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pearlessance · 2 days ago

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ugh i loveeed!!! i'm such a sucker for friends to lovers these two are so adorable

CRUSH

young!tommy miller x best friend!reader summary: tommy's painfully in love with you, and you might be just as bad. warnings: yearning, alcohol, cigarettes, weed, the works, physical fighting, mentioned parental abuse, slut shaming, insinuated joel x reader but they are very much NOT a thing, swearing, mentions of chemistry class, lots of making out mentioned and otherwise, some middle school activities that they are too old for but i couldn't resist writing—going back to my roots! no beta. wc: 12.8k notes: i've been working on this for a while and had to post it or it may never have seen the light of day. i hope you enjoy it mwah!

dividers by @saradika-graphics

You think the only place you ever want to be is in Tommy Miller’s arms. Cradled, wrapped up tight, and held firm. It doesn’t hurt his case that you already love to be in bed. Enveloped by a soft mattress, some clean sheets, and fluffy pillows. Your best friend just makes it better.

You can think all this as you’re succumbing to sleep, but your subconscious must disagree—you roll and stretch for hours, and Tommy narrowly avoids your hand coming down across his head. But he never really minds getting kicked in the middle of the night. As long as he manages to stay on the bed, maintain some real estate, he’ll never complain.

It always starts the same.

A gentle tap at the glass. You can sometimes hear him coming. He crawls up the side of your garage like a spider, and you always let him in. Sometimes with just a wave of your hand—you’re hunched over a pile of schoolwork on your desk, putting off the moment that you’ll lean away from it and never look back. His favorite nights are the ones when you’re already finished, when you get up from your book or magazine and cross the room with a smile on your face, and roll up the window for him.

Your least favorite are the days when you see his face, and your smile falls. A bruise on his jaw, or his cheekbone, often still forming but sometimes already purple, when you know he’s been sulking around town for a few hours already.

“What this time?” you whisper, running your fingers over his face.

And he’ll reply, “The usual. Mom’s upset I ain’t dating someone like Heather. I think they think I’m running around Austin fucking girls all over the place.”

You snort.

“At least someone thinks I get around,” he tries to grin, but winces. “Dad,” he adds, gesturing to his face. “Y’know.”

He doesn’t like those nights either. He’ll try and tell you it’s fine, because he’d rather move on, put something on your record player, and make you laugh with his stupid jokes. But you’ll sigh, sit him down on your bed, and he’ll mess with your stuffed rabbit until you come back upstairs with an ice pack.

“Mom says she needs some help on her car, by the way,” you say as you shut your door.

“Fuck,” Tommy mutters. “How does she even know I’m here? I’m so stealthy.”

“Uh-huh.” You press the rice bag your mom made herself to his cheek. “She knows everything, man. Gotta earn a living somehow.”

“I still think it’s a scam,” Tommy whispers, like he’s afraid your mother’s going to appear behind him.

“Wow,” you drawl as you stand between his knees, examining the bruise. There’s a bit of a gash, too, already starting to scab over. “You really know how to flatter a girl, accusing her mother of fraud.”

“Who says I’m trying to flirt?” Tommy cocks his head. You narrow your eyes, grab his face by the jaw and hold it still, and he winces.

“You,” you grin. “I never said flirt.”

He rolls his eyes. “Fine. Whatever.” He grabs a pillow and lays back, which you protest, climbing up the bed to hold the ice pack to his face.

“I can do it myself,” he mutters, his hand coming to rest atop the one you’re holding to his cheek.

“Yeah, but you don’t want to,” you tease.

He looks for anything in your eyes, but all he finds is humor. “Guess not.” He feels pathetic, the way you have this hold on him, the way he savors every moment like this, where despite his efforts not to, he can pretend you’re his.

He doesn’t have to pretend that he’s yours.

You’ve been Tommy Miller’s best friend since he was in first grade. He thinks he’s had a crush on you about as long.

It’s not like he’s trying to hide it, either. He just doesn't know how to make you understand it’s not a joke. It’s what he gets for eleven straight years of messing around.

Your skin is getting paler—even though the sun’s still out for the summer, since school’s started you haven’t had as much time to be outside. It’s damaged from the hours you spent out at your summer job at a nature center just outside town, but it still looks soft. He studies the way the collar of your hoodie sits on your neck, on the skin beneath your hair, and imagines how it would feel to run his fingers along it. His lips.

He almost had a shot at it being his hoodie you were wearing.

1982. You were in seventh grade, he was in sixth.

He was supposed to be in your grade—a fact he was still constantly upset about. He was old enough even though were almost a year older—your birthday in August, his birthday in April, but before his parents moved from Arlington to Austin, he and Joel had been homeschooled by their elderly neighbor, Mrs. Abbots, who seemed more interested in whacking them with rulers than teaching phonics.

Joel somehow picked it up on his own, getting into 5th grade after the move, but Tommy got stuck in kindergarten instead of first grade. It’s commonly brought up in the Miller household, when his mother remembers just how much better his older brother is than him, but that’s not what Tommy really minds. He just wishes you could have gone to school together.

But it was his first year at the gigantic middle-high school, and you had shown him where his classes were, how to get around the crowds in the parking lot at the end of the day to find Joel’s car. It was Joel’s sweatshirt that was your favorite, the one you would wear to school whenever he would leave it at your house.

Tommy hated how you idolized his older brother. He never seemed to be able to see that you saw Joel like your own big brother, even though Tommy was the one you wanted to hang out with. Tommy was your best friend.

He didn’t understand that part of it was your way of navigating middle school politics—you figured out very quickly that the popular girls hung out around the shop classrooms, where their crushes would be in class or hanging out, and their attention had quickly shifted from the seventh grade boys to the handsome older guy that was always quietly working on his carving projects in studio five.

You had decided to capitalize on the matter, subtly introducing them to your “friend Joel,” who lived next door and drove you home every day. You loved the attention you got when you were hanging on the steps outside the studios, and Joel would come out, give you a look, and ask if that was his hoodie.

It was obviously his, five sizes too big for you and in rough shape around the edges. You noticed how your friends started trying to sit by you first at lunch (or on the woodshop steps). You tried explaining it to Tommy, but he was all too concerned, in your opinion, in whether your friends were friends with you for you or Joel.

You loved Heather, when she and Joel first started dating. You still do. The two of you could talk for hours about school and the world at dinner, if your mom didn’t swing the conversation to something she, Joel, and Tommy could keep up with.

One night, you were talking about bugs—you used to be fucking obsessed with cicadas—when you noticed Heather shiver a bit. You were about to ask if she wanted you to turn the heat up, when Joel reached around the back of his chair and handed her his hoodie. Your hoodie.

To his credit, he gave you a look—is it okay if she takes it?—and you nodded. But even though you were happy for Joel—really, really, happy, and obsessed with Heather, you felt a pang of jealousy as she smiled and slid it on over her head. It wasn’t that you had a crush on Joel or anything. You thought it was gross that your friends did.

You’d just always been his girl. When you’d run up after school and he’d pick you up and swing you around in his arms, when he’d try his best to help with your math homework even though you were better at it than him. You liked that he let you wear his sweatshirt. It made you feel special.

But Tommy noticed. He noticed the flash of hurt in your eyes even as you nodded at Joel.

A few days later, he was working up the courage—he wasn’t sure why the idea made him nervous, but it did—to ask if you wanted one of his sweatshirts to wear to school, when Josh Walsh entered the picture.

He asked you out with a stupid note in your stupid music class (it had to be that one—in all your academic subjects you were in the higher levels that Josh could only dream of testing into), and it was all you could talk about for weeks. How sweet he was, how he brought you flowers from the football field during gym. How he gave you his sweatshirt to wear.

You gossiped and giggled with Heather over dinner, and the two of you would disappear to your room to talk about your boyfriends, much to Joel’s dismay, but leaving him and your mother, Michelle, to tease his little brother over his obvious disgruntlement.

That was when Tommy thinks he put the pieces together about how he felt for you.

It was also the first time he crawled through your window, with the lame excuse of practicing his climbing for when he got a girlfriend.

“I’m fuckin’ scared,” he said, one night, hurrying through the window frame. He’d also started swearing more. “Some cop ratted us out to Dad for fighting. He’s talkin’ to Joel now, but I’m definitely getting the belt later.”

“I’m sorry,” you’d said, wrapping your arms around his shoulders. “You can stay here as long as you want. We’ll feed you.”

He knew it was true, but he knew he had to go back home. It wasn’t the best hiding place, the house next door.

You’d sat in silence for a few minutes, just leaning on his shoulder and sitting with him, when you asked:

“Tommy, why aren’t you using the front door?”

“Saw it in a movie.”

“Yeah, but that’s for kids sneaking around. My mom would give you a cookie as you came upstairs if you went through the house.”

He rolled his eyes. You just didn’t get it. “It’s more fun this way,” he’d laugh.

He didn’t run away to your place anymore. He’d wait it out, take whatever was coming to him from his dad, and then come to you. And you’d lie next to one another, listening to the Talking Heads, and talking about anything and everything. And he’d fiddle with the strings of your boyfriend’s hoodie. Nevermind that he doesn't know Tommy’s the one in your bed most nights of the week.

He always knows you’re going to fall asleep before you do—you keep talking, but your words get slower, more slurred, until you’re mumbling nonsense and burying your face in his shoulder.

Most of the time he’ll wait until you’re asleep and sneak out. He doesn’t take the window on the way out—he only really does it for your amusement. He’ll head downstairs and say goodnight to your mother, who’s also more of a mother figure to him and his brother than their own, and who’s always kept an unpredictable sleep schedule (on one occasion, she was even in the middle of a reading for a client, who had to be convinced Tommy wasn’t her high school lover from 50 years ago).

Sometimes, though, he won’t fight the sleepiness overcoming him. He’ll slip further down the bed, wrap his arms around your shoulders, and fall asleep himself.

Potentially needless to say, Tommy Miller hates Josh Walsh.

His name, for starters. He thinks it’s stupid that it rhymes, and that he would decide for it to do so by deciding to go by Josh instead of Joshua.

He uses that as his excuse, but what he really hates is seeing him near you. He hates the feeling he gets in his stomach when Josh crosses the cafeteria, the dread that causes almost physical pain at knowing what comes next: how he’s going to kiss you lamely, grab your ass, and sit down to put his arm around your shoulders but talk almost exclusively with his friends, sitting next to yours.

Objectively speaking, the friends are much worse than Josh himself—he’s listened night after night as you complain about how none of them can treat your friends right, how they’re on-and-off or cheating on each other, or how you’ve been told that they all have tiny dicks. Information Tommy wishes he could share with Luke and Kevyn, but doesn’t have a good enough excuse for how he came to know it.

He doesn’t tell them about the nights you spend together, even though he knows you talk about him openly with your friends. It’s different for you. Your friends see him as Joel’s baby brother, the loser you keep around for some reason who’s cute enough, they guess. They’re nice to him, will sit by him in class because he’s funny, and will make chem go by faster, but they always ask too many questions about his brother. It turns science into a long hour of yes, he’s still with Heather, yeah, they’re great, yeah, she’s great.

It got a little less Joel-centric after Tommy made out with Lucy Parker at a party a few months ago, and apparently got a rave review (as you reported back. He’s pretty sure Lucy wasn’t close enough with you to know that what was said about Tommy around you was going to make its way to him). But he wasn’t really into her. He was polite, told her he didn’t think he was what she was looking for, but still you rolled your eyes at him that night, and he tried to ignore the ache in his chest as you listed off the fifty reasons you thought they’d be cute together.

To Tommy’s friends, you’re the girl he pines over, but can’t quite win over. They know you live next door, but they don’t know that Tommy and his brother practically live at your house that he loves, all colorful and eccentric thanks to your mother, a professional psychic. He hates it when they talk about you, but telling them to shut the hell up just spurs them on. It could be worse. It’s not like they’re objectifying you—a term he learned from your mother during his state (Michelle)-mandated lecture on how to treat girls going into high school (Joel received the same one years prior, to seemingly better results—i.e. Heather. Of course his older brother had to go and bag the valedictorian).

It just doesn’t matter how many times he tries to convince them that he’s not trying to “bag” you, they’ll still lay into him about stepping up his game. They don’t get that Tommy’s more than happy (fine, he’s content) being your real best friend. He likes that no one knows just how close you are, that he knows everything about your life and you everything about his. He sits in chem and pretends he doesn’t know the details of the dating history of the girl sitting with him, and it fills him with pride each time they talk about you and he realizes he knows more about something going on with you than they do.

The guys you hang out with—Josh’s friends—are the real issue. They seemingly have it out for you, since you’re the reason their girlfriends think they have a shot with Joel, even if he’s been in a committed relationship for five years and, at twenty-one, isn’t looking twice at your seventeen year old friends. But they still bat their eyelashes at him when he picks you up from school, and their boyfriends seem to take it out on you. The shit he’s heard them say when Josh isn’t around, or even when he is, seemingly on a mission to break them up.

Tommy’s not a violent person, but he wants to beat them into the walls of that fucking room until their lockers are dented in.

He thinks they say it in front of him to try and rile him up. Because they know. They have to know.

He gets the shit beaten out of him one afternoon, after gym. The gym feels like a swamp in the September Texas heat, and he’s still pissed at Luke and Kevyn for making up some medical excuse to get out of the class, which Joel wouldn’t let him get away with. He pushes the door into the musty locker room open, and makes his way to his corner, where he’ll try and avoid the senior boys, but of course he seems to walk right into an ongoing conversation.

“Can’t believe he’s still fucking with her, man,” Paul Connor snickers. Tommy tenses, unsure of who they’re talking about, but he thinks can make some educated guesses.

“It’s gnarly, dude,” his friend—Chris—responds. “Doesn’t he know his girlfriend’s a fuckin’ slut?” Tommy clenches his fist to avoid spinning around, but he can feel their eyes on his back, and though they haven’t mentioned your name, it’s clear to him who they’re talking about. Not that it should matter, your mom’s voice echoes in his head, and he shakes his head to himself. He’s not getting involved, no matter who it is. You’d be so disappointed in him.

But that’s before his ears start ringing and the space behind his eyes starts to ache with rage.

“You think he and Miller’s girl know she blows him when he drives her home?”

As if. Tommy might throw up.

“Nah. Think he fucks her in the damn truck.”

And just as Tommy’s thinking about whose head he wants to slam into a locker first, he hears his name.

“Which is it, huh?” He turns. Probably a mistake. He’s sure his face is red.

Tommy doesn’t say anything. He crosses the room slowly, Paul snickering as he approaches. He’d like to say he wasn’t thinking, that he was being stupid.

But he thinks about it. He calculates the best time to draw his fist back and hit Chris so hard across the jaw that it bleeds on first impact.

Before he knows it, Paul’s coming down on him too, and the other guys in the locker room start to cheer and chant. Tommy lands blow after blow on Chris’s face, and a good elbow to Paul’s stomach, but at the end of the day it’s 2 on 1 and they’ve probably each got fifty pounds on him.

There’s shouting and chanting and whooping from all sides, and a sharp pain in Tommy’s ribcage and his eye. He’s losing, bad. He feels his head slammed into the side of the lockers, and his body falls to the ground. Right, he thinks. This is why you don’t want him getting involved.

But before it can get worse, the blows stop, and the shouting ceases. He opens his eyes with a groan, and sees a figure standing between him and the assholes, and leans back in defeat. Of course Josh fucking Walsh had to come to his rescue. Maybe he’s spontaneously decided he doesn’t despise Tommy so much after all.

“Fucking idiots,” Josh shoves his friends. “Get out of here.” Tommy doesn’t hear what the boys respond with, but he notices them leaving. And a hand in his face, which he pretends not to notice, pushing himself up with a wince.

“You okay, man?”

“Yeah, I’m fine,” he mutters, brushing off his jeans.

“Just ignore ‘em, they’re assholes,” Josh says.

“You seem to like ‘em just fine,” he snaps. He really wishes the older boy would just leave him alone. “Thanks,” he adds begrudgingly, nodding to the door, figuring it’s the polite thing to do.

Josh sighs. “You know how it is.” Tommy rolls his eyes, out of sight.

But he keeps talking.“Y’know, Lucy’s been asking about you.”

Tommy turns faster than he should’ve. “What?”

“She likes you,” Josh continues. “Had a good time at the party.”

Tommy has to stop himself from groaning aloud. “I heard.” He pulls his T-shirt on over the bruises on his chest.

“It’s fine if you aren’t into her, just…”

He knows he should let the silence go, but he’s getting irritated again, and he doesn’t think quite straight when he’s annoyed. “Just?”

“Thought it could help.”

“Help?”

“Yeah… like, y’know. With the guys. Generally. Whatever.”

“What’re you talkin’ about?” Tommy asks, genuinely confused at this point. He thinks Josh might seriously be one of the slowest people on Earth. What you see in the guy is so far beyond him it may as well be in space. With Josh’s brain.

“Like, y’know. So they stop picking on you. Or a little less.”

“You think I should ask Lucy out so that your friends can find someone else to beat the shit out of?” Tommy narrows his eyes. He’s trying not to laugh at Josh, finding the conversation so incredibly ludicrous that he doesn’t care about admitting he got his shit rocked. Mostly, he’s wishing he could make fun of Josh to you, but he decided he wasn’t allowed to a while ago—half because it makes you upset or annoyed, depending on the day (although you’re allowed to make fun of him to Tommy—he just nods his head and tries not to agree too hard), and half in his attempt to cover up the fact that he’s desperately in love with you.

“Well, when you put it like that—”

“They were talking shit about your girlfriend, man.” Tommy rolls his eyes and turns to packing up his stuff.

“What?”

“They weren’t fucking picking on me, or whatever you seem to have…” he trails off. He’s not going to be too mean. “They were saying some fucked up shit about her, and…” he gestures to where he was on the ground a couple minutes ago. He can’t seem to finish a sentence. He glances at Josh, who’s running a hand through his hair. “Pretty shit friends you’ve got.”

Josh is quiet. Tommy stands there awkwardly for a moment, watching him, until the boy mutters. “Yeah. Thanks, man.” He gets his stuff and heads for the door. “She’d appreciate it.”

You wouldn’t, which is why he lies getting in the car Joel, telling him Kevyn was getting jumped by some super senior who thought he was getting hustled buying weed, and lets his brother lay into him for twenty minutes on the drive home.

He’s relieved not to run into you before climbing through your window that night, glad he can blame his father, which would normally be the truth. Glad that he can hold you in his arms after you grab him ice, and fall asleep with you next to him.

Six months ago, Tommy had what he thought would be the best night of his life.

It started when he came over for dinner one night in early April, and you asked him to go to prom with you. His eyes nearly bulged out of his head.

He meets his brother’s eyes, which offer him no assistance. “Hell no,” he said, mouth full of pizza.

“Oh come on,” you press, “I want you to be there!” You pause. Then, coyly: “I told my friends I might invite you, and Lucy seemed very interested.” Tommy rolls his eyes, embarrassed to be talking about this with your mother six feet away in the kitchen.

“Lucy?” Heather grins, leaning into the table. Joel even raises an eyebrow.

“I know you’re already gonna make me go next year, that’s bad enough.”

“Well who am I supposed to dance with?” “Have you considered Joshua?”

Heather makes a face and Joel tries not to laugh. Even your mother snorts a little from the kitchen.

“He’s so boring. He’s going to be with his friends all night. I’m gonna be with mine, you included. It’ll be fun! Just come on, we’ll all dance, and you can dance with Lucy when they play something slow!”

Tommy turns a little red despite his best efforts. He knows there’s no getting out of this. But at least he has an opportunity to make himself look a little less pathetic in front of Joel, Heather, and Michelle, three people he thinks might actually know about his feelings for you.

“Fine,” he rolls his eyes, pretending to give in because of Lucy. (He’s not fooling anyone.) “I’ll go, I’ll go!”

Which is how he ends up here, in the ballroom of some hotel in town, leaning back on a table with some spiked punch in his left hand. He’s wearing Joel’s old suit that he wore to this same function, and it’s a little big on him, but you assured him he made it work.

He borrowed Joel’s car to drive Lucy here. They’ve played one slow song, and they danced together, and she kissed him. He returned it, but his mind was elsewhere, just like it was back at Jackie’s a few weeks ago.

He was more annoyed than he should have been when he found you by the drinks, and you smirked and told him he had lipstick on his face, but he grins like he knew it, and pretends to give in as he takes a napkin from your hand.

But it’s been fun, too, like you said it would be. He’s always surprised by the fact that your friends are funny, which you scold him for, but he’s glad to be reminded of it now. None of their dates want to dance with you guys to the upbeat music, and being with “the only cool one,” (not his words) pleases Lucy. He sees you smirk in the corner when she tells all your friends.

They’re just starting something new, another slow song, when he sees you alone, leaning against your table. Before Lucy can notice, he slips away from the group of her and your other friends, sliding between couples to reach you. He grabs your drink from your hand and sniffs it.

“How’d they get this in here, anyway?” he says as he winces at the smell. It’s sickly sweet and bitter at the same time—probably from the bottom of the bowl. He hands it back—he’s driving tonight— and you finish the cup.

“No one cares what the football team does, obviously,” you say drily.

“Ah,” he taps his fingers on the table. “Joshua.”

You scoff. “Why do you call him that?” you almost snap.

“Is it not his name?” Tommy raises an eyebrow.

You give him a look. “Whatever.”

“Where is he, anyway? Thought you were doing the slow dances together. It was actually in my contract for the night, if I recall.”

“Don’t be a fucking asshole,” you say, but there’s no malice. You mess with a hem on your dress, and Tommy watches your hand. When he doesn’t leave to go dance, which you guess you didn’t really expect him to do anyway, you shake your head. “I’m fine.”

He studies you for a moment. “Wanna dance?”

“Oh, come on.”

“I’m serious.”

“Where’s your date?”

“I was under the impression that you were, technically.”

You sigh. Sure, he was technically your plus one, not Lucy’s. On the actual list.

“Where is she?”

“With Nicole, I think.” He clicks his tongue. “They seem pretty into each other, I dunno,” he grins. “They seem fine to me.”

You roll your eyes again, but he extends his hand, and you take it. You drop your head back in surrender, and Tommy has to look away from the stretch of your neck, glistening in the dark lighting.

He pulls you to the edge of the dance floor, where you can’t see your friends looking around, or the punch table, or any chaperones. Just couples you sort of recognize around you, swaying to the music. You laugh together at how off-beat they all are.

For a moment, you just stand there, your hand still in his. Then you grab his other, and pull them to your waist. He grins as you drape your arms around his neck, and start to pull him to the rhythm of the song.

Tommy’s gotten used to the way he feels around you. The way he can’t focus on anything else, because you’re there, taking up every atom of his consciousness. But you look so fucking beautiful right now that he might lose his mind.

Your hair’s messier than at the beginning of the night, more yours—but better, Tommy thinks, than the way Heather had styled it. Even though it was fun to sit and observe with Joel and Michelle as she tried her best.

Your dress is beautiful—not as crazy as some here, but silky with puffy sleeves at the shoulders(? Tommy’s not sure what they’re called)—he’d been there when you went over patterns your mom thought she could make and beautiful fabrics you guys figured you could afford enough of.

He was there when you tried it on, when Joel kicked him to say something and stop sitting there like a moron.

Your lipstick’s smudged, probably from making out with Josh earlier, but he can’t seem to find the normal jealousy within him, not when he’s the one who’s so close he could lean in and kiss you right now. God, he’s never wanted anything so badly in his life.

He resists, though. Tries to let himself enjoy the moment, try to memorize it. He tries not to feel the horrible sinking in his stomach when the song comes to an end.

Together you make your way back to your friends. Some of their dates have shown up, and you all spin wildly to the next few songs of the night. Josh isn’t there, though, and Tommy lets himself dance a little too close to you. He can’t help the feeling in his chest when you meet his eyes to give him a look, or laugh at what an idiot Ben looks like trying to dance. Or when you make eye contact and jerk your head toward the drinks.

The two of you slip away, and Tommy pours you a cup from the refreshed bowl of punch. Thankfully, he doesn't think this one’s been spiked yet. You don’t really need another drink.

On the other hand… You flick Tommy’s jacket back to reach for his pocket, a satisfied grin crossing your face when you feel the joint he’s got rolled up with his lighter.

He’s just trying not to short-circuit as your hand brushes his chest.

“You wanna go?”

He nods, too fast, Lucy and everyone else in the room forgotten.

You don’t say goodbye to anyone but Jackie, to get Lucy a ride home. She gives Tommy a look, but waves you off regardless.

He doesn’t realize how hot it is inside until the cool spring night hits your face. You sigh and spin in a circle, arms flung out to your sides. Crossing the parking lot, you ask if you can drive.

“You’re funny,” Tommy says drily, opening the passenger door for you. You narrow your eyes playfully, but get in anyway.

You protest as he drives back to your house. “We should go to the reservoir, it’s such a nice night for it!” you argue.

“And what if I want to smoke, too, huh? Then how the fuck we gettin’ home?”

You roll your eyes, but accept your fate. “Fine. But I want to crawl in through my window. Like you do.”

“What the hell do you want to do that for, huh?”

“Because. I’ve been drinking and I should be hiding from my mom. It’s no fair she’s so… y’know. Open minded.”

“Trust me, you don’t want it the other way,” he says, and you fall silent. But he doesn’t let it settle. “You’re still tipsy and you’re gonna crack your neck open trying to climb the side of your house,” he laughs.

“Not if you’re there to catch me,” you smile, staring over at him.

Tommy’s at a loss, so he rolls his eyes. But he caves, and he finds himself spotting you as you impressively climb your way up the side of your house and through your window. He follows, somehow louder, and swears to himself.

He tumbles into your room, where you’re digging around in your drawers for pyjamas. You’ve switched on your lamps, and there’s a warm glow around the room, complemented by your red patterned rug and the pink quilt your mom made when you were six.

He practically loses all ability to speak when your voice rings, softer than outside, “unzip me?” His heart beating far faster than it should, he crosses the room. Your shoulders ripple as though you can feel his gaze on them.

You shiver as his knuckle grazes your neck, as he pinches the top of the zipper. And he draws it down your back, staring at his socks as he does so.

He spins around when you start to pull it down over your shoulders, and you laugh. “You don’t have to, like, be weird, Tommy. You can look,” you say mockingly. At least, it sounds mocking to him.

He doesn’t know whether you realize how fucking mean you’re being.

But he just shrugs and studies a pile of books on your nightstand. He doesn’t trust himself to look at you like that and not lose his mind completely.

“I don’t think Josh would appreciate that very much,” he says, and immediately regrets it when he hears your scoff behind him.

It’s not a lie, but it would be a lie to say that he gives a fuck what Josh thinks. But that’s not why he regrets it.

“Josh doesn’t own me,” you reproach.

He’s ashamed of himself for saying it—he should have known how it sounded, how you would hear it. Your mother’s taught him better.

“I’m sorry,” he mumbles. When he realizes you might not have heard him, he says it a little louder.

There isn’t a more intense roller coaster on the planet than the next ten seconds of Tommy Miller’s life, as you speak.

“You’re my best friend, he needs to get over this like, weird jealous thing he’s got going on.” He hears you slip on your pajamas and get into bed, but he can’t turn around yet. He can’t let you see what’s probably written all over his face, the heartbreak that always comes with being referred to as your best friend. But he also can’t help the little smirk that comes at the thought of Josh being jealous of him. And then: “I think I might break up with him.”

At that, Tommy can’t help but spin around. “What!?”

You give him a look. “What?”

“You’re breaking up with him?”

“I said maybe, Jesus.”

“You’ve been together for like, four years, five? years.”

“You don’t think that’s way too long to be with someone at this point?” you laugh. “I’m going to college next year, I was going to break up with him by then or to be honest, I think my mother would have done it for me.”

“Does he know that?” Tommy doesn’t know why he’s getting like this, and from your face, neither do you. He’s certainly never come to Josh’s defense before.

“I don’t know. Probably.”

“This isn’t the kind of place where people go off to college, though. This is the kind of place where people marry their high school sweethearts and settle down and raise more football players.”

“I mean, he knows I’m going to college.”

“Does he?”

“Why are you being so weird? You don’t even like him!”

“I never–”

“Oh, please. You’ve never fucking liked him, I don’t understand why you’re taking his side here!”

Tommy goes quiet. “You’re right. I’m sorry. Break up with him if you want, I don’t care.” He may as well be made of straw, as superficial as it feels to say he doesn’t care about anything regarding you—let alone this.

He sees something flicker behind your eyes, but he can’t tell what. It’s a rare occurrence.

He considers apologizing again, but doesn’t. Instead, he shrugs off his jacket, grabs the joint from the inner pocket, and lights it in the window, taking a drag before crawling into bed next to you and handing it over—a peace offering.

You take it—duh. And you take such a long hit that Tommy starts to get concerned, but you just lean into his shoulder and pass it back, dropping your head on his shoulder.

“Thank you for coming, Tommy.”

He gazes at the top of your head, at your thighs in your pyjama pants just above the top of the quilt. “Yeah, of course.”

“I had a lot of fun, believe it or not.”

He snorts. “Really? Chris stepping on your foot twice in a row didn’t ruin it for you?”

“Almost,” you laugh. “Not quite. I had the best dancing partner in the house.”

“Shut up,” he tilts his head back. Your ceiling is covered in those glow-in the dark stars, though they’re just green with all the lamps on. He’s familiar with the pattern of them—he’s spent countless nights staring up at them as you sleep beside him. Nights he sleeps at his house, he’ll try to pick stars out of the sky, despite the Austin light pollution, and imagine they’re the ones on your ceiling.

He slides out, and you moan and grumble as he turns the lights off and puts a record on, but it’s worth the way you wrap your arms around him when he pulls the blanket back over himself.

You lay silent for so long that he thinks you’re asleep, when you murmur, “I’m going to break up with him.”

And Tommy falls asleep elated, lighter than he has in five years.

He’s in the bathroom in the morning when he hears the arguing start. He shuts off the sink, listening intently. It’s not your mom, you never argue this early in the morning. And you rarely sound this mad at each other.

It’s Josh.

Tommy’s eyes widen, and he realizes it would be very bad for you if Josh realizes he spent the night here. He sneaks down the hall and down the stairs, grateful that he had pyjamas here and that he put Joel’s suit folded up in the laundry room, where Josh wouldn’t see it. He heads downstairs as quietly as he can, making eye contact with your mother as he enters the kitchen with a mutual “eek.”

He planned on running back next door, but your mom is shoving a plate of pancakes in front of him before he can say anything, and he’s forced to sit and stay. What can he really do? They’re the best pancakes in the world. Worth whatever punch Josh Walsh’ll throw at him.

They sit in silence, listening to the yelling upstairs, which Tommy quickly wishes wasn’t quite so loud.

“What the hell am I supposed to think? Huh? David said you were like, grinding up on him all fucking night!”

Tommy goes bright red. “I—” he starts, food left on his fork. “We weren’t…” But your mother just rolls her eyes and dismisses him with a wave of her hand.

“Idiot,” she whispers, pointing at the ceiling, and Tommy grins.

“Are you fucking serious?” you shout upstairs. “Do you just listen to everything David tells you? Where the hell were you last night? I was fucking looking for you!”

Tommy knew you were just dancing with him because you couldn’t find your boyfriend, but it still stings to hear.

“I was… I was around! Okay! Sorry I was fucking socializing! I was talking to my friends!”

Your voice drops. “Fucking… whatever, Josh, just go. I’m fucking tired. We’ll talk about this later.”

“Can we just—”

“No.”

But Josh doesn’t drop it, so your mother calls up for you to help with breakfast, and you call back that you’ll be right there.

Tommy tries to get up as Josh comes downstairs, but he’s not quick enough. Thankfully, it does look like he could’ve just come over for breakfast, but Josh sees him.

“For fuck’s sake,” he mutters, making eye contact with Tommy as he passes him by.

“Bye, Josh!” Your mom calls politely as he leaves. When the door swings shut, though, she turns to Tommy, and they laugh.

It falters when you come trudging downstairs, obviously in a bad mood.

“Sorry about that,” you mumble. “Didn’t realize he was coming.”

“It’s okay, sweetheart,” your mom kisses your forehead. “Have some food.” You sit on the stool next to Tommy’s, drowning your pancakes in maple syrup and shoving them in your mouth.

Your mother turns back to you both, fixing something on the stove, and Tommy turns to you. “You break up?” he asks quietly, and prays he doesn’t sound too hopeful.

“Nah,” you mutter. “Not yet.” And you take another bite.

The music is good, something with some good synths that seems to have gotten twice as many people undressing each other with their eyes as usual. You grab another cup of punch, careful not to spill it on your costume, and sip on it, leaning against the wall as you look for Jackie to pop back up.

Tommy didn’t want to come to this party, didn’t want to sit around and flirt with girls while he tried not to stare at you making out with Josh. But Kevyn and Luke had a bunch of stuff to sell, and had promised him twenty percent just for getting them in. One of the benefits of being the best friend of the most popular girl in school.

You see him before he sees you, across the room, and a wave of heat you can’t stop rushes through you. Stop it, you think. You can’t start thinking like that. But you’re a few drinks deep, and it is really hot in here.

And he looks entirely too good in his costume, whatever it is. His t-shirt is tight against his chest, and there’s a thin sheen of sweat on his neck, which you can’t help staring at. A few of his curls are sticking to his forehead, and his arm flexes when he raises it above his head to keep his drink out of danger from spilling when people rush by.

He catches you staring, and grins. And then he fucking winks at you.

And then you make possibly the worst decision you could have. “You should start up seven minutes in heaven,” you turn to Jackie, who’s just reappeared. You pretend it’s just popped into your head. “For old times’ sake.” Jackie’s been hosting these parties since middle school, when the only way you guys knew how to have fun was a spin of a bottle or the draw of a card. Since then, you’ve pulled it out at parties to spur drama. Despite the forced protests of its being a middle school game, it’s not hard to get a bunch of horny teenagers to agree to be locked in a closet with someone to make out with and grind up against.

She pretends to consider it, but grins. “Fine. Draw me and Chris, okay?”

“You got it.” The other thing about seven minutes in heaven—you, Jackie, and Joanna, wherever she may be right now, always rig the draw.

She stands up on her toes to try and look around the room. “I’m sure Josh is around here—”

“Nah,” you interrupt. “Just draw me and Tommy.”

Jackie raises her eyebrows in surprise, and you give her a look—what?

“Josh’s off somewhere. Got to make him jealous somehow. Tommy won’t care.” It’s a lie, so thin you worry Jackie can see right through it, and it hurts you to say it, as if Tommy could pop up and hear you, think you’d use him like that. Even though you guess you kind of are. But it’s not like that.

“Whatever you say, babe,” she starts to head toward Joanna. “He does look good tonight.”

You roll your eyes dramatically, and cross the room to him.

“Come on, loser, we need to find you a girl tonight,” you lie as Jackie starts collecting people she deems hot enough to head to her room.

The music still comes through, but it’s muffled. It gives the synth a dreamy vibe, paired well with the haze of someone’s—probably several people’s—cigarettes and joints, and you look around for one you can steal.

Tommy comes to the rescue, pulling a pack of Marlboros out of his pocket and lighting one. He takes a drag, and passes it to you, and you sidle up beside him in the circle on the floor.

“My hero,” you laugh dryly. You lay your head on his shoulder as Jo draws Chris and Jackie from her dish, and you pass the cig back and forth for the seven minutes that pass as people laugh, speculate on the goings-on inside Jackie’s closet, and gossip about people not lucky enough to be invited up. You each take a hit of a shitty joint, and then you get it back for another.

But Tommy sobers up as he notices Jackie come out of the closet, brandishing her bowl of names and reading one out—yours.

Tommy deals with the pain in his chest. He’s gotten used to it, over the years, and puts a hand over his heart as you sit up from his shoulder. He doesn’t see you wink at Jackie.

“...and Tommy!” she giggles.

Tommy’s heart might stop beating. At the same time, it feels like it’s going to beat out of his chest. Five years of these parties, and you’ve never been drawn together.

He’s had his fair share of awkward, messy, seven minutes, shoved in this closet with some random girl and trying to forget that you were just in here with Josh.

Once, he’d had a girl offer to suck his dick the second the lock clicked, which rapidly turned into another instance of seven awkward, silent, minutes, when he panicked and gave her a look she probably took as horror or disgust. It wasn’t her fault he was too deep in his own head, thinking about you. This game is where he first made out with Lucy (another rigged solution), though they did take it to Jackie’s parents’ room quickly after.

He’s lost in his head as he’s shoved into Jackie’s closet beside you, doesn’t come to his senses until the door’s slammed shut and he’s left surrounded by jackets and shoes and only a little light and you.

And he doesn’t really process what’s going on until you nudge his foot with yours, and let out a quiet “so…”

And then he laughs, and you laugh with him. And you laugh for a good couple minutes, although he’d hoped it would last longer. Get him out of here quicker.

“So…” he repeats, when it dies down. “Where’s Josh?”

“God knows,” you mutter a response. “Probably the beer pong table in the basement.”

A heavy silence sits between you as Tommy tries to think of what to say next. It’s never been this difficult with you. It’s never been difficult, period.

“You look good tonight,” you say, and his heart swells. He hopes you can’t see his eyes light up and go pink in the dark, because he’s pretty sure that’s what’s happening.

“Thanks,” he replies. “So do you.” He pauses. “You always look good.”

You drop your eyes to his feet, grinning. Maybe blushing a little.

“Thanks, Miller.”

He laughs again. “No problem.” You roll your eyes.

And then you make your second awful, terrible, stupid decision of the night.

“So, you gonna kiss me or what?”

Tommy can’t have heard that right. His eyes probably pop out of his skull, and he laughs despite himself.

“What?” you mutter, but you’re still smiling.

“Alright,” Tommy rolls his eyes. But not an alright, I’ll kiss you. It’s an alright, you’re being ridiculous.

“C’mon, Miller, it’s the game,” you tease.

He mimics the teasing shake of your head. “I’m not gonna kiss you,” he replies.

“Why not?”

He stares at you a moment before his eyes drop to the floor. The music is even more muted in here, but in the silence, even surrounded by jackets and dresses, you can still hear it around you. Tommy just sighs.

“You know why not,” he mutters. He can’t even look at you. It’s the closest he’s ever come to telling you how he feels.

You could decide not to be an asshole. You could forget you ever said anything, go back to joking around with your best friend. But you’re a little drunk, and you’ve smoked a bit, and you don’t take that route. “No, I don’t,” you drawl.

“You don’t want to kiss me,” he says. “You can go and find Josh in a few minutes. Your boyfriend, remember him?”

You sigh, and Tommy tries not to read too much into it. “Yeah, I remember. He’ll be all sweaty, and taste like shit beer.”

“I’m all sweaty,” he counters. “It’s hot as fuck in here.”

“All hot and heavy,” you whisper.

Tommy glances at the ceiling. “Shut up.”

“But you’ll taste like my cigarettes,” you reason, hanging your wrists around his neck.

“Your cigarettes?” Tommy laughs, forgetting the intensity of the moment.

“Our cigarettes,” you modify. He rolls his eyes. You look into them. “You’re cute enough,” you smirk, the same teasing lilt back in your voice.

“Just shut up,” he says quietly. Less teasing. A little serious. “You’re drunk, you don’t want to kiss me.”

“Come on,” you press. “You know we rig this thing.”

He did know that, you’d told him plenty of times. But he had convinced himself that at least your draw was random tonight. That you hadn’t fucking gone and done this.

“You don’t…” he’s starting to lose the words again. “What the fuck are you doing?” he mumbles. You press your hips into his. You’re still leaning back, far enough to look into his eyes, to study him. You’re not entirely throwing yourself at him. Yet.

Joel and your mom both know you’re at this party. God, if they knew what the two of you were doing. He doesn’t know why the thought occurs to him.

“Maybe I… want to kiss you, Tommy.” He gets the familiar surge of pain and nausea that he associates with seeing you outside your house, at school, with your friends, but he gets something worse, too. A heat at the bottom of his stomach, that isn’t new, but for all intents and purposes, he normally tries to disassociate from his thoughts about you. He can’t seem to do that, now.

He just prays you can’t feel it where your stomach rests between his hips. Prays he isn’t ruining everything.

“Maybe I don’t want to kiss you,” he forces out.

A silence falls heavily between you. You look up at his eyes. He’s avoiding your gaze. A lump forms at the back of your throat. You know you shouldn’t be feeling like this. That it’s entirely unjustified. You have a boyfriend. He’s supposed to be asking out one of your friends. But still, it hurts you like a stab in the chest.

Fuck you is on the tip of your tongue, but it doesn’t come out. What does might be worse. Your third terrible decision. “I thought you–”

He says it instead. “Oh, fuck you,” he seethes. Suddenly, you’re looking into his eyes, and you don’t know if it’s sadness or anger, or both, but you’ve never seen so much of it in this boy. He’s stormy, but his brown eyes give away the dejection beneath it.

And as if it didn’t hit you hard enough in the first place, he repeats it. “Fuck. You.”

And then the door swings open, and the low light in the room almost blinds you in comparison to the sliver in the closet. You blink back tears, just hoping Tommy doesn’t see them. You watch blurrily as he rejoins the circle, and excuse yourself to the bathroom.

Tommy sits down, head between his knees. He knows the two of you have thrown the vibe in the room off, but Jackie reigns it back by drawing Joanna with Ben Torres. He sits there, dazed, as Ben pulls Jo toward the closet, both laughing and smiling. He doesn’t say anything until a commotion in the hallway makes him jump.

“What the fuck,” he hears from outside the door. It’s not that loud, but it’s you. He leaps up, yanking it open as you shout. “No, get the FUCK away from me, Josh.” He watches as you tear down the hall, and Josh follows you, pushing past onlookers, away from the bathroom, where a girl—Tommy thinks her name might be Ally—is standing, her makeup smudged. Fuck.

He tries to follow you, almost pushing past Josh, but the older boy grabs him by the arm and pulls him back.

“Tommy, get the fuck out of my way,” he snaps, yanking him with enough force that he’s pushed against the wall.

“Don’t you think you’ve done enough, man?” he barks.

“Excuse me?” Josh snarls.

“You heard me.” He doesn’t hesitate. Doesn’t think it through this time. He just fucking swings.

Josh is knocked back against the wall. There’s a malicious look in his eye as he pushes himself back to his feet.

“Here we go, fighting her fucking battles again.”

“Guess you didn’t appreciate it as much as you said,” Tommy smirks.

Josh’s jaw clenches. “You like being her little fucking bitch?” he sneers, and pulls his fist back. But Tommy’s had more practice dodging punches. He ducks, and lands a blow to Josh’s stomach. He doubles over, and Tommy comes down hard on his back, but the other boy dives forward and takes Tommy down by the legs. He lands on top, and lands a blow to Tommy’s cheek, but Tommy’s able to shove him off, sending him back against the wall of the narrow hallway, toward some spectators who jump out of the way.

He crawls across the floor and climbs on top of the other boy, coming down swinging. He lands blow after blow, and he hears someone shouting at him to stop. Probably Jackie. But he doesn’t until he realizes Josh is about to pass out below him, and even then, it’s hard.

He stands up, leaving your boyfriend laying on the ground, and turns on his heel, storming down the steps.

He gets outside just in time to see his brother’s truck pulling away from the curb and disappearing down the street.

You don’t see Tommy again that night. He never crawls through your window. You do cry in Joel’s truck as he drives you home, though.

You tell him about Josh, and he threatens to beat the kid over the head for being so fucking stupid.

You smile through your tears, and almost laugh before you wince, biting your lip. “I think your brother’s taking care of that.”

For once, Joel doesn’t seem mad that Tommy’s out picking a fight. He just nods, tapping his fingers on the steering wheel.

“Yeah,” he says. “Good.”

“God, I was such an asshole to him tonight, too,” you mutter, tapping your fingernails below the car window.

“I’m sure it ain’t that bad,” Joel says, and you shake your head. You turn to look at him, and he glances back, though he stays focused on the road.

“Joel, I tried to kiss him,” you say, and it’s quiet for a second. You stare down at your hands. You’re afraid to look over. He wouldn’t be mad, would he? But the car is awfully silent. You sit in the discomfort for a second longer before you look over—and realize he’s holding back laughter.

“Dickhead,” you roll your eyes. “Y’know, I’m over here trying to, like, tell you about my problems and shit.” Joel lets out a low whistle, but plays along.

“‘N’ how’d he take that?” he chuckles.

Despite everything, you can’t help laughing a bit, too. “Not as well as I thought.” The car is silent another moment, and then you both descend into heinous laughter. You should feel a little bad, laughing sort of at Tommy’s expense. But you’ve been doing it almost all your lives, and for almost a second, you can forget the context of the evening.

You don’t get home for another hour. First, Joel stops at the ice-cream place he used to take you to in middle school, that thankfully doesn’t close for “summer” until December 1st, and gets you a milkshake that you sip on slowly as he finds some dumb work story to distract you.

Then he surprises you by stopping at a house you don’t recognize, but when he stops the car and crosses the lawn to start chucking pebbles at the window, you put two and two together. Heather’s head pops out, and you guess they have a conversation you can’t hear, in which Joel gestures at you in the car a couple times and eventually Heather smiles and tosses something down.

You can’t tell what it is until he gets back to the car, and you roll your eyes as he passes you his hoodie, the one you used to steal. “Figured you might get cold,” he smiles.

You could cry again, but instead you lean across the center console to wrap your arms around his neck. He hugs you back, playfully flicking the hood up over your head as he does.

“Thank you, Joel,” you mutter, and he hugs you tighter.

“‘Course. Anytime, you know that.”

You laugh as you pull away to cover the tears, and brush them away with the sleeves.

“It smells better than it did,” you smirk. “Heather probably actually does her laundry on time.”

“Oh, shut up. I’ll take it back.”

You just smile and stare out the window as he starts to drive. The sprinklers are going over the neighbor’s yard.

“Big middle school flashback night for me,” you grin, pulling the hood over your head properly. “This. The ice cream.” You titter. “Seven minutes.”

“That what you were doin’?” Joel narrows his eyes. “Wait, don’t you and your friends always draw who you want to—”

You can’t help giggling as you cut him off, even if it’s to threaten him. “Joel, I will fucking kill you—”

“You are the deceitful little spawn of… something,” he shakes his head.

“Well, it’s not like your Halloween plans were all that much better! Showing up at your girlfriend’s house just to take her sweatshirt back?”

“Do you want the damn thing or not?” he practically shrieks, as much as Joel Miller can shriek, and you explode into laughter yet again. “For your information, I was giving out candy with your mother, since you decided to go cause irreparable chaos at some party—”

You ignore the second part of the comment.“Thank you. I know she appreciated it.”

He pauses, like he’s not sure whether he should tell you more, but he does with a sigh. “And I’m coming back, later, once I get rid of you.” You giggle.

“You gonna climb through her window?” you giggle. When he coyly rolls his eyes, you draw your eyebrows together a little. “Oh, come on, man. Doesn’t she live with her friends?”

“It’s more romantic,” he grumbles.

You smile.“Ugh. You Millers and your obsession with movie window cliches.”

Joel appears to scrutinize the road for a second. “Oh, don’t fuckin’ tell me—”

You just laugh more, curling up in his sweatshirt in the passenger seat, struggling a little bit to breathe.

“Oh, for the love of God. That kid has to pull it together,” he sighs and shakes his head.

You quiet, and your eyes fill with something—some sad consideration, maybe, Joel thinks.

“Yeah. Maybe.”

You fall mostly into silence after that. Joel tries to keep you distracted with more work stories, but he can tell you’re getting tired. He drops you off, makes sure you get up to your door and sees your mom take you in and wave.

He sits in his car for a second, just thinking. Then he turns the car back on and past his house, back the way he came.

Six months later, November 1st, and you still haven’t fucking done it. He finds you by your locker at the beginning of your free period. You’ve just said goodbye to Jackie as she heads to calc, and as the hallway empties out, you find yourself trying not to cry again.

“Hey,” his voice echoes from behind you, and you nearly jump out of your skin. You wipe your tears as quickly as you can with the sleeves of Joel’s sweatshirt. “Can we talk?”

You turn to face him, keeping your face as solid as possible.

“About what, Josh?” you grit your teeth.

“I— come on, just five minutes.” You both know it’ll be more than that. “Can we go outside?”

You end up crossing the football field, standing sort of close to the woods by campus. There’s either no gym class this period, or they’ve finally gone into the gym for the season. It’s getting a little brisk, and it is Texas. You don’t exactly all function well below 70 degrees. You feel your sneakers getting wet with dew, and you pull the sweatshirt tighter around your body.

“So?” you shake your head expectantly. “What is it, Josh?”

“I…”

You raise your eyebrows.

“I’m sorry, okay? I was an idiot.” You nod your head. “I shouldn’t have done it, and… I’m sorry. You never should have found out like that.”

You scoff. “Unbelievable.”

“Oh, come on,” he says. “I’m, like, trying, here, okay? I fucked up, I know that, but, like—”

“But what? What the hell could you possibly have to say to me right now? I trusted you!”

“I know, and I’m sorry, and, like, I still love you!”

You roll your eyes. “Cute.” You pull your messenger back up on your shoulder, turning to walk back to the school. “We’re fucking done, Josh.”

You get maybe ten feet before his voice sounds behind you.

“Oh, get off your fucking high horse.” He almost shouts. Then, quieter: “Don’t act like you’re so fucking innocent. From what I heard, you were cozying up to fucking Miller like you fucking always are.”

You turn sharply on your heel with a disbelieving sound. “You don’t get to turn this around on me! You fucked up!” Your voice starts to raise. “You don’t get a get-out-of-jail free card because you’re jealous like you fucking always! Which you have no right to be, by the way!”

“It is all the fucking time!”

“Nothing happened in that fucking closet, Josh!” you yell, incredulous.

“You were in the—” Josh shouts. “God, do you think I’m fucking stupid?”

“I—no! I never fucking said that!”

“God, you fucking do! You think I’m fucking stupid, like, what, I haven’t been here the past five years?”

“It’s a game, Josh! A game. It’s stupid!”

“That’s, like, our fucking thing!”

“THAT’S our thing!? Josh, that’s so fucking pathetic I can’t—”

“We’ve been doing that together since seventh grade, babe—”

“DON’T fucking call me babe right now, I swear to god.”

“You—”

“It’s a fucking game!”

“It meant something to me! I’m sorry it wasn’t fucking good enough for you—”

“Clearly it wasn’t good enough! Clearly it didn’t fucking mean anything! How the fuck are you going to stand there right now like you weren’t fucking some sophomore in a bathroom? In MY friend’s bathroom? At a party I was fucking at?? Like, how fucking stupid do you have to be, you can’t even cheat properly, get fucking caught in, like, five minutes?”

“It wasn’t five minutes,” Josh sneers.

And then his face sinks.

The silence is deafening.

“Babe—”

“Shut the fuck up,” you snap. The field might be spinning around you. You have to look over to make sure the bleachers are still empty, because you should feel heartbroken. But the only thing you feel is humiliated, and you pray no one’s overhearing the fight. You feel so fucking stupid—even though Josh is the one who’s accidentally just admitted to cheating on you for longer than you had him for.

“Prom,” you say, and you clock the confused look on his face. “When I couldn’t find you anywhere, were you with her?” Your voice is dry. Josh is sputtering four feet from you, but you aren’t even looking at him. You’re staring at the tree line at the edge of the football field.

“I—”

“You spent the night with some girl—she must’ve been what, recently fifteen?” When he doesn’t respond, you raise your eyebrows.

“I… yeah, I guess—”

“Yeah. You were with her, and then you had the fucking nerve to accuse me of cheating on you with my best fucking friend, the person who was just actually there for me that night?”

“It was fucking embarrasing! You were dancing with him all night, it’s not like I was spinning her around in front of everybody—”

“Oh my god!” you shriek. Josh doesn’t respond. “You need to stop talking. Every fucking word coming out of your mouth is making me realize just how much more of an idiot you are than I thought. I don’t know why the hell. I ever let you near me.”

“I…”

“Keep fucking looking for something to say. You know what, you should be embarrassed about that night. About Tommy. Because I bet if I had slept with him, he’d have actually been able to make me fucking cum.”

You’ve been doing a decent enough job avoiding him. It’s difficult, and you feel bad that he hasn’t been at your house as much as usual.

You’re running downstairs for your book one afternoon, when you stop in your tracks at the bottom of the steps. Tommy’s at your kitchen counter, sitting on a stool with a mug of tea in his hand, talking to your mom. They go quiet as you enter.

“Oh, sorry,” you stumble. “I’ll just—”

But Tommy gets up from his seat, an awkward silence filling the kitchen as you stare at each other. Your eyes flit across the room, trying to avoid his intense eye contact. “Can we… can we talk?” He says.

You probably turn red, but you don’t have a good excuse for saying no, and you can’t make one up fast enough. He’d probably know you were lying, anyway. “Um. Yeah. Yeah, sure.”

“Yeah?”

You nod.

“You want some tea?” he adds.

“Sure.”

“I’ll bring you some.”

“Thanks.” You turn slowly, and head back up the stairs.

You sit cross legged on your bed, chewing your nails and staring at the leg of your desk. What are you going to say to him? What is he going to say to you? You’ve worked yourself up to the verge of tears by the time Tommy pushes your door open and slides inside. He closes it with his foot, and gives you a look to ask that okay? that quickly shifts into one of “you okay?”

You just nod, reaching out for your tea. Chamomile, with just a little maple syrup. He always adds the perfect amount.

You hold it in your hands, and before you even take a sip, tell him, “I’m sorry.” You’re nervous to meet his eyes, terrified they’ll reveal that same horrible combination of hurt and anger they did last week.

Tommy just sighs. His back rests against your headboard, and you turn at the foot of your bed to face him. “It’s fine,” he says, but you know him. You can hear when he’s lying. You’re not going to press it, though. You’ve realized over the past couple of days how humiliated he must have felt in that closet. Coming out of it. And he still came to your defense. “You were drunk,” he adds. “And you were having a shittier night, anyway.” You love him. You love that he can’t get through a minute of conversation without a joke, or a playful jab at you.

“Ouch. It’s not a competition,” you smile softly into your mug. “And not by then, anyway.”

“Nah. Maybe you were just drunk.”

“I wasn’t that drunk.”

“I saw you smoking, too.”

“You gave me that blunt, loser. And it was shit, anyway.”

“Kevyn isn’t going to waste anything good on people who are too drunk to tell the difference.”

“Ah. Kevyn,” you sigh, smile all full of mischief. “Well, I could tell the difference, so maybe I wasn’t too drunk.” It’s almost an admission—and it hangs heavily over the quilt between you.

You notice the way Tommy’s pulled the quilt over his legs. In the middle of maybe the biggest fight you’ve ever had, and the loser still thinks he has some claim to your blankets. (He does.)

“Does that mean Kevyn does have good shit?” you grin, and Tommy rolls his eyes. “Addict,” he pokes, and you roll your eyes. He looks at you a second, before he caves. “Yeah. You got money?”

“Nah,” you grin, turning closer to him and drawing your knees to your chest. “You know I ain’t got any money, Miller.”

“Clairvoyance not paying so well these days?”

“Big words from someone who’s literally obsessed with my mom,” you knock his foot with a giggle. “Not all our parents can be pigs.”

“Yeah, yeah,” he smiles, and his eyes crinkle. It feels good to laugh together again. Not just good—like the weight of tears behind your eyes has been lifted, and your lungs can expand to their full capacity again.

You missed that look in his eyes. The one that for a second in that closet, you thought you might never see again.

“I thought you—”

You’re not even sure what you were going to say. I thought you liked me? I thought you wanted me?

“Tommy, I shouldn’t have said what I did.”

He tries shaking his head, but you give him a look.

“It was fucked up to throw that back in your face. And I don’t even, like, know that that’s true, I was just grasping at straws and I never want to hurt you but I just reached for what was there and And I’m sorry I did it and I’m sorry I didn’t say anything after and I’m sorry I’m so mean to you and—”

“Woah, woah, woah woah woah,” he narrows his eyes and shakes his head. He reaches out to grab your arm, pulling you closer up the bed. “It’s okay.”

“But it’s not, though! Tommy—”

“It’s okay. I promise. It’s okay.” He pulls you into his chest and you slump against it, his arms cradling you. You could stay here forever.

Your body moves when his does, leaning over to put something on. Music flows through the room, and he stands up, pulling you up with him. This time, he brings your arms up around his neck, places his own on your waist.

His head drops to the side of yours, and he whispers in your ear as you sway to soft music: “You were right, anyway.”

You pull back to look at him, to look into his eyes—dark brown, so deep you could lose yourself in them. He’s so anxious. You wish you could wave a wand and make him never feel that way again.

Even more of an admission than yours.

You can see the gears shifting in his brain as he stops holding back.

“I don’t want Lucy,” he breathes. You can feel your heart beating harder in your chest. Your throat even feels like it’s starting to close up. But Tommy’s broken the dam, and now he can’t stop.

“You’re all I think about,” his voice cracks. “You’re all I can fuckin’ think about.”

“Tommy,” your voice shakes.

He exhales, and his hands leave your waist. “Fuck, I’m sorry.” They run through his hair, down his face.

“Tommy, I can’t lose you.”

“You’re not going to lose me.”

He hopes it’s true, but he’s not sure. He feels like this is it, though. He needs to be shot down if it’s not going to happen. He can’t keep going like this. Watching you with someone else. He waited too long last time—he can’t let it happen again.

His eyes meet yours. They’re slowly becoming red, and you’re sure yours are too. He’s fucked everything up, and he can’t stop running into the wreckage.

“Please,” he whispers. “Please tell me if you feel this. At all.” He whispers your name. “I feel like I’m over the fucking deep end. ”

It’s the longest five seconds of his life, the seconds you’re looking at him, your eyes unreadable to him like this.

When you nod slowly, it’s like he’s gasping for air he couldn’t reach before.

And then you cross the room and grab him by the wrist, and you kiss his lips like he’s never been kissed before. He thinks he might be dead, ascending to heaven in his own delusion, when you pull back and whisper: “fucking kiss me back.”

He kisses you softly at first.

Pulling away a moment, he murmurs, “Y’know, I always imagined our first kiss more like that.” He grins, tilting his head. “No closet,” he adds mockingly.

“Mmm. Tell me how else you’ve been fantasizing about me, Miller.”

“Shut up.”

“You gonna make me?”

He can’t respond with anything but “Mm-hmm,” because his lips are already back on yours. He reaches to cradle your face in his hands and pulls you back in before you can say another word. One of your hands rests on his jaw, the other runs through his hair, and he kisses you harder instinctually when you pull on his curls.

He whimpers against his will, and feels your wicked grin against his lips. You fall side by side when you walk him to the edge of your bed.

When you hit the mattress, he moves his hand to toy with the hem of your shirt. You push his hand away and he says “I’m sorry,” and you say, “shut up.” He climbs on top of you and you’re just making out with him but he doesn't think sex could even feel this good. This right.

It’s everything he’s ever wanted—it’s perfect. But he wonders if he should be doing more. He just wants to be good for you. And then, because you’ve always been able to read his mind:

“Stop thinking about what you think you’re supposed to be doing.”

His knee rests between your thighs. You kiss him along his jaw, bite his shoulder. You leave hickeys on his collarbone and his neck and he does the same.

You stay like this for well over an hour, maybe two.

Tommy exaggerates about being hot and you pull his shirt up over his head.

In a moment of careless confidence, he whispers in your ear, “it’s okay, you can stare, baby,” to which you shove his head to the side, but run your fingers down his stomach. You pull away at a point to pull yours off, too. He tries to stop you, but you insist you want to, and he’s not going to complain.

But you don’t really do anything. Too obsessed, too desperate to be close to one another.

Now you’re laying with your head by his, your face in his shoulder that’s in part covered by a quilt. He keeps kissing your head, your cheeks, even when you laugh and push his head away lightly.

“Sorry. I just can’t stop. I can’t believe this is real.”

“You’re such a loser.”

“Yeah, but you knew that before you kissed me,” he says.

“I hate you.”

Tommy grins. He wants to reply, wants to say the words at the tip of his tongue that he knows are true—that he loves you. But he decides to keep it to himself, just another night. This is enough for him, for now.

All he thinks he really needs is to hold you in his arms.

notes: girl why is this so long and at the same time does anything even happen? i appreciate every single person who reads this fic that i have been working on for maybe ten years but finally just locked in on, and i double appreciate everyone who interacts with this post. this fic came to me in a dream. and was also in some places inspired very much by @grayandthyme's summer of 1989 young tommy fic which everyone should go read. and trust that @pearlessance THE tommy miller writer's cupid's chokehold updates are my lifeline. if you aren't on that fic literally what are you doing but i digress i love you all mwah i hope you enjoyed this

p.s. i am actually begging you on my hands and knees not to pay attention to the years they were born and the grades they should be in. the math trying to figure that out while maintaining how old joel is canonically and the age gap i wanted for him and tommy AND the time he canonically joined the military made my head hurt.

#tommy miller #tommy miller x reader

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