping a switch. You smile so wide he almost forgets how to breathe.

He manages a tired smile in return, the kind that still somehow carries all the warmth he’s been trying to keep to himself. He lifts a hand and waves, brief and almost shy.

And in that moment, the day feels a little less heavy.

“You’re my logistics team.”

Oscar narrows his eyes at you across the coffee shop table. “That’s not a real job title.”

“It is if I say it with enough confidence,” you counter, already scrolling for the address Carmen sent. “Besides, I need someone to keep track of my bag while I’m helping her. You’re perfect for it.”

“Ah, so I’m a coat rack now.”

“Don’t be dramatic. You’ll be a supportive friend.”

That’s how he ends up in the passenger seat of your car, wondering if this is karmic punishment for every time he’s told a client they ‘just need to compromise.’ You’re humming along to something on the radio, blissfully unaware that you’ve roped him into the ninth circle of hell: bridal retail.

The boutique smells like roses and champagne. An aggressive kind of luxury that makes him feel like he should’ve worn a better shirt. The sales associate greets you with an enthusiastic, “You must be here for Carmen!” and sweeps you both toward a back fitting room.

Carmen, radiant and rosy, is already mid-spin in a lace creation that probably costs more than Oscar’s rent. “You made it!” she beams.

“You look amazing,” you say, darting toward her.

Oscar hangs back, watching you fuss with the hem, adjust the veil, squeal at the beadwork. He’s not sure what his role here actually is, aside from existing quietly in the corner like an unwilling chaperone. “How do I look, Oscar?” Carmen asks, turning toward him.

He gives a diplomatic nod. “Like you’ve single-handedly funded a Parisian designer’s vacation home.”

You shoot him a look. “Translation: gorgeous.”

“That too,” he says, because apparently sarcasm isn’t bridal-friendly.

From his perch by the wall, he listens to you and Carmen debate the merits of tulle versus organza, which sounds like a legal dispute he’s unqualified to mediate. Every so often you throw a comment over your shoulder, usually to mock him for looking ‘like a dad in a mall’ or to demand he fetch the sales associate. He does it, because despite his better judgment and the fact that he’s absolutely being used as a pack mule, he’s signed a contract. One supposedly life-altering wedding which is beginning to look like an unpaid internship.  

Oscar’s halfway through deciding whether the armchair in the corner is comfortable enough to nap in when Carmen says, “You should try that one.”

At first, he assumes she’s read his mind about where he wants to nap. Then he glances up and sees you. Holding a dress against yourself, hesitant but smiling like you’ve already pictured it on even if you’re pretending you haven’t. You laugh, shaking your head. “I’m not the bride, Carmen.”

“So? Humor me.” Carmen waves a manicured hand, all command and no room for argument. The kind of gesture that once made high school teachers wilt.

Oscar leans back, waiting for you to refuse, maybe stutter some excuse about time or budget or basic dignity. Instead, you grin—a grin that’s trouble in heels—and vanish into the dressing room without another word.

He plops down into the chair and goes back to scrolling through his phone, telling himself he’s not thinking about it, about you. He’s just killing time. That’s it. Until the curtain swishes open, and you, stepping out, say, “Alright. How do I look?”

Oscar looks up. The entire room forgets how to function. Or maybe just him. 

The dress fits you like it was built around your laugh, your shoulders, the way you stand when you’re not paying attention. Fluid lines, quiet elegance, and—God help him—a certain kind of light he’s pretty sure wasn’t in the room before. Every smart remark in his arsenal packs up and leaves without notice.

You tilt your head, waiting. “Well?”

He should say something clever, something that keeps him behind the usual fence of sarcasm. But his mouth has gone rogue.  “You look…” He stops, blinks, as though the perfect adjective might appear if he stares at the floor long enough. None does. “… sufficient.”

Carmen giggles, somehow managing to disguise it as a cough instead. 

Oscar leans back in the armchair, pretending to check something on his phone. Really, he’s watching you from under his lashes. You’re a whirl of movement. Spinning in front of the mirror, adjusting the hem, babbling to Carmen about how surprisingly comfortable the dress is. You’re lit up in a way that makes the entire boutique feel warmer, like the overhead lights are conspiring with you.

It’s ridiculous, he tells himself, that his brain immediately starts filling in the gaps. Swapping Carmen out for a crowd, replacing the fitting room with some floral arch, and suddenly it’s a wedding. Your wedding. His imagination, ever the sadist, paints it in perfect detail. Your laugh, the way your hand would linger on someone’s arm, the curve of your smile. He tries—really tries—to slot himself into the groom’s position. 

But the thought catches somewhere in his chest and refuses to move, heavy and impossible. He can’t make it fit. The groom’s face blurs until it’s just… not him.

It’s pathetic. And worse, it’s dangerous. Because if he lingers too long, he’ll start wondering about timelines and choices and every stupid what-if he’s trained himself to shut down.

“Hey,” you call, jolting him back. You’re grinning at him in the mirror. “Don’t look so serious. You’re starting to scare the mannequins.”

He exhales, aims for nonchalance, misses by a mile. “I’m just wondering how you conned me into being your unpaid bridal consultant.”

“You’re logistics,” you say, prim as anything. “It’s an important role.”

“Right,” he mutters, “because when I imagined my Thursday afternoon, I definitely pictured tulle.”

You flash him that over-the-shoulder look. “Admit it. You’re having fun.”

He snorts, which is safer than answering. But his voice still comes out a little uneven when he says, “Sure. Let’s call it that.”

The wedding dress fiasco messes with Oscar so badly that he agrees to a date with somebody from law school. 

Oscar meets Isabella at a quiet Italian place in the Village, the sort of restaurant that looks like it was decorated entirely by someone’s nonna and smells like oregano and faint regret. She’s already there when he arrives, sitting at a corner table in a crisp white blouse that says she’s come straight from work, or at least wants to look like she has. “Hey, stranger,” she says, standing to greet him. Warm smile. Firm handshake. A deposition, but friendlier.

“Hey,” he says back, sliding into the chair opposite her. “You look lawyerly.”

She laughs. “That’s the nicest thing anyone’s said to me all week.”

They order wine—red for her, white for him—and the conversation falls into the easy rhythm of two people who’ve survived the same hellish coursework. Law school war stories, professors they loved and loathed, nights when the library coffee tasted like burnt cardboard but kept them awake long enough to memorize the finer points of civil procedure.

On paper, it’s great. She’s great. Smart, funny, ambitious. The kind of woman his colleagues would tell him he’s an idiot not to marry. She even does pro bono work on weekends, for Christ’s sake.

But halfway through her story about a particularly messy corporate merger, he catches himself looking at the way the candlelight reflects in her wineglass rather than at her face. His mind drifts—uninvited, annoying—to you. How you’d wrinkle your nose at the breadsticks, claiming they’re ‘too chewy,’ and then steal half of his anyway. How you’d nudge his foot under the table just to throw him off mid-sentence.

Isabella smiles mid-story. “You’re quiet. I didn’t bore you with that, did I?”

“No, no,” he says quickly, forcing his attention back. “I was just… thinking about something.”

“Hopefully something good.” She smiles, and he feels that familiar twinge of guilt. She deserves someone who’s not half-distracted by a ghost.

He tries harder. Asks about her current cases, listens to her take on the latest SCOTUS decision, even cracks a joke about how law school didn’t prepare them for navigating restaurant menus with too many pasta options. She laughs at the right beats, but every time she leans forward, he can’t help thinking of how you’d do it differently. Chin propped on your hand, eyes dancing like you’ve just baited him into an argument you fully intend to win. He’s not even sure if he’s comparing, or if you’re just there in the background, stubbornly refusing to leave the room.

The date survives dinner, and now they’re roaming the streets, hunting ice cream like two people who have run out of small talk but are determined to keep pretending otherwise. The summer air is heavy, and the neon of a late-night gelato place blinks as if it’s in on the joke. Isabella is easy company. That’s the problem. Easy means Oscar can’t point to anything wrong. Easy means she’ll nod at his dry remarks, volley back something light, and he’ll smile not because he wants to but because it’s what is expected. 

“So,” she says, scanning the display case of ice cream, “how’s your best friend—what’s her name again? Oh! Right.”

The sound of your name catches him like a tripwire. He blinks at the pistachio gelato as if it just insulted him. “You know her?”

Isabella nods, scooping her hair over one shoulder. “I mean, yeah. When you weren’t stressing over moot court, you were spending time with her.” There’s a half-smile there, amused but not unkind. “We all thought she was your girlfriend.”

Oscar shrugs, which is his roundabout way of stalling. “She wasn’t,” he says, barely resisting the urge to add, End of story. 

“Mm.” Isabella takes a taste-test spoon from the server. “Funny, though. Every time I run into someone from our circles, your name and hers come up in the same breath. Like a matched set.”

The truth makes him feel like the ground beneath him is shaky. He tries to deflect. “Maybe you’ve just got a bad sample size.”

She arches an eyebrow, lets the joke hang between them, then changes the subject. He catches the flicker of something in her expression. A note of recognition, the kind you file away for later. She’s perceptive. Probably too perceptive. They both end up ordering the same flavor, which feels too much like a metaphor for him to enjoy. 

As they leave, cones in hand, Oscar wonders—not for the first time—if there’s anyone in his life you haven’t already quietly colonized.

The walk to Isabella’s apartment is pleasant in the way most well-lit, tree-lined streets are pleasant. Pretty, unthreatening, and peaceful enough to hear your own thoughts. Unfortunately, Oscar’s thoughts are not the kind you want amplified. Isabella is talking about a new case at her firm, her voice warm and animated. He listens, really listens, because she’s truly the kind of person you can imagine parents approving of in seconds. The problem is that his brain keeps running a silent parallel commentary: not her, not you.

They reach her building faster than he expects. She pauses at the door, smiling up at him. “You want to come in?”

It’s said casually, but there’s something in her eyes. Hope, maybe. He hesitates. A fraction too long. She reads it instantly, because she’s no fool. “Right,” she says lightly, smile dimming just enough to be polite instead of inviting. “Then I’ll just do this.”

Before he can ask what this is, she leans in and kisses him. He kisses back. Well, he tries. It’s competent, technically fine, like both of them are following choreography they learned years ago. But there’s no spark, no pulse of something unexpected. Just the faint, sweet aftertaste of her pistachio gelato.

When she pulls away, she studies him for a beat and then says, “Take care, Oscar.” It’s not cold, but it’s final.

“Yeah, Isabella,” he sighs, the well-wishes sounding a lot like I’m sorry for wasting your time. “You, too.” 

He watches her slip inside, the lobby light catching in her hair for a moment before the door shuts. Then he turns and starts the walk back to his own place. The night air is cooler now, brushing his skin, and his hands are sticky from where his ice cream dripped down the cone. He licks at it absently, the sugar grit catching on his tongue, wondering why something as small as this feels heavier than it should.

Oscar’s still working out how long it’ll take to get the sticky patch of melted ice cream off his hand when he unlocks his apartment and stops dead. 

You’re there. Not metaphorically. Not in some wistful, post-date replay of memory. Physically there, padding around his kitchen like you own the lease. Which, he reminds himself, you absolutely do not.

You glance over your shoulder mid-chew. “Oh. Hey. Hope you don’t mind—”

“What are you doing here?”

“I ran out of cereal.” You gesture at the open box on his counter, spoon already in your hand. “You had some. Problem solved.”

You hadn’t even bothered to dress up in any way, shape, or form. Ratty pajamas, hair a little mussed, posture loose in that way people only get when they’re somewhere safe. You look better like this than Isabella had tonight. Than anyone has, probably.

He drops his jacket on the back of the couch, still mentally tripping over the fact that you’re here at all. “You could’ve just… I don’t know, gone to the store?”

“Could’ve. Didn’t.” You point your spoon at him. “How was the date?”

Oscar hesitates. He could give the diplomatic answer, keep it vague, spare himself the self-awareness. Instead, he exhales, “Don’t think anything’s gonna come out of it.”

“Bummer,” you say, not missing a beat before going back to your cereal.

You change the subject, launching into some story about your mutual friend’s ill-fated attempt at baking bread. Oscar half-listens, half-watches you, wondering why it feels like the night only started making sense once you showed up.

You’re halfway through crunching another spoonful of cereal when Oscar says it, casual in tone, not so casual in timing. “Why haven’t you dated anyone lately?”

A smile tugs at your mouth, the kind that says you’ve already got your answer and he’s not going to like it. “Because I’ve always been date-to-marry.”

He should’ve seen that coming. He did see it coming, if he’s honest. It’s just different hearing it out loud, the words sliding into place with a kind of brutal simplicity.

Oscar leans back against the counter, nursing the chocolate milk he’d poured himself. Date to marry. Right. He thinks about your exes. Not a sprawling list, more like a curated exhibit. Each one stuck around for years, long enough to look like they might last forever, long enough for him to get used to seeing them in your orbit. 

And then they were gone, quietly, for one reason or another. Oscar, whether or not he cared to admit it, was always a little glad to see them go. You shovel the last bite of cereal into your mouth, unfazed. “Why? You trying to set me up with one of your friends?”

“God, no,” he says automatically, which earns him a raised brow from you. He swallows down the too-quick denial with a shrug. “They’re all idiots.”

You laugh—easy, unbothered—before you go to rinse your bowl in his sink like you live there. When you pad over to the door, Oscar almost says something stupid. Something like, stay. Stay the night. I never want you out of my sight, and if I could keep you here forever, I would. 

Instead, he calls out, “Good night,” and you don’t even say it back. You just wave, leaving Oscar with the bitter reminder that he never quite measured up where it mattered. 

The rehearsal dinner is not, by any stretch of the imagination, going smoothly. 

The caterer’s late, the florist’s lost in traffic, and someone apparently thought now was the time to test how much champagne a tablecloth can absorb. Oscar would feel bad for you—actually, no, he does feel bad for you—but mostly he’s impressed. You’re everywhere at once. Smoothing ruffled tempers, delegating with military precision, somehow making people think fixing the seating chart is their idea. You look like you’re running a high-stakes covert op, except your comms are a phone glued to your ear and a pen stuck in your hair.

He watches from the corner, pretending not to be entirely captivated. You point at the florist when they finally arrive, then pivot to soothe the maid of honor, then somehow charm the caterer into an apology and extra dessert. When you finally pass him, breathless but smiling like you’ve just single-handedly prevented an international crisis, he says, “You’re a miracle worker.”

You glance at him, brow arched. “Flattery won’t get you out of moving chairs.”

“Wasn’t trying to get out of it,” he says, but it’s a lie. A charming lie. The kind you both know he’s telling.

You roll your eyes, even though the corners of your mouth betray you with that quick, appreciative curve. Then you’re off again, darting back into the chaos, and Oscar follows. Partly because you told him to, partly because watching you do this is better than any dinner theater he’s ever seen.

Despite your utter salvation of the shitshow, Oscar spots the tells before anyone else does. The quick snap in your voice when someone hands you the wrong seating chart, the way your smile freezes for half a second before you glue it back on. Everyone else sees a flawless operation humming along. He sees the seams, the hairline fractures running under the polish.

You’re spinning plates, charming guests, redirecting disasters before they sprout teeth, all without breaking stride. He’s the spectator who notices your every pivot, every little flicker of irritation you think you’ve buried. He catches your shoulder, hour later, as you pass by him. Clipboard in hand, no sign of a dinner plate. “When was the last time you ate something that wasn’t pure stress?” he presses. 

“I’m fine,” you tug away from his grip, already halfway to the florist.

Oscar is not fine with that answer. “That’s not a binding statement. You can’t just say ‘fine’ and have it hold up in court,” he bites out. 

You keep moving. Rookie mistake. Two minutes later, he’s in your path again, armed with a small plate stacked like a peace offering except it’s more like evidence in a trial. “Eat,” he commands. 

“Oscar, I have a million—”

“Eat.”

Your team, the same people you’ve been barking orders at all evening, suddenly finds themselves with front-row seats to a public hostage negotiation. There’s a ripple of laughter when he steps in closer, lowering his voice but not his resolve. “I’ll wrestle you,” he threatens. “Don’t test me.”

You glare, equal parts exasperation and disbelief. “You wouldn’t.”

“I would. Happily. In front of all these people.”

The absurdity hangs between you, but there’s something else too. The way his eyes soften under the joke, the concern tucked into the stubbornness. You take the fork. One bite. Then another. Then a sigh that’s part defeat, part reluctant gratitude.

“There,” he says, smug as anything. “Miracle worker status revoked until you prove you can keep yourself alive.”

You roll your eyes, the corner of your mouth betraying you. A ghost of a smile, there and gone, meant for him alone. Then you’re off again, clipboard in hand, spinning back into the chaos like you were never gone. Except now, he knows you’ll make it through the night without fainting.

It’s not even up for debate: you save the rehearsal dinner. There’s no polite phrasing, no humble alternative. You flat-out rescue it from the jaws of chaos, and Carmen and George know it. They corner Oscar near the dessert table, beaming like proud parents. Carmen gushes about how flawlessly you handled every last hiccup, George nods so hard his tie shifts sideways, and Oscar—cool, composed Oscar—has to bite back the urge to smirk like he had anything to do with it.

He does, however, get the tiniest satisfaction in thinking, Yeah, that’s my girl. 

It takes him a minute to realize you’re not in the room. Which is odd, considering you’ve been the gravitational center of the evening all night. But Oscar knows your habits, where you’d vanish to if given half a second. He ducks out a side door, following instinct and maybe a little muscle memory. Sure enough, there you are in the garden, exactly where he expects. Among the flowers you’ve always loved, their scent carrying just enough to soften the night air. You’re not doing anything grand. You’re standing there, hands loose at your sides, shoulders relaxing for the first time all evening.

He keeps his voice low. “Just checking in,” he says lightly as a way of introduction. “Making sure you’re still breathing.”

You glance over, smile faintly. “Still breathing.”

“Good.” He takes a step back like he’s about to retreat, because maybe you came out here to be alone and he’s never wanted to be the person who ruins that for you.

But then you say, “You don’t have to go. I never mind if it’s you.”

Oh. Well. That’s… unfair.

Regardless, he stays, sliding into place beside you like it’s the most natural thing in the world. You lean into his side. Not much, just enough for him to feel the weight of you. He pretends it’s nothing. Forces himself to keep his hands in his pockets, because holding you would be a bad idea. The worst kind of good idea.

The flowers rustle in the evening breeze, and for a few beats, neither of you speaks. Oscar decides this is the sort of silence he could live in forever.

The road out of the city unspools in long, lazy stretches, all cracked asphalt and the occasional reckless squirrel. You’ve got both hands on the wheel like a model citizen, which is funny considering you’re ten over the limit. Oscar, meanwhile, is in the passenger seat, laptop balanced on his knees, looking like he’s running a hedge fund instead of answering three mildly urgent emails.

“This is the part where I remind you,” you say, glancing at him, “that you volunteered for this.”

“I recall being threatened with cake withdrawal if I didn’t.”

“That’s volunteering.”

He snorts, not looking up from the screen. “That’s coercion with frosting.”

You let the radio fill the gap for a minute. Static, pop ballads, the occasional truck blasting past. He catches you humming along and files it away for later, because apparently even your off-key is better than most people’s pitch-perfect.

“So,” you say, eyes still on the road, “how’s it feel knowing you’re basically my unpaid intern for one more week?”

“I’ve had worse bosses,” he says. Then, after a beat: “Though none of them yelled at me for holding a bouquet wrong.”

“That bouquet was worth more than your rent.”

“And yet you trusted me with it.”

“Desperate times.”

He finally looks up, catching the faint curl of your mouth. It’s the kind of almost-smile that makes him close the laptop. Not because the emails are done, but because you’re better company than the screen. The trees outside flicker sunlight across your face, and he has the passing thought that maybe the whole lackey thing isn’t the worst gig he’s ever had.

You choose your topic with the precision of someone sliding a particularly risky track into a playlist. Light in tone, catastrophic in potential. “Divorce,” you announce, like you’re pointing out a roadside attraction.

Oscar glances out at the sprawling neighborhoods. “We’re really doing this now?”

“Better now than during the vows,” you say, one hand drumming on the steering wheel.

He exhales through his nose, the sound of a man already exhausted by a conversation that hasn’t even started. “Sometimes it’s the right call,” he says simply. “Two people know they’re not good together anymore—why drag it out?”

“Because you can fix things,” you counter, eyes steady on the road. “People just don’t try hard enough. They quit when it’s inconvenient.”

“That’s not quitting, that’s self-preservation. Staying miserable just because you swore a promise?” Something inside him churns. “That’s not noble, that’s masochism.”

You throw him a sidelong glance, half amusement, half challenge. “Wow. Remind me never to marry you.”

Damn. “Don’t worry,” he says, his jaw working in that careful way that means he’s holding back sharper words. “Mutual self-preservation.”

It should come off as a joke. It doesn’t. The air in the car cools just enough to notice. The steady rhythm of passing fields outsides suddenly becomes riveting. He leans back, eyes on the horizon, shoulders angled away like the conversation is already several miles behind you. For a while, only the hum of tires fills the space between you, along with the faint, uneven tap of his fingers against his thigh. He’s probably thinking he went too far. You might be thinking the same about yourself. The silence stretches, not hostile exactly, but brittle. Something that could break if either of you pressed just a little too hard.

The two of you pull up to the curb of your destination with the kind of synchronized silence that only two very stubborn people can manage. Oscar stares at the dashboard like it’s personally responsible for the last thirty minutes of conversational shrapnel. You’re already slipping on that brittle, party-ready smile—something shiny to hide behind—when he reaches across and catches your wrist.

“Hey,” he says, soft but pointed, as if he’s trying to sneak past your guard without setting off alarms. He’s a prideful man, but his pride is a sand castle when it comes to your tsunamis. “I’m sorry.”

Your eyes flick down to where his hand holds you, then back to his face. It’s the kind of look that could be filed under ‘Neutral’ but is definitely under ‘Weapons-Grade Silence.’ He swallows, tries harder. “Anybody would be lucky to marry you.”

The silence deepens. If it were a drink, it’d be straight whiskey, no ice. So he keeps going. “You’re smart. You’re funny—though you weaponize that, obviously. You make people feel taken care of without making it feel like a debt. You remember the little things, like who hates olives and who only pretends to hate olives because it’s trendy. You’d be the kind of bride who—” He stops, recalibrates. “—who makes the whole marriage thing actually look worth it.”

“You really think that?” you ask, voice small with disbelief. 

Oscar nods. “I’ve never lied to you,” he says delicately. “I’m not about to start now.”

You blink, slow, deliberate, and then lean in. Not to kiss him properly, but to press your lips once, briefly, against his shoulder through his shirt. It’s the kind of gesture that says, Fine. Truce. Oscar exhales, almost a laugh, and lets you go. You push open your car door, the fake smile now replaced with something just slightly realer. 

The front door to your house swings open before you’ve even knocked. Your mum has a sixth sense for arrivals, honed over years of intercepting neighbours before they ring the bell. She pulls you into a hug so tight Oscar half-expects to hear vertebrae shift. Then she turns to him, and the smile doesn’t even dip.

“Oscar, love,” she says, already pulling him in to dole out the same bone-crushing embrace. “You’ve gotten taller.”

He hasn’t. Not since he was sixteen. But he grins anyway. “And you’ve gotten better at lying.”

She swats his arm in that way that means she’s pleased. Your dad’s already at the door, hand outstretched, but it turns into a half-hug, half-back-pat before either of them can stop it. The kind of greeting reserved for family members you see less than you’d like but more than you can forget.

“Good to have you back, son,” your dad says, and Oscar pretends it’s dust in his eye. 

He’s been ‘son’ since he started hanging around after school, eating whatever biscuits your mum pretended were ‘for guests’. He never left without a Tupperware container, usually returned weeks later with something completely unrelated inside. Inside, the familiarity swallows him whole: the faint smell of laundry powder, the buzz of the fridge, the same photo frames on the wall except now with more moments crammed in. Your mum’s already fussing over both of you, asking if you’ve eaten, offering tea before you can answer, and trying to herd you towards the kitchen like two sheep that have wandered into her hallway.

Oscar catches your eye as you’re divested of your coat. It’s that look—shared history folded neatly between you—that says he knows exactly where the biscuits are kept without being told. He could play the part of guest, but why bother? He’s been part of this script for years.

“I can’t believe you’re planning Russell’s wedding,” your mother says as all of you settle into the living room. Your parents, side by side; you and Oscar, crammed into the arm chairs that are a little too small. “He was always a good fellow, that one.” 

“Still is,” you offer, sipping at your tea. “The ceremony’s going to be in town, so Oscar and I decided to stop by.”

There’s a couple more minutes of small talk. Not the forced kind, but the one that genuinely takes the stress out of Oscar’s limbs. At one point, your father asks if Oscar is dating anybody, and he nearly answers, No, sir. Too busy pining over your daughter. 

You excuse yourself to go grab some of your clothes from your bedroom. Oscar stays with your parents because they’re some of his favorite company, really. Amicable, easygoing, welcoming of his dry personality. There’s a lull in the conversation when you leave, but your mother cheerfully picks it up once the sound of your footsteps fades.  “How’s work, Oscar?” she asks. 

“Same old, same old,” he responds. “Last week, I had to help a couple settle on who gets to keep the Roomba.” 

Your mother laughs. Your father cracks a smile. Oscar thanks every higher power that led him to you, led him to them. 

“Say, son,” your father says suddenly, his voice lowering ever so slightly. Like he doesn’t want to be overheard. Oscar has to lean in to hear. He’s still halfway through a smile when your father asks in a whisper, “Do you think we could have one of your cards?”

Oscar’s grin freezes. 

Your parents, with their thirty-odd years of marriage, should not be asking Oscar that. Yet here they are, on their couch, watching him with a delicateness that dates back to when he was a teenager watching his parents’ marriage dissolve. Oscar sees you in his mind’s eye—bright smile, wide eyes, the way you used to say, I believe in true love because of my parents. 

He knows why they’d ask him. He knows. He’s had relatives and friends ask for his services. Divorce proceedings are a monster in their own right, and it helps to go through them with someone you trust. Your parents trust Oscar. They have since he was a lanky teenager, throwing rocks at your window because you were upset over something he’d said. They’ve trusted him enough to let him crash on this couch when his parents were being messy; they’ve trusted him to be your best friend, your next door neighbor, your go-to for everything in life. 

He’s not about to take their trust for granted. “Yeah,” he manages, fumbling for his wallet. “Yeah, yeah. Of course. Here.”

For the first time ever, Oscar’s fingers tremble as he hands his card over. 

Oscar spends the morning pretending he isn’t in the way. It’s not difficult; you’re preoccupied enough with hair and flowers and a checklist that’s longer than most depositions. He’s used to being told where to stand, when to speak, what papers to file. Here, you don’t tell him anything. You just move, efficient and elegant, and he hovers, cosplaying background furniture that has opinions it won’t share.

It should feel like relief. Finally, a day where you don’t conscript him into service. Instead, it gnaws. The silence from last night’s conversation with your parents presses on him like a poorly fitted suit. He had smiled and nodded and deflected, said all the right things while trying not to let the weight of implication crush him. They had praised him, teased him, looked at him with a familiarity that made his throat tight. And you had no clue. At least, he hopes you don’t. You have enough to worry about without his conscience leaking into the bouquet arrangements.

He watches you. Watches the way you smooth your dress before you even sit, the way you give orders with a smile that masks the bite underneath, the way you pause every few minutes to take a breath, reset, then whirl forward again like a clock wound too tightly. And he thinks: if anyone deserves honesty, it’s you. Then he thinks: not today. Maybe never.

You catch him staring. He’s never as subtle as he believes himself to be. “What?” you ask, not unkindly, but with that edge that suggests you’ll only allow a five-second detour from your warpath.

He shakes his head. Lies like it’s his job, because today it is. “Nothing. I’m fine.”

Your eyes linger, suspicious, as if you can smell the fabrication. But then someone calls your name, another fire to put out, and you’re gone, swallowed back into the swirl of pre-ceremony chaos. Oscar exhales slowly. Fine. That’s what he said. That’s what he’ll keep saying. Even if it’s the biggest lie of the day, and that’s including the ‘for better or worse’ someone else is about to recite.

It’s an hour before go-time when chaos gets a name and a face: George’s mother, flustered, red-cheeked, eyes darting. A hawk that’s lost its prey. She corners you near the catering table, voice pitched in a whisper that carries far too well. “I can’t find George.”

Oscar’s standing two feet away, holding a cup of terrible coffee, and he honestly thinks he’s misheard. You stare at George’s mother, steady but pale. “What do you mean you can’t find him?” you grit out. 

“He’s not in his room. I thought he was with his groomsmen, but they haven’t seen him either. He’s just—gone.”

Oscar feels the floor shift under everyone’s feet. George, of all people. Steady, buttoned-up, mildly boring George. Hardly the type to bolt. He looks at you, waiting for you to laugh it off, except you don’t. Your jaw is tight, your eyes are already flicking through contingency plans like cards in a Rolodex. “Okay,” you say, voice clipped but calm. “Nobody tells Carmen. Not yet.”

George’s mother nods furiously, like secrecy will summon him back. You turn toward Oscar, already mid-stride, ready to take charge of yet another potential disaster. He sees it. The way your shoulders square, the muscles in your jaw working overtime, the storm gathering in you. And he decides he’s not letting that storm break.

“I’ll go,” Oscar says, stepping in front of you. “You stay here. Keep things steady. I’ll find him.”

“You?” Your brow arches. “Oscar, you don’t even know where to start.”

“I’m a divorce attorney,” he counters. “Missing grooms are basically my clientele-in-training.”

Your lips twitch, but you shake your head, unconvinced. “This isn’t funny.”

“Wasn’t trying to be,” he says, softer now. He lowers his voice, just for you. “You’ve got enough on your plate. Let me handle this one.”

There’s a beat where you almost argue. He can see it in the way you open your mouth, close it, open it again. But then you nod. A sharp, reluctant motion. “Fine. But call me the second you find him.”

“Scout’s honor.” 

As he heads out of the reception hall, he feels the weight of it. Your trust, however begrudging, pressing into his back. Maybe, just maybe, he’s more rattled than he’ll admit. George better be hiding somewhere stupid, Oscar thinks, because if not, he’s not sure what the hell he’ll do. He pushes open the doors and steps into the warm afternoon, beginning the search.

The church is quiet in the way only a building this old can manage. Heavy with incense, dust, and the weight of a thousand whispered prayers layered into its walls. Oscar walks the aisle as if he’s a man on a mission, though in truth he feels more like a private investigator in an overpriced suit than a wedding guest. His shoes click against the stone, each sound bouncing up to the rafters like a tattletale. When he catches the faintest shuffle from the direction of the confession booths, well—case closed.

He stops in front of the carved wood door, ancient and foreboding, and clears his throat. “You know, George, these are usually reserved for sins. Unless you count hiding from your own wedding as one.”

There’s a beat of silence. Then, muffled through the screen: “Go away, Oscar.”

“Tempting,” Oscar says, shifting his weight. “But Carmen’s about fifteen minutes away from suspecting you’ve been abducted by rogue groomsmen. I figured I’d head that off. So here I am.” He leans against the booth, arms crossed, looking casual enough that no one would suspect his stomach is twisted into knots on the bride’s behalf. “Mind letting me in on why you’re pulling a Houdini in a church of all places?”

The wood groans faintly as George shifts. He doesn’t open the door, but his voice comes clearer now. “I love her. I do. That’s not the problem.”

Oscar arches a brow even though George can’t see his face. “Funny. Usually when people vanish before the ceremony, that’s exactly the problem.”

George exhales, shaky, almost embarrassed. “I’m not scared of marrying Carmen,” he reasons. “I’m scared of… everything after. What if it goes wrong? What if I wake up in ten years and I’ve failed her? I keep thinking about what you said—that sometimes divorce is the kindest option. What if we end up there?”

Ah. And there it is. His own cynical quip coming back to haunt him, boomeranging with perfect aim. Oscar closes his eyes briefly, exhaling through his nose, the irony settling heavy in his chest. “George, you’re asking the guy who pays rent watching marriages implode in real time. And yet—even I know fear isn’t a reason to bolt. If it were, no one would walk down the aisle, ever.”

The booth goes quiet, save for George’s breathing. Shallow, uneven, like he’s bracing for a blow that doesn’t come.

Oscar taps the wooden frame with his knuckle, then presses on, surprising even himself with the earnestness creeping into his voice. “Look. Divorce isn’t proof of failure. It’s proof that people tried. Tried hard, even,” he says. “And yeah, sometimes it doesn’t work out. But that doesn’t make the trying worthless. If you love Carmen—and I know you do—then marry her. Not because it’s risk-free. Because she’s the person you want to take the risk with. That’s the point, isn’t it? You’re not promising perfection. You’re promising to try.”

Another pause stretches out, thick with doubt and something else. Hope, maybe. Then George, softly: “You actually believe that?”

Oscar huffs out a laugh, low and dry, as though he can’t quite believe himself either. “Don’t spread it around. Ruins my reputation. But yeah. I believe it.”

The latch clicks, tentative but decisive, and the booth door eases open. George steps out, white-faced but steadier, like someone who’s just found the floor under his feet again. Oscar claps him on the shoulder. Firm, grounding, the closest thing he can offer to reassurance without choking on sentiment. “Now. Let’s get you married before Carmen figures out I let you stall in a confessional,” says Oscar. “Do you know how quickly she’d kill me for that?”

George manages a thin, grateful smile, the kind that says the panic hasn’t vanished but at least it’s not steering the ship anymore. “Thanks, Oscar,” the older man says shakily. 

Oscar grins in return, steering him toward the nave where the light spills like a reminder of what’s waiting. “Don’t thank me yet. I plan on charging for emotional labor. Weddings bring a premium, you know.”

By some miracle, they arrive at the wings of the church just as the final notes of the prelude swell. And then you’re there, sweeping in like a general surveying her battlefield. One glance at George, present and upright, and your shoulders lose a fraction of their tension. You brush past Oscar, fingertips grazing his arm in a quick, instinctive squeeze. It lasts less than a breath, but it’s as good as a confession. Oscar covers it the only way he knows how: by pretending it didn’t knock the wind out of him.

The ceremony begins. The church doors open, and Carmen steps through, radiant in a gown that makes even the stained glass look dull. The room collectively exhales, but Oscar—traitor that he is—finds his gaze drifting. He tells himself he’s just checking that you’re still in position, orchestrating with your clipboard and muttered commands, invisible yet entirely in control. But the truth is simpler. He can’t stop looking at you, looking for you.

Everyone else sees Carmen gliding down the aisle, but Oscar sees the invisible current you’re steering beneath it all. He catches the curve of your profile in the soft light, the way concentration sharpens your features, the way you’re biting the inside of your cheek to make sure no detail slips. Ridiculous, he thinks, that the most commanding presence in the room is the one people aren’t even supposed to notice.

The vows begin and the congregation leans forward, hungry for their words. Oscar leans back. His eyes find you across the nave, tucked discreetly by the side pews. You look up. Just for a second, maybe checking on him, maybe accident, maybe not. But it’s enough.

There it is: the moment he’s been avoiding like a hairpin curve in the rain. He imagines it. What it would be like if this weren’t George and Carmen standing at the altar. If it were him. If it were you. The thought crashes into him with the force of a spinout. Utterly uninvited, utterly undeniable.

Oscar swallows hard, forces his attention back to the couple trading promises that aren’t his. The image lingers, stubborn as tire marks on asphalt: you, a gown that would outshine every candle in this place, saying words that could undo him. To him. With him.

There’s nothing that Oscar has wanted more in his life. 

The reception is a blur of clinking glasses, distant laughter, and Carmen’s veil catching the light as if it’s made of spun sugar. Oscar’s been lurking at the edges, the way he always does when there’s too much spectacle. Half amused, half bored, wholly aware that he doesn’t belong to this carefully choreographed world of champagne flutes and choreographed entrances.

You appear about thirty minutes in, armed with two paper plates of whatever the caterers managed to squirrel away for the vendors. Professional efficiency, no-nonsense stride. You steer him to a peaceful corner near the kitchen door, away from the storm of speeches and flash photography.

“Eat,” you say, shoving one plate into his hands. “Consider it your reward for saving the wedding.”

Oscar glances at the heap of chicken skewers and roasted vegetables. “Saving the—what?” 

“George told me.” You spear a potato wedge, casual, as if you’re not detonating small bombs in his chest. “About the confession booth. About what you said. He was nervous, but you got him back in time. You saved the day.”

Oscar makes a noise somewhere between a scoff and a cough. “I didn’t save anything. I just—” He waves his fork, hunting for the right word. “Talked. That’s all. People talk. Sometimes they get married after.”

You grin, leaning just slightly into his space. “Don’t be modest. Admit it,” you say, lofty despite your obvious exhaustion. “You believe in marriage now. Or at least you believe George and Carmen will make it. Which means I win.”

“Win what?” he asks, though he already knows. 

“Our little contract.” You pop the potato wedge into your mouth, smug. “You said divorce was sometimes the kindest option. I said anything can be fixed. Guess who was right?”

Oscar stares at you over his fork, chewing slowly, deliberately, like he’s buying himself more time than the bite of chicken really requires. His brain is yelling don’t give her the satisfaction. His chest, annoyingly, is yelling something else entirely. Something softer, warmer, unhelpful. Finally, he sighs, long-suffering, as if you’ve dragged this out of him against his will. “Fine. Maybe you won. A little.”

“A little?” You tilt your head, eyes bright with victory. “That’s all I get?”

“That’s all anyone gets.” He shrugs, but the corner of his mouth twitches upward. “Don’t push your luck.”

You laugh, low and genuine. What Oscar doesn’t quite say is that he will always, always let you win. That’s long since been established.

The drive back to your place is quiet. Not awkward. Quiet, like both of you are storing the night away in some mental scrapbook, cataloging details you’ll never say aloud. Oscar’s fine with silence; he usually prefers it, really. But this silence trills in the space between your elbows brushing on the shared armrest, in the way you don’t reach for the radio, in the occasional flicker of the dashboard light across your face that makes him glance over longer than he should. He tells himself he’s imagining it. He tells himself a lot of things. None of them hold.

The house looks exactly as it always has, which is both comforting and mildly suffocating. Curtains drawn, porch light on, that faint scent of grass and cement he’s always associated with late nights here. The place hums with the stillness of sleeping parents, furniture resting in their well-worn grooves. Oscar trails you in, carrying the scent of champagne and flowers and his own unspoken thoughts. He toes off his shoes, careful to line them up neatly, because your mother notices when he doesn’t. She never says it, but he knows. 

You’re bent over, slipping your heels off, when you say his name. Soft, but not casual. Never casual. “Oscar.”

He looks up, and there it is again. That pull he’s been batting away for years. Familiar hallway, familiar you, nothing objectively remarkable happening, except every nerve in his body seems to think it is. The faded family photos on the wall, the buzz of the  old refrigerator in the background—mundane details that, somehow, are staging the most dangerous moment of his life. He’s supposed to be on the couch. He’s supposed to brush his teeth with the travel toothbrush in his bag and scroll his phone until sleep finds him. He’s supposed to.

Instead, the two of you just look at each other. Too long. Long enough that he can hear the slow shift of your breathing, notice the faint flush on your cheeks that might just be the heat of the day lingering. Long enough that he feels the weight of every almost over the years crowding into this very small, very ordinary space. He thinks of high school evenings when he lingered too long on your porch, of college breaks where you laughed just a little too hard at something he said. He thinks about every moment he could have leaned in, and didn’t.

Because apparently tonight is the night the universe cashes in on all his self-control, you both lean in. At the same time, like you’ve rehearsed it in some dream. Which, to be fair, he has dreamed off. More than once.

Oscar kisses you the way he’s wanted to since high school: certain, careful, a little incredulous that it’s real. 

The hallway smells faintly of laundry detergent and floor polish, a deeply unromantic backdrop, but none of it matters. Not when you’re this close. Not when your breath hitches against his. Not when every sharp edge inside him finally, blessedly, goes quiet. He thinks, with a rush of clarity he’ll never admit out loud, that maybe he was always meant to end up right here. Bare feet on linoleum, parents asleep down the hall, and you, finally, leaning toward him instead of away.

Oscar’s never been one for clichés. He scoffs at them, actually. Rolled eyes, muttered commentary, the whole bit. But standing in this hallway, lips pressed to yours like he’s been holding his breath for years, he has to admit: it feels like the biggest cliché of all. Dream come true, corny title card and everything. And worse, he doesn’t care. Not even a little.

You laugh against his mouth, which is unfair, because the sound shivers right down his spine and makes him kiss you harder. Greedy. That’s the word. He’s greedy for this, for you, for the taste of champagne still lingering on your lips, for the warmth of your skin beneath his hands. He’s everywhere at once. Your waist, your shoulder, the back of your neck. It’s as if he can make up for lost time with sheer persistence.

“Careful,” you murmur, tugging back just enough to breathe, your smile brushing his jaw. “We have to be quiet. My parents—”

“Are asleep,” he interrupts, already chasing your mouth again. God, he’s shameless. He knows it. He can’t stop.

You huff out a giggle, muffled by his insistence, and press a palm to his chest like maybe you mean to hold him back, except you don’t. You never do. “Oscar,” you whisper, but it’s not really a warning. More like an acknowledgment of the obvious: he’s lost the plot entirely.

“Don’t care,” he gasps, his words swallowed in another kiss. And it’s true. He doesn’t care if your dad wakes up, if your mom comes down the stairs, if the whole world finds him here in his socks and suit pants, kissing you like a man starved. The hallway could collapse around him and he’d still find your lips in the rubble.

Your laugh bubbles up again, giddy and breathless, and it tips something inside him dangerously close to joy. He kisses the corner of your mouth, your cheek, the curve of your jaw; he’s mapping a country he’s only ever seen on postcards. “You’re ridiculous,” you say softly, but your hand curls into his shirt like you’d rather die than let him go.

Ridiculous, sure. But finally, gloriously yours.

Oscar doesn’t so much lead you into the living room as stumble you both there, mouths still fused. He’s not watching where he’s going, too busy pressing into you. Which is why your back bumps squarely into the television console. The sharp clatter that follows is less romantic than he’d prefer.

You break the kiss with a laugh that sounds like an apology and a scolding rolled into one. “Watch it, loverboy.”

“Sorry, sorry,” he mutters, already trying to find your mouth again. Priorities.

But you’re ducking out of reach, bending down with a groan. “I have to pick this up before my mom sees.”

On the floor: your mother’s purse, which, apparently, had been balancing on the edge of the console. Now it’s gutted all over the carpet. Keys, receipts, lipstick, a crumpled tissue that has definitely seen better days. Oscar crouches beside you halfheartedly, though his eyes keep darting to your mouth. If you’d just stay still for two seconds—

You freeze. Your hand is hovering over something. Not lipstick, not keys. A simple rectangle of thick cardstock. His card.

You pick it up slowly, confusion creasing your brow. “Oscar,” you whisper, too soft and too sharp all at once, “why is your calling card in my mom’s purse?”

For a split second, he thinks about lying. It would be easy. Say he left it there years ago, some business pretense, some polite exchange. But the words don’t come. They stick in his throat, immovable, like the lie itself refuses to be born. He’s never been able to lie to you. 

He swallows. You’ve already noticed. The way his mouth opens, closes. The way his gaze falters, his shoulders stiffen. He’s physically incapable of bluffing his way out of this one.

How cruel. Oscar’s had you for all of five minutes, and he’s already lost you. 

Morning smacks Oscar in the face with fluorescent train lights and the smell of too many bodies packed into too small a car. He hasn’t slept much. Lando’s couch is about as forgiving as a park bench, and Lando himself is an early riser who treats the morning like a competition. Oscar, meanwhile, feels like he’s been KO’d several rounds already.

He grips the overhead rail, lets the train sway him, tries not to think too hard. You hadn’t given him the chance to explain last night. No surprise there, really. Once your temper hit full throttle, he knew better than to argue. You’d all but shoved him out the door, your voice sharp enough to cut, and he hadn’t blamed you. Not then. Not now. Still. He’d wanted to say something, anything, before the door shut behind him. Instead, he got a midnight exile and a guilt hangover to carry onto public transport.

Oscar leans back against the rattling train wall, the city sliding past the windows in quick blurs of gray and neon. He tries to tell himself this is temporary. That once you’ve cooled off, once you’re back in your own apartment, once the everyday routine pulls you out of last night’s orbit, you’ll let him get a word in. A single word. Maybe two, if he’s lucky. He clings to that possibility, because the alternative is not something he’s ready to look in the eye.

His phone buzzes in his pocket. Lando, probably, asking if he left his charger. He ignores it, eyes slipping shut for just a moment, swaying with the rhythm of the tracks. He’s tired, sure, but more than that, he’s emptied out. All the sharp edges of last night hollowed him clean. Still, there’s the faintest thread of hope wound through the exhaustion. Thin, stubborn, irritatingly resilient. Hope that when the city resets the board, when you’re standing across the hall from him again instead of kicking him out of your parents’ house, maybe—just maybe—you’ll let him explain. And maybe—just maybe—you’ll still want to kiss him after.

Except Oscar doesn’t hear from you. Not a knock, not a muffled laugh through the thin wall, not even the telltale click of your front door shutting in the evening. Nothing. The silence has weight, and it presses on him harder than any courtroom opponent ever has. He tries to tell himself you’re just busy. People are busy, people have lives.

He checks his phone again and sees the three unread messages he sent, floating there like desperate balloons. He thumbs out another one, then deletes it. Tries again. Deletes that too. There’s a limit to how pathetic he’s willing to look in writing, even for you. The thought of using his spare key crosses his mind more than once, and every time he pictures it—him fumbling with your lock, you catching him in the act, your fury doubling—he swears under his breath and shoves the key deeper into his drawer. No. That’s a line even he knows not to cross.

He’s going insane. Objectively, medically insane. Which is probably why Frederik notices first. Frederik, whose head is usually so far in case law he wouldn’t notice if the office caught fire, raises an eyebrow over the rim of his glasses when Oscar misses a joke. “You’re distracted,” he says, crisp as a verdict.

“I’m fine,” Oscar replies, which is lawyer code for I’m not fine, but I’ll bury it under paperwork until it suffocates.

Mick joins in later, plopping down on the edge of Oscar’s desk with all the grace of a Labrador. “Mate, you look like you’ve been ghosted. Or worse. Like, haunted.”

“I’m not haunted,” Oscar says, flipping through a stack of briefs. “I’m working.”

“Sure,” Mick says, leaning back. “By which you mean obsessively rereading the same contract clause and pretending it says something different.”

Oscar doesn’t rise to it. He just keeps highlighting, keeps annotating, keeps pretending the silence next door isn’t the loudest thing in his life right now. Later, he returns from work with a headache blooming behind his eyes and a shirt clinging to his back. An unholy combination of stress and the city’s humidity. All he wants is a shower, a nap, maybe something fried and terrible for dinner. Instead, he sees the moving truck parked out front of the building.

He freezes at the bottom of the stoop, pulse doing something it really shouldn’t. The side of the truck is stamped with a cheerful slogan about new beginnings. He hates it instantly.

Monica, his landlord, stands near the door, clipboard in hand. “Evening, Oscar,” she says like it’s any other day, like the universe isn’t rearranging itself in front of him. “Hot one today.”

He forces his jaw to work. “Yeah. Hot.” His eyes flick up toward your windows, where curtains flutter as a box is carried out. He’s stuck somewhere between disbelief and nausea. “What’s going on?”

“Oh, didn’t she tell you?” Monica’s tone is casual, bordering on amused, which makes him want to laugh in a way that isn’t funny at all. “She decided yesterday. Very quick decision. Signed the paperwork online. I guess she wanted to move fast.”

Yesterday. As if one day of silence hadn’t been enough, now you’ve escalated to disappearing acts. He’s not sure if it’s impressive or cruel. Possibly both. He manages a stiff nod, tries not to let the panic show. “Right. Sure. New beginnings.” He even hears himself chuckle, though it sounds deranged. 

Monica just smiles, unaware she’s chatting with a man whose internal organs have just staged a walkout. As soon as she’s distracted, he bolts upstairs, phone in hand. He dials again. And again. Straight to voicemail. Your voice, prerecorded and maddeningly calm, greets him like it hasn’t already greeted him twenty times this week. He paces the hallway, the movers clattering past, his chest tight enough to crack ribs.

By the fifth attempt, his thumb hovers over the call button, and he thinks, so this is what going crazy feels like. Not the big cinematic breakdowns, but the humiliating repetitions. The endless, one-sided conversations with a voicemail box that never talks back.

Oscar decides he’s had enough of chasing ghosts. Enough of the unanswered calls, the locked door, the movers packing your life into cardboard while he stands useless in the hallway. Enough. He isn’t a man prone to grand gestures—he hates the very idea of them—but tonight, it’s either that or let the silence swallow him whole. 

He starts knocking on doors. Not literal ones at first: your parents’, who give him puzzled looks and say they haven’t seen you since the wedding. Mutual friends, who shuffle and hedge, clearly uncomfortable. He feels like a cop working a missing-persons case, only he’s the suspect too. It’s not a great look. By the time he reaches Hattie’s building in the East Village, he’s half-ready to abandon the whole thing. It’s ridiculous. It’s invasive. It’s—

Hattie opens the door. And freezes. Which is not promising.

Oscar narrows his eyes. “Evening.”

“Uh,” she says, drawing herself up. “Now’s not… the best time.”

He tilts his head. “Not the best time, or not the best lie?”

Hattie flounders, which is confirmation enough. She tries blocking the doorway with her very average wingspan, and for a moment it’s almost funny. Almost funny. Except Oscar’s not in a laughing mood. “Hattie,” he says, tone flat enough to iron shirts on. “Move.”

“Maybe you should, I don’t know, call first—”

“I’ve called. Repeatedly. Voicemail loves me. Move.”

She sighs, glances back inside, then mumbles something that sounds like, “You owe me,” before stepping aside. There you are. Not a mirage, not a voicemail greeting, but you. Sitting on her couch like you’ve been waiting for this inevitable ambush.

Hattie claps her hands together, way too brightly. “Well! Groceries don’t buy themselves. You two—have fun.” She’s gone before either of you can object, leaving behind a slam of the door and an air thick with unsaid things.

Oscar stands there, still at the threshold, heart doing its best impression of a bass drum. He’s not sure whether to laugh, curse, or just admit he’s terrified. But at least now, finally, there’s no more hiding.

He doesn’t even get a chance to sit down before it begins. You’re already tense in the armchair, arms folded like shields, eyes sharp enough to cut through drywall. He knows that look. He’s been on the receiving end since high school debates and who gets the last slice of pizza. Only this time, it feels nuclear. “You’re fucking crazy,” Oscar blurts before he can stop himself. Smooth start. “Who just… impulsively moves out like that?”

Your scoff is immediate, vicious. “Says the man who can’t tell the truth to save his life.”

Oscar’s stomach lurches. “That’s not—” He stops, rubs a hand over his face. “Okay, fine, I should’ve explained. But you didn’t even give me the chance.”

“Oh, please.” Your voice wavers, but your glare doesn’t. “What exactly were you going to explain, Oscar? That my mother just happened to have your card in her bag for no reason? That it just fell in there, like magic?”

“You don’t understand,” he tries again, softer this time.

“No, you don’t!” The words hit sharp, but your voice cracks, and that’s what undoes him. Your arms drop, your face crumples, and suddenly you’re not furious—you’re devastated. “I trusted you, Oscar. And to find that card—of all things—in their house—” Your throat catches. “Do you have any idea what that felt like?”

He does. He knows, because it’s written all over your face now, wet and trembling. And Oscar has always been weak to this. He could win arguments, out-stubborn you until the end of time, but the second tears arrive? Game over.

“Hey,” he says, stepping forward, almost tripping over Hattie’s rug in his rush. “Don’t—don’t do that.” His hands hover for half a second before instinct wins and he cups your face, thumbs brushing at skin that’s already too damp. “Don’t cry. Not because of me.”

You close your eyes against his touch, shoulders still shaking. He swallows hard. All his practiced sarcasm, all the barbs he hides behind, dissolve like sugar in water. Right now, all he can do is hold you steady and hope you let him.

You keep going, even through your tears. Oscar doesn’t think he’s ever been called this many names in such a short span of time. Impressive, really. You’re snapping at him like it’s an Olympic event, and he’s barely keeping up. Liar, coward, snake—he’ll admit some of those fit on bad days, but not tonight. Not with this hanging over both of you.

He’s cornered, and lying suddenly feels impossible. He waits for you to take a breath, for the betrayal to temper just enough, so he can get out, “It wasn’t for them.”

You freeze, tears clinging to your lashes. “What?”

“It wasn’t for your parents,” Oscar says again, slower this time. Delicate in a way he never is. “It was for your aunt Robin. She’s the one going through the divorce. Not them.”

The words hang in the room. For a second, he can almost see the gears turning in your head. Then it hits, and you fold, shoulders shaking as the fight drains out of you all at once.

“Aunt Robin?” Your voice cracks in a way that guts him. “She’s—no, she can’t—”

Oscar pulls you against him, arms awkward at first until they’re not, until he’s just holding you as tightly as he knows how. “I know,” he murmurs into your hair. “I know. I didn’t want to be the one to tell you. They didn’t want me to tell you.”

You sob, raw and messy, and it makes his chest ache in ways he doesn’t have names for. “Why wouldn’t they tell me? She’s—she’s family. She’s—”

“They thought you’d take it hard. Which, for the record, you are.” He tries for levity, for that thin thread of dry humor, but his voice wavers under the weight of your crying. “See, they weren’t wrong.”

You shove weakly at his chest, tears wetting his shirt. “Not funny.”

“At least it’s not your parents. That has to count for something, right?”

You sag against him, still crying, but your fists unclench in his shirt. Relief slips through your sobs, uneven and fragile, and Oscar holds on, helpless but steady. He doesn’t know what else to give you except this. His arms around you, his voice low in your ear, and the unshakable truth that he’d rather be here, in this mess with you, than anywhere else.

Oscar is not a natural caretaker. He’s many things—competitive, argumentative, occasionally insufferable—but nurturing isn’t usually in his wheelhouse. Yet here he is, tripping over Hattie’s scatter of throw pillows, digging through cupboards like a raccoon in search of comfort items. Blankets? Snacks? Possibly both at once? Why not. He shoves a bag of pretzels and a blanket into your lap like he’s supplying a survivor of some great tragedy, which, to be fair, is more or less how the evening feels.

You’re quiet now, no longer snapping, no longer crying quite as hard. Just curled on the couch, eyes red and cheeks blotchy. Still beautiful, because of course you’d manage that. Oscar spreads the blanket over you with the finesse of someone trying to fold a fitted sheet. Badly, unevenly, one corner hanging off. Still, it earns him the tiniest sound from you. Almost a laugh. Almost.

“Don’t say anything,” he warns, settling beside you.

“I wasn’t going to,” you murmur, which is a lie. The smile tugging at your mouth gives you away.

He sighs, lets himself lean back, and then he tentatively slides an arm around you. For one terrifying second, he expects you to shove him off. Instead, you sink into his side with a long, shaky exhale. Relief shoots through him so fast it’s dizzying. Maybe he can breathe again.

“I may have overreacted,” you say after a pause, voice small, almost hidden in the fabric of his shirt.

“Oh, you definitely did,” Oscar replies before his brain can catch up with his mouth.

Your head tips up, glare sharp even through swollen eyes. He deserves it. He really does. Still, the corner of his mouth betrays him with a smile he doesn’t bother fighting. Absentmindedly, almost without thought, he presses a kiss to your forehead. You freeze for half a beat, then relax, settling more firmly against him. Oscar doesn’t move, doesn’t risk ruining it. He just holds on, staring at the muted flicker of Hattie’s TV screen like it might explain how he got here.

“We’ll figure it out,” he mumbles, already running in his mind what contracts will be needed to get your apartment back. 

“Promise?” you say in a small voice. 

Oscar doesn’t make promises. Regardless, he says, “Promise.” 

“Already? You rented it already?”

Monica, unbothered as ever, flips through a clipboard as if she’s grading papers. You and Oscar are seated across from her, twinning in the way your jaws are unhinged. You were her tenant for three years; did loyalty count for nothing in this damn city? “The waitlist for a one-bedroom in this neighborhood is longer than my patience for tenants who don’t read their lease agreements,” says Monica. “The minute she canceled, it was gone.”

You’re frozen, eyes wide and breath hitching, and Oscar can see it. The start of a full-blown panic winding its way up your spine. He recognizes the signs; he’s catalogued them like constellations. Because he has absolutely no filter left, because watching you unravel is unbearable, he blurts, “You should just move in with me.”

Silence follows. Even Monica looks up from her clipboard, eyebrows creeping toward her hairline.

You glance at him, stunned. Panic attack forgotten. “What?”

“You—uh—” He clears his throat, already regretting every life choice that’s led him here. “You should move in. With me. Temporarily.”

Your mouth opens, then closes again. Oscar swears he can hear the static of your brain short-circuiting. “That’s… we can’t do that.”

“Is it?” he shoots back, half defensive, half desperate. “You need somewhere to live. I have space. You like mocking my furniture choices anyway, so—perfect opportunity to do it daily.”

Monica makes a low sound, something suspiciously like a laugh, before retreating into her office. Great. Now it’s just the two of you, stranded in the echo of his impulsive offer. You stare at him, clearly weighing whether to strangle him on the spot or admit he has a point. Oscar holds his breath, heart thudding so hard it feels like it’s trying to make a break for it.

Finally, you manage, “It’s not a bad idea.”

“It isn’t,” he says, relief slipping in, “it’s just until you work things out.”

See, Oscar has always been good at compartmentalizing. Work here, groceries there, feelings in one box, whatever-this-is with you shoved into another. But apparently boxes don’t mean much when you’re dragging a suitcase through his apartment door.

You barely look around because this isn’t new to you. Your shoes already know where to live in his hallway, your hoodie has been camped out on the back of his chair for months, and the couch still carries the faint indentation from all the times you’ve claimed it as yours. In a way, you’ve been living here without ever officially moving in. Now it’s just… official.

Oscar tries not to look too obvious about wrestling your suitcase from you. “I’ll take that,” he says.

“You don’t have to,” you protest, but let him anyway, because some things are inevitable: death, taxes, and Oscar carrying your things.

By the time evening swallows the apartment, you’re cocooned in his bed. Oscar insists on the sofa bed, which is heroic in theory, masochistic in practice. He pretends it doesn’t squeak every time he breathes too deeply. He also pretends not to notice the way your snores drift out from the bedroom and makes the place feel smaller and bigger all at once.

The adjustments sneak up on him in tiny, ridiculous ways. The extra toothbrush next to his—pink, leaning precariously close like it’s trying to flirt. The rotation of extra dishes in the sink, which he swears multiply when he isn’t looking. The hair tie he finds on the coffee table, which somehow feels more intimate than the kisses you still haven’t talked about.

Ah, yes. The kisses. The ones at your parents’ house. The ones that exist in his head like a neon sign he refuses to read. Every time he catches himself staring at you—when you’re rifling through the fridge, or humming along to some awful ad jingle—you glance back, and for half a second, it feels like you’re remembering too. Then you blink, and it’s gone, like neither of you is brave enough to say the word ‘kiss’ out loud.

He doesn’t bring it up. You don’t bring it up. Instead, he tells himself to get used to the toothbrush, the dishes, the hair ties, and the silence around the thing that’s not silence at all. He lies there on the too-short sofa bed, staring at the ceiling, and thinks that if this is what going crazy looks like, he can probably live with it. Day in, day out. Being good to you, being your best friend. He can take it. He can do normal. He’s a grown man. Sort of.

Except tonight, the sound Oscar comes home to isn’t the rustle of snack wrappers or your voice humming badly over some show. It’s the faint metallic clink of jewelry. By the time he finds you in the bathroom mirror, his lungs have stopped doing their usual job.

You’re wearing his favorite dress. The one that makes him stupid, though technically most dresses you wear qualify. Earrings catching the light, lips glossed. The whole nine yards. “Wow,” he says before his brain can veto it. It comes out rougher than intended. “Big night?”

You glance at him through the mirror, casual as you please. “Yeah. Bumble date.”

Oscar short-circuits. Bumble. Of all the cursed apps. He manages to school his face, though his insides are throwing chairs. “Bumble,” he repeats, nodding slowly like this is all perfectly fine, nothing to see here. “Nice. Sounds efficient.”

You arch a brow at his reflection. “You’re not allowed to make fun.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it.” He leans against the doorframe, arms crossed, doing his best impression of unbothered when he’s two seconds from combusting. “So what’s this guy’s deal? Wall Street? Tech startup?”

You roll your eyes, brushing past him toward the door, perfume trailing behind. “Don’t wait up.”

That’s when Oscar cracks. He doesn’t mean to. Blocking the door isn’t in the plan. Hell, he didn’t even have a plan. His arm just shoots out, palm flat against the frame, keeping you in. Muscle memory from every bad romcom he’s pretended not to watch.

You look up at him, visibly surprised. “Oscar?”

He swallows. His heart’s going way too fast for a conversation that hasn’t technically started. “You’re not… really gonna go, are you?”

A beat. Thick, tense. He can feel the edge of it pressing into his skin.

“I mean,” he fumbles, trying to backpedal without moving his arm, “you don’t even like dating apps. Remember? You said they feel like job interviews but worse.”

“Why do you care?”

“Because—” He stops, because the truth is sharp and messy and clawing its way up his throat, and once it’s out, nothing’s going back to normal. Maybe that’s the point. 

Oscar doesn’t mean to start yelling. Technically not yelling, but the Oscar version of yelling, which is a slightly louder monotone with too much hand motion. It bursts out anyway, like pressure behind a dam finally giving way.

“You’re kidding me, right?” he says, and the frustration leaks into every syllable. “You’re dressed up, in my bathroom, using my mirror, my hairspray, by the way, to go out with some stranger from Bumble? After—after what happened?”

Your brow furrows. “What happened?”

“Oh, come on.” His laugh is hollow, sharp. “We kissed at your parents’ house. Or did I hallucinate that? Should I get my eyes checked out?”

You cross your arms, steady in a way that makes him insane. “That was—”

“That was what?” He cuts in, voice cracking just enough to betray the panic beneath. “A glitch in the matrix? A fun party trick? Because if so, you’re doing a great job pretending it never happened.” He drags a hand through his hair, exasperated. “Do you know what it’s like, sharing an apartment with you while we both pretend like we didn’t nearly set the living room on fire kissing against your parents’ console?”

Your mouth opens, then shuts again. For once, blessedly, you don’t have a comeback.

He pushes on, reckless now. “I walk in here every day, and it’s—you’re here. You’re brushing your teeth next to me, stealing my socks, eating cereal out of my favorite bowl, and instead of—of this,” he gestures wildly between you, “you’re getting dressed up to go on a date with someone else? Are you insane? Because it feels like I’m the insane one!”

Instead of answering, you grab him by the shirt and kiss him. Hard.

Everything folds in on itself and then sparks, like someone hit the emergency power switch. He stumbles a step back but doesn’t let go, doesn’t even think to. His hand finds your waist, another cradles your jaw, and then he’s kissing you back like it’s the only thing he’s ever been any good at. Fuck law school, fuck law practice. This is what he’s made for. 

The taste of your lip gloss, the stutter of your breath. It all hits at once, dizzying, disarming. He had a whole speech queued up, righteous fury and all. Gone now. Vaporized. Turns out there’s no rebuttal to being kissed senseless.

Oscar doesn’t even realize he’s moving until the back of his knees hit the couch and he drops, gracelessly, into the cushions. Then you’re on him—literally on him—straddling his lap with a mouth that leaves him gasping. His brain, poor thing, has the nerve to short-circuit at the exact moment he’d like to be saying something smart, something definitive. Instead, he clutches at your waist. 

You pull back just long enough to get words out, breathless and sharp-edged with adrenaline. “I didn’t have a date.”

Oscar is dazed, lips still tingling. “What?”

“There was no Bumble guy. I just wanted you to finally snap.”

He stares at you, stunned into silence. Then a laugh—half disbelief, half affection—escapes him. “You’re actually insane.”

He doesn’t give you room to argue it. Hands on your hips, he flips the script in one swift, unceremonious motion. Suddenly, you’re flat on your back against the couch, his weight braced over you, his mouth finding yours again as if gravity’s a law he finally understands. There’s nothing tentative in it now. No sidelong glances or unsaid caveat. It’s all the frustration and wanting, poured into the press of his lips.

You break away for air, just barely, eyes searching his. “Oscar, what is this?” you manage to ask, urgent in that way you get when something outside of your plans happens. 

What is this? What is this? It’s holy ground. It’s his undoing. It’s him being proven wrong, and gladly taking that loss. It’s vindication for his high school self who pined over you; it’s a promise fulfilled. It’s his past, his future, and everything in between. 

“Everything,” is all Oscar manages to say in the breath between your mouths. This is everything, he means, everything to me. 

It’s not a speech, not a plan, not a neat label that explains the last however-many-years of complicated nonsense. But, for now, it’s the only answer he has, and apparently it’s enough. You smile, deem it sufficient, and pull him back down to kiss you again.

Oscar should know better than to let you out of his sight for thirty seconds. 

Thirty. That’s all it takes for him to get tangled in your ridiculous coffee order at the Arrow Central counter (“oat milk, not almond, but steamed halfway, and no foam unless it’s exactly two fingers thick”) and for you to waltz your way into trouble. He turns, receipt in hand, already braced for whatever chaos you’ve conjured.

There you are, all easy smiles and animated gestures. His prospective clients—middle-aged couple, big account, the kind of people he’s been carefully courting for weeks—are nodding along, visibly charmed. His heart sinks, because of course they are. You’re charming when you want to be, and dangerous when you are.

Oscar narrows his eyes, closing the distance in quick strides. He catches the tail end of your sentence: “... and honestly, if you haven’t tried marriage counseling yet, I have a wonderful contact I could pass along.”

Perfect. Just perfect.

“Are you serious?” Oscar cuts in, sliding himself between you and the couple with a smile that looks far more polite than he feels. “Sorry, folks. She gets… enthusiastic.”

You blink innocently up at him. “What? I was just trying to help.”

“By implying my clients need therapy?” His voice is low, the kind reserved for hissing through gritted teeth in public.

“They mentioned arguing a lot,” you counter, batting your lashes as if you haven’t just torpedoed weeks of his work. “I thought I’d save them some time.”

Oscar pinches the bridge of his nose, because honestly, what’s the point of lecturing you? You’ll only twist it into something he can’t refute. Still, he tries. “They’re here to talk about life insurance beneficiaries, not—” He waves a vague hand. “—their communication issues.”

The husband, bless him, chuckles nervously. “She’s not wrong, though.”

Oscar stares at the man, briefly contemplating the possibility of evaporating on the spot. “Please ignore her,” he manages, tone bordering on pleading. 

You grin, triumphant. “See? They like me.”

“Everybody does,” he mutters, ushering you gently but firmly away from the table. Affection slips through his exasperation—because he can’t help it, he never can—but still, he leans down to whisper against your ear, voice threaded with that dangerous combination of fondness and threat. “If you ever, ever crash one of my meetings again, I swear, I’m swapping your oat milk with regular.”

Your scandalized gasp almost makes him laugh. Almost. Oscar shoos you back with a look that could double as a cease-and-desist order. One hand makes a subtle little off you go motion while the other slides into his pocket like he has infinite patience. He doesn’t, but for you, he might as well be a damn saint.

“Apologies,” he tells his couple, voice smooth enough to hide the fact that he’s ready to throttle you. “That was my girlfriend.” 

And there it is. The word drops from his mouth with all the casual ease in the world. Inside? He’s practically strutting. Girlfriend. Yours truly. Filed, notarized, and legally binding, as far as he’s concerned.

The clients exchange a look, then laugh. “That’s funny,” the wife says. “A divorce attorney dating a wedding planner.”

Oscar smiles thinly. He’s heard every joke in the book: irony, opposites attract, doom-and-gloom meets happily-ever-after. He just nods and says, “We make it work.” Short, clipped, but it’s the truth. Somehow, you and him fit.

Out of the corner of his eye, he catches you leaning against the counter, watching him. His glare finds you instantly, sharp as a spotlight. You, of course, don’t wilt under it. No, you grin, cock your head, and send him a dramatic flying kiss.

Oscar sighs internally, but his hand twitches up before he can stop it. 

He catches the damn thing midair and begrudgingly presses it to his chest. ⛐

[iaheybaee]

cutie patootie

[iaheybaee]

DAYUMMM

[iaheybaee]

I want to start a fake rumour so bad but I can’t think of one. I slept with Fernando Alonso in Australia and he likes to wear a fedora in bed

[iaheybaee]

new ts12⁉️⁉️⁉️ WE ARE SO BACK

[iaheybaee]

oscar: [books padel date for him and lando] lando: [looking up padels] papaya! perfect! i'll get one of those for oscar, too!

[iaheybaee]

[iaheybaee]

Landoscar are so kitties coded, they're gonna make my pull out my sketchbook and draw

[iaheybaee]

he wants that cookie BADDDD

Lando pls u can’t be looking at your rival like that :/

[iaheybaee]

you see max verstappen wouldn’t be tolerating this “handle with care” teammate rule. neither did lewis hamilton. neither did sebastian vettel. the mclaren title fight is lackluster because the drivers seem to hesitate total commitment to the title fight which also has to come with the acceptance that racing your teammate will have to become gritty and risky and dirty. sometimes its hard to be convinced that they actually want the championship. and the team is literally killing their competitive spirits when the race engineer warns on the radio to play nice right in the thick of racing each other. these are two drivers fighting for their FIRST world championship. the regulations are changing next year. literally where is your thirst for glory. are you in control of the narrative or will you let the team decide who wins the championship come abu dhabi instead, by the luck of the draw of who gets better strategy on that day

[iaheybaee]

THISSS

wait for it ★

an LH44 smau where. . .

hamilton is inimitable. hamilton is an original. and hamilton will memorize a three-hour musical by heart just to impress you.

pairing: lewis hamilton x fem!broadway actress!reader

fourcents: i've been toying with this idea for a hot minute now because my fyp is always flooded with f1 x hamilton tiktoks lol. enjoy this brainrot-induced work <3

notes: wacky-ass plot, i am my target audience, title from the hamilton song of the same name, speaking of hamilton it's all over the fic u have been warned, face claim my queen jasmine cephas jones, reader is semi-canonical to her because she and lewis surprisingly has a lot of similarities (!!!), lewis hamilton is a loser (affectionately), lin-manuel miranda cameo somehow???

♥️ liked by scuderiaferrari, lewishamilton, and others

yourusername silverstone we are inside you ⚡ thank you for having me & nala ＠scuderiaferrari ❤️‍🔥

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user WHAT

user my worlds colliding!!!!!

fourkisses i think i've watched too much hamilton x f1 tiktoks 😵💫

scuderiaferrari we surely don't know how to say no to you, ＠yourusername! ♥️ liked by author

user ferrari 🤝🏻 lewis hamilton

user he sees yn walk into the ferrari garage and he suddenly forgets how to use words

user cackling my man is down BAD

user on live camera, may i add

♥️ liked by lewishamilton, roscoelovescoco, and others

f1 we all know who silverstone's real hometown hero is

👥: roscoelovescoco

view comments

user thee main character

user roscoe knows he's THAT dog

roscoelovescoco you’s bet's!

user i got that dog in me and it's roscoe hamilton

user can i pet that dawggggggg

user replied to your story: cuties!

user replied to your story: that's lewis hamilton's dog

user replied to your story: girl why did you dognap lewis hamilton's sole heir???? 😭

scuderiaferrari replied to your story: hello, yn! that seems to be lewis hamilton's dog. if it's not a bother, can you bring him over to the motorhome?

roscoelovescoco replied to your story: omg's, that's me's!

roscoelovescoco replied to your story: Sorry, kindly ignore the first message. This is Lewis Hamilton. I'm Roscoe's owner. Where exactly are you parked right now?

new notification: message from +44*** *** ****

♥️ liked by georgerussell, yourusername, and others

lewishamilton Wait for it

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user wait for WHAT

user ferrari to get their shit together, probably

user 8th wdc loading...

user so uhm that's literally ＠yourusername in the second pic...

user theyve been spotted around the place the past two days so i think they're just exploring the town?

user were they friends before??? why are they together???? chat i don't understand what's happening

user who's writing the script i think we have the wrong hamilton here 😭

maxverstappen1 hamilton hesitates...

charlesleclerc he exhibits restraint...

lando he waits and he waits and he waits...

scuderiaferrari and he keeps winning anyway ;)

georgerussell u sure ＠scuderiaferrari?

lewishamilton 🤦‍♂️

user everytime i'm reminded half of the grid are actually hamilfans an angel gains its wings

♥️ liked by philipasoo, lewishamilton, and others

yourusername touristed too hard i became half british

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user king george was right, you'll be back 😂

user guys we're losing her...

user mother come back to new york now it's been waiting for you welcome to new york welcome to new york

lewishamilton ❤️ ♥️ liked by author

lando lemme edit your wikipedia page into american-british actress now

yourusername oh, you don't have to

lando why? you're officially an honorary brit as declared by me and ＠georgerussell

georgerussell i gotta say your accent is pretty spot-on ＠yourusername

yourusername why thank you, george! i'm flattered x

lando oh it already says american-british here

lando why does it already say american british here?????

yourusername lando, i'm half british

user ^ do they not know she's half-british???? LMFAO 😭

✪ Only people on your close friends list can see this post.

lewishamilton teach me how to say goodbye

ⓘ Comments have been turned off for this post.

♥️ liked by lewishamilton, daveeddiggs, and others

yourusername hello, is this the greatest city in the world? 📞⭐🫀

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user SHE'S BACK

user ok stunner!

user call me gal gadot because i don't know how to act rn

user how can you say no to this? 🤩

user you simply don't. right ＠lewishamilton? ♥️ liked by lewishamilton

user see? 🤣

♥️ liked by lewishamilton, lando, and others

yourusername get yourself a british guy who would record himself doing a one-man show of hamilton the american musical as a way of saying he likes you

👥: lewishamilton

user he did what now????

lewishamilton I told y'all to wait for it, didn't I 🤷‍♂️

georgerussell i'm so smart

maxverstappen1 So this was your plan? 😕

charles_leclerc when you told us you're ready to do it, i didn't expect ‘it’ would a three-hour performance

maxverstappen1 Is that why you said it will mess up your schedule? 🫠

charles_leclerc i thought ‘it’ was flying to nyc 😭

georgerussell blimey, stop being a party pooper! if it works, it works!

georgerussell plus, he really did flew to new york 🙄

lewishamilton I love you guys 🥰

lewishamilton And thank you, Georgie ❤️

georgerussell anything for my favorite teammate ❤️

georgerussell so can we see the video? 😁

lewishamilton No

georgerussell skill issue 💁‍♂️

lando you genuinely still like him even after all that????

yourusername wdym? i liked him even wayyy before that

yourusername why'd you think i let him tour me around my own hometown?

lando  oh damn you're down bad too

lando that's great. u two are meant to be 👍

user lin-manuel miranda found jobless

user now i need the next performance to include max, charles, lando, and george

♥️ liked by hamiltonmusical, yourusername, and others

lewishamilton schuyler sisters’ peggy, hamilton's maria reynolds, my dearest, yn. you are an inspiration to me and to many, and i'm so lucky to witness your magic both on and off the stage. thank you for walking into the ferrari garage & my life, and for not saying no to me. x

l. ham

👥: yourusername

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hamiltonmusical raise a glass 🥂

lando y'all are so cheesyyyyy 😵‍💫

maxverstappen1 he's crying

charles_leclerc can confirm. he really is crying

georgerussell brilliant show, ＠yourusername & ＠hamiltonmusical 👏

georgerussell also, i apologize for whatever the brits did in the past 🙏

georgerussell and congratulations on your independence

maxverstappen1 don't let him fool you he's just saying that because he had a taste of american bbq

user 😭😭😭😭😭

user this is my avengers endgame

yourusername if there's a reason i'm by your side, then i'm willing to wait for it ♡ ♥️ liked by author

lewishamilton trust me, i'll make it worth it

lando i'm a trust fund baby u can trust meee 🤪

yourusername ＠lando blocked.

fin. ° ᡣ𐭩 .

🎬 post-credits

© fourkisses 2025.

[iaheybaee]

Oh yeah

[iaheybaee]

okay so i suck at making smaus but at least i have funny texts and tweets

[iaheybaee]

sooo i was thinking… ollie bearman x sainz!reader smau???

[iaheybaee]

WHY HAVEN'T I SEEN THIS BEFORE??? WHY ARE YOU PEOPLE GATEKEEPING LANDOSCAR LORE FROM ME