#or possibly so long London cause wow

[letmewanderinyourgarden2022]

[This got a little unwieldy - so Chapter 10 is split into 2 parts. . .and not quite there yet - but soon. 😁]

Jimmy had just finished his very important errand of the morning and strolled down Thames Street on his way to The Bull.  A grin spread across his face as he started the call and brought the phone to his ear.  After several beeps, a giggling voice answered.

“Hello?”

“Ms. Morris, I presume?”

“Why, yes, good morning, Cousin Rob.”

They chuckled together for a second enjoying their mutual masquerade.

“I was wondering if you’re ready to explore.  I thought we could meet soon in the bar at the Bull.”

“Well, Cuz, it just so happens I am sitting in the bar right now finishing breakfast.  Would you like me to order you something?”

“No. . .well. . .maybe some coffee.”

“Done.  See you in a few, my dear Mr. MacGregor.  Bye.”

The grin remained as he rounded the High Street to the Inn. He found her in the corner of the bar room, red-framed glasses on the tip of her nose, engrossed in the screen of her phone. She didn’t notice his approach or even when he was standing before her, hands slung in his pockets.

“Ehh hum,” he intoned sharply to get her attention.

Her gaze popped up meeting his in surprise.  “Oh!  Hi, you,” she chirped, pulling the glasses from her face.  “So sorry – a work thing,” she said waving the phone at him. “And it appears I have to attend to it while I’m here.”

“Good morning, love.” He slid into the chair next to her, taking her hand and turning it to place a warm kiss on her palm. “Nothing serious, I hope.  Do you have to go back to London?”

Her eyes locked with his while ‘the most sensual man’ flitted like a chyron through her thoughts. “Uhmm. . .no, no, nothing like that,” she said with a light squeeze before releasing his hand.  “Just something unexpected I can take care of later in the stay.  It’s all good, I think.”

He poured himself a cup of coffee and took a needed sip. “Good. . .that is excellent news. So, are you ready for St. Andrews and a few other surprises I have for you?” He sipped with inquiring eyes and brows raised in expectation.

“Ha! Surprises? How could I possibly say no to that?  Yeah.  I’m ready whenever you are.”

Jimmy smiled at her intently, trying to decode the intonation of her last statement.

Ummm. . .I think there was a bit of a double entendre there. 

“Well, right then.  Let’s be on our way,” he said taking a final gulp of his coffee as he stood.

They made their way through the car lot to the wooden gate at the path.  Jimmy swung her hand in his as they traveled the same walk as the prior evening until they reached the fork with the pathway to the church grounds.

“This way takes us right up to the church,” he said guiding her along.

They crossed through an opening in the stone wall of the churchyard surrounded by ancient gravestones to another walkway leading to a side entrance of the building.  There, a tall man in a long, black cassock awaited them.

“Good morning again, Vicar.  This is my friend I mentioned earlier, Jane Mott.”

“Uhh. . .good morning, Vicar.  It’s a pleasure to meet you,” She nodded with a smile and then looked askance at Jimmy.

“Yeah, uh. . .Jane.  I visited the Vicar earlier this morning to get special dispensation for us to go up in the tower,” Jimmy chuckled.  “Apparently, it’s been marked off limits for a while.  But thank you, Vicar.  I promise we will be very careful.”

“Very good, Jim.  Jane, nice to meet you.  Well, you two should get to it then, but carefully,” he admonished as he walked away.

Jimmy pushed open the tall, narrow door set in the church’s stone wall that was barely wide enough for them to squeeze through one at a time.  They indeed climbed the steep wooden stairs cautiously as the renovation caused the railings to be missing in many places.  Safely at the top, he watched her as she took in the panoramic view from the tower’s pinnacle.

“Wow, wow, wow, Jimmy!  This is breath-taking, the view is. . .” She slowly faced each direction from the center of the floor, then settled at the chest-high ledge of the wall facing the Deanery. “Glorious. . . it really is.”

He joined her.  “Yeah, it is. That’s the Deanery, there.”  He sidled against her and pointed to the walled property just beyond The Bull below.

“Wow again.  That’s all yours, huh?”

“Yeah, it is.”

“When was it built?  It’s gorgeous.”

“Well, the architect was Edwin Lutyens and it was completed in 1901.  Actually, some years ago, I lived in another house he designed. They are all quite unique. Deanery is in the Arts and Crafts vein, like all of his early buildings, but it’s difficult to see the detail from here. Most of the wall around the property is from the 16th century.  Rather amazing, that.”

“You are very fortunate, Jimmy.”

“Yes, love.  That I am.”

They fell into the comfortable silence that was becoming characteristic of their time together. After a while, she turned to him, slowly scanning his face, and said a bit shyly, “I’m sorry if this is presumptuous of me and personal. . .again. . .but, you know if you weren’t the famous you, or maybe before you were the famous you, if we had met I. . .uh. . .think we could have been good friends. I mean, talking with you is really nice. . .very interesting and. . .easy, Jimmy.”

He looked at her for a few moments, then replied softly, “Not presumptuous at all.  I think I might agree. And the famous part has no bearing, really.”

“That is excellent news, Jimmy. . .I think,” she said with a slight smirk.

“Ha! I’m sure we could have been, particularly because of your drollness, my dear. But now, I’d like to get on with the surprises. . .unless you’d rather not, of course,” he returned her smirk.

“Okay, Mr. MacGregor, let’s go.”

They left the church grounds and found themselves on Thames Street, the main thoroughfare in Sonning.  They passed neatly kept white-washed row houses with gabled roofs before the Deanery’s massive wall with its brick abutments appeared.

“Geez, Jimmy, this is impressive,” she said as her fingertips dragged along the roughness of the centuries-old surface.

“Isn’t it,” he smiled.  He stopped abruptly and turned to her. The smile spread further across his face and his eyes twinkled jade green in the sunlight. “So, for the first surprise -I’ve arranged for lunch at a very nice spot along the river if you’re up for the walk.”

“Absolutely.  That would be very nice.”

“And for seconds, perhaps a tour of the Deanery? I thought you might like a close look at the architecture.”

“Do you even need to ask me that?” She laughed. “Yes, yes, I would very much like that.”

They halted at a large wooden double door set into one of the brick archways of the wall.  Jimmy entered the code in the keypad, turned the iron handle, and revealed the entranceway to the manse.  She stepped across the threshold after him as he closed the doors behind them and continued down the entranceway.

“That’s pretty cool, Jimmy.  Modern technology joined with the 16th cen. . .tur. . .y. . .”

As her eyes scanned the cloistered walk, she stopped short as Jimmy walked on unawares. Wide-eyed, she said softer than a whisper, “Fuck. . .this looks like. . .”

Jimmy turned to her, proudly beaming with arms spread wide at his sides.  “Welcome to Deanery Gardens, Lady Jane.” His countenance collapsed when he saw the look on her face.  “Hey, are you all right?” He was quickly by her side. 

“Yeah, yeah, I’m fine.  I. . .uh. . .just felt weird for a second.  I guess I’m still not done with jet lag.  Sorry. . .I’m fine really.”

“You’re sure?  We can go into the hall and sit down.  Do you need some water?”

“Jimmy, thank you but stop,” she chuckled, trying to cover the confusion that was spiking inside.  “I’m okay.  Honestly.  Can we go on with the tour – please?”

“All right.  You’re sure.” He looked at her questioningly. She nodded. “Right then.  Uh. . .this walkway goes to gardens off to the side of the house. We’ll get there in a bit.” He stood in front of a curved covered opening leading to an arcade of brick columns adorned with flowers and other plants beyond.  “And this,” he said stepping to an identical outlet directly across the entranceway, “is the courtyard that leads to the kitchen and pantry and the other rooms in the back of the house.”

The main feature of the courtyard was the fountain in the form of a finely carved stone statue of a young man with a stream spilling from the waterskin held in his arms.

“This is. . .,” she paused as she circled the courtyard looking up at the walls and windows surrounding it. “Those windows are wonderful. There’s something similar but on a much smaller scale in my house.  And the detail! – the zig-zag of the water channel to the fountain!”

“Yes, I knew you’d like a closer look.  I thought we’d go to the second floor now before the rest of the first floor.  Okay?”

“Sure.  Lead on.”

They returned to the entranceway and opened another wooden door just a few feet past the courtyard arch.

“This is the main house.  The stairs off to the left here go to the second floor.” He started up the sharp-angled and spindled wooden staircase.  He waited for her at the top of the last flight as she slowly made her way up, fingers running over the contours of the wood.

“Beautiful, Jimmy.  I’m running out of adjectives,” she laughed and he joined in as she stepped to the top stair. 

When she reached him, he backed down the gallery to describe the details of the design to her. “And this leads to the bedrooms at each end. . .and there are windows here that look over the great hall facing the gardens. . .  Jane?”

She was frozen in place with the same look on her face but much more intense. She hadn’t heard anything he said since she first stepped into the long hall before her.

“I don’t fucking understand this,” she said in disbelief, almost to herself.

Jimmy was next to her in a flash and took hold of her arm since she looked quite pale.  “Jane, really, what is it? Are you ill?” He guided her to one of the chairs grouped in the hallway.

“I’m really okay just really. . .uh. . .weirded out. . .”

“Yes, you said that before, but it’s not really helpful, Jane.  Please, just tell me what’s going on,” he said pulling up a chair close to her.

“Okay. . .uhm. . .maybe I’ll take you up on that glass of water.  Could we go downstairs – uh. . .to the hall, you said?” She inhaled deeply as she looked at her surroundings.

“Here, let me help you up,” he said taking her hand and gingerly pulling her up from the seat.

“Really, Jimmy. I’m good. You’re quite the mother hen, but thanks,” she patted his shoulder and headed to the stairway.

“All right, then.  To the hall, we go.”  She took the lead and he followed, intent on grabbing her if she started to falter.

At the bottom, he caught her at the waist and guided her to the hall.  “This way, love.”

The great hall was a massive room with windows running from the floor to the high ceilings with dark vaulted timbers set into the sandstone-like walls.  The arches were the feature and they repeated not only in the walls but in the ceiling as well.  A fireplace with complex brickwork rose on the side of the room opposite the windows. High above the fireplace, windows of the gallery overlook were set in the upper right of the wall - the gallery that so rattled her a few moments earlier.  Various couches, chairs, tables, rugs, and lamps filled the ample floor space of the hall. Beyond the windows, terraced green lawns, trees, and flowers extended as far as the eye could see.  Jimmy deposited her in one of the couches facing the garden.

“I’ll be right back.  Water?  Or do you want something stronger?  I think I can find something,” he asked as he headed for the kitchen.

“Water’s fine, thanks.” She couldn’t help gawking at the room. The pattern was repeated all around her. There was no escape from the spectacle of her dream made real.

“Here you are, Jane.” He placed the water glass in her hand and sat very close facing her on the couch.  “Now tell me.  What is it that has you so ‘weirded out’?”

“Honestly, I’m not sure I can.  I don’t know what it is.  But, uh, it has to do with another dream.  Sorry, that’s all I seem to talk about. . .” she laughed, abashed.  “I told you I had trouble remembering them for a long while.  But on the flight over from Atlanta, I had the most unbelievably vivid one that I remember every detail of.”

“So, your dream had something to do with the Deanery?” he asked, puzzled.

“No.  Well, maybe, I guess.  I said I have no fucking idea what’s going on, right? Sorry. . .don’t mean to be shitty.”

She went on to explain the details – the wood beams set in the pale walls, the room with the round table, the stained-glass windows, the men, the green lights that turned into an aurora borealis in the sky and the felt but not seen companion.  Her description ignited a ripple of excited recognition in him.

“And today, when I walked in, it sort of smacked me in the face, the feel of it, you know.  I thought maybe I was just imagining it.  But on the second floor, that was what I saw in the dream.  I can’t wrap my mind around it.  I’ve never been here or even seen a freakin’ picture of this place.  How can I already know what it looks like?”

“I don’t know, Jane.  Maybe it’s not something to be freaked out about, though.  Maybe time is needed to understand, love.  It’s very fruitful to remember dreams.  You’re here because of one, aren’t you?”

“Hmmm.  Yeah, I guess I am.” She fell back into the sofa pillows.  “And on top of that,” she insisted in exasperation, “I read my cards last night and got a really perplexing reading.”

“Did you, now!” Another tingle zipped through him.  “Why perplexing?”

“I’m still working through it – all of this, really.  Not quite ready to share.  Is that okay?  I’m really not avoiding your question.  I just don’t know the answer.”

“Well, I’m ready whenever you are ready to tell me, love.”

“Thanks, Jimmy.”

“Do you think you’re up for a walk through the garden?  I’m sure you’re jonesing for a cigarette,” he chuckled.

“Yes, as a matter of fact, I am, smart-ass,” she snarked.  “I’m recovered. . .not going to faint on you or anything.  The gardens look lovely, so yeah.”

He led her through the kitchen pantry back into the courtyard, through the arched openings, and down the columned walkway.

“This is part herb garden and part wild garden.” He stepped down the stairs set in the low stone garden wall.  Waving stalks of purple lavender predominated but interspersed among them were shrubs of rosemary, thyme, basil, fennel, and dill.  The irregular plots were edged with various kinds of parsley and mint.  The combination of scents was ambrosial.  Nestled in the far corner of the lavender patches was a small, round, stone gazebo with open windows and a slated roof.

“Jimmy, this is amazing.  I wish I were an artist.  This would be a perfect painting.  The aromas. . .umm. . .I could plop myself down here and never get up.  I love lavender.   I grow it at home and dry it for pillows.”

“I find it very soothing and of course, there’s its protective properties.”

The wild garden was one of two on the grounds.  The vantage from this one terraced down to the edge of the garden to the ancient wall.  Tall grasses swayed in clumped formations across the far reaches of the garden.  Jimmy explained the placement of a menagerie of fruit trees and flowering shrubs.  He led her to other unique features of the garden:  a paved square with greenery and beds of tiny, ground-cover roses forming a geometric design in its interior; the hip-high wall at one side of the square intersected by uniformly placed round and square columns, all constructed entirely of brick, supporting an open wood beam roof; and the identical but smaller structure several yards off to the side.

“These are the pergolas.  Several varieties of Victorian strains of flowers still grow here.  They were planted by Gertrude Jekyll who did the original garden design for this and other Lutyens projects.”

“Wow. . .again!  The roses are lovely.”

Their final destination was a path to the terrace steps in the middle of the garden.  Standing at the head of the stairs, she viewed the crazy order in front of her. Behind her, perpendicular to the steps, was the stone-paved path leading back to the manor’s terrace where the same curved steps were duplicated at its edge.  Everything was, at the same time, symmetrical and haphazard.  She finally lit the cigarette, having forgotten all about it until then.

“I love this, Jimmy.  It’s so very ordered but, here and there, it’s a bit of wildness.  Thank you, truly, for showing me your home.”

“It’s my pleasure, love.  And particularly for someone who has an appreciation of it.” He reached for the cigarette to take a drag.  “May I?”  She nodded with a chiding look but remained silent. He inhaled the cool smoke, slid the cigarette back between her fingers, and turned her to him. “And you, my dear, are quite orderly yourself but I think there’s more than a bit of wildness hidden in here.” His tone was soft and tinged with suggestion as he gently tapped her temple with a finger following slowly along her jawline. 

She looked directly into his sparkling eyes with her own sultry smile.  “You could be correct, Mr. Page.”

“Mmmm.  I’m fairly certain I am.” He was about to say more but resisted.  “Shall we make our way to luncheon, Lady Jane?”

As they reentered the hall, Jane gathered her bag.  “Umm.  A restroom before we go?”

“Certainly.  It’s just beyond the stairs to the second floor.  Here, I’ll show you.”

“No, that’s okay.  I think I know the way,” she said as she made her way through the hallway door to the stairs.

Jimmy stood at the towering windows, hands slung into his pockets, considering all that had transpired since she walked into the garden yesterday. There was a simmer of possibility bubbling within him. The cards and the images she described from the dream further increased the simmer – verging on a boil.

Christ!  I thought there were too many signs to ignore when we first reached out to her last year.  But now. . .more conundrums.  And last night, the vision of her that woke me - I can’t quite grasp what it was.  Can’t shake that feeling of familiarity.

“Okay, ready.”

He turned to find her leaning in the doorway, much more like herself. Something about the way she stood, the look on her face just inflamed his already heightened sense of an attachment to her. . .somehow.

“Shall we off, love?” He turned her in the doorway, one arm around her waist to speed her through the entranceway and to the street, hoping to avoid any additional adverse reactions.

"Yes, Jimmy, let's."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The Deanery (pre-Jimmy)

From the St Andrews tower~

The Cloistered entranceway~

The stairs to the second floor

The Upstairs Gallery

The Great Hall walls/ceiling

The Pergolas

[thefootballobserver]

April 9-11 European Roundup: Match Reviews

It was a week full of surprises, with underdogs exceeding expectations.

Wow. Nearly every match this week was filled with drama and reminded everyone of the beauty of continental competitions. From wonder goals to disappointing performances, here’s a brief review of a chunk of the matches played. I’ve only managed to watch these highlights, so these reviews do not represent the full matches but key moments.

Arsenal 2-2 Bayern Munich: Penalty Controversy Steals the Attention

A Harry Kane goal against Arsenal on his return to North London was written in the stars.

Of course, as a Spurs fan, it was a delight to see Harry Kane score against the Gunners, making him the highest goalscorer against Arsenal at the Emirates. As he said in his post-match interview, Arsenal tend to concede penalties to Kane, with him scoring his 15th goal against them - and 8 of them being penalties. Maybe it’s not a good decision to let the striker of your biggest rivals be the top scorer at you on your ground, yeah?

Besides me fawning over Harry for a bit, the game was good. Saka opened the scoring with a beautiful finish thanks to some pretty poor defending from Davies, who struggled against Arsenal’s leading man (and picked up a yellow, meaning he misses their next meeting). Unsurprisingly, Arsenal played on the front foot. At the same time, Bayern largely looked to counter, with Bayern’s right winger Sané causing havoc on Arsenal’s left side, and Kiwior looked like a major defensive weakness that night. But it wouldn’t be Kiwior but Gabriel, who’s arguably been better than Saliba this season, who loses the ball, resulting in former Arsenal player Gnarby equalising for the visitors.

Usually, with a leakproof defence in the league, Sané again caused trouble as he glided through it, and Saliba conceded a penalty through a stuck-out leg. Raya dived about ten business days before Kane even moved, resulting in Kane waiting and slotting it away instead of his usual “I’m going to launch this bad boy into the net as hard as possible,” silencing the Emirates as Bayern played without away fans.

Trossard, who was subbed on Martinelli (I was surprised he didn’t start if I’m honest), would go on to equal for the home side with a sweet strike. Still, ultimately, the game ended in a 2-2 draw - a much better result for Bayern than Arsenal, who should have taken advantage of Bayern, given this is one of the weakest teams they’ve displayed in a long, long time.

Of course, the game had to end in controversy as Saka tried to draw a foul from Neuer in the last minute instead of shooting at an open goal. I think the criticisms have gotten out of hand, but I agree that it was a poor decision by Saka and Neuer, who knew that he wouldn’t get the ball and stopped moving his leg. Saka’s leg didn’t look in a particularly natural position, but camera angles make it a difficult call. I read an opinion that Arsenal likely tries to draw fouls to take advantage of set pieces, which I think is a good point. However, in the world of VAR, they need to get it out of their system when they’re in the box. Ultimately, what has happened happened, and both sides need to let go of it as an exciting game is teed up at the Allianz Arena.

My MOTMs: Odegaard (ARS); Kane (FCB)

Real Madrid 3-3 Man City: Wonder Goals Star in 6-Goal Thriller

Ruben Dias scored an unfortunate goal and didn’t have the best of times against Vinicius and Rodrygo.

Bar the four incredible goals scored, the real news to come out of the game was Pep pronouncing “vomit” in quite a zesty manner when asked about Kevin de Bruyne’s absence from the starting lineup. Even his stomach is against him playing in big UCL nights, I’m afraid (I still love that man).

Before the clock could even hit a minute, Tchouaméni got carded for a foul on Grealish - which, if I’m honest, was entirely unnecessary - and now misses the second leg. Minutes later, Silva scored a beautiful free kick. Some may argue Lunin should have done better, but let’s be honest: you, him, the players, the managers, the Bernabeu and the neighbour’s dog weren’t expecting that. Real Madrid then responded with two rapid goals in the 12th and 14th minute, with Dias conceding an own goal and Rodrygo scoring, both from taking advantage of City’s relatively slow back line. The game slowed down after that, and City were sloppy at best.

They massively improved in the second half, though, and managed to turn the 2-1 scoreline in their favour, with Foden (it just had to be him) scoring from range perfectly into the top left corner, making it impossible for Lunin to make the save. Gvardiol then one-upped it with an even better goal on his right foot, his first goal for City since his summer transfer. This goal sparked a lot of humorous Twitter conversation, with City fans saying that Walker will be shooting from 40 yards out constantly and Liverpool fans saying that they don’t even want to think about Robertson shooting like that on his left - let alone right foot. Gvardiol hasn’t been the 70m signing most have expected, but his upturn of form lately has been promising.

Three unforgettable goals weren’t enough, and Valverde scored an even better strike to level the game at 3-3. For all the hype of Real closing the Bernabeu roof (which one commented that it looked like an air fryer, which I’m afraid I have to agree) and wearing all white, it was an excellent game for the neutral, but not so much for the Madridistas, who may have the 4-0 trashing at the Etihad in mind…

Oh, and of course, Haaland ghosted. Whether or not he served as a distraction for the centre-backs or just failed to get involved is not my fight to fight.

My MOTMs: Vinicius Jr (RMA); Gvardiol (MCI)

Atletico Madrid 2-1 Dortmund: The Metropolitano Still Stands Strong

What can I say? Atletico did what it always does.

So, I’m not an avid watcher of Atletico, and I’m even less of a Bundesliga person. Thanks to time zones, I don’t watch European games live either, so I wasn’t precisely tuned into this match as much as I should, but it was still exciting.

Atletico should have had more than a one-goal advantage but failed to capitalise, notably when Lino should have scored in the 71st minute. This is especially true given Dortmund’s inconsistent form this season. However, their UCL form should be applauded as they escaped the “Group of Death” relatively more straightforwardly than the other three teams. The home side stunned Dortmund early in the game, with De Paul capitalising on a Kobel-Maatsen mistake to score in the 4th minute. Although Dortmund had the ball, all the chances came from Atletico, who…well, Atletico-ed with a back five and looked to counter, as is the Diego Simeone way.

The home side would deservedly double to lead through Lino to round off the first half. Dortmund finally grew as the game went on and did manage to snatch a goal back through Haller to keep Dortmund in the second tie. It's less eye-catching than the previous night's matches, but the second leg should be fun to watch.

My MOTMs: Griezmann (ATM); Haller (BVB)

PSG 2-3 Barcelona: Xavi’s Super Subs Give Barca a One-Goal Advantage

What’s up with big stars and poor UCL nights? Mbappe ghosts as PSG loses at home.

PSG ultras had a lot to say and do before the match, with them launching fireworks at the hotel Barcelona were staying at 4 am, chanting “p*ta Barca” (f*ck Barca) to the players, as well as “Real Madrid” too. Some bold moves, considering their star man will leave them to Real Madrid for nothing, but PSG ultras have always been questionable. Some Barcelona players, like Ferran Torres and youngest Marc Guiu, were seen recording and laughing, likely at the fans. They would also have the last laugh that night as the current La Liga holders left with a one-goal advantage.

Barcelona started the game much stronger than PSG (they had 0.81 xG, ten shots and one on-target versus 0.33 xG and eight off-target shots) and were rewarded when Raphinha scored in an empty net. They carried this lead to halftime, but PSG was on the front pedal when the second-half whistle blew, looking like an entirely different team. Barcelona couldn’t handle the pressure, and former Barcelona man Dembele scored (and celebrated) and was followed by Vitinha - who’s been having an excellent season for the Ligue 1 giants - only three minutes later. 

However, Xavi’s super substitutions would save the game for Barcelona, as Roberto came off for Pedri, who then produced a wonder assist within a minute with his first touch of the game - and his first touch since his injury in March - to Raphinha, as all the Brazilian had to do was slot it past Donnarumma to level the game. Later, de Jong would come off for Christensen, and this time, he one-upped Pedri and scored thanks to a Gündogan corner with his first touch, which was within a minute of coming on. On his birthday, too!

As a Barcelona fan, I would have been happy with a draw at the Parc des Princes, but to leave with a win really must have been confidence high - even if it’s only a one-goal margin and there’s still all to play for that the Montjuïc Stadium next week. I can’t lie - Dembele scoring and celebrating hurt, but I think Barca fans have overreacted, especially those calling for the Figo treatment. Honestly, I’m just glad he did what he did and left us with some money instead of going on a free next summer.

My MOTMs: Vitinha (PSG); Raphinha (FCB)

Liverpool 0-3 Atalanta: Klopp’s Farewell Party in Tatters

Poor, poor mistakes from the Reds resulted in a completely unexpected scoreline.

My oh my, where do I even start? For starters, I’d like to say that I quite like Klopp. I think it’s a bit of a shame he’s leaving Liverpool, and I hope he leaves the club on a high note. I’m glad they won the EFL Cup, so at least they have something, even if it’s the least noteworthy competition they could win; a cup is a cup (but I am a Spurs fan, so I’m not exactly in a position to judge).

That being said, Liverpool’s defence was sh*t. I’m sorry, but it had to be said. I like Kelleher, and I think he’s been pretty good for Liverpool, given he’s not a starter and has to fill in Alisson's shoes, but man, that first goal was a bummer - although I don’t think that should take away from his other two incredible saves before and after the error - Kelleher did end up conceding two more after that (neither of which the goalkeeper was at fault for, but he did concede). Unfortunately, goalkeepers tend to be remembered for the goals they concede, not the ones they prevent.

Attacking-wise, Liverpool was fine but very much not clinical - although I don’t know if Klopp wished for goals when he started a front three of Gakpo-Nuñez-Elliot. There were a few promising sequences, but Nuñez (absolutely no one is surprised) was wasteful - but he’s not the only culprit.

Atalanta tried to catch Liverpool on the counter - again, to no one’s surprise - and they reaped the awards. Italian striker Scamacca scored two against Liverpool in the 38th and 60th minute, the first taking advantage of Kelleher not reacting nearly fast enough for a preventable goal as it slid under the ‘keeper and the second coming from a cross when (1) Van Dijk really should have closed down De Ketelaere and (2) Scamancca should not have been so open and unmarked.

The third was by Pasalic and was to an inexplicable back pass by Szoboszlai - although Kelleher did block the initial shot by Ederson, it wasn’t enough. The backline wasn’t trying to prevent the two later goals by how they reacted. They were walking back when the Atalanta players really should have been closed down earlier.

A comeback looks unlikely as Liverpool plays away next, although it’s not off the cards. Liverpool have now drawn to an underwhelming United and lost at home to a side that’s 6th on the Serie A table and have lost their two recent games. Their finishing has disappointed them despite having some of the Premier League’s best forwards and playing well in their previous Europa games. This game is a major result for Atalanta and confirms them in the semifinal - though I don’t want to jinx it.

You have quite a lot of work to do if you want that nice farewell party, Jürgen Klopp.

My MOTMs: Gakpo (LIV); Scamacca (ATA)

Leverkusen 2-0 West Ham: So Close Moyes! But Forget It

Moyes-ball almost gets them a draw…until it didn’t.

I’ll be zooming through the next few because I think the results are coming, or I don’t follow the teams too much.

Leverkusen’s 30 shots to West Ham’s one sums it up. Still, West Ham did look like they were going to snatch a point until the German side finally broke the deadlock with seven minutes of regular time remaining through Hofmann, who would also assist Boniface’s goal in stoppage time. Fabianski bailed the team out on multiple occasions, displaying some fantastic saves. On a better or worse day - depending on who you’re asking - Leverkusen easily could have had three to five goals. A two-goal deficit is saveable for West Ham at home, but they’ll need to do better on the counter.

Also, please end Leverkusen’s unbeaten streak. If the streak ends by Moyes ball, it’d be hilarious, and I need one less thing for them to be happy about (I’m just a little salty).

My MOTMs: Fabianski (WHU), Hofmann (B04)

AC Milan 0-1 Roma: What in the World is De Rossi Cooking?

Roma play at home next with a one-goal advantage.

All I can say is that Roma should have fired Mourinho ages ago if De Rossi was willing to take the job before his release (and this isn’t even my Spurs bias talking) because you’re telling me De Rossi has only lost to Inter and Brighton (in a useless game) between then and now? What in the world is he cooking in Rome?

Also, that back-and-forth between Giroud and Lukaku was hilarious. It’s even funnier when the replays show that Lukaku’s making the goalkeeper’s life way harder by standing in front of him and preventing Svilar from catching the ball.

No man of the matches because that’s all the highlights had.

Aston Villa 2-1 Lille: Work to Be Done Next Week

McGinn, with his iconic celebration as he put the Villans two in front.

The game was a perfect McGinn performance from the looks of it. I’ll admit that the second goal looked accidental on Bailey’s part (that slip…was he trying to cross?), but that strike was terrific. Of course, Lille did manage to pull one back, but Martinez also made some stunning saves to keep Villa in the game in the first half. The way he comes off his line with that confidence is impressive.

My MOTMs: McGinn (AVL), Diaketé (LIL)

[ammg-old2]

It was December of 1996 when Karen Lips turned up the first bodies—and finally felt an ember of hope. As a graduate student working in the muggy forests of Central America, she’d noticed that an as-yet-unnamed culprit had been stripping the area of its frogs. Regions that had once rung with a chorus of croaks were silent and still, but no one had found the carcasses that could speak to a cause. With those finally in hand, “I remember thinking, Wow, this might actually be helpful,” Lips told me. Surely, data would beget a solution; surely, the frogs’ declines would now be reversed.

More than 25 years later, Lips has felt much of that early spark of hope fizzle and flame out. Scientists did indeed go on to identify the amphibian-killing pathogen: the fungus Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis, or Bd for short. But Bd has not been stopped. Instead, it has spread to every continent where frogs and their close cousins are found. “If you pick up an amphibian here in the U.S., on average you have a 50 percent chance of picking up one that’s infected with Bd,” said Lips, who now runs her own lab at the University of Maryland. Eradication is no longer possible; the fungus has established itself in too many animals, in too many places. Lips sometimes imagines the planet coated in a layer of fungus that grows back when poked, prodded, or torn. “I’m not sure I have optimism,” she told me, not anymore.

Bd is the paragon of a pandemic. It has been described as perhaps the most devastating disease the world has ever recorded, in terms of its species scope and death toll. A pathogen that wriggles inside amphibian skin cells and causes fatal heart attacks, the fungus is estimated to have contributed to the decline of about 500 amphibian species, about 90 of which have been driven to extinction; more are expected to follow, sending ripples through countless food webs. Bd is also, outside of tight circles of amphibian enthusiasts, little known, and barely addressed. For the network of researchers who have devoted decades of their lives to combatting it, hope has long been hard to keep alive. And in the past three years, as another outbreak—this one, a plague of humans—erupted into public consciousness, their prospects for success have felt even dimmer.

Bd wasn’t always thought of as a permanent planetary scourge. When scientists first began to study the pathogen, “it was not looked at as a hardy organism,” Lips told me. Several antifungals, including a drug called itraconazole, can easily wipe it out in test tubes; so can potent chemicals released by multiple species of bacteria, including some that naturally reside on certain amphibians’ skin. Researchers actually have to fight to keep the finicky fungus growing in the lab: Even small perturbations in temperature or salt content are enough to nuke it, forcing scientists to start their cultures over from scratch. “We used to joke about how easy it was to kill,” Lips said.

Out in the wild, though, Bd rapidly proved itself to be far more formidable. Some research suggests that the fungus can linger in the environment for days or weeks, awaiting its next host; it is a fast evolver, too, with the ability to essentially “add or kick out chromosomes at will,” says Trent Garner, a biologist at the Zoological Society of London and University College London. The range of animals it can trouble is also staggeringly large: The fungus seems to be able to infect just about any of the 8,000-plus species of amphibians it encounters, transmitting directly through skin-to-skin contact, or by releasing sperm-shaped spores into water. It’s hardy; it’s ubiquitous; it’s impossible to permanently purge. Boot it out of one population, and it just moves into the next.

Researchers, having acknowledged that Bd’s threat will never completely dissipate, still try their best to mitigate its harms. Antifungals work, at least in limited contexts: About a decade ago, a team of scientists led by Garner used them (along with disinfectants) to eliminate Bd from several ponds in Majorca, Spain. Some researchers are also experimenting with probiotics that can be slathered onto amphibians like “a topical yogurt” to imbue their skin with fungus-fighting bugs, says Molly Bletz, a disease ecologist and conservation biologist at UMass Boston who’s working on one such intervention. Other scientists are looking into Bd-focused vaccines, or selective breeding in captivity—even engineered genetic tweaks—that could make certain species less vulnerable to disease. Some researchers are trying to mobilize amphibians out of Bd-infested areas; chauffeur them into fungus-free havens; or seed their habitats with crustacean micropredators, such as water fleas, that might snarf Bd down.

The tricky thing with all of these tempering tactics, though, is that they’re ultra-laborious—with little guarantee that the effects will last. In zoos, frogs that are cleared of Bd with drugs get “reinfected all the time,” Lips told me. And that’s after researchers “treat them all,” a proportion that would be infeasible in the wild. The looming specter of fungal evolution also keeps herpetologists up at night. Obed Hernández-Gómez, an evolutionary ecologist at Dominican University, in California, has found that it can take as few as 15 generations for Bd to evolve resistance to the molecules made by certain probiotic bacteria; the case is probably comparable with antifungals, though the phenomenon hasn’t been well studied. Some also worry that any chemical, bacterial, or environmental intervention could come with serious consequences for creatures that coexist with frogs, or for the frogs themselves.

Vaccines could be a more lasting intervention, with fewer environmental ripple effects. But effective immunizations don’t yet exist. Cold-blooded amphibians are also a challenging group to vaccinate. “Their immune systems are really slow,” Bletz told me, especially when temperatures dip. Even vetted vaccines wouldn’t pass protection down through the generations, requiring scientists to make regular trips into the field. Interventions in captive contexts, too, may serve only as a stopgap. The idea is to “breed them, then return them to their habitats,” says Ana Longo, a herpetologist at the University of Florida. “But if the pathogen is still there, is it worth it to spend all this effort?”

People, too, could get their act together. Humans seem to have ferried the fungus, once restricted to parts of Asia, around the globe, via imported or stowaway amphibians. Better regulation of the international trade in these animals could reduce the global burden, but Bd has already spread to nearly all frog-inhabited corners of the world, save for maybe Papua New Guinea and a few nearby island outposts, and its ubiquity is seen by many as a foregone conclusion. Researchers have also been distracted, for the past 10 years or so, by another fungal outbreak caused by a sister species called Bsal that mainly targets salamanders. Bsal hasn’t yet been detected in North America, the “hot spot” of salamander diversity, Hernández-Gómez said, and the effort to keep it out has gobbled up herpetologists’ attention, pushing Bd to the sidelines. And among some policy makers, there’s been a pervasive attitude of “what exactly do you want us to do?” Lips told me. “It’s already here.”

That sentiment has seemed particularly familiar of late, Bd experts told me, now that the world is grappling with another pandemic-caliber disease, this one trained on humans. COVID has forced a reckoning with the same sorts of questions as the frog fungus, and produced similar stalemates: What level of suffering is sustainable, or tolerable? What do you do when a disease is still raging but many people seem to have tired of fighting it? As with Bd, the coronavirus has no silver-bullet solution. Both are here to stay.

Lips has been gathering data that could draw more direct connections between amphibians’ well-being and our own. She and her colleagues recently published a paper proposing that the decline of amphibians in Central America may have led to a boom in populations of mosquitoes—typical frog fare—and raised the risk of malaria among people. Though even infectious threats to Homo sapiens can be easy to ignore. Our response to the coronavirus pandemic, in particular, felt like “a slap in the face,” Hernández-Gómez said. “If humans don’t even care about a disease that’s killing off their own,” Bletz told me, “how are they going to care about something that affects amphibians?”

In broad strokes, much of the rest of the Bd and Bsal story may feel written: More populations will dwindle; more species will disappear, many of them far from human habitations, where they may, once again, escape the notice of most. Perhaps more species will ultimately adapt to resist or tolerate Bd, and so the struggle continues to “keep populations in the wild for as long a time as possible, to give more time for natural selection to act,” says Ben Scheele, a disease ecologist at Australian National University who’s working to save his nation’s corroboree frogs. But even on an evolutionary timescale, there are no guarantees: Where frogs go, the fungus seems to follow.

“There’s almost nothing we can do, in a way, and that’s the sad part,” says Timothy James, a chytrid-fungus expert at the University of Michigan. Lips has held dying frogs in her hand, each of them sluggish, discombobulated, and weak, sometimes to the point where they can no longer muster the energy to try to wrest themselves free. “They just sort of sit there, even if you bend to pick them up,” she told me. Their deaths are slow, subtle affairs—agonizing fades that have become, like so many other infectious endings, a kind of background noise.

Some of the experts I spoke with told me there is still plenty of room for optimism—that the efforts of the few could still turn the tide, especially against the less pervasive Bsal. Others, although far from giving up on the Bd battle, feel more conflicted. At the start of the COVID outbreak, Lips felt another wellspring of hope burble up in her chest. She gave talks. She told people, “This is not my first pandemic.” Maybe, she thought, there would be a surge in interest in infectious disease; maybe, she thought, people would understand the importance of conservation, and keeping ecosystems intact. That’s not what happened. “I had hoped COVID would be our success story,” she said. “But I went from ‘This will be a motivating factor to do better!’ to ‘Wow, we’re kind of losing momentum again.’”

Lips still remembers what Costa Rica’s tropics looked like in the 1990s, before Bd was truly known. She recalls the feeling of becoming enamored of the spectacular green coloring and the nubby spiked skin of the region’s Isthmohyla calypsa tree frogs. Isthmohyla calypsa is now no longer in Costa Rica: Bd has driven it out. And Lips no longer does much fieldwork. A lot of pain comes with confronting the froglessness—trying to count creatures that she and others worry will no longer be countable in a few years’ time. Lips’ current research—some of it geared toward influencing policy, and buoying biodiversity as a whole—does keep her going. But as the frogs continue to vanish, so too does the work of the scientists who study them. “Where do I go?” she said. “Where are the frogs?”

[jeyramarie]

the princess and the debutant- Florence Pugh x Reader (Bridgerton AU) Part 1

summary: debutant season just began and it will a lot more challenging than usual

wc: 2,480

warnings: none, for now.. 

a/n: i got this idea after finishing season 2 of bridgerton and can i just say HOLY WOW best season EVER 🥲

but anyways i decided to combine flo and the show cause why tf now? 😂 idk how long i would make this, it depends on the feedback i end up receiving.. 

p.s: reading it in a british accent makes it A LOT more fun jajaja

so please lmk if you wanna be tagged, any feedback is appreciated and happy reading 🦋

It was 1815 in London where the Queen hosted the first ball of the season. Not only was it to introduce the new debutants but also to welcome her niece, Florence. She had traveled all the way from Oxford to live with her aunt, the Queen, who decided to introduce her as a debutante as well in hopes to find her a noble husband. The same reason the Johnson’s arrived at the ball. Their eldest daughter, Y/n, was a debutante and it was a great goal for her to find a partner as her parents did. 

“Miss Maryann Addington, presented by the Right Honorable, Lord and Lady Addington!” The announcer shouted from inside the throne room. It was filled with very important families, eager to see this season’s eligible debutants. Especially, eager to meet this season’s diamond who is named by the Queen herself. 

The ladies must present themselves to Her Royal Highness in order to be rightfully accepted into the season. The one that shows best posture, grace and elegance would become the Queen’s diamond. That would make her the prestigious debutante, the one everyone would want. 

“Miss Y/n Johnson, presented by the Right Honorable, Lord and Lady Johnson!” 

The doors opened and everyone's eyes drifted to the door. A young girl stood in a white and gold gown with white feathers in her hair. Y/n’s hands shook as she took a few steps forward, entering the crowded room. The Lord and Lady stood by her as they all walked down the long aisle to stand before the Queen. She curtsies, as well as her parents, before standing up straight. Her Royal Highness looked her up and down and smiled before turning her head to her niece, who was sitting beside her. Florence looked at her aunt and over to Y/n before giving her a subtle nod. 

She’s the one the Queen thought to herself as they walked off to the side with the rest of the families. 

“How did I do Mama?” Y/n asked as they stepped outside to the garden. 

“You were marvelous, dear.” She smiled. 

“Now all that’s left is for a suitor to sweep you off your feet.” Her father chuckled as he turned to his daughter. 

“And for the Queen to name me this season’s diamond.” She muttered, staring at the ground in nerves. 

“We must wait and see.” Her mother smiled, grabbing Y/n’s hand as they walked towards the pastry table. 

“Her Royal Highness calls for everyone to go to the ballroom! She has chosen her diamond!” The announcer shouted from the top of the stairs that lead to the garden. Everyone began to whisper and mumble to each other as they filled the castle once again. The debutants were anxious to hear who would be this season’s diamond and the men were eager to see a possible choice to find their future wife. 

“As you may all know, I choose a debutante to become my diamond. She must show elegance, grace and beauty, as well as good manners and delicacy. It is why I have chosen my diamond to be Miss Y/n Johnson.” The Queen announced, causing everyone to clap as Y/n stood there in shock. She walked forward, standing in front of Her Royal Highness and bowed down. As she stood up straight, she smiled at the Queen and turned slightly to curtsy at the princess. 

“Are you sure about her?” Florence whispered to her aunt as she saw Y/n walking back to her parents. 

“Very much so.” The Queen replied and walked into the ballroom, signaling the musicians to start playing. 

Music filled the room as couples walked towards the middle of the room to begin dancing. Bodies moved around in circles to the soft violins and cellos. Y/n stood shyly next to her parents, drinking lemonade as she stared at the couples around the ballroom. She was about to excuse herself to go outside when she saw the Queen walking towards her. 

“Your Majesty.” Y/n said as she bowed. 

“Miss Johnson. I have high hopes for you this season.” 

“I am eternally grateful for this opportunity, thank you Your Majesty.” 

“Do not let me down, Miss Johnson. I have heard great things about you.” The Queen smirked and moved as if she was about to leave but quickly turned back to Y/n who was mid curtsy. 

“Would you like to come over tomorrow for some tea? It would be delightful to speak with you about your next actions as my diamond.” 

“It would be an honor.” Y/n smiled as she nodded. 

“Very well, tomorrow indeed.” The Queen smiled and her diamond bowed once more before she walked off to speak to someone else. Y/n took a deep breath before turning to her parents, who were talking to the Addington’s. 

“Excuse me, Lord and Lady Addington. I wish to speak to my mama for just a moment.” Y/n said after courtesy the couple. 

“No problem dear.” The Lady said as she pulled her mother away to a corner. 

“Darling, wha-”

“The Queen has invited me for tea tomorrow.” She smiled. 

“Oh darling, that’s wonderful. Will the princess be present as well?” 

“I’m not certain, why?” 

“I’ve heard she has got quite the temper.” Lady Johnson whispered before going back to her husband. 

—--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The next morning, Y/n woke up feeling anxious about her meeting with the Queen. She had picked her best dress with the finest silk along with her favorite jewelry. Due to the nerves, breakfast wasn’t an option. Her stomach was in a knot as the morning went on. It got worse as her carriage approached the castle. 

Y/n was going alone as the Queen suggested. It made her feel insecure. She felt as if everything she had learned her whole life was about to slip her mind in a second, leaving her mind empty. The carriage came to a stop and the footmen opened the door, helping her climb out. Her eyes drifted towards the castle before grabbing her dress and walking up the stairs. 

“Miss Johnson.” The doorman bowed his head as she curtsy.  “Her Majesty is waiting in the parlor.” 

“Thank you.” She smiled and walked towards the living room where she was introduced. 

“Her Royal Highness, presenting Miss Y/n Johnson!” 

The Queen lifted her head and smiled, standing up as her diamond walked towards her. The girl smiled shyly as she fidgeted with her hands. 

“Your Majesty.” She bowed. 

“It’s good to see you, Miss Y/n.” The Queen replied before turning to sit back on her chair. Y/n followed and sat across from her. 

They spent the afternoon talking and laughing about the society’s most “eligible” bachelors, the ones who are battling to court Miss Y/n and hopefully become her future husband. It was settled that the Queen would host a ball as an official beginning to Y/n’s journey. She would invite every important family in order to have debutants, Lords and Viscounts in one room. 

Florence had come back to the castle from the modiste when she heard the giggles coming from the parlor. With all her curiosity, she entered the room to see Y/n holding her cup of tea as her aunt laughed at something she had said. The Queen had been joyful about her diamond which resulted in her mentioning Y/n multiple times. Florence didn’t seem to completely enjoy that. Or does she? 

“Oh, Florence, dear. I didn’t see you there.” The Queen smiled, making her niece break out of her own thoughts. 

“I had just arrived from the modiste.” She smiled, walking into the room to bow in front of her aunt before turning to Y/n. “I was not aware we were to have company today.” 

“Your Majesty.” She quickly stood up to curtsy to Florence and she looked her up and down. 

“What were you speaking about?” 

“I am hosting a ball in a few days.” The Queen replied, watching as her niece walked closer to the window. 

“And who is set to-”

“Excuse me, Your Majesty but we have a situation with the King.” A servant interrupted as he tried to catch his breath. The Queen quickly stood and walked away, leaving Y/n and Florence alone. 

“I must say, my aunt is pretty infatuated by your performance but it will not be easy to remain with the title.” Florence said with a straight face. 

“Do you not believe I am capable?” Y/n furrowed her brows. 

“I believe you’re capable of marrying any man who steps foot in front of you but certainly not a Viscount or a Prince.” 

“And why wouldn’t I, Your Majesty? I am well educated, I know three languages, I enjoy to read Charles Dickens-”

“Charles Dickens?!” Florence shouted with a dry laugh. “I do not believe you enjoy that man’s words.” 

“Do you not like it?” Y/n asked, interlocking her hands together in front of her. 

“Who would actually like his work?” 

“A person who appears to have good taste, something you certainly lack.” The girl took a deep breath and walked closer to the princess, who stared in shock. The last thing she imagined was Y/n actually having something to say.

 “I must be leaving now. It was a pleasure to make your acquaintance.” Y/n said and bowed before walking out of the room. 

Florence stood there in silence, reminiscing on the conversation that just took place. She heard the whining of the horses and turned to the window, staring at Miss Y/n while she got into her carriage. Her aunt was right, she really is the embodiment of elegance. The blonde didn’t know why, couldn’t explain it but all she wondered was when she was going to see the diamond again.

—--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“She is certainly not a Princess, mama.” Y/n rambled, pacing around the parlor as her mother drank tea. “I very much enjoy reading Dickens, why should I be ashamed of that? There’s no wrong in his work but the Princess decided to have an opinion on it. One that’s rather unwanted.” 

“Darling, I do not think she wished to offend you in any way.” Lady Johnson said, placing her tea cup on the table. 

“She criticized my readings, mama. I was chosen as the diamond for a reason and my book taste has nothing to do with it.” She scoffed and sat across from her mother. Her leg bounced up and down as her thoughts continued to race wildly in her head. 

“You must calm down.”

“But mama-” 

“You must calm down. The only way to show the Princess that you are worthy is by your actions not by nice words.” Her mother said cutting her off before standing up. “You are a very intelligent woman. I do not doubt that you will indeed impress her.” 

Y/n was left alone in the parlor before she stood up and began to get ready for a fun afternoon with her friend, Maryann Addington. Both families have been close friends since their early courting days, which resulted in their daughters getting along so well. They always shared secrets to each other as well as gossip that was heard from their parent’s conversation. Miss Maryann had invited Y/n over for a horse ride around her manor, which was desperately needed after her encounter with the Princess. 

“And here I thought you were becoming friends.” Maryann chuckled while galloping on her horse next to Y/n. 

“We will certainly never be friends. She is rather rude.” 

“Well what about the Queen? The princess is her niece after all.” 

“I will only focus on her and make her proud.”Y/n replied with a clenched jaw. 

“I do not know the exact words that were exchanged but perhaps the both of you can find a common ground.” Miss Addington suggested. 

“Perhaps indeed.” She muttered, giving her friend a sad smile before drifting the conversation to Maryann’s suitors for the season. 

As they returned back to the manor, Lord and Lady Addington were enjoying a cup of tea with someone else who was sitting across from them. The horses whined as they approached the garden, which caused Lord Addington to look up and smile at his daughter. The ladies climbed off the horses and walked over to them while taking off their gloves. 

“This would be my daughter, Miss Maryann Addington and her friend-” Lord Addington began, extending his arm towards his daughter.

“Miss Johnson.” A voice cut him off causing the girl to look up to see Florence. 

“Your Majesty.” She almost whispered, bowing towards the Princess. 

“I wasn’t aware you were acquainted with the Addington’s.” Florence smiled, giving her a rather daring look. 

“They have known my parents for many years, hence why Miss Maryann and I are friends.” Y/n explained. 

“I am surprised you know the definition of the word.” The blonde muttered as the girl scoffed in disbelief. 

“I beg your pardon.” She replied with narrowed eyes. 

“Maybe we should step inside, it seems like it will be raining any moment.” Lady Addington said, sensing the tension between them. 

“Certainly right, mama. We can play a game, perhaps checkers or charades.” Maryann suggested walking towards her home. 

“I must be going actually. Mama had wanted me to help her with some new fabrics.” Y/n announced with a small shrug. 

“Are you afraid I might win, Miss Johnson?” Florence smirked. 

“Of course not, Your Majesty, but if I in fact stayed, there wouldn’t be any winning from your side.” 

“Is that some type of challenge?” 

“Only if you agreed.” Y/n chuckled. 

“Agreed to what?” The princess narrowed her eyes. 

“To be a fair loser, Your Majesty.” 

Florence chuckled dryly and turned her head as she scratched the side of her nose. She looked at Y/n in question, never expecting her to speak to her that way. 

“I most certainly will be going. I would not want mama to be angry.” Y/n smiled and bowed to Florence before moving up the stairs to say goodbye to Maryann. 

She went into the house and called for her carriage before bidding a goodbye to Lord and Lady Addington. Florence took a deep breath and followed Maryann into the manor. Y/n was slowly walking down the stairs towards her carriage when she turned around to see the Princess staring out the window. 

Y/n waved at her before getting into her carriage as Florence stayed surprised from the small gesture. The Addington’s called her over to begin the game of chess as she continued to think about the girl. Both of them thought about one another for the rest of the day. It will certainly be a very interesting season. 

florence taglist: @flosbelova @kassies-take @ideas-for-you-to-adopt @florencestann1234 @freewaysigns-underpasses @snooy245 @wandanatvoid @gay-vet-student @yelenabelovastolemyheart @marvelwomen-simp @simpforflorencepugh1 @laaurel @yelenabelovasbxtch @geico-insuranc @oh-its-jennyyy @bandit2029 @youresuchamom @simpforyelenabelova​ @justfangirlingaround​

[landhoesnorris]

Keep Quiet - Lando Norris

Pairing: Lando Norris x Reader

Warnings: Smut, 18+

Request: “18. “you need to keep quiet baby” 20. “you look so good with my hand around your neck” Lando's best friend max is over few months at our place and lando went with you on a date to celebrate the 1 anniversary. When he came back home he heard max is live on twitch and you both has sex and max heard you moans and was very embarrassing and end his stream!” -Anon.

I changed it from the request slightly but hope you still like it.

A/N: Let me know if you want me to write a part 2 of this I have ideas. 

You and Lando had been dating for a year and decided you’d celebrate your anniversary by going out to a fancy restaurant. Since it was a special occasion you decided to get properly dressed up. You decided to wear a satin red dress which had a high slit up the left leg, the dress however was tight around your curves meaning that wearing underwear wouldn’t be an option. You matched your dress with a red lipstick and light makeup and curled your hair.

Once you finished getting ready you made your way downstairs to find Lando waiting there. He was dressed in a white button up and black suit trousers. Lando rarely got dressed up, so everytime he did you were mesmerised and also at least a little turned on. Lando looked up from his phone as he heard you making your way down the stairs and his breathe caught in his throat when he saw how amazing you looked. “Wow” was all he could get out and he made his way over you and pulling you close to him when he reached you. A blush creeped up on your cheeks. “Don’t look too bad yourself Norris.” You told him as your hand came up to cup his face feeling his light stubble under your palm, yet another turn on for you. At this rate you wanted the night to be over, so you could act on your desire, before it had even started.

Lando’s phone went off alerting you both that your taxi was outside waiting for you. Lando grabbed your hand and led you outside letting you get into the taxi first before slipping in beside you. The taxi ride was quick and you were at the restaurant before you knew it. You’d been given a small cosy booth meaning that you and Lando could sit next to each other on the rounded bench as appose to opposite each other.

The whole evening was absolutely lovely, you and Lando both reminiscing on the past year together whilst enjoying amazing food and cocktails. You hadn’t even realised how long you’d been in the restaurant until the waiter came over to tell you both that the kitchen was about to close and if you wanted a dessert you’d need to order it now. You decided that you’d share a slice of chocolate cake and ice cream not wanting to leave quite yet. The waiter brought over your dessert and left you both to enjoy it. Throughout the evening you and Lando had managed to get closer and closer on your shared bench without realising it. You only noticed how close you both were when you crossed your left leg over your right and realised you were practically on top of your boyfriend. He brought his hand down to caress your now exposed thigh running his fingertips up and down before coming to an abrupt stop as his fingers were slightly under the fabric of your dress near your hip. You’d completely forgotten about the fact you weren’t wearing any underwear until now and it was clear from Landos face he’d realised too. His eyes suddenly darkened filling with lust. He needed to have you. He quickly glanced at the waiter signalling that you were both ready for the bill and the waiter brought it over quickly. Lando pulled out his wallet paying in cash and leaving a very generous tip as he just wanted to be able to leave.

Once you both made your way outside he quickly pulled out his phone ordering an uber to take you home. “I hope you know you’re getting punished when we get home. You sat the whole way through dinner completely bare without my knowledge. Do you really think that’s acceptable?” All you could do was giggle and fake an innocence in response much to his annoyance. However the uber pulled up before he could say anything more on the matter. Once again the journey was quick and you thanked god Lando didn’t decide to book a restaurant in London as he’d originally planned.

The sexual tension was building the entirety of the taxi ride with both yours and Lando’s hands slyly exploring the others body as much as possible without alerting the taxi driver. When you arrived home all you both wanted was to devour each other as soon as you got through the door. However Lando’s best friend Max was currently staying with you both so you knew you’d have to make it to your room before you could do anything. You made your way to your shared bedroom making sure you weren’t too loud as you didn’t want to wake Max.

As soon as you got to your room Lando had you pinned up against the wall and joint together in a rough make out session. Him making quick work of removing your dress and you his shirt and trousers. After he’d removed your dress he took a step back admiring the sight of your naked body in front of him before dragging you over to the bed. He lay down and pulled you on top of him straddling his hips. Neither of you in the mood for any foreplay. Both just wanting to be connected to each other in the most intimate way possible. You reached down aligning his member with your entrance before he roughly thrusted up into you. A loud moan escaped your lips as he did so. His eyes went wide knowing that you both needed to keep quiet not wanting Max to hear you both. “You need to keep quiet baby, wouldn’t want Max hearing” Lando told you as he stilled his movements momentarily. You pouted in response wanting to be able to bask in the pleasure in full. “He’s your friend, so you better think of a way to keep me quiet” you said in response. Getting annoyed with the lack of movement from Lando you started riding him, placing your hands on his chest and bouncing up and down at a fast pace. Moans and expletives along with Lando’s name were continuously slipping from your mouth. Lando had to act fast to get you to keep the noise down flipping you both over so that he was now on top. He brought one of his hands up to your neck before squeezing gently. Your eyes rolled back as he did so and your breath caught in your throat. In the year since you and Lando had been dating choking was never something you’d done and at this moment you were both wondering why. “You look so good with my hand around your neck, and it’s got you to shut up.” He said as he continued to thrust in and out of you knowing he could go as hard and fast as he desired in your new position since you were unable to make a sound. He was fully filling you with every thrust causing you to feel so much pleasure. It didn’t take either of you much longer to reach your high. However Lando removed his hand from your throat too early and you were once again screaming his name this time even louder. Lando being to caught up in his own state of bliss was unable to do anything to stop you his moans almost matching yours for volume. Your walls clenched around Lando as you felt his cum filling you and you came around him, both looking into each other’s eyes. “I think we might have woken Max” You told him with a giggle. He rolled of you with a grin on his face not able to be annoyed after the amount of pleasure he’d just received.

Little did either of you know Max wasn’t actually down the hall sleeping but in the room next to yours live on Twitch. At first when chat was asking about noises he thought they were playing a prank on him since they knew he was in the house alone and he couldn’t hear any noises through his headphones. However a short while later he heard noises that couldn’t be mistaken, it was your voice screaming Lando’s name so loud and in a tone that even chat knew exactly what was going on. A blush quickly rose to Max’s cheeks realising that his best friend was in the next room over having sex and he just made that public knowledge to the world live on Twitch. He quickly shut off his livestream without even saying ‘goodbye’ to his viewers. He leant back in his chair running his hand through his hair “Fuck” he mumbled to himself as he realised what just happened.

[narukoibito]

Trope mashup - 10 + 51

10 (Airport/Travel AU) and 51 (Accidentally Married)

Oh my God, you are so funny, @theroomofreq! This immediately fired up my brain. I went way overboard, but this is the most I’ve written in a long time. I had fun with my favorite two idiots. Hope you enjoy!

Please feel free to send me more trope mashups!

*

Harry slumped back into the squeaky, plastic airport chair. The woman two seats over shot him a look before leaving in a huff, her purse clutched to her chest. Great, just great.

He sighed, rubbing his forehead out of habit. A bad habit, according to his best friend, Hermione. Supposedly would induce early on-set wrinkles, as if his troublesome life weren't the cause. He looking longingly over at the bar. Would it be too early to start drinking before he even got on the flight? One could hardly blame him, after all. Even Hermione, who had insisted he take the trip, despite everything.

And now he was thinking about it again.

Fuck it, he thought, dragging his carry-on over to the bar. It took longer than it should, considering its funky wheel that kept trying to go the opposite direction as its partner. It almost made him want to laugh. Or cry.

Instead, he ordered a whiskey, neat.

Harry was fiddled with the napkin the bartender set in front of him, when a curtain of red hair leaned over the bar several seats from him.

"Gin and tonic, please," the redhead ordered.

Their eyes caught, and Harry flushed at being caught starting, but she gave him a bright smile. He felt his lips raise in response. Then he quickly looked away, back to the napkin he had all but massacred.

No, none of that. This was supposed to be about finding himself or something, or whatever Hermione had chattered on about while shoving him into the car and driving him here. She had even done the packing, if tossing whatever clean laundry he had into the bag counted. For all he knew, she had slipped a copy of Eat, Pray, Love in there. Of course, he was probably going to brood and drink the entire time. But there was no redhead or blonde or brunette in the picture.

Even if they were really fit.

"Old fashion, neat," the bartender said, placing a new napkin and the drink in front of him.

"Thanks," Harry said, taking a liberal sip, even though it burned on the way down. No more getting drawn towards pretty women who would break his heart. No matter how shiny their hair was.

There was an announcement on the overhead before an overly cheerful voice crackled through the loud speakers, "Good afternoon everyone! Or should I say 'Aloha'? Welcome everyone here at gate B24, outgoing flight from London to Kauai, Hawaii. We'll be boarding shortly. As we wait, our company likes to play a little lottery for an upgrade to first class!"

He tuned out the annoying chatter and focused instead on his drink, which was starting to make everything feel pleasantly warm and fuzzy.

"We have our lucky couple! And would you look at that, newlyweds on their honeymoon! Would Mr. and Mrs. Harry Potter come up to the podium?"

Harry promptly choked, spilling some of his drink. He turned, appalled to see the flight attendant at the podium, holding up two leis.

"Would Mr. and Mrs. Harry Potter come to gate B24′s podium to upgrade their seats?"

Not only was he going on his honeymoon alone, but he was going to have to be humiliated in an airport full of strangers? As if being humiliated in front of his family and friends wasn't enough? He needed to get out of here. Why fly to Hawaii to drown his sorrows when he could do it from the comfort of his flat?

"Mr. and Mrs. Harry Potter?" the speaker repeated.

Harry had just grabbed hold of his luggage handle when an arm looped with his.

"I can't believe we won, honey!" 

He looked down at the voice in disbelief. The redhead was smiling up at him encouragingly, a blazing look in her eye. 

"Yeah," he managed. “Wow.”

She pulled him towards the gate, waving one hand cheerfully in the air to announce their approach. Harry was too stunned to do anything but let himself be dragged along.

"Congratulations to the happy couple!" the flight attendant sang while bequeathing the leis around their necks as the crowd aww'ed and clapped. After the spectacle died down, she asked for their IDs to update their tickets. Dumbfounded, he provided his ID only to panic about his companion, but without missing a beat, she explained how she hadn’t yet had a chance to change her name. Yes, all that paperwork was such a bother, the attendant laughed in commiseration.

Next thing he knew, he was seated once again at the bar, his whiskey placed back in his hand as the redhead went back to sipping her gin and tonic. His mind was spinning with how this stranger had rescued him and how to thank her, but all he could think was how stupidly attractive he found her audacity.

"This isn’t how I imagined meeting my wife," Harry blurted like an idiot.

“Well, now we have 19 hours to get acquainted,” she laughed, the sound sending small shivers down his spine. 

“How’d you figure it out?” 

She gave him a sympathetic look.

“Jilted at the alter all over my face?” 

"Her loss,” she said, waving her ticket victoriously, pulling yet another smile out of him. “Being Mrs. Potter for five minutes has already proven to the best part of my week.”

His heart skipped a beat at her words. “I’m not sure if I should be impressed or scared by your acting.”

“I tend to think anything's possible if you've got enough nerve,” she said. “Besides...” She squinted thoughtfully at his face. He had to clamp down on the urge to flatten his hopeless hair. “Yep, you have a look about you.”

“What look?” he asked, defensively.

“Like you have a noble streak,” she declared. “If the situation were reversed, you’d have done the same for me.”

“What idiot would leave you at the alter?” He must have had more alcohol than he realized. That, or maybe it had to do with the fact that he hadn’t eaten since Saturday. His stomach rumbled as if on cue.

“See? Noble,” she laughed, rummaging in her bag. She pulled out two colorful Easter eggs. “Would you like one?”

Harry took one gratefully, peeling the wrapper. The chocolate melted on his tongue, and a familiar comfort eased through him.

“So,” Harry said, clearing his throat. “All this alcohol must be getting to me since I can’t seem to remember my wife’s name.”

“Ginny,” she said, holding out her hand. “Ginny Weasley now Potter.”

He slid his hand into hers, feeling her warm and callused fingers grip his in return. Maybe it was the fact the warm chocolate always comforted him, but Harry was feeling more happier than he could remember in the longest time.

---

Please feel free to send me more trope mashups!

[talesofstyles]

Reconcile II

Ok so I know that I wrote the first part with reader insert, but after many, many attempts to keep it that way, it just didn’t work with this one. So I’d like for you to meet Emma. This is my first time writing with OC and wow game changer. I love her and I hope you do too!

Also, I honestly can’t thank my beta queens enough @oh-honey-styles @for-fucks-sake-h 🥺💛 thanks for allll the comments and suggestions and nice words!!! ily both xx

Read part I here

Harry

“So… are we okay now?”

We’re sitting here on the sofa, finally having that very much needed father-daughter date. Granted, a movie night in was not what I had in mind. I wasn’t too thrilled when she said she wanted to just go back home after we dropped George at his classmate’s house for a birthday sleepover. I thought she would hole up in her room instead and ignore me. But she didn’t. I got us pizza for tea, and we’ve got Shrek 2 on the telly. Her animosity towards me disappeared just like that after she asked for a puppy the other day. Of course, I’m glad to have my happy-go-lucky daughter back, but deep down I know that we need to have a proper chat. The change in her behaviour is so abrupt that I know there’s a chance that my daughter is still bitter with me deep down. And that won’t do. I can take a lot of things, but my daughter’s resentment is not one of them.

“Yeah, we’re okay,” she nods as she takes a bite of her pizza. “You’re still getting me a puppy right?”

“I still need to talk to your mum about it, poppet,” I tell her. “Puppies need a lot of attention. It’s going to be hard work and that puppy is going to be a permanent member of our family. We’ve really got to think about it before we decide.”

I expect a little excitement knowing that her mum and I are really considering getting a puppy. But what I get is quite the opposite. My little girl’s gaze drops, her face slackening. Her voice cracks a little when she mumbles, “except… we’re not a family.”

I wince, realising how serious the effect our split has on my daughter. Despite Emma and I putting on a friendly, united front for our children, Minnie is still sad that her parents are not together. 

“Of course we’re still a family,” I assure her, pulling her to me for a comforting side hug. “I’m still your dad, mummy is still your mum, and you and George are still the lights of our lives.” 

“But you and mummy aren’t together anymore,” she points out bitterly. “And you live so far away from us now. I miss having you at home.”

“I know, my love,” I murmur gently, and turn sideways so she can see my face. “It’s killing me too. But you never know what the future holds, right?”

“I guess,” she says glumly.

I wish I can tell her that I’m trying to win her mum back so we can be together again, but I know I can’t do that. This is far too early. I don’t want to get her hopes up in case I’m not successful in convincing my wife to give me another shot. That’ll only break her heart all over again.

Thinking back, I realised that this is the first time we have a proper chat about our split. I fled to LA the next morning after my wife asked me to leave our marital home back in London, leaving her to sit down with our children to tell them that I was not going to live there anymore. I was shocked and angry because I had no idea what I’d done. I thought we were fine. There were no fights leading up to that. I still remember exactly what I told her. ‘You’re the one who wanted to end it, you tell them.’ And then I left.

Just like that. Without a fight.

I swear to God, it’s something that I would never be able to forgive myself. 

“How’s your mum?” 

“She’s sad,” Minnie sighs. “She cries a lot. She thinks we can’t hear her in the shower, but we can.”

Knowing I caused that physically hurts. I rub at the throb of pain behind my breastbone and I think about all those private tears I shed through it. The ones you hope are hidden and silent.

“Can I ask you something, daddy?”

“Anything, poppet.”

“Do you still get sad too?”

I’m not sure how much to divulge here. Does my daughter need to hear that I stopped eating? That I once cried in the loo at Cafe Habana, and once had to be fished out of a bath by Jeff after I turned into a human prune? I was sad. I still wear that hat. 

“I do. It’s the end of something, that’s always sad.”

“I think mum is dating someone,” she says and my eyes widen. “She told us Luke is her friend, but I think he’s her boyfriend. They’re on a date now, aren’t they?”

I can try and deny it, but I know my daughter is smart and won’t buy anything I tell her.

“What do you know about boyfriends?” I tease, my attempt to lighten up the mood. 

“I’ve just turned nine, I’m not stupid,” Minnie rolls her eyes. “‘Sides I’m thinking about getting one of those boyfriend thingies.”

I sit there slack-jawed, and my daughter roars with laughter.

“Minnie Alexandra, you’re going to drive me to an early grave, you know that?”

“Hey, what are you middle naming me for? I was joking!” She says, still laughing as she picks a piece of pepperoni off her pizza.

“How do you feel about your mum dating again?” I ask her.

She pauses. “I don’t know yet. As long as he’s nice and doesn’t put me under the stairs…”

“I’m sure he won’t. In the attic maybe,” I joke.

She laughs again. I’m thinking about keeping that bloke in the attic so my wife won’t date him anymore. Or even better, six feet under my patio. That’ll do.

“It’s gonna be okay, right, dad?”

Honestly, I’m not sure. But I don’t have the heart to tell her that.

“Yeah, Min. It’s gonna be okay.”

***

I see the headlight shining into the front windows as I walk down the stairs from tucking my daughter into her bed. That must be Emma and her date. I pull back the curtain a little to peek outside, and I’m right as I see that bollockface’s car in front of the house. 

You know that saying; curiosity killed the cat? Well, in my case, curiosity fucked me with a chainsaw. 

I’m a bloody idiot. I should have just closed the curtain back as soon as I recognised the car. I mean… it’s the end of a date. What did I expect to see? A high five? I knew I was so sure when they left that he would not be getting anything more than a friendly kiss, but that date must have gone really well, because right now, my eyes may as well fall out of their sockets as I see that bastard’s tongue down my wife’s throat. 

I’m frozen. I’m gripping the curtain so tight that my knuckles are turning white. I stand there—stunned. Watching. I’m not even sure for how long. It does feel like forever. Like an eternity. 

In hell.

And then Emma pulls back, and everything seems like a blur. I have to remind myself that my daughter is sleeping upstairs so I won’t go apeshit and knock that wanker square on his arse. 

I’m still glued to the floor by the door. I’m too shocked to move. I hear the sound of keys rattling before the door swings open, and she looks surprised when she sees me.

And all hell breaks loose.

“What the fuck, Emma?!” She jolts at hearing me shout. I rarely did it. In fact, I’m not even sure if I’d ever yell at my wife before throughout our marriage. “You told me last night you’d never even kissed him. You told me you weren’t ready.”

“I- I don’t know. He caught me off guard. That was-”

“I told you I wanted to make this work,” I remind her, trying to lower my voice so I won’t wake my daughter up. She doesn’t need to see this. “Us. Our marriage. I told you I wanted to fight for you. But I can’t do that with someone shoving their tongue down my wife’s throat, can I?”

As soon as the words leave my mouth, I see her tear up and I immediately feel regret. That was harsh. But before I can apologise, I can see her lip curls up and I know she’s about to get nasty. It’s a rarity with her when we’ve fought in the past, but I feel it coming.

“You’re unbelievable, you know that?” She sneers. “You think that if you put a toy down, it’ll still be sitting there when you want to play with it again.”

“That’s-”

“You have no right to be upset at me. We’ve split up for nearly a year now. What I do and what I don’t do on my dates is none of your business.” 

“I want us to give our marriage another shot,” I say in exasperation. “I want to try to win you back, but fuck’s sake you’re not even giving me the time of day.”

“Oh, look how the tables turned,” she taunts. “Sucks, innit? Being the one struggling to find the time when it seems like the other doesn’t give a crap?”

“Cheap shot, Ems,” I retort.

“Truth hurts, doesn’t it, H?” 

Emma averts her eyes, her lower lip quivering. I can’t tell if she regrets her harsh words or not, but she doesn’t look back my way, and she seems to have said her piece.

I knew sooner or later this was bound to happen. We never had our big fight, not even that night when she decided that enough was enough.

“I cannot possibly go through that again. It physically hurts,” she says softly. “I know I was the one who ended it, but when you just left like that the next morning without so much of a fight as if ten years means nothing to you… that really did hurt. You left me alone to talk to the kids about what happened. And sure, you did call every day. But it took you nearly nine months to finally come and see your children?”

“I needed some time. Some space,” I tell her. “Do you think it’s easy for me being there? Away from my wife and kids?”

“You chose to be there.”

“You know I couldn’t stay in London,” I murmur. “It’s too hard. At least in LA sometimes I can just pretend that everything’s okay. That we’re okay. That my wife and kids will be there waiting for me when I get home. I can’t do that in London.”

“That’s a shit excuse and you know it,” she mutters.

“I still love you, Em,” I say with a sigh. I know trying to defend myself further for what I did will get me nowhere. “We can fix this. We can be a family again.”

“Harry, it’s too late.”

“Is it him?” I can’t help but go there, because that’s a possibility. “Do you love him already?”

“Luke is a fresh start for me, H. I may not love him now but at least it doesn’t hurt looking at him. It took me months to be able to get back up again, to get to where I am right now. To finally find a little bit of peace.”

Emma’s head hangs low, and she rubs at her temple with her fingers. I want nothing more than to pull her into my arms. But by how stiff her spine is, I can tell she wouldn’t come willingly. 

“I’m sorry, Emma,” I whisper, resigned. Tears well up in our eyes. There’s nothing I can say that will change her mind because we’re not seeing eye to eye. She’s still focused on the past, not that I blame her because I did hurt her badly, but I know that there is no way we can go anywhere if she can’t see past the harms I’ve caused in the past.  “I hope one day you’ll be able to forgive me.”

“I’ve forgiven you a long time ago,” she says, her expression softens. Her thumb runs at a part of her finger where a ring used to be. “Now, I just want us to try and make this separation work. Focus on the kids. Let’s do the right thing by them.”

I nod.

“Can I ask you something?”

“Yeah.”

“When did it all start?” I ask, my voice cracks a little. “When did you start feeling like you’re invisible to me?”

“I’m not sure I can point down to one exact moment,” she takes a shaky breath and pauses. “The change was gradual that by the time I realised it, I didn’t even recognise us anymore. I spent days and nights wondering what happened to us. That wasn’t us.”

I wipe that one tear running halfway down her cheek, and as soon as my thumb touches her skin, I lose it. I can’t help it by this point. Tears flow as much as I try to hold them back. She’s crying too. This is painful. 

“And it’d be too easy to say that I felt invisible,” she continues. “Because the truth is, I felt painfully visible. You ignored me on purpose. I wasn’t even sure what I was to you anymore, because the only chance for me to get your attention was by getting you in bed. And that was wrong. It hurts, because it felt like you only needed me to warm your bed.”

I want to deny that statement. I want to yell it’s not true. That I never intended to take her for granted. That she still makes my heart skip a beat like a bloody teenager seeing his first crush. 

But I don’t.

Because she’s right. I’m not sure what happened either, but we’d changed. Maybe it’s our jobs, maybe it’s the endless responsibilities. Domesticity, children, they wore us down. Kisses became perfunctory. Hugs became less frequent. Hell, I couldn’t even remember the last time I took my wife for a date night other than for social obligations.

“I’m sorry,” I tell her again. I’ll spend the rest of my life apologising to her if I have to, she deserves it. “I hurt you badly. I really am sorry, Emma.”

“It wasn’t all you though,” she mumbles. “I never called you out on it.”

“You didn’t,” I reply. “I never worked out why?”

“I swept it under the carpet because it was embarrassing. It felt silly having to ask for your attention. And I don’t know… pride, maybe? And the kids. I didn’t want them to know something was wrong. So I played along and carried on like nothing was happening.”

“When really…”

“It was like a punch to the guts each time. You were an excellent father. You still are, the kids adore you. This may sound insane and it’s embarrassing and painful for me to admit this, but there were times when I saw you with the kids and I couldn’t help but feel jealous. When you couldn’t even be bothered to look at me… it felt like you took a dump over all my love for you.”

“Emma…”

“I wish I could get past that. I wish I could just forget what happened and trust you again.” 

I bring her in for a hug and say nothing. She needs to get this all out. This is part of the process, and I’m here to listen. 

But where do we go from there?

Reconciling a broken marriage is tricky. I am not a violent person but I have never wanted to strangle people as much as I want to strangle those who wrote articles with countless advice regarding this subject, making it seem like it’s easy. Talk it out, get your point across, and you’re out of the dog house. Well, you know what, bollockface? It turns out that listening is not enough. Sod you and your dumb articles. 

All I know is that I can’t rush this. She’s not ready, and that’s okay. Right now, we both have things to work on. She needs to learn to let go of her resentment, and I have to learn not to take anything and anyone for granted ever again. This is killing me, but there is no one to blame but myself. I take solace in knowing the fact that I don’t know what’s going to happen in the future. Maybe one day we’ll be back together. Maybe we won’t. 

“Thank you for telling me all that,” I mumble against her hair. 

“Thank you for listening,” she looks up and gives me a sad smile.

***

Emma comes from a big family. 

There’s Jamie, her eldest brother and the only guy. I think the fact that he grew up surrounded by sisters was what made us the closest in the first place. He hates wine, even though he makes a career out of managing his own vineyard. I know, the irony. The next is Suze, sister number one who lives in Sheffield with her husband and three girls. Suze and her husband are both orthopaedic surgeons. Then my wife, the middle child. Then Meg, sister number two who just had a baby. It’s another girl so my George is still the only grandson in the family. And then Lucy, the youngest of the clan who’s still in university. 

They all live nearby, and I knew that all my in-laws hated me a tiny bit for taking their daughter and sister away. They were a hard outfit to infiltrate. You don’t enter into a relationship with one of them, you get a whole gaggle of them. It was hard to get in, but once you’re in, you’re in for life. 

After we’d split, I called my parents-in-law the next morning just before my flight to LA. I wasn’t sure whether or not Emma had told them about what happened, but I felt like it was the right thing to do. After all, they’d become my parents too for a decade. So I explained and apologised. Of course, I didn’t tell them the details because I knew they were between Emma and me, and they respected us enough not to ask. They were upset, but they also understood that these things happen in life. All they wanted was just for their grandbabies to come out of this unscathed. 

Now here I am, walking behind Emma and our children as we step over the threshold into her parents’ home for their monthly roast. Her parents invited me and I accepted. I don’t want to turn down any extra time I have with my kids as I’ve decided to leave today and head back to London. I was prepared to stay longer, take some time off work and fight for my marriage, but since it all has gone to pot, I figured I should leave. The world doesn’t stop even when you’re struggling with marital woes. I’ve got work to do, and I also know that it is best to give Emma space. 

I hear voices as we walk inside.

“If littl’uns are going in highchairs then what’s that extra space for?” I hear Meg’s husband say.

Meg tells him. “Count again, addition was never your strong point.”

“Oh.”

The house is suddenly quiet when they see me. This is my first time seeing the whole family again after we split, and even though my parents-in-law and I are on good terms, and Jamie too, I know the sisters would be a different story. All four of them are beyond close and they’re now looking at me as if they should’ve chucked me in the oven instead of the chicken.

You don’t do that to our sister. You hurt one, you hurt all of us. 

“Uncle Harry!” Freya shouts in excitement. She is one of Suze’s daughters. She and her twin sister Tessa are only a few months older than my George.

Suze, who is sitting on the sofa, looks a bit sullen, not knowing what the right call is to make. Meg and her husband freeze. 

“Alright there, mate?” Jamie greets me, trying to ease the tension. Suze glares at him.

“Are you here to do magic then, Uncle Harry?” Tessa asks. 

I bend down to her level. “Not sure I know any magic, Tessie.”

“Yeah you do!” Freya pipes up. “Because when we were driving here, daddy said you did a disappearing act on Aunty Ems. Show us what you did!”

“FREYA!” Her dad barks.

Meg can barely contain her giggles.

“But we like magic. You’re rubbish at magic,” she says to her dad. He widens his eyes. 

The sisters are now all smiling smugly, knowing a couple of six-year-olds just shamed me on their behalf. Extra roast potatoes for those two.

Lucy, the littlest sister, suddenly enters. That’s definitely not a happy face. “Oh, it’s you. Is that why everyone went so quiet? What are you doing here?”

“Luce,” Emma mutters.

“Because I invited him,” says a voice emerging from the kitchen. My father-in-law. “Harry, glad you could make it.”

“Of course,” I reply. “Thanks for the invitation.”

Lucy stares daggers at her dad, knowing she can’t unleash her trademark rapier wit as she’s surrounded by her little nieces and nephews. That one may be the youngest but she’s the scariest out of all the sisters, my wife included.

“Look, if it’s weird, I can just leave?” I offer.

“Nonsense, you must stay for supper,” Emma’s mum replies.

“Yeah, Harry, stay,” says Emma’s dad, staring at his daughters. “I want you lot to be nice. Otherwise, I’m putting you on the kids table. You hear me?”

The three of them nod in unison. 

“You two look well,” I say, my attempt to make small talk. 

“You know, dad’s been singing this morning,” Emma’s mum chirps, tilting her head towards her husband. “He joined a male choir. They think they’re Westlife.”

We all can’t help but laugh. This is classic mum. The tension seems to ease away. 

Let’s just hope it stays that way.

***

There’s a strange feeling of déjà vu as I take a seat on the steps in front of the cottage. 

I’m all packed up and ready to go. My weekender bag is in the boot of my car. Nothing left to do but say goodbye to my wife and kids, but I don’t go straight inside. 

Not yet. I need a moment.

These steps witnessed a lot of our marriage even though we’d never stayed here for longer than a couple of weeks at a time. We loved to sit out here in the summer. I remember when I first brought my stuff here shortly after we got married, we sat out here with beers, sleeves rolled up, boxes stacked into Jenga-style columns. 

I also remember sitting here last year on Christmas morning. Emma and I were both in our pyjamas and slippers, sipping coffees out of our matching Christmas mugs. We watched the kids ride their new scooters up and down the street. Everything was perfect. I had no idea that my marriage would end in just two months after that.

“Harry?”

I look over my shoulder and I urge her to sit beside me. She comes over and does just that. There is silence. We don’t say a word to each other. A quiet hum of traffic in the distance, puffs of breath cloud the air making me think we should both be wearing coats. Christmas is nearly here again. My heart aches at the thought of this being our first Christmas since everything fell apart.

“I’m sorry,” she says softly.

“I should be the one apologising, Em.”

“I know you wanted to work things out,” I hear the sadness in her voice. “I really loved you, you know that, right?”

“I do,” I nod. “Our marriage, all those years… it wasn’t all bad, though, right?”

“Of course,” she quickly replies. “We had our moments. We have Minnie and George.”

We pause, letting that sink in. In all this mess, those two were and remain everything, some symbol of our marriage not being a complete disaster. 

“There were also times when you were a good husband,” she adds.

“Why do I feel like you’re going to pat me on the head?”

Emma laughs under her breath.

“Your new bloke seemed a nice sort,” I tell her, because it’s true. I may hate the guy with a burning passion, but that’s only because he’s dating my wife. 

“He is.”

“That got legs?” I ask her.

“Possibly.”

“I want you to be happy, Ems,” I tell her. “With or without me.”

“Harry…”

“But I also want you to know that I’ll be waiting for you. No rush, no timeline. I’ll wait for as long as it takes. Because for me, it’s either you or no one else.”

The front door opens and two little faces pop out from behind it.

“What are you doing out here? It’s freezing!” Shouts Minnie.

“Well then come here and give me cuddles to warm me up,” I tell her.

Emma and I take a kid each. She takes George and lets him entangle his legs in hers, cradling himself into the hook of his mummy’s arm. Minnie uses me like a climbing frame. I bop her on the nose as I’ve done since she was a baby, and I like that it never stops being hilarious to her. The sky starts to dim, trees casting shadows onto the pavement. A house down the road has some festive lights that switch on and flicker on and off in strange syncopated patterns.

“This is nice,” Minnie mumbles. “I miss the awesome foursome.”

“The awesome foursome, huh?” I ask.

“That’s what you used to call us,” I hear the sadness in her voice and my heart aches. I know she feels this all a lot more than her little brother. “I still remember.”

“Do you really have to go again, daddy?” George looks at me with sad puppy dog eyes. 

“Yeah, do you?” Minnie asks. “I love having you here.”

“I do, my loves,” I reply sadly. “Be good for mummy, alright? I’ll be back soon, I promise.”

“I don’t like seeing you go,” George mumbles.

The emotion is a little unbearable and I see a tear trail down my wife’s cheek. George looks petrified seeing his mum cry. 

“Don’t be sad, mummy.”

“I’m not sad,” she shakes her head, quickly wiping the tear off her cheek. “I’m just sorry daddy and I couldn’t make it work.”

“Did we do something wrong?” George asks, looking at his mum and then me.

“Oh, mate,” I reach out to cup his face, Emma pulls him into a hug. “Of course not. You didn’t do anything wrong. You two are perfect, you hear me?”

“Do you still love each other?” Minnie asks.

Emma looks at me in the eye as she answers our daughter. “I’ll always love your dad, because he gave me both of you.”

“And I’ll always love your mum,” I say, my eyes pinned on my wife. “No matter what.”

Emma

“So… tell me, he a good lay? He looks the sort to have some girth.”

I probably should have warned you beforehand about this sister of mine.

Lucy is my entertainer sister who has done every job going alongside studying. She went to dance school, spent six months on a cruise ship, has been an extra and once did a two-month stint in Les Misérables. On weekends she dresses up as Disney characters and does kids’ parties which means she owns a lot of wigs and always has glitter in her bra. She’s the fun one. I keep her close because as much as I love my other siblings, this one has been a good entertainment through my separation. Mum suggested for her to live with me for a couple of weeks when I first moved back to the Peak, and I’m so glad she did. It was around the time I lost a stone and would spend most of the time napping, crying and staring at the wall, surviving on cups of tea and Rich Tea fingers. She couldn’t cook or clean and she used all my shampoo but she brought some light into the house when grey clouds threatened to consume it. She was also a great distraction because I could live vicariously through her tales of going to gigs and clubs and hear how she’s not slept and got her boobs out for reasons of fun and frivolity.

However, when you talk to her, she always goes there. She’s brash and has no conversational limit. She thinks her purpose is to not only feed me but also revive a pretty dead sex life too. Actually, it’s not just her. After my husband and I split, my sisters think it’s their job to pique my interest in men again. Luke happened after a boozy Chinese takeaway about two months ago when I joked that a spring roll was the most phallic thing I’d had in my mouth for over half a year. I remember a dumpling rolled out of Meg’s mouth in shock, so Suze decided to play the matchmaker and introduced me to Luke who worked at the same hospital with her.

Tonight, we’re having another takeaway night since my parents have all the grandchildren for the weekend. Bless them for entertaining that crew of children we seem to have acquired over the past nine years. We have seven between Suze, myself and Meg, and I just hope that my parents are well stocked with wine. They will need it. 

We all sit around my dining room table with the remnants of a KFC bargain bucket, a selection of Thai food, a giant bag of chips and some battered sausages. I’d admit that we were already a little drunk to buy food sanely. Luke is also here, I thought it’d be nice to give my sisters the chance to get to know him. And it doesn’t take Lucy more than thirty seconds after Luke gets up to take a phone call before asking such questions. 

“I don’t know? I haven’t slept with him yet.”

Lucy looks at me in confusion. “But you’ve been on dates and stuff?”

“We did have a cheeky snog last week but we’re taking it slow.”

“What are you waiting for? Just go shag him. Erase the memory of that wanker?” 

“Hey, he’s your niece and nephew’s father,” I chastise her for calling Harry names. “Don’t call him that.”

“Why don’t you want to sleep with Luke?” Meg, my other sister asks me. “Lucy is right though. He’s really tall, I bet he’s VWE.”

“What’s that?” I ask.

“Very well-endowed.”

I chuckle. “Honestly, I wouldn’t know what to do with it.”

Meg giggles and places her head on my shoulder. 

“Last time I had sex was on Valentine’s Day, girls. Do your maths. The next day, my marriage collapsed.”

Both of them huddle into me like penguins. 

“Which is why you just need to get over yourself,” Lucy remarks. “You need to remember what sex is like. It’ll be fun and make you feel good. If you don’t want to do it with Luke, you can have some taster session? I’ve got a uni mate who’d shag you.”

“Lovely. No.”

Lucy huffs. “You’re so boring.”

“Honestly, Em, Luke is fit. Seems like a nice fella, and he genuinely likes you. I’d have a go on him if I weren’t married. You should just do it,” says Meg.

“Yeah, you could shag him tonight,” Lucy adds. “Meg and I can piss off out and then…” 

Then she does a strange rave-style dance as she thinks of her plan coming together. Luke returns from his phone call and Lucy jiggles in her seat. Don’t you bloody dare. 

“Luke, we need more wine,” says Lucy. “There is not enough and we thought you could walk down to the shop and get some?”

Meg and I look at each other for a second, wondering what our sister is up to. 

“Sure, yeah, I could get wine,” Luke replies. “Any other requests?”

If she tells him to get condoms in then I will skewer her with a chopstick.

“Anything you might fancy or need?”

She’s walking an incredibly thin, thin line. 

Luke gets up to retrieve his coat and grazes my hand as he does. This move doesn’t go unnoticed by Meg and she gives me a sly wink. I hand him my keys and he heads for the front door. Meg stares Lucy out.

“Seriously?” She says.

“We need to prepare you if you’re going to sleep with him.”

“Like mentally?” I ask.

“Like have you had a tidy? This will be your first time. You’ll need to at least tidy up the flaps and do a bit of topiary.”

“LUCY!” I gasp and laugh at the same time, holding my hand to my face. Who is this woman? How can you raise five children in the same house and come up with such a random entity?

She stands up and heads for my kitchen drawers, rifling around until she pulls out a pair of scissors.

“Show me your bush,” she orders.

“Lucy! I prepare food with those scissors.”

“And we’ll wash them?”

Meg is in hysterics as she sees this scene unfolding in front of us.

“I’m not getting my bush out in my kitchen.”

“You’re so dull,” Lucy complains. “I’m trying to help here. What are your pits like? Shame there’s no time to tackle your upper lip.”

I put my hand over it instinctively. “I’ve got a moustache?”

“Well, you’re not Tom Selleck but it could do with a bleach.”

“You’re being cruel now, Luce,” Meg giggles. “But I think we do need the comedy of seeing Lucy trimming your bush in the kitchen.”

I stand up reluctantly and unbutton my jeans.

“Ha!” Exclaims Lucy. “You’re wearing nice knickers, you knew this was going to happen. Just peel them back a little and let me have a look.”

“Be quick for fuck’s sake. This is something that no one needs to see.”

“Do you want a shape?”

“What?”

“Yeah, like a heart? It’d be cute.”

“No!”

Meg roars with laughter.

“I’ll just trim the length then,” says Lucy. “Meg, put your hand out.”

“Do I have to?”

“Don’t you love your sister enough to at least hold her pubes?”

I’m not even sure what’s happening here. One sister is very close to my private regions with a sharp object and I hear the creak of metal as she shears away. The other collects the trimmings in a napkin in her palm. This feels like an opportune moment to ring Suze, our other sister, and start a FaceTime chat. That time we all took one for the team so Emma could reclaim her sex life.

“Thanks, Luce.”

“You don’t say this enough I feel.”

“We really don’t,” says Meg.

“Want me to look at yours, Meg?”

“I’m good.”

“What if he’s into weird stuff?” I ask.

“Like?”

“I don’t know… maybe like choking? Stuff like that.”

“Well, no one breaks out all the moves on their first time,” says Meg but Lucy gives us a look like she begs to differ.

“And I’m not on anything. I stopped the pills months ago. What if I get pregnant?”

“That’s what condoms are for?” 

They both give me a look that says I am not fourteen and that I should have an inkling about how reproduction works and the preventative measures that I can put in place to stop myself from getting pregnant. 

“How do I initiate it?”

“Maybe you could dance for him?” says Luce mockingly. “You’ve both had a drink, let it just happen. Planned sex is the worst kind of sex.”

“I planned nothing. You’re the one who’s got the kitchen scissors.”

“I’m done, anyway. Not my finest work but then at least he’ll be able to find it?”

Meg laughs again as she goes to the bin with her napkin of pubes. I do my jeans up and sit at the table, downing what’s left in my glass. What if he can’t get it up? Or worse, what if he doesn’t like my boobs? I have modest boobs. They wouldn’t win any competitions. What if he wants better boobs?

“You’re overthinking,” says Meg.

“I haven’t got any condoms.”

Lucy reaches inside her handbag, pulls out two packets of johnnies and hands them to me. How far ahead has she planned this?

“Any other excuse?” Lucy asks.

“Look, tonight, just get naked with the fella, have some bloody fun. Enjoy yourself.”

I hear the key go in the latch of the front door. That was quick. Crap. Luke enters the kitchen with two bottles of red that I immediately feel guilty about as I’ve got a rack of it in the utility room. He also carries a few packs of crisps and takes the kitchen scissors that were on my table.

“No!” I stop him. “Those need to be washed.”

He looks at me in confusion and I love that he puts them in the sink without any further questions asked. He rips opens the packet of crisps with his hands instead.

“Crisps?”

Lucy grabs a handful of crisps before she grabs her phone, pretending to read some texts. “Bollocks! Meg, we forgot about the party.”

Meg quickly plays along. “Oh yeah, crap. It’s that birthday party, innit?”

I feel awful. I’m sending the sisters back out into the cold so Luke and I can have the house to ourselves. They both keep winking at me which is more down to the fact that they’ve had at least a bottle of wine each for themselves tonight. Luke stands at the kitchen door while I wave everyone off. This feels weird. 

“Have fun, kids!” Chants Lucy as she shepherds Meg away from the house. I shut the door.

And then there were two. I turn around and Luke is no longer at the doorway. I tiptoe into the kitchen to find him stacking plates. 

“Shall we tidy up now?” He asks.

“It can wait.”

My phone on the table lights up with an incoming text. It’s Lucy. Don’t forget to adjust your tits. Make sure they’re facing forwards. Show a bit of bra. 

Does this mean my boobs are not always facing forward? Where are they looking? This isn’t helping at all. I ignore it.

“Alright,” Luke says with a smile that makes me feel relaxed but also on the faint side of nauseated. It’s probably first time nerves. Is it weird that I’m thinking about the cleanliness of my bedroom? Did I pick up yesterday’s bra from the corner of my room? Do I remember how to go down on a man? What if he doesn’t fancy me?

Sometimes I can’t help but wonder whether my marriage ended with Harry because I was terrible in bed. Maybe I wasn’t attractive enough. I’ve had kids, parts of me are stretched and doughy. Maybe I didn’t provide what he needed. 

In the last year of our marriage, I think it’s safe to say that I was mainly the one to initiate things between us and my success rate wasn’t 100%. There’s this nagging thought in my head that maybe even on those nights I succeeded, those were just pity shags.

You know what, sod it. 

I grab him by the collar and kiss him. He stumbles a little but then lets his body fold into mine. I can do this. Crap. He’s lifting me up. He sits me on the counter and I’d like to say the moment overtakes but there’s red wine inches from my arse so I move the glass with my hand whilst still kissing him. We’re kissing. This is weird. It’s different. It’s not my husband’s lips. Why am I thinking about my husband’s lips? 

I shake my head, banishing that image. Harry doesn’t belong in this room with me right now. 

I feel his hands in the small of my back and then he lifts my jumper over my head. I’m in my bra. Don’t overthink it. Oh, the bra is off. My nipples are out in the kitchen. I run my fingers through his hair as he trails kisses down my neck. Is it weird that right now, at this very moment, all I can think about is that his blond, floppy hair looks like a golden retriever?

I gasp and push him away involuntarily when his mouth wraps on my nipple. This is wrong. This feels wrong. I thought it was just first time jitters but now I think this is deeper than that. 

“Are you alright?” He asks, looking concerned.

I grab my jumper and quickly put it back on. “I… I’m sorry, Luke. I can’t. I have to go.”

“Emma, I’m sorry,” his face reads panic. “Did I read the signals wrong? I thought you wanted this. I feel terrible. I’m so sorry.”

“No, please don’t apologise,” I say hastily. “You didn’t. I did want this. Or so I thought. It’s just… I’m not ready. I don’t think I’ll be ready any time soon. Or ever.”

“What do you mean? Are you breaking up with me?”

I have to be straight with him. I take a deep breath. “I want to give you the opportunity to walk away. You’re a good guy, Luke. I just don’t think it’s fair for me to string you along if we can never progress.”

“Is it your ex-husband?”

He’s still my husband. But I don’t say this out loud. 

“He told me that he wanted to give our marriage another shot about two weeks ago when he was here,” I tell him. “I did say no right away. I didn’t think it was a good idea. But…”

“Is it really?” He asks. “You two have a lot of history. Two kids. Why wouldn’t you give him a chance?”

“I’m worried.”

“And what are you worried about?”

“My heart?” I say quietly. “I don’t want to go through that again.”

Luke smiles at me through sympathetic eyes. “Listen to me, Emma. I’m not a cardiologist, but I know that the hearts are the strongest organs in the human body. They can go through anything.”

What happens next feels like a blur. All I know is that by midnight, I’m already halfway down the M1, on my way to London. 

Harry

It was a knock on the door that woke me up.

When I first open my eyes, I’m disoriented. I don’t know what time it is, or how long I’ve been asleep. Then I realise I’m on the sofa, and it’s still dark outside. It’s also raining. I walk towards the door and open it, just in time to catch a figure going down the steps, which doesn’t take me more than a second to recognise. I am in complete shock. Is this real? Is that really my wife, standing in front of my door in the middle of the night? Or are my eyes deceiving me?

“Emma?”

She stops on the pavement and slowly turns to face me. She’s spooked through—her jeans moulded to the curves of her legs, the sleeves of her jumper dripping, her hair flat, lips slightly tinged with blue.

“I don’t know why I’m here,” she says. “Don’t know what I was thinking.”

I open the door wider, and my voice is drowsy and deep when I say, “Come on, let’s talk inside.”

She takes a step back instead.

“I just… I wasn’t thinking. I’m here. I don’t know why,” she sounds genuinely bewildered—even a little panicked.

“Are the kids in the car?” I ask her and she shakes her head. The wind blows, spraying ice-cold drops across my bare skin where my shirt hangs open. “You’re shivering, honey, come inside.” 

She stares at me, so many emotions swirling in her expression. She’s like a skittish kitten who can’t decide if she should let the stranger pat her head or haul up the nearest tree. It breaks my heart.

“I don’t think I can.”

So I go to her. 

The rain is cold and hard, soaking my shirt. Her eyes dart from the pavement, to my chest, up to my eyes and back again, like she’s ready to bolt—but her feet stay glued.

I lean in so she can hear me through the rain. “Do you remember the first time we went to Paris together? When we were young and crazy enough to only rent one electric scooter for both of us, and we rode around the city at night?”

The corners of her mouth tug up a little. “I remember.”

“But then I was going way too fast and we hit a rock, and both of us went flying. I didn’t want to ride anymore the next day, because I was afraid you’d get hurt. Do you remember what you told me?”

“I said…” she begins, her eyes meet mine. “I said we had to keep riding. Because it’s the only thing that made falling worth it.”

I nod tenderly and hold out my hand. “I’m not going to let us fall this time, Emma.”

Her eyes are back on the pavement. “I’m not sure-”

I know she still doesn’t trust me. I know that sadness on her face and how it penetrates so deeply. I know she’s probably better off without me, the bastard who crushed her heart and soul and took her for granted for years. 

We shy away from the things that hurt us. But that’s what scars are for. They protect the wounds. They cover them with thick, numb tissue so we’ll never have to feel that same pain again. The scars that my wife has inside? They’re tough. 

I beg when she continues to stare at my hand, “Please, just come inside.”

Slowly, tentatively, her hand slides into mine. 

And we go in out of the rain.

I take her upstairs to the bedroom that used to be ours. Her teeth chatter as she sits on the edge of the bed. I throw a blanket over her shoulders, rubbing her arms, sliding down to cup her hands. 

“Shit, you’re freezing. How long were you out there?”

“A while. I was walking… thinking.”

“Just some friendly advice. Next time you go a-wandering, stop and buy an umbrella.”

Emma shivers as she laughs. I pull the blanket closer around her and rub her back. 

“So… you gonna tell me what’s this midnight adventure about?” 

Her voice comes out soft and wavering in the dark room. “I was with Luke.”

“Did he do something to you? I’ve watched enough crime documentaries to pull a perfect murder.”

She shakes her head and chuckles. “We were having a takeaway night. Meg and Lucy were there too, but then they left and there were just the two of us and-”

“Please spare me the details,” I beg.

“Nothing happened. I just… I couldn’t get through it. Your face kept popping out in my head and I knew that if I went all the way through, we’d lose our chance. And I didn’t want us to lose our chance. I know this is completely the opposite of what I said to you two weeks ago but it’s true. I wasn’t ready then and maybe I’m still not ready now, but I don’t know about the future and you said you’d wait for me and…”

Her words trail off and my chest clenches with that sublime mix of excitement and trepidation. Of wanting something so much it’s like every cell in your body is stretching, reaching for it, yet there’s a grey shadow of worry that you might never get to touch it.

“Oh, Ems…”

I cup my hands around hers and blow into them. Another shiver vibrates through her. 

For a moment we sit there in silence. Memories of us in this bed come flooding back. Of the kids piling in here bright and early, and us having cuddles and catch ups over the week just gone. Of the two of us and that sacred half an hour we had together before we go to sleep. Where we could have a proper chat without little voices interrupting us every few seconds. Sometimes we’d read together too, and other times when we just couldn’t be arsed, we’d simply spend that half an hour scrolling through memes and having a laugh together.

“You’ve got to get out of these wet clothes,” I say gently, with absolutely no teasing suggestion. We’re right on the precipice. I can feel it. And I have to tread so carefully, because one wrong move could send her away, truly lost to me.

I peel my soaked shirt off and let it drop to the floor. Her eyes move, trailing over my shoulders. I stand and slowly unbutton my jeans, leaving me in black boxer briefs. 

Her eyes follow my every move, looking at me.

I push the blanket off her shoulders and let it drop to the floor. I grasp her jumper at the bottom and lift slowly. I wait for her to push me away but she doesn’t. She raises her arms instead. I pull the jumper over her head and it lands with a plop on the floor. I remind myself not to enjoy the view. I’m trying hard not to look.

My chest rises and falls as rapidly as hers. I sink to my knees in front of her and reach out for the button of her jeans. She lifts her hips and my fingertips graze her skin as I slide them down her thighs, leaving the white lace knickers in place. 

“Get under the sheets,” I whisper and she does just that.

She scoots to her side of the bed, and I slide beside her. Without a word, she snuggles into my side. The cool feel of her flesh is a shock at first, but in just a few moments, my heat chases away her chill. Except for her feet. I practically jump when she runs one up my calf.

“Yer a bloody ice cube!”

She laughs kind of evilly. 

We face each other, almost nose to nose. Her hair still drips at the ends and a drop trickles over her collarbone, down her chest, and I’ve got to take a deep breath—because I want to lick it off her so badly.

“Talk to me,” she says softly.

“I’m taking time off work.”

“But you never take time off work?” 

“I’ve got a lot to make up to the kids,” I tell her. “So I told Jeff to bugger off for at least until after New Year.”

I see her smile in the dim light.

“I’m gonna stay up with my mum,” I add. “I’ll only be an hour away from you lot.”

This is something that I’ve been mulling about. If I really do want a chance with Emma, I need to move up there because absence does not make the heart grow fonder. That may be true in secondary school when you went away for the summer. But in marriage, especially in a broken marriage, absence separates people. It creates distance. That’s the opposite of what you’re trying to achieve. You want the closeness back.

My wife’s palm runs over my bicep—tentatively at first—then with a surer touch. “They’d love that.”

“Also, you remember my old mate Stu?” She nods. “We got in touch just earlier today. He’s got a litter of puppies and he offered one for us. I told him I need to talk to you first. So what do you think?”

“A puppy, huh?”

“A puppy.” 

“I think that’s a good idea,” she says. “But I’ve never had a dog though.”

“I can train it first at my mum’s?” I offer. “I’ll get it all settled. Then when it starts sleeping through the night, I’ll bring it over.”

“Does it make me a terrible mum for wishing we had that kind of service when the kids were newborns?” 

“We had that service. It’s called sending them to the grandparents.”

We both laugh, and when the laughter dies down, we’re silent for a few minutes. The thrum of my heartbeat jacks up as her hand continues to stroke my arm. 

“Harry?” Her voice is the barest whisper, like she’s checking to see if I’m asleep. 

“Hmm?”

“I… I’ve missed you. So much.”

And I’m done.

The need to kiss her, to touch her, has been pulling at me like a raging current ever since I saw her on the front step, and with those few words, I let the current take me. 

***

Numerous studies have shown that having sex extends the human life span. At this rate, Emma and I are going to live forever. We probably slept twenty minutes max throughout the night and I’ve lost count of the number of times we’ve done it. I’m pretty sure the last time we did something like that was ten years ago on our honeymoon. 

We’re sitting at the breakfast nook. Her hair mussy and she’s wearing one of my T-shirts. She looks freshly fucked, which I know to be true, and I reckon she’d be ready to crawl back into bed with me if I just crook my finger. But I don’t do that. Because this, us, sitting here in the morning sunlight, playing footsies under the table while we talk over coffee is all I’ve been dreaming about every morning.

“What are you thinking about?” She asks when she catches me looking.

“You,” I smile. “You look perfect.”

“No, no more,” she shakes her head frantically. “I won’t be able to walk.”

“You dirty lass, I was trying to be romantic and all that,” I can’t help but snort in laughter. “And you always do that… rebuff any type of compliment I try to give you.”

It’s true. If I tell her she looks beautiful, she waves a dismissive hand at me. If I compliment her mind, she blushes. Even an appreciative look from me has her turning shy like a schoolgirl.

When she doesn’t respond to me, I continue to poke at her. “Why is that? Why does it embarrass you when I tell you that you’re smokin’ hot?”

She wrinkles her nose at me. “Because it’s weird. I feel like you just have to say that.” 

She pretends to go through one of her old magazines from when she still lived here. I reach across the table and bat at it, causing one side to pull out of her hands and reveal her entire face to me. Now she’s glaring. “You are the most beautiful woman I’ve ever known.”

And I grin when I see red stain her cheeks.

“And you’ve got the most gorgeous body. I take one look at you naked and I can’t help but get rock hard.”

“Stop it,” she blusters, now blushing all the way down her neck.

I change tactics, but I know this will embarrass her just as much. “You are the most amazing woman. Kindest, genuine and grounded. Funniest too. And you’re the best mother for our babies.”

“Okay,” she snaps at me as she closes the magazine and slams it down onto the table. “You’ve made your point.”

Chuckling, I stretch back in my chair and nudge her foot with mine under the table. “You’re adorable.”

She rolls her eyes, which I find to be beyond adorable. 

Standing up from my chair, I walk around the table and hold my hand out to her. She willingly takes it and stands when I give her a tug. It’s a natural move for her, to walk straight into my embrace and press herself against me. I tilt my head and kiss her on her jaw. “It’s something you need to get used to… compliments from me. It’s never going to stop.”

She moans softly in my ear.

“Want to know what else you’re going to have to get used to?” I whisper as I kiss my way down her neck.

Her fingers come up, tangle in my hair, and fist tightly. “What’s that?”

“My face between your legs.”

***

Some people might not put Quaglino’s into the romantic restaurant bracket, but they’d be wrong, very wrong. In actual fact, it’s quite hard to top. The interior has this 1930’s romance charm with candlelit tables, dark-panelled walls and an adjoining room for dancing to the soft tunes of the piano man singing bluesy versions of classic songs. 

Tonight, I managed to convince Emma to go out to dinner with me before she goes back to our babies. I insist on driving her since I don’t want her to drive alone at night again, which she initially refused but finally agreed.

We finish our dinner and split a slice of cheesecake for dessert. Probably not my brightest idea since I keep having to readjust myself because seeing her slowly swallow a mouthful of white, creamy concoction is a pure kind of torture. But I try to kick those dirty thoughts out of my mind and focus. 

Since last night, we’ve successfully managed to avoid the talk. It feels like we’re in a bubble where everything is perfect and we’re just scared to burst it, but I know this can’t go on. Emma and I need to have a proper chat if we want this to work.

“Penny for your thoughts.”

“You and I need to talk, don’t you think?” I begin. 

“You’re right,” she nods. “So…”

“What is this?” I gesture between us. “Are you ready to give us another shot?”

“I think so,” she nods. “But I want us to take it slow.”

“You set the pace,” I assure her. “I want this to work more than I want anything else in my life. So I’ll do whatever you want me to.”

“We’ll see this as a new dalliance,” she adds.

I know this is supposed to be serious so I try hard not to break into laughter. “Okay. I will court you but I won’t ask you to move to an estate in the country. Not right away at least.”

“I’m serious.”

“You sound like Austen.”

She rolls her eyes. “And we can’t tell anyone either.”

“I agree,” I tell her. “And from now on, we talk to each other, alright? I’ll try to make you happy the best way I know how. But if it’s not enough for you, then you need to tell me.”

She nods, but then her graze drops before she asks. “You really do want this right?”

“I told you I want this to work more than anything else in my life.”

“It’s just… when you first told me you wanted to fight for our marriage, I was overwhelmed because it was all so sudden. You told me everything I wanted to hear. Even at that moment, everything in me screamed for us to just fall back into it all the way. But there was also a part of me that thought you were just lonely, and maybe you thought that us getting back together was the answer to it.”

“Not true-”

Emma holds up her hand. “Maybe not true, but it’s my fear. That’s why I kissed Luke that night, because I was desperate. I wanted to push things with him because I knew I’d never love him the way I love you. I knew that if things went to pot, I wouldn’t be half as devastated. But with you? I don’t think I can survive that type of heartbreak again, H. You don’t know how much it killed me to end our marriage. I can’t afford to fall back into something that’s not going to last.”

“Emma,” I reach across the table to take her hand. “I can’t even imagine how hard it was for you. I know for sure it was not a decision you made lightly, nor on a whim. I wish I had fought you on it then… had fought for you then. There was a time when I thought our marriage was over, and I was going to let you go. But I’m not going to do that now. If it takes you weeks, months, hell, Emma… if it takes you years to fully trust my devotion to you, I’m in this for however long it takes.”

Emma nods, biting into her lower lip. I can see her eyes starting to water because every bit of this is overwhelming. She turns her head towards the music floating in from the other room. It’s a Van Morrison cover, Crazy Love.

“Wanna dance?”

The request takes me by surprise since this isn’t like her. But I toss my napkin on the table and move to stand next to her, holding out my hand. The simple delight on her face when her hand slides into mine is everything.

We step out onto the edge of the dance floor. I wrap my arm around her lower back, holding her tight and flush against me. One of her hands rests on my shoulder, playing with the hair at the nape of my neck. The other is clasped in mine just over my heart. We sway, eyes pinned at each other for a few moments.

“Thought you hate dancing?” I smirk.

“Still hate it,” she answers. “I’m just using it as an excuse to be closer to you.”

She sighs, practically sinks into my arms. Emma’s head fits against my chest like she was made to be there. My chin rests against her hair.

“Emma?”

She lifts her head from my chest. “Yeah?”

“You don’t need an excuse.”

She give me love, love, love, love, crazy love… 

***

“What the-”

“Oi!” I yell, quickly pulling the duvet over my wife and I. “Heard of knocking?”

“Heard of a bedroom lock?” Lucy challenges.

Last night, we drove up the M1 straight from the restaurant. We took breaks in deserted services with shiny floors and bad lighting where we had coffees and wandered around WHSmith bulk buying sweets even though it’s really not that far. But you can never have too many travel sweets, can you?

And now, here we are, back at the cottage. The kids are still at their grandparents until this afternoon so Emma and I are enjoying the benefit of having the house all to ourselves by having a morning shag. That is until one of her sisters walks in on us. I’m very aware that I’m still inside Emma.

I pull out, roll over to lay down next to my wife, and we both stare at Lucy who is dressed from head to toe like Princess Jasmine from Aladdin.

“Party?” Emma asks her sister. We both try not to giggle as she sashays in to look at herself in the mirror then perches on the bed in her harem pants. Today, she’s gone heavy on the winged eyeliner and shows off a flat midriff. I quite like the pointy silver shoes though.

“No, Tesco,” she says dryly. “Obviously a party.”

“What are you doing here?” I ask her. 

Lucy glares at me. “What are you doing here? Besides rearranging my sister’s guts, of course.”

I don’t even flinch. I’ve been married to Emma for ten years, I’m used to this sister of hers.

“I’m trying to win your sister back,” I say earnestly. I know that Emma and I talked about keeping this a secret, but she literally walked on us shagging. There’s no point in denying it. It’s best that she knows my true intention rather than thinking we’re divorced with benefits.

“Eh, about time,” she replies nonchalantly.

“Luce, please keep this to yourself for now,” Emma begs her. “This is still new.”

“I will,” she nods. “Just a friendly reminder, though, Styles. If you hurt my sister again, I won’t even think twice before starting a business selling voodoo dolls of you. Bet I could make a fortune of that.”

In their girl gang, Lucy is the wildcard, the likeliest to carry a shank. I don’t even laugh because she could be serious. 

“Duly noted.”

“What are you doing here this early?” Emma asks her sister.

“I wanted to ask if I can borrow that giant tiger in George’s room?”

“Feel free to borrow the rug in the front room as well,” I cackle.

“Ooh yeah,” Emma chirps. “Are you going to find a whole new world?”

“Have you got your Aladdin?”

She pulls a face at our mocking. “My mate who’s supposed to be Aladdin is sick so I asked Jamie to fill in and he agreed because he owed me a big favour. But this lot changed their mind and wanted a genie so now I have to go to Jamie’s and convince him to let me do a full blue body paint on him.”

Emma and I roar with laughter. “Please, please, please, take some piccies.” 

***

A month later…

I can only imagine the joy on my children’s faces when they open the door. I’ll be standing there with the pup in hand, but I know I’m practically vibrating with excitement myself. I glance over at the little dog crate that we’d prepared to transport him in. It’s a sweet, nine-week-old Bernese mountain dog. He’s pretty chill, curled into a round ball, but he’s not sleeping. His eyes are open and alert, as if he’s just waiting to find out what’s around the next corner.

The back of my Range Rover is loaded with two boxes of food, dog toys, bowls, a leash, and appropriate treats. Since I’m still crashing at my mum’s, that will go to her place for when the kids and this puppy come to stay. Emma has an identical list at her home, already purchased and hiding until we hand the puppy off to the kids.

I’ve got a feeling that today is going to be a good day. All morning, Emma and I texted back and forth. Some of it was practical, like making sure we agreed on all the dog rules we’d lay down with the kids tonight. Some of it was lighthearted teasing. Some of it was dirty.

I can’t remember the last time I texted my wife throughout the day just for the hell of it. I had fun with it, and I know without a doubt she had fun with it too. Which made me realise what a twat I’d been for never doing something as simple as letting her know she was on my mind in just such a way. 

Pulling into the drive, I cut my headlights so the kids wouldn’t see me approach. I shut the engine off, quietly get out of my side, and press the door closed quietly. On the other side, I open the passenger door, then spring the latch on the dog crate, and this tiny little puppy totters straight at me with tail wagging.

I lift him in my arms. I shut the door and then move over to the patch of grass. I put the puppy down so he will go potty before I bring him in. When I was a kid, we had a dog called Max, but I sort of grew up with him so I didn’t remember when he was a puppy. And Emma never had a dog before, so we’re sort of winging it with this puppy training thing. But I don’t fret about it. I mean, we’ve had babies, they’re harder than this, surely? 

I patiently wait for this little fella to do his business, which includes a few minutes where he attacks my shoelaces and tugs. Shite, he’s cute. 

Eventually, he sniffs around, tail high and then abruptly squats to pee. I thought boy dogs lift their legs when they pee but maybe not at this age. I immediately bend and give him praise with an upbeat, positive tone that makes him excited. Who’s daddy’s clever little fella? You are! Yes, you are! You did well, mate. That was brilliant! He puts his paws up on my shin, accepting my stretches with tail wagging and tongue lolling out the side of his head. My kids are going to fall in love with this little guy. 

I scoop him up in my arms when he’s done and make my way inside. But instead of entering from the front door, I circle the house so I can enter from the back, knowing they must be all in the kitchen as this is usually the time when the kids would do their homework for next week. Walking past the window, I see that I’m right. Emma is at the kitchen island with George next to her and Minnie on the opposite side. My heart starts beating faster at the thought of spending the day with my family—and apparently our new third child in my arms—and I find it almost shameful I have such excitement over it. Shouldn’t I have always been this excited? Or is it normal for things to just settle, and we take them for granted?

I shake that thought off of my mind. I had this important talk with my wife a couple of weeks ago about how we shouldn’t focus on the past. We’re both committed to repairing our marriage, and for it to work, we both know we must commit to living in the present. Because at the end of the day, the present is all we have.

I knock on the door and as planned, Emma will tell the kids to answer it.

In moments, it’s swinging open. I get a flash of Emma walking up behind our kids, but my eyes are pinned on them. They’re both in complete shock, eyes wide open staring at the puppy squirming in my arms.

Both stare at me mutely, frozen, as if they can’t believe that this is real.

Finally, I say, “surprise!”

Minnie’s gaze rises up to meet mine. “Is that ours?”

“This is ours,” I nod, laughing. But still, neither of them move forwards, so I goad them. “Come and get him?”

That’s all it takes for Minnie to scoop this little fella into her arms, pressing her nose into his head and murmuring little endearments. George scratches him and he reacts to their greetings by wiggling frantically and trying to lick both of my kids’ faces. They both laugh in a delighted way I’ve never quite heard before.

I look at my wife and see her tender smile as she watches our littles. I can tell she’s as charmed by it as I am. 

I walk inside because it’s colder than a witch’s tit outside and shut the door. “He just peed outside, but we need to keep a close eye on him. If he starts sniffing around or circling, that probably means he needs a wee. Scoop him up and take him out to the back. After he’s done with his thing, give him lots of praise and affirmation.”

“Got it,” Minnie says as she plops down on the living room floor with the pup. The puppy jumps around, and all three of them start to play.

“Now, what should we name him?” Emma asks.

“Droolius Caesar?” I joke.

Emma laughs. “Jimmy Chew?”

“Sarah Jessica Barker?” I continue. “Wait, no, it’s a boy. Franz Fur-dinand?”

“Sir Barks-a-Lot?”

“Deputy Dawg?”

“Bark Twain?”

We both laugh. We’re shite at this. The kids are too busy with the puppy to comment on our suggestions.

SpongeBob SquarePants is on the telly playing in the background. None of them are watching, but I see SpongeBob scratching his snail pet under the chin before he picks up said pet and says, “I love you Gary. Gary, Gary, Gary, Gary…”

“Gary,” I say. The kids look at me and I point at the telly.

“That’s a ridiculous name for a dog,” Emma cackles. “But I like it.”

“That’s a human name?” Minnie’s brows knit slightly.

“I like it!” George exclaims, then proceeds to baby talk the pup who’s chewing on the end of Minnie’s braid. “I love you Gary. Gary, Gary, Gary, Gary…”

We laugh.

“H,” Emma calls, and my gaze moves to her. She jerks her chin to the kitchen. “Help me set up the table? I’ve got a cold beer for you.”

Minnie and George still completely ignore us as we move into the kitchen. 

It would be natural for me to sit at the kitchen island while Emma gets the beer and checks on the supper, but the kids can see me from where they sit in the living room. So I follow my wife behind the island instead.

Before she can make it two steps, I move right into the back of her. Hands at her hips, I push her all the way forward until the counter catches her hips, then I dip to put my lips to her neck. 

Emma’s head falls back and she utters the tiniest of sighs, one arm looping back to go around the side of my head so she can thread her fingers in my hair. It’s an intimate embrace, but not one to provoke lust. Just a message that I missed her even though I saw her two days ago, and I love touching her in this gentle, loving way.

“The kids,” she murmurs. “They might see us.”

“Oh, the tragedy,” I whisper dryly. “Our children seeing  their parents hugging.”

Emma snickers and pulls away, glancing over her shoulder. “It would be shocking to them. And until we know for sure what we are and where we’re going, we need to keep them in the dark, remember? I don’t want them to get their hopes up.”

“You’re right,” I mumble in a low voice before moving to the island. I glance back at the living room and see the puppy on George’s back, trying to climb up. “No touching around the kids.”

She smiles and hands me a beer. She’s got one in her hand, and we tap bottles. She then moves to the oven, where she bends to take a peek through the window. Obviously, I stare at her arse as she does.

“It’s done,” she announces, opening the oven to pull the pan of shepherd’s pie.

“Need help with that?’ I ask, noting it looks like it probably weighs fifty pounds.

Twisting, she grins. “Sure. I made a double batch to send you home with some leftovers.”

That gets me. Not only she made one of my favourite meals, but she’s also sending me home with leftovers. I pop off the stool, round the island and take the two potholders she’s holding out to me.

After I carefully lift the pan from the oven, she shuts the oven door. I set it down on the two trivets she’s placed on the counter.

Bending over, I inhale the scent deeply. “Smells fantastic.”

Emma bumps her hip against me. “Well… you’ve been pretty amazing these last few weeks, so…”

I bump her hip back before sliding my hand around her waist. Bending my head, I murmur. “Admit it… it’s for the orgasms I gave you after the school run the other day.”

She chuckles with a sly smile. “Possibly.”

Leaning in closer, I touch my temple on the top of her head, lowering to a complete whisper. “You do know that I can give you that any day you want, right, Em? All you’ve got to do is ask.”

“Oh, I will,” she teases.

“What’s going on here?” Minnie says from behind us.

Emma and I jump apart as if we’d been electrocuted by each other. We spin to see Minnie standing there, with George next to her holding Gary in his arms. These two must have worn that pup out as he is still, watching us curiously.

Minnie’s expression, on the other hand, is condemning and suspicious.

“Nothing’s going on, poppet,” Emma says, her voice a little squeaky in panic. It’s adorable.

“Your mum and I were just talking,” I calmly explain.

“With your arm around her waist and whispering,” Minnie challenges. “Looks more like flirting to me.”

“Are you upset about it?” I challenge back. I knew she was upset when we separated and she struggled with it for a long time. 

Her brows knit together. “I’m just confused.”

Emma’s expression indicates she has no clue what to say. I can’t say I’m any more well equipped, but I’m going to take this one. I give my wife a subtle chin tilt, silently telling her I’ll handle this and relief evident in her eyes.

“Come on, you lot. Help me sort Gary’s stuff,” I say, herding them towards the garage. 

All three of them follow me into the garage, Gary still cosy in George’s arms. 

I immediately spot the stack of supplies, which includes a dog crate similar to mine, as well as bowls, a soft dog bed, food and toys. I pick up the soft bed towards the door that leads back into the house. Minnie turns to precede me, but I stop her. “Hang on there a second, poppet.”

When she pivots to face me her expression is guarded. “You asked about your mum and me. What do you want to know?”

“Were you two flirting with each other just now?” She demands. Crap. She’s nine. She’s not supposed to know that stuff. 

I can’t believe I get a little warm in the face at such a question, but I nod. I know it’s probably too soon to tell them but there’s no point in denying this. Both of my children are smart, and they deserve to know what’s going on. 

Her eyes narrow. “So are you… what… getting back together?”

“Does it mean you’re gonna live with us again, daddy?” George chirps.

“Not yet, nuggets. It’s not that simple.”

“It kind of is,” she replies. “You left for months. You didn’t even come during the summer. Then once she started dating Luke-”

“What’s dating?” George turns to his sister.

“It’s when you like someone and they like you back and you become boyfriend and girlfriend then you go out to eat together and do other stuff,” Minnie explains, then she continues. “Then once she started dating Luke, you’re suddenly coming around more often. And then she told me that Luke wouldn’t come over anymore and now you two are making googly eyes at each other.”

We lapse into silence for a moment. I need to think carefully about what to say next. George beats me. “I think I’m dating someone.”

“You what?” My eyes widen.

“Yeah. I asked Poppy in the playground to be my girlfriend the other day and she said yes. Then after we were done playing on the slides we got hungry so she shared her raisins with me. I also let her take a sip of my Ribena.”

I try hard not to break into laughter but Minnie doesn’t even crack a smile. 

“Okay… so here’s the thing. I was very upset. I know that was wrong of me to just leave without saying goodbye, and it was wrong of me for not visiting sooner. I needed time to let it go, and to accept what your mum wanted. But not once during that time did I not want to come back home. I’ve always wanted my family back.”

“Then what changed?” Minnie asks.

“Your mum and I spent some time apart because we both thought that was the best decision. But we were wrong. Because we realised that we didn’t want to be without each other. So now I’m trying to prove that I’ve changed. That I’m a better man, and I’m ready to be a better husband. The one your mum deserves.”

“See,” Minnie murmurs, her expression filled with confusion. George dips his head and rubs his cheek against Gary’s head, who seems to be on the verge of falling asleep. “I don’t get it. You and mum always seemed to get along great. You never argued. I never understood why you left.”

I move in close to my daughter and brush a lock of hair behind her ear. “A lot of that stuff is private between your mum and I, poppet.”

George asks. “But why can’t you just move in now, daddy?”

“It takes time, mate. Your mum and I need more time to sort ourselves out. But I promise you two that we’re trying our hardest here, okay? We need you both to be patient. Can you do that for us?”

They both nod in unison. Gary blinks twice.

“I can’t wait for us to be family again,” says Minnie.

Grinning, I bend to kiss her head. “Me too, poppet…”

***

Emma

“Gary! This way, Gary!”

Harry and I look at each other across this rather windy hilltop. The kids and Gary are exploring the neighbouring bushes and pathways as we perch ourselves on a rock nearby. We take in the view, the breeze biting at my cheeks.

My husband turns to me. “Tea? I put some whisky in it.”

“Hell, why not.”

Harry pours the tea out and we clink mugs. He brushes his thumb across my nose for no absolute reason. I was born and raised here, but this is something I’ll never tire of: these swooping hills and valleys, infinite skies and bracing breezes. As much as I loved London, I’m glad we’ve traded that life with this simpler one. There is no taxi nor Tube in sight but our kids are somehow a little bouncier and carefree. They’re happy here, and that’s all that matters. 

 “Ey up,” greets Harry at a group of people walking past us. They are obviously tourists as they have no way to respond and one of them is wearing bog standard Reebok Classics.

We hear the kids squeal in the distance and we both smile at each other. Getting that pup was probably one of our best decisions.  

“Do you remember when we first dated?” Asks my husband. “You brought me up here.”

I nod. “I do.”

“The view was decent,” he grins. 

“I know you’re not thinking about the view.”

“I was thinking about what happened when we got to the top of the meadow…”

“That was some decent shag,” I chuckle. “Nowadays, I’d worry about getting ticks on my unmentionables.”

We laugh.

I stare over at my husband taking in the view and sipping tea noisily. He always pauses for a moment on any walk to drink it all in. He rustles in his bag and gets a packet of biscuit out, opening the packaging awkwardly and offering it to me. 

“Did you know that you’re supposed to call it ‘niece’ and not ‘nice’? Apparently, they’re named after the French town.”

“That’s proper pub quiz trivia knowledge right there, Styles,” I tease.

We stay up here for a little while, but since it’ll get dark soon, we start our walk back to the car. The one thing you forget about taking kids up mountains (small hills) is that for all that experience of green space and fresh air, eventually, you will have to bring them down. Despite having an entire packet of biscuit (with a whole lot of why did you bring this one? This is rubbish. You could’ve brought hobnobs), we failed to remember to pack enough snacks and a fine drizzle is now scratching at our faces. It takes George much persuading to keep walking and by the time we return to the car, the sun is dipping behind the clouds and the twilight sits in the air. 

Harry decided it was fine to park in a deserted car park in the middle of nowhere to escape the throngs of regular walkers and tourists but strangely enough, when we get back there, we are one of six parked up.

“Come on, mate. Literally, just to the car. Like twenty more steps,” Harry begs our son to keep on walking. 

“You lied!” He complains. “You said that twenty steps ago.”

“I’ve got Haribo in the car.”

He progresses to a light canter. 

“Where did all these cars come from?” Harry asks as he approaches our motor cautiously.

“Maybe you’re not the only smart one here and people are following your lead.”

A car flashes us. 

I look around at all the cars. People are sat in them. What are they waiting for? You see this sometimes when waiting for the rain to pass or when people decide to eat their lunch in the car. 

Suddenly, I hear a car door open and a gentleman approaches us. His footsteps are low.

I know him. It’s Patrick. He’s our postman, so, yes, we have our very own Postman Pat. It was the first thing that tickled Harry when he found out years ago. And even better, the joke is not lost on Pat. His wife even got him a stuffed black and white cat for his cherry-red van window. I smile at recognising him, as do all of the occupants in our car.

“Emma, Harry, kids. Fancy seeing you here, of all places.”

“We’ve got a new dog and we were just taking him for a walk,” I inform him.

“Oh, lovely. What’s his name?”

“Gary,” the kids say in unison.

“Have you got a dog, Pat?” George asks him.

“No, my wife’s a cat lady. But funny you should mention dogs. This place here, people like to come here for that reason.”

“Gary seemed to like it,” pipes in Harry. “I think it’ll be his favourite.”

“That it is. People come here all the time for walking and with their dogs and other such endeavours.” His face looks slightly ashen at this point, his eyes darting towards the other cars. “And the other sense of the word… I just thought I would mention it as you have the littl’uns and it’s getting darker. I think someone just flashed his lights to warn you.”

Harry and I realise what he means exactly at the same time. “OH!” we say at the same gobsmacked volume. 

“Dogg…ing…” Harry mumbles. “We should-”

“Leave, like definitely leave, like now,” I say finishing his sentence.

The kids appear confused. I look around and shield my eyes. I should shield the children’s eyes. Pat’s wife waves from the passenger seat.

“Give our regards to June,” I say.

“Will do.”

He salutes us and returns to his car. The kids have all the questions. “People come here to look at dogs?” George asks. “Where are the dogs?”

“Get. In. The. Car.” Harry mouths very deliberately.

I slink into the passenger seat. Our eyes dart in different directions trying to divert focus from any of the cars ahead. We’ll be good if Harry doesn’t drive us off a cliff face. He turns on the wipers, the engine roars to a start and he pulls away slowly.

“We could have stayed and seen the dogs,” says George, a little despondently. “Gary would’ve loved to see his mates. Wouldn’t you, Gary?”

I throw a packet of Haribo at him. Harry and I are silent. We’ve just strolled our children and our very young dog into an outdoor sex hotspot. We are terrible parents. 

“Who fancies chips?” Harry says as he changes gear. He finds our littles in the rear-view mirror and studies their faces. “There’s a decent chippy down road.”

There’s a chorus of approval from the back seat. My husband smiles. He then moves his hand over from the gearstick to find mine, fingers interlocked, the sky glowing a thousand different colours.

***

“Are you calling my turkey dry?”

I look over at my older sister Suze in the corner of our family kitchen wondering where on earth she had the courage to come out with a comment like that. Even her husband stops washing up to absorb what his wife just said to our mother. I mean, you think it, but you just douse it in gravy and make do. Such is the joy of white chalky meat like turkey. Why do this now? Now she’ll harp on about the bacon she puts on the breasts and all the goose fat. But it’s Suze. She likes the challenge. I secretly think the only way she believes she can have a relationship with our mother is to spar with her regularly so they at least have one line of communication.

“It was a lovely dinner, Mum. Did you make the mince pies?” Suze winks at me.

I shake my head at her and bring the plate of mince pies through to the living room. Amidst my mother’s wreaths and tinsel wrapped around the lampshades, it’s a familiar tableau: Pop, my grandfather, asleep in the armchair in the corner, a holy green paper hat covering his eyes. Small children crawl on the floor and make angel shapes with their bodies amidst remnants of old glittery wrapping paper.  I hope Mum’s made a trifle. My other sister Meg and her husband snooze on a neighbouring sofa, catching on much needed sleep since they just had a baby four months ago and I still remember four months sleep regression is hell. I like this part of Christmas where bits of old crackers litter the floor and twilight takes over.

I take a mince pie and escape to the last vacant spot on the sofa. George rests his head on my knees. “What are you eating, mummy?” I look down at his bright green eyes and wonder how he can still be hungry as he must be ninety per cent roast potato at this point.

“A mince pie.”

“With cow mince?”

“No, like fruity bits,” I pick out said fruity bits and drop them into his mouth like a baby bird. He pulls a face, tasting it, and then walks away.

Harry smiles at me from the bottom of the Christmas tree. He’s laying down on the floor with one of my nieces. He’s always been great with kids, long even before we have our own. My niece has her palm out, and Harry runs circles in it as he sings, “round and round the garden, like a teddy bear…”

She smiles and laughs, poising her fingers, ready to bounce. 

“One step, two-step, tickle me under there,” he pretends to collapse into giggles and my niece’s little face broadens into laughter before she rolls over and walks away to play with her cousins.

Finishing my last bite of the tiny pie, I roll under the tree to join my husband. He looks at me as I cosy up next to him, the lights reflect off his eyes.

My mother likes a real tree for Christmas. It’s the smell, you can’t beat the smell. I like to think you can get that real pine smell from a good supermarket brand toilet cleaner but I don’t say that out loud for fear of incurring her festive wrath. And so there’s always a real tree and like we endured when my siblings and I were teens, there’s still a daily rota of vacuuming up the needles as we watch that bastard go crusty and brown as it’s shoved up against the radiator. 

We lay there in silence, looking up at the branches and my mother’s multicoloured lights twinkling in some erratic fashion that my eyes can’t quite handle. I’ve been to raves that were less of an assault on the senses. It’s an overwhelming memory of our childhood, lying in silence wigging out on mum’s trippy disco lights, absorbing the magic of the season. 

“You’re drunk aren’t you, tipsy-tits?”

“You were the one who poured double shots of Baileys in our coffees this morning,” I cackle.

“That’s called Christmas milk.” 

“What are you doing here?” Minnie asks, her head nestling into my shoulder. I rake pine needles from her head.

“Nothing…” Harry replies. “Where’s yer brother?”

“Here,” George suddenly appears, rolling under the tree next to his dad to join us.

“Looks like the awesome foursome is back, huh?” Harry grins.

Minnie and George hum in agreement. I can see my babies smiling. 

It’s time.

“Harry?”

“Yeah?” 

I take a deep breath. “Will you come back home with us?”

-

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[tweedlydumbtweedlydoo]

the Consulting Detective | Spencer Reid x reader

Requested by @thekillingjoke-haha / Summary: The BAU is getting no where with a time sensitive case and you, the Consulting Detective from London, are called in to help.

A/N: Hi! I am so sorry for the long wait. I hope you enjoy!! xx 

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“This case is time sensitive. You all know that.” Hotch informs the team who sits around the table, a mess of case files in front of them. Multiple children had been kidnapped and their bodies were dumped on the side of a highway 3 days later. Now, there was another victim and they only had a day to find her before she ended up like the other kids. However, the team had gotten no where with the case and were in dire need for help. 

“We’ve looked at every possible piece of evidence, but there’s nothing.” JJ says with a defeated sigh. 

Hotch is in his normal stance, his face serious and his arms crossed over his chest, “That’s why I’ve called in for help.” He turns his attention to the door as you walk in. 

“Consulting Detective y/f/n y/l/n from London. She’s a new set of eyes to maybe see something we don’t.” 

Spencer’s eyes are glued to you as you walk in, his heart pounding. Wow, you were beautiful. He watches as you set your brief case on the nearby table, giving a smile to the team, to him. 

“I want to find this little girl as much as you guys do. So please don’t see me as someone who is stepping on your toes and taking over this case. I’m here to see something you all may have missed.” 

Hotch introduces you to the team and you greet them with a smile and a nod, “So, how about we get started on what you all have so far?” 

~ 

“You all have profiled this unsub as a male?” You ask with curiosity, your eyes scanning over the crime scene photos. 

“Everything points to a male unsub.” Spencer comes up behind you, pointing at something on the crime scene photo, “The way he just laid out the bodies. He didn’t do it with care. A female would have dumped the body with care due to feeling some kind of remorse.” 

“Okay but that doesn’t mean the unsub isn’t a female.” You look up at Spencer, “Just because the bodies weren’t cared for when they were dumped doesn’t immediately point toward a male unsub.” 

“But statistically, that is how these cases play out. 85% are males who kidnap children are pedophiles.” 

“Okay..” You drag out, turning in your chair to face Spencer, “But these children weren’t molested. Right?” 

Spencer has no idea where you’re getting at. This was how he’d profiled the unsub, how the rest of the team had profiled. It was textbook and there was no way this unsub was a female. 

“Well, no they-” 

“The unsub could possibly be a female, but with no motherly instincts.” You point out and stand, making your way toward the board with all the crime scene photos, “Statistically most female unsubs are mothers, they care for the children even until their death. The women feel a longing to be a mother but some can’t and that in the future turns out to be an overwhelming desire to take a child and make that child theirs.” You face the team, who all wear confused looks. 

“But those statistics aren’t completely accurate or updated.” Spencer’s eyebrows furrow. A statistic he may have missed? Not possible. 

“Actually, yes they are. New statistics were shown a month ago at a conference in New York.” You correct. 

“Detective y/L/n has a point.” Hotch instructs his team to start looking at this unsub as a female, one who is not a mother and never has been. 

Spencer sits back in his chair, slightly embarrassed, but impressed with your ability to practically “out-smart” him. How could he have missed that new statistic? It was always his goal to keep updated no matter what. You never knew when you’d need a statistic.

~ 

“Hey I hope I didn’t step over your toes in there earlier.” You say to Spencer as the team are gathering their things to head out to a possible lead. 

“Oh..” Spencer shakes his head, “No. You didn’t.” You knew he was probably lying. You had overstepped and made this highly intelligent man feel small. 

“Okay good.. Cause that’s not what I was trying to do. I was only looking at the case in a different eye.” 

“I just can’t believe I missed that statistic and new research. It would have been great to know for this case.” Spencer frowns, “It’s a goal of mine to always be updated.” 

“It’s easy to let things slip through.” 

“Yeah I guess so. Are you coming along with us?” 

“Oh no.” you shake your head, “Not a field detective. I work the desk.” You let out a soft laugh, “I’m a poor shot. You guys wouldn’t want me around.” 

“Reid, let’s go.” Hotch calls out. 

“yeah. Okay I’m coming.” Spencer hurries out the door after the team, glancing back at you once more. You were already putting case files in boxes. He just hoped you’d still be here when they got back. 

~ 

The unsub had been caught and the little girl was returned safely to her parents. It was a good outcome, thanks to you. 

“What are you in such a hurry for, pretty boy?” Morgan teases as Reid was the first to exit the vehicle and already near the entrance of the police station. 

Spencer ignored Morgan and made his way toward where their room had been set up for the team. However, his heart sank when he’d found it empty, your belongings gone. He never even got to say goodbye. 

~ 6 months later ~ 

It was a special and much needed trip for the BAU team to visit their friend and former BAU agent, Emily Prentiss in London. They had settled in to their hotel and would be meeting Emily at her ‘flat’ for dinner later that evening. 

Deep down, he knew it was highly unlikely that he’d run into you while he was here. However, he couldn’t help but hope maybe fate would give him a second chance with you. While on the plane, he’d stared at the large map of London and wondered his chances of running into you in such a large city. Probably one out of 1000. London was a large city. You may have not even been in London while he’d be there. He’d looked at every possible outcome and decided, fate wasn’t on his side. 

Spencer being the guy he was, couldn’t sit in the hotel room and catch up on sleep like his colleagues. So, he decided to do a little sight seeing on his own. He’d already memorized the map of London on the flight here and headed toward the closest attraction. 

Glancing up, his eye caught a small cafe and thought a coffee might do him well. He opened the door and started to enter the cafe. His eyes were fascinated by the artwork on the wall and had not noticed the person exiting at the same time he was entering.

He quickly apologized, “I am so sorry-” His eyes met yours and you were already smiling up at him. 

“Is this your turn to step on my toes?” 

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[missymurphy1985]

It's Just Business

You've never mixed business with pleasure, but sometimes, these things are outside of your control.

Opening the door to your hotel room, you sighed. Throwing your bag onto the double bed, swiftly followed by your body, you pulled the pillow over your head and screamed.

"This is ridiculous y/n, YOU are ridiculous!!"

It was never meant to be more than a business deal. A deal with the Peaky Blinders to gain exclusive rights to the southern racetracks in England. You and your brothers would have control over them, while the Blinders remained in control of the Midlands. The deal went to plan, and you'd spent the evening in the Garrison celebrating.

Flashback

"I'm heading back to my hotel, Tommy, I can barely stand up straight!!" You smiled, and turned to grab your bag and coat from the arm of the chair.

"Let me walk you home at least, y/n, you look a little.. unsteady?" Tommy linked your arm with his and you both headed back to your hotel. Talking along the way, you met a different side to him. One that you hadn't expected. You spoke about his gin business, and his export licence that was soon to be granted.

"Gin eh? Now that sounds interesting, I'd like to try this gin of yours some day." You stumbled slightly on the steps and he held tighter to your arm.

"Falling for me already Miss y/l/n? Haven't even had a sip of the gin yet.." he smirked, leading you off the path to your hotel and walking you towards his office. You smiled back, and took his arm again, allowing him to lead the way.

Once inside his office, he sat you down at his large oak desk and picked up a bottle of his gin from the cupboard and two glasses. Making his way back to his side of the desk, he poured you each a small glass and raised a toast.

"Here's to the cure for incurable sadness y/n.. and here's to our new business arrangement." You clinked your glass with his and took a sip, grimacing slightly.

"Well Mr Shelby, you didn't skimp on the sugar in this did you now? Wow.. very sweet indeed.."

"The Americans like it sweet, I'm hoping to expand that side of the Atlantic now, have to give the punters what they want."

"And do you always give people what they want, Mr Shelby?" You stood, feeling a sudden surge of confidence, possibly caused by the sharp intake of sugar. He leaned back in his chair, watching you approach him slowly, a slight smirk on his lips as he looked your body up and down.

"Depends on the request, y/n.."

"I'm not used to not getting what I want, Thomas. And I know exactly what I want." You leaned against the desk, right next to him as you say yourself on it, crossing your legs seductively, lifting your dress slightly to expose your lower legs. He looked in your eyes, a hand gently caressing your ankle, moving further up to your knees. He looked at your face for any signs of hesitation before moving his hand further up your thigh, parting your legs slightly to allow access.

You gasped at the feeling of his fingers, brushing over your now damp underwear as you shuddered, his finger lighting brushing your clit over the lace underwear.

"I see.. and what exactly is it you're requesting, Miss y/l/n?" You felt your core burning, desperate for more. Parting your legs, you felt him push the panties to one side, running a finger over your slit to feel just how wet you were, hot and ready.

Tommy couldn't wait any longer, his erection pressing hard against his suit trousers begging for release. He stood between your wide open legs and lifted your dress above your hips, grinding his against your core roughly.

"I want you buried deep inside me Thomas, I want you to fuck me on this table, right now.. think you can manage that?" Tommy smiled, loving this confident side of you, taking charge. You ran your hand down to his now twitching bulge, before leaning in to kiss him hard, your fingers tugging at his belt and zip. He'd normally take things much slower, but the need inside him overtook him, he needed to feel you NOW. Allowing his trousers and underwear to fall, he pulled your underwear down and pressed his cock against your mound, returning his lips to yours in a passionate, rough kiss. You pushed your hips against his, feeling his cock rub against your clit you gasped. He lined himself up against your entrance and pushed in hard, both of you released a low moan in response. Keeping you upright, he moved his hands down to your hips and rocked you against him as he pounded into you, hard and fast against his desk.

You leaned back slightly, moving a hand between you to rub your clit as he took you. The sight nearly made him cum there and then, he'd never seen a sight as sexy as this.

"Rub it baby, make yourself cum on my cock yeah? Fuck you feel good..." He continued his thrusts, watching your fingers circle over yourself, occasionally bringing them up to his lips for him to taste you and add extra moisture, before bringing them back down to continue circling, pressing harder each time.

Your body began to twitch, his cock hitting the right spot with each thrust and you fingers taking you even closer.

"Tommy I'm close... Fuck... Cum with me please, harder.. need it harder..." He complied and fucked you as deep as possible, pushing you back onto the table so you were on your back, lifting a leg against his chest for a deeper thrust. His fingers took over from yours, rubbing your clit harder and faster as your orgasm swamped you, your soaked core soaking both him and the table underneath you. With a groan and two more hard thrusts, he came undone, spilling inside you.

You both lay there, him resting on top of you, for a while, catching your breath. You softly ran your fingers through his hair as he kissed your still covered breasts lightly.

"Y/n, I'm sorry.. I took advantage of you.. this was wrong. Your brother might have a few choice words for me about this y/n." Tommy lifted himself from you and pulled his trousers back up. You lifted yourself up, pulling your underwear back up and straightening your dress back down.

"I approached you, Mr Shelby, not the other way around. As for my brother, he's fucking most of London, I wouldn't worry too much about him." Tommy smiled.

"So maybe I can see you again?" You nodded, before planting a gentle kiss on his lips. He held you close, inhaling your scent, feeling things he hadn't felt for a long time about anyone. You were something else, he couldn't get enough of you, and you felt it too, before pulling him back down on top of you, the kiss becoming hungrier again.

Present day

You sat up in the bed, a wave of nausea coming over you again as you lurched to the en suite to allow your dinner to evacuate. Three months you'd been sleeping with Tommy, and three days you'd been feeling the symptoms you were trying so hard to ignore. Sore breasts, sickness, backache, mood swings. A doctor back in London had confirmed your suspicions that morning, and you were cursing yourself for it. How could you be so stupid?

You heard the door to your Small Heath hotel room knock, and open. Then the voice of the man you were desperate to avoid.

"Y/n, are you here? Woah, now, you okay?" He heard you in the bathroom, throwing up.

"Don't come in here Tommy, I'm fine don't worry!" He ignored you, coming in to hold your hair back. Running his hands over your back soothing you as you caught your breath. You couldn't help it, the tears leaving your eyes as you felt his comforting hands on you. "Just something I've eaten, that's all, it's passed now, I'm okay.." he looked at you, still unsure, as he lifted you from the floor. Fetching you a glass of water, he led you over to the bed.

"Come lie down with me, eh?" He lay down, motioning for you to join him.

"I don't think I'm up for that, Tommy.."

Chuckling, he shook his head. "I know, just come lie down, yeah?" You lay in his arms, back against his chest. You felt so safe and comfortable in his arms.. but was it enough? Would he still want you now?

He kissed your neck gently, his arms wrapping round your stomach. He felt you tense.

"What's wrong?"

"No.. no nothing...just a bit sore from being sick is all..." You mumbled, hoping he believed you. Without warning he placed a warm, comforting hand across your belly, suddenly stopping. You tried to move his hand away but it was no good, he was stronger. He felt the slightly rounded skin.. the harder belly that was usually so soft.. he pulled back, sitting up. You felt the tears coming back.

"How long have you known?" He asked, voice catching in his throat. He remembered Ada being newly pregnant and she'd allowed him to feel her belly as it changed, he was fascinated by it. He recognised it, much to your discomfort.

"I found out this morning.. Tommy I'm so sorry, I don't think I can go through with this..." His heart lurched. He'd felt himself falling in love with you, and now you were carrying his child and you were contemplating getting rid of it.. Swallowing his emotions, he took a deep breath in and pulled you to face him, both of you sat on the bed looking into each others eyes. His hand remained on your belly, a surge of emotion flew threw him.

"Nearly 3 months gone already, Tommy. It must have happened that first night.. I need to do something about this quickly..."

"Do you really want this? You really want to? You know I can take care of you, both of you.. there's nothing either of you will want for again?"

"Tommy I don't want your help financially, I can manage on my own.. I always thought this would happen once I'd married.. with a man who would be a father to our child, not just a financial crutch.. my baby needs a father.."

"Our baby, y/n.. ours. We made this little person.. a little you and me. A perfect combination of us both... Why is this such a bad idea, eh?" You felt tears sting your eyes again.

"Because no one knows we're even sleeping together Tommy, no one has any idea at all, and the repercussions..."

"What repercussions? Your brother?" You nodded, a year escaping. "Your brother and I are fine y/n, I almost see him as a fourth brother of my own. I've learned I can trust him - more than any business partner I've ever had before. I'm sure he will be as thrilled about this as I am -"

"You're thrilled??" You interrupted quickly.

"Yes, y/n.. I am. I'll marry you tomorrow if you'll let me.. just think about all of this please, yeah"" He leaned you back onto the bed softly, taking your lips against his own. You sighed against this kiss, this one feeling different to any other you'd shared. You felt an unexpected love radiating from him, and you felt it too, more than you'd care to admit.

"You really think this will work, Tommy?"

"I plan on showing you every single day how much this will work y/n... And just how much I love yo."" Another tear left your eye, he said it.. he actually said it.

"I.. Tommy please don't be saying this because of the baby..."

"I'm saying this because I mean it. I love you, I love our baby, and I'll marry you. Be my wife y/n, marry me?" You burst into tears. Fucking pregnancy hormones...

"Yes.. yes Thomas Shelby I'll fucking marry you!" You leaned into his arms, kissing his mouth, he didn't care that you'd been sick, he needed to feel you.

"Mrs Shelby-to-be... Let's get you cleaned up shall we? We have a few announcements to make." He smiled, kissing you again, he swore he could see his entire future in your eyes, this baby, more babies, your wedding day, grandchildren.. it was all there for the taking and he couldn't wait.

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[lorirwritesfanfic]

(Un)fortunate Circumstances - Part 3

Author's note: Original characters are creations of this author. The others are owned by Pixelberry Studios. Book: Desire & Decorum (modern day AU) Characters: Prince Hamid, MC (Daphne), M!OC (Vincent) Rating: M Word count: 4686 Reading time: ~19 min Summary: Hamid will have his wishes to know more Lady Daphne granted as another unfortunate circumstance makes her stay in his room for the night. Based on the prompt: AU-Gust Writing Challenge 2020: Day 20 - Single Parent AU

Warning: This piece contains adult material (mentions of car accident, blood, grief and post traumatic stress disorder) that may be disturbing/offensive for some people. Reader discretion is advised.

10:36 p.m.

By the time the countess returned with tea, Vincent was fast asleep and Hamid stood by the window as he talked on the phone to his mother. The lady left the tray on the end table and carefully carried her son in her arms.

"Thank you," she mouthed to Hamid, who replied with a smile and nod as she left the room.

Whilst his mother rambled on the phone, he glanced at the tray with two cups and wondered if it meant Lady Daphne would return. Was it strange she was here a few minutes earlier and he already hoped to see her again?

"Darling, come back home. I called Dr Hakan and he's waiting for you so you can continue your treatment here," Raisa insisted.

"Mom, I'm fine. Dr Chambers is a remarkable orthopedist, I'm following all his recommendations and I can't just fly home whenever you want. I work here."

"You can't possibly consider staying in London now. You're alone there! You're being taken care of by strangers!"

"Mother, enough. Bart is a friend of mine, Yusuf is here and I can take care of myself just fine." 

His eyes darted to the door as Lady Daphne walked in again. 

"Seni yarın ararım, tamam? İyi geceler, anne,"¹ he said as he hung up and approached the door.

"You didn't have to interrupt your call, sir. I can come back later."

"It's fine. I was looking for an excuse to hang up anyway. If not, I'd have to listen to my mother whining until my phone battery died."

"Your mother? Do you call your mother by her name?"

"Excuse me?" He eyed the woman in confusion.

"You called her ‘Anne’."

"Oh..." He chuckled. "That's ‘mother’ in Turkish. I call her 'darling' or 'sultana'² too, but only when she's not interfering in my life."

Her eyebrows rose in realisation. "I figured you were talking to your girlfriend. Or wife. Or something like it…"

"I assume people don't expect a grown man's last call of the day to be his mother, but Turkish mothers are something else. Even if I had a girlfriend or something like it…” He gave her a knowing look and smirked. “My mother would still ensure she'd be my last call of the day."

"Wow..." She giggled, handing him one of the cups in the tray and handing it to him.

He chuckled and he received the cup. "Don't you like tea, ma'am?" He asked as he noticed the cup of coffee in her hands.

"I do, but I have to stay awake tonight."

“Do you?”

“Yeah… I’ll have to wake you every two hours so I check on your cognitive skills.”

Hamid’s shoulders slumped a little.

“I know you were hoping to have a long night of sleep, but these are doctor’s orders.”

“I don’t see why you need to deprive yourself of sleep. I’ll set an alarm to wake me up every two hours and you can rest."

“But you still need to stay awake for a few minutes, talk to someone who can check on you."

"Ma'am, you've already done so much. You don't have to do this," he said before taking some of his tea.

"Mr Osmanoğlu, I don't take these troubles I caused you lightly. I need to be sure you'll be all right and, for this reason, I'll supervise your sleep tonight." 

"But what about yourself? You were in the crash too. You need to rest."

"I'll be fine."

"Ma'am, you can't tire yourself either."

"And I won't." The lady put her cup back on the tray and stared at him. "I'm aware you'd wish to have some privacy and have a good night of sleep. But you had a concussion and somebody has to look after you. I don’t sleep much, so trust me when I say it’s no trouble at all."

Hamid went silent for a few seconds. "Do you have insomnia?"

"Yeah."

"Does Bart know that?" He took another sip of his tea.

She paused for a moment as though she was choosing her words carefully. 

"Bart dedicated too much time of his life to me and to my family. It wouldn't be fair to drag him back to my problems now that he has a life of his own."

The ambassador nodded in silence. Yusuf had mentioned Bartholomew described his marriage as an alliance established with a friend that was favourable for both parts. But now that he has met Bart's former spouse, he finally put the pieces together.

"Okay." He took the last of the tea and placed the cup back on the tray. “Since you're adamant about it, I agree with you checking in on me every two hours."

"Excellent."

"Under two conditions."

"Do tell."

"No more sir or Mr. Osmanoğlu."

"Fair enough."

"And you’ll have to stay here all night."

Her brows furrowed in confusion. "I beg your pardon?"

"You said you don't sleep much, but I don’t think you don't need to tire yourself walking around all night."

"And if I need to sleep, I'll—"

"Go back to your room and rest properly."

The lady narrowed her eyes. "If you're trying to dissuade me, Hamid, you must know I don't give up on anything so easily. I said I'll look after you until you're fully recovered and I will."

As she straightened her posture and lifted up her chin, he couldn't help but gaze at her. He wasn’t only amazed by her beauty. Every new information he gathered about her, no matter how small it was, made her more fascinating.

"I look forward to witnessing you keeping your word, my lady."

They glared at each other playfully for a moment before Daphne left the room briefly and returned carrying a blanket, her phone and a pillow. 

She then made herself comfortable on the settee, touched the screen of her phone a few times and looked back at him.

"I'm going to ask you some questions and use them to check your cognitive skills later. Is that okay?”

“Sure.”

“What year did you finish secondary school?"

"2008."

"Zodiac sign?"

He arched an eyebrow. "Really?"

"When it comes to astrology, people either know it by heart because they believe it or they don't believe it but have a vague idea of it and they have to mentally figure out the zodiac house they belong to."

"How clever... All right, it's Sagittarius."

"Hm..." She nodded, typing on her phone.

"Are you judging me based on my zodiac sign?"

"And if I am?"

"Then I believe I deserve to know your zodiac sign as well. It's only fair, don't you think?"

Daphne pressed her lips together, trying to hide a smile before she answered. "Scorpio."

"Hm..." He nodded, avoiding her gaze.

"Are you judging me based on my zodiac sign?"

"Wouldn't you like to know?" He grinned. 

The lady shook her head, but it wasn't hard to tell she was amused by his antics. 

"What's the model of the last car you bought?"

"2021 Porsche Panamera."

She then put her phone down. "These questions should do for now. We can think of other ones through the night."

"Good," he affirmed, making himself more comfortable in the bed. "Now how about you tell me something about yourself?"

"Why would I do that?"

"You can use the information to ask me later to test my short term memory."

“Is that so?”

“Would I have any other reason to do so?”

She pursed her lips but still seemed to be interested in where the conversation would go. 

"Alright, what do you want to know?"

"What do you do when you're not a Parliament member or bossing people around?"

"Excuse me?!" She scowled. "I do not boss people around."

"Yes, you do." He sat back, crossing his arms behind his head as his back touched the headboard.

"No, I don’t!"

"We barely know each other and I already can point out at least three times you bossed me around since we arrived."

"I—" Daphne paused for a moment. "I did, didn't l?"

"You chastised your son for bossing me around, but he's merely copying your behaviour."

She grimaced slightly. "Sorry... I have trouble turning 'the mum mode' off when Vincent is around."

"I understand." He smiled softly. "But I still want to know what you do in your spare time. Do you still paint?"

"Not as much as I used to when I wasn't countess, but yes. I carry a sketchbook and a pencil in my bag to doodle when I get bored. But most of the time, I draw in my phone or tablet."

"Really?"

"My grandmother used to berate me for carrying my sketchbook everywhere, but nowadays people rarely will judge me if I'm on the phone working." She air quoted the last word.

"Oh, that's so clever! Now I wish I knew how to draw. It'd be a great way to avoid certain conversation topics."

"I can confirm it is." 

The two of them laughed.

"Is it what you wanted to do if you didn't have to become countess?"

"Yeah... I had a project to teach art at the seniors' shelter with a friend. It helps elders with cognitive disabilities to have a good response to any treatment they have to go through."

"What a wonderful gesture. What happened to this project?"

"My friend still followed through with it. I send financial support to keep the project going. It's all I can do now." She then took a sip of her now lukewarm coffee. "What about you? What do you do when you're not representing the Turkish Government or showing off in sports cars?"

"I do lots of things."

"Like what?"

"I play videogames, football and chess when I have the chance. I like travelling, exploring the cities I visit, meeting new people. And of course, I enjoy myself driving like a monster of the road."

Her cheeks went warm. "What?"

Hamid chortled.

"Vincent told you that, didn't he?"

"He did. But I'm not judging you. I know quite a few people who would wish their kids haven't learned to swear words from watching them driving."

"I can imagine."

"How did you come up with that?"

"I was driving back home when someone accelerated through the yellow light and almost hit my car. I felt this urge to yell something so nasty, but then I saw Vincent's dragon toy on my father's lap and I screamed 'you bloody monster of the road!'"

Hamid guffawed. 

"The driver in the other car looked at me so confused dad laughed out loud. Dad had the most infectious laugh, so Bart, Vincent and I ended up laughing as well…” Her eyes softened as she recalled the moment. “And it stuck. Every time something like that happens, I yell it, I recall the moment I came up with it and laugh it off."

"That's a nice strategy."

"Thank you." She put her cup back on the tray. "And for the record, I don't think you're a monster of the road."

"But if you were paying attention to the road earlier today, you would have. I ignored the traffic signals and drove in the wrong way."

"You what?!"

"I have terrible driving habits because in most cities I lived, traffic is insane. And I also wasn't wearing a seatbelt. I probably would've left unscathed if I was on my bike, but cars don't work the same way."

"I cannot believe this..." She blurted.

"That's why I said you shouldn't apologise so much. Your only mistake was to turn around to look at your son."

She shook her head in disbelief. "You are a monster of the road!" 

"Perhaps…” He nodded with a smile. “I'll own up to my new title if you tell what's the word you were thinking when you yelled monster of the road for the first time."

"No!" Her eyes widened in shock.

"Then tell me what you'd have called me today if you weren't distracted by your son."

"I'm not going to tell you that!" 

"Oh, come on…”

“I said no!”

“I don’t understand why you can’t tell me. We're both adults and it's just us here. Don’t you miss having the chance to express yourself in the most genuine way you can without thinking about how improper it’ll be?”

She bit down her lip, looking visibly tempted by the idea.

“You deserve to let it out."

"Fine..." She sighed. "I think I'd call you…”

They exchanged looks for a moment, but as he gave her a cheeky grin, the countess complied.

“Wanker."

Hamid cackled. 

"Okay, that's enough information about me. Have a good night!" She abruptly unfolded the blanket to cover herself and shifted to the other side to look away.

"Good night. And thank you."

A brief moment of silence passed by, but as he expected, she looked back at him. 

"For what?"

"For staying here. You may be bossy at times, but you are a good person."

She faced away from him again, yet she couldn’t help but smile. 

"You're welcome."

1 a.m.

Hamid groaned and placed a large pillow on his head in an attempt to muffle the high pitched noise of Lady Daphne's alarm. He knew he had to wake up, but he barely had a few minutes of sleep. At least, this was how it felt like.

He was about to go back to sleep when a hand touched his shoulder. Will she let it go if I pretend to be asleep?

"Hey, wake up."

Probably not.

He then shifted on the bed and looked up at her. "Yes?"

"I'm sorry. You can see you're tired, but you have to wake up and take your medication," she said softly.

He sat up to take the meds and thanked her for putting the glass of water on the nightstand.

"Are you ready for the questions?"

"Yes."

"What's the model of your new car?"

"A 2021 Porsche Panamera."

"What year did you finish secondary school?"

"2008."

"What's your zodiac sign?"

"Sagittarius. Yours is Scorpio, by the way."

"Very nice," she praised.

He then continued. "You doodle you're bored, you financially support a project of art classes for seniors. You were shocked you weren't the only one at fault in the accident. And if you knew that earlier, you'd call me wanker, even though you created a funny insult to say in front of your son."

Daphne stared at him in bewilderment and sat down. "Your cognitive abilities seem to be working well."

"That's good to hear. But perhaps you should continue to tell me more about yourself just be sure."

Daphne arched an eyebrow. "So curious..."

"You got me intrigued," he answered, gazing at her intently.

"Well, I think you'll be disappointed to find out I'm just a full-time mom powered by coffee to handle my son, paperwork and dull meetings."

Hamid studied the lady in silence then spoke up. "I don't know if I believe you..."

"It’s the truth."

"I agree that paperwork and work meetings make life boring, but I don't know... Maybe you have to find different ways to enjoy yourself. Your knack for the arts, for instance, is proof you’re a creative person. Your lifestyle might not include adventure sports or hanging out in pubs, but it doesn't mean it's boring. And your son Vincent certainly adds some excitement to your life."

"You're not wrong about Vincent."

"I'm right about everything and I can prove it."

"Is that so?"

"Yeah."

“Hm…” She rested her chin on one hand and scrutinized him for a moment. "Okay then. Prove it."

"I bet you have good taste for more interior decoration and art. What's the last book you read?"

"Frankenstein."

"What did you like about it?"

"It's a horror book, but not for the reasons we all expect when we think Frankenstein. It's about what it means to be human and our biggest fear: loneliness."

He grinned. "I knew it."

"Did you conclude it from a single book I mentioned?"

"Yes, but you can tell me more. Perhaps eventually we'll find something that makes your life look as dull as you say it is."

Daphne pursed her lips but kept talking. As she told him her other hobbies, Hamid found some common interests between them like favourite genres of movies, series and music. Obviously, they have their differences, but it was nothing they couldn't respectfully agree to disagree. Before they could notice over an hour passed by. 

4 a.m.

"Hey... It's time to wake up."

"Hayır...³" He mumbled.

"Hamid, you have to wake up."

"Git başımdan...⁴"

"Excuse me?"

His eyes fluttered open as he realised he wasn't at home. 

"I know it sucks, but this is the last time," she added apologetically.

A yawn escaped his lips as he sat up. "Forgive me, Daphne. I had no intention to be rude to you."

"It's fine. I have no idea of what you said, but I can relate to being cranky  when I don't sleep well."

"Have you slept at all tonight?”

"Enough to keep me going. Are you ready to say what we talked about earlier?"

He nodded and cleared his throat. "We both like thriller, romance, indie and classic rock, animes, strong coffee, baklava, liquorice and macarons. You have a questionable taste in reality shows, you have eaten chocolate with bacon and dislike punk rock. But I'm willing to forgive it all because you have Sir Paul McCartney in your contact list, so you're by far the coolest person I've ever met."

Daphne cackled. "Well done. You remembered everything."

"It isn't so hard to remember any details of such an interesting woman."

"Flatterer..." 

“I usually am, but tonight I’m just calling how I see it.”

The lady averted her gaze and smiled coyly. Every time her cheeks turned pink, he smiled to himself thinking he could stare at her all night long. Alas, the situation required a subtle approach, even if he wanted to keep flirting with her.

"Now then, what can you tell me about the bill you're working on?"

"Do you want to talk about it now? Shouldn't we wait until you feel better?"

"Right now is fine by me."

The lady looked down, picking at an invisible cuticle.

"Rest assured the fact that you welcomed me in your home won't seem like a bribe to me. I've been dealing with politicians and rich people my whole life and I know the difference between a sincere kind gesture and a quid pro co situation."

"Okay," She nodded and began to explain the main topics of her bill and how it's a good solution in many aspects.

Hamid watched her speak, hanging on her every word, making questions and attentive remarks. The more she talked about it, the more it seemed he was right about her. Lady Daphne was a fascinating woman.

"So you want my support so I and other diplomats can convince the other members of the Parliament."

"Basically yes. I'm the youngest and newest member, I'm a Chinese descendant woman. It’s hard to get the attention of white traditionalist men when I need it."

“And you think a non-white foreigner can help?”

"Yes! For starters, you’re a man, you’re more familiarized with them than I am, and you know other diplomats that could help spread the word about it. Plus, you agreed with me that we either welcome immigrants again to fortify our alliances with other countries or UK's economy is going to crash."

"You make a quite compelling speech about it. Are you sure you weren't born to be a politician?"

"I didn't even know what being the 'spare' meant until I was fifteen. My brother Harry was the rightful heir. Everything I learned about politics and laws was just in case I had to step in, but I never thought it would come to that." 

“I see…” He nodded. "May I ask something about your father's and brother's passing?"

"Yes."

"How did your son receive the news?"

"He..." She frowned, pausing for a second before she continued. "He was in the car with them." 

"Oh..." A pang of guilt rushed through him. "How insensitive of me. I'm so sorry.”

“It’s fine. You didn’t know.”

“I’ll understand If you no longer want to talk about it." 

"I’m okay. But perhaps I shouldn’t. I think it's a subject too heavy to talk about at this hour, so—"

"I can take it.”

Her eyes widened.

“I don’t mean to pry. I just meant to say l don't mind listening if you need to vent,” he corrected himself and gave her a reassuring smile.

“That’s…” She trailed off for a moment as their eyes met again. “It’s very nice of you.”

“You’ve been looking after me all night. If listening to you can help somehow, I’ll be glad to be of service.” 

Daphne looked down at her hands and adjusted the blanket over her body. She seemed uncertain on how to start, but then she began to speak. 

“Dad, Harry and Vincent spent the weekend in a small village outside the city. Dad wanted Vincent to learn how to fish. On the way back, dad had a stroke while he was driving. Harry tried to take the wheel, but they hit a deer when he tried to go back to the road. Vincent saw everything.” She sighed. “I don’t know if he truly understands what happened, but he remembers every detail. How Harry helped him out of the car. how he came back to get my brother’s phone. My brother dialling the number to call the emergency and leaving blood on the phone screen. How cold it was that day. How scared and lonely he felt..." 

"He mentioned he sees a psychotherapist."

"He does. I was worried he wouldn't accept the treatment because he struggled a lot with the losses and started to misbehave. He had nightmares every night."

"Is that when your insomnia started?"

"Yeah... Fortunately, he liked Dr. Stevens from the very first appointment. He's getting better, but sometimes, there are some mishaps."

"Like kicking a classmate in the shins?"

Daphne stared at him wide-eyed.

"What?"

"I'm a bit surprised. Vincent is a shy kid and he got worse after the accident. And then you waltz in, talk to him once and he tells everything to you."

"Kids usually are easy to talk to. They just need someone to listen and take their word for it."

"Sounds like you have some experience. Do you have children in your family?"

"I do, actually. I used to babysit my nieces when I lived in Ankara. They're so smart and often pick up on things many adults don’t."

"It must be hard to live abroad and spend so much time away from your family." 

“It is… But something tells me I should explore the world and see what’s out there for me.”

Daphne gazed at him intently then rubbed the back of her neck.

"How's your neck?"

"It’s okay. I took the medication at the hospital, so it's not as stiff as it was before."

"But maybe the effect is wearing out?"

"Maybe... I'll have to wait until 9 am to take another pill though."

"Well, if you allow me, I can help."

"How?"

"Stiff neck gets better with massages."

"So you're offering...?" She glanced at him.

"If you want to, of course." He raised his hands.

She bit down her lip in hesitation but agreed. "I guess it won't hurt to try."

"I'm sure it won't." He patted the spot on the mattress next to him.

The countess removed her robe and got up to take a seat on the bed. He then moved closer, brushed her long dark hair away and placed both hands on her shoulder. Slowly, his hands began to knead her neck and shoulder blades, undoing the knots in her muscles.

As the scent of roses coming from her wafted his nose, he tilted his head to one side to gaze at her. He couldn't help but smile as he caught the sight of her with her eyes closed, cheeks warm and parted lips.

"How's the pressure?"

"It's..." She cleared her throat. "Good."

"I'm glad."

"Where did you learn to give massages?"

"My father taught me. He learned it during a trip to New Delhi before he got married to my mother. He says the pillars of a healthy marriage are communication, mutual respect and a secret weapon to soothe his very ill-tempered wife."

"Like a massage?"

"Precisely."

She giggled.

As he continued to work on her neck, his hands moved lower, eliciting goosebumps along her soft flesh.

She flinched slightly. "I— I think I'm good now."

"Very well." He nodded, doing his best to disguise his disappointment. "I hope it helped."

"You did. Your future wife will be very pleased with this secret weapon of yours."

"I hope so."

"Anyway..." She turned around to look at him. "Thank you for the massage and for listening."

"I'm happy to help. And I'm so sorry for your losses."

"I know— I mean, thank you."

He eyed her with a curious look.

"After the crash, I was trying to figure out why your name was so familiar to me. I kept thinking if I knew someone else with the same name. It was only when we arrived here and you mentioned the look in my dad's eyes in the painting that I realised. You worked with him. When he passed away, you sent a bouquet of yellow and blue gladiolus and a letter. A very nice touch, by the way."

"I had a feeling he would appreciate flowers in Edgewater colours."

"He certainly would. But what stood out to me was your note. Do you remember what you wrote?"

"Vaguely..."

"You mentioned how generous he was to share his wisdom with you and how you hoped his successor followed his footsteps of being kind and standing up for the right reasons. I had no idea who you were then. But I was so grateful for every word you wrote I kept the note with me." 

Hamid then reached out for her hand. "I'm glad to hear it. And I do believe he has an honourable successor ruling the county he was so proud to call home."

"Thank you. It means a lot to hear it."

"I'm merely stating the facts, but you're welcome."

8:09 a.m

Sunlight seeped through the drapes as Hamid woke from slumber. He stared at the ceiling for a couple of minutes and shifted to the side when he sensed he wasn't alone in the bed. By his side, Lady Daphne slept soundly, with her hair spread over her face and hugging most of the pillows.

A slow smile crossed his lips. Though he couldn't sleep all night, he felt well-rested, full of energy. But it clearly wasn't an easy night for the countess. He then carefully crawled out of the bed and pulled the cover over her frame.

Just then, the door opened and Vincent appeared in the doorway.

"Hey! I..." Vincent trailed off as Hamid pressed a finger to his lips. "Mum slept here?"

Hamid nodded.

"But it’s morning. Mum never sleeps in," the boy whispered as he tiptoed into the bedroom.

“Maybe your mum is more tired than usual.”

“Because of the crash?”

“Among other things. But don’t worry about her. She just needs to sleep.”

The boy nodded in silence.

Hamid then beckoned to Vincent and whispered. “Hey, do you smell that?”

“Smell what?”

Hamid lifted up his nose, pretending to identify a non-existent smell in the air. “Waffles.” 

“Waffles?” The boy looked at the ambassador in confusion.

“Chocolate waffles.” 

Vincent mimicked the ambassador's gestures then shrugged. “I don’t smell anything.” 

“You don’t?!” Hamid feigned shock. “I do! And I swear it’s waffles! You know what? We should let your mum sleep and search for the chocolate waffles. Are you with me?”

The boy grinned and nodded with enthusiasm.

“Okay. Let’s head downstairs.” 

Hamid offered his hand to Vincent, who took his hand and followed the ambassador out then waved to his mother before they shut the door behind them.

----

¹ "Seni yarın ararım, tamam? İyi geceler, anne.": I'll call you tomorrow, okay? Good night, mother.

² sultana: in the Ottoman empire, sultanas are all wives, concubines (with heirs) and daughters of a sultan. Nowadays, it's used as a term of endearment to refer to influential women (usually mothers)

³ Hayır: no

⁴ Git başımdan: leave me alone

[mitsukui]

cherry explosion | b.w.

Pairing: Bill Weasley x female reader.

Summary:  unexpectedly, Bill finds a way to give you the best New Year’s Eve you have ever had.

Word Count: 1,7k.

Warnings: smut! Oral sex (female receiving). Mentions of alcohol, drinking, and one-night stands ending badly.

Disclaimer: none of the pictures used in the edit below belong to me; I simply put them together.

A/N: sending all of my love to those who are spending their New Year’s Eve by themselves! Dear @maddi-sun18​, thank you so much for the request, and I hope this can bring you some comfort. Please, leave me some feedback if you feel like it! My askbox is open for your opinions, thoughts and requests. Thank you so much for your time and attention ❤

Masterlist!

Sometimes, it was so easy to read men. Their actions were so predictable, and they never failed to act exactly the same as the ones who had been there previously.

You wondered if there was some sort of training for young gentlemen on how to pick up girls at hotel bars. There seemed to be four steps for a man to follow in order to get lucky: one – exchange looks with the chosen pretty girl; two – lure the prey by offering her a fizzy and fruity drink; three – make small conversation, and say she is different from any other girl in the room; and, finally, four – get into her panties.

All of that was bullshit, and you would never fall for it.

And, perhaps, that was why you panicked a bit when a painfully attractive man approached you in a different way.

“Hey.” He shot you a small, yet, charming smile. “Do you mind if I sit here? If I listen to Patricia Rakepick talking about her adventures in Japan for one more bit, I might die.”

Both of you were taking part in an international conference on Curse-Breaking. The event had gathered wizards and witches from all around the globe, which caused Gringotts to rent a few areas on a muggle hotel in London for it. Although it was a knotty task for so many people to act as if they had no magical powers rushing through their veins, every participant seemed to be doing well on their own.

His presence there was perfectly reasonable, once he was a Curse-Breaker himself. Yours, however, was a bit questionable. You, as a columnist for the Daily Prophet, had been asked to cover the event, and could not be any less excited about it.

It was New Year’s Eve. All you wanted to do was go home to your family and friends.

While many people were not shy on showing their personal preference for Christmas, you were crazy about New Year’s Eve. The upcoming novel 365 days for you to live as if they were your last, the fancy dresses you always insisted on wearing, the taste of fizzy and fruity drinks lingering in your mouth until January 1st – all of that meant something to you, as brainless as it sounded.

Your peevish ways were soon destroyed by his sudden presence and polite attitudes. After you agreed with his company, it did not take long until you were laughing about the event and the people attending it.

As a matter of fact, Curse-Breakers were rather odd and monotonous people. The man with fiery, long hair seemed to be a clear exception to them, with his exotic fang earring, and his dragonhide boots. He also was to be the only good-looking one in that crowded bar, in that stupidly sophisticated hotel.

He was surprising you second by second. Breaking every single trait of loathing you had piled up for men, due to failed relationships and other women’s reports, he was showing himself as a funny and respectful man.

Between a few drinks, you had talked about his insanely big family, your repetitive daily life, his experiences in Egypt, and how you accidently had Apparated in Colombia once, being left without any knowledge of Spanish.

There was something sweet and intoxicating about him; about the way he asked to hold your hand while you were talking, and about the way he confessed and apologized for being unable to stop staring at your lips and wondering what they felt like.

“They probably taste like cherries now.” You leaned in and whispered, the dizzy sensation caused by your Cherry Bomb drink starting to tingle your insides. In a bold movement, you took your cocktail glass towards him. With your other hand, you touched his chin, and pushed it down a bit, forcing his mouth to part open. Your gaze transformed itself into a flirty one, and you told him to sip your drink so he could get a better grasp on what you tasted like.

It did not take long for you to crash your lips against his after that. You felt comfortable doing exactly what you were doing. You felt like you were in command of your own feelings. There was no stupid game of prey and hunter. There was no lie being told so one would get lucky.

At that moment, there were only two adults, being nice to each other and understanding their desires fully.

Unlike so many other men, he had respected you and, in the midst of slightly drunken kisses and touches, he kept on trying to be certain you were okay and you really wanted that.

Bill was briefly tipsy as well, his tongue tasting like the scotch he had earlier. The mixture between your cherry-like taste and his own made you feel like you were in heaven, although his kisses were growing to be hungry and more desperate.

Half an hour later, your hair spread across the pillow he was temporarily using for sleeping purposes. Your dress had been lifted up until your stomach, and your underwear was now nowhere to be found.

His soft hands roamed around your inner thighs as his tongue lapped your juices. Surprisingly, he was terrific at that, and you suspected you would crave more once he was done.

As he gave short licks to your clit and his tongue ran around your folds, two of his fingers were inserted in you. You arched your back, and reached out for his hair. You allowed your own fingers to tug delicately on his locks, his name leaving your lips religiously. He kept on pumping in and out of you, the pressure on your soft spot increasing each time.

The burning knot in your loins became tighter, and he adored how you clenched your walls around him so strongly. You were a mumbling, breathy mess, but he was entirely mesmerized by the sight, and the intimacy you were sharing.

Almost as if destiny was playing a prank on you, when you hit your first orgasm, fireworks started exploding outside the window of his hotel room. You squeezed your eyes shut, and cried out in the greatest pleasure you had ever felt in your entire life.

Slurping and sinful noises were produced as you came back from your high, still moaning. Your entire body trembled violently, but his big hands soothed your delicious torture.

He looked at you and chuckled quietly, your fluids still hanging on his lips, making them even more kissable than before. You were stunning in his eyes, and he feared not being able to let you go after the morning would come.

“Happy New Year, darling.”

January 1st came as softly and quietly as it possibly could. You dozed off in his arms after you spent a bit watching the fireworks show, and talking as well. The fact he was a grown man, but still could hold a decent conversation for so long, without any visible struggles was amusing.

You woke up to the next morning weak daylight peeking through the curtains and tickling your cheeks. Something inside your chest felt amazing. Flashes of the previous night appeared in your mind, and you could not hold a smile back. Funny enough, the taste of your Cherry Bomb drink still lingered faintly on your tongue.

However, all of your peace of mind vanished in the very instant you realized you had woken up by yourself. Waves of embarrassment and regret crashed in your heart, and you felt ridiculous for falling for all of the sweet nothings that had escaped his lips.

“Yes, that would be all. Yes. Room 716. Thank you very much.”

His enchanting voice shattered your own trance into a million pieces, and his bare footsteps announced he was returning to the same spot where you were at. You pulled the white sheets up and covered your naked torso, still unsure of how you would have to deal with the rising tension of the situation.

He soon captured the image of you being up and a glorious grin painted his lips. “Good morning.” His lower body was covered by a pair of dark jeans, which seemed to embrace his existence perfectly well, despite being different from the visual image he displayed last night. How was it possible for someone to look that good early in the morning? Or was it really early? What time was it? What did happen after the fireworks? With a timid voice, you wished him a good morning, too, but remained silent afterwards. It was difficult for you to ponder your next actions.

“So, the room service guys will be here shortly. I took the freedom to order us some breakfast.” His eyes gleamed with a pure kindness as the words slipped out of his lips. “I hope you fancy some orange juice in the morning.” He was offering you nothing but soft spoken words, and thoughtful actions

What was that?!

“B-Breakfast?” You repeated the key word of the whole conversation in surprise. No one had ever prepared, or even ordered, you breakfast after a night of sex and lust.

“Yeah.” Bill was quick to notice your tone of surprise and, somehow, it was funny to him. A girl like you, whom had shown him nothing but a great personality so far, should be used to being pampered like that. “Did you think for one second that I’d just eat you out like that, and leave you hanging the next morning?”

Honestly? Yes. You did think of that. You feared you would be tricked once more. One more disappointment to be added to your personal archive. One more reason to continue living your life despising men.

His arms were crossed against his chest and he shook his head, a dismissive, short laugh echoing through the room. “I would be mental if I ever did that. In a few hours, you managed to wow me.”

He made his way to the bed, and his body sank down on the mattress, being placed right next to yours. Truth being told, without the alcohol, you felt quite shy being that close to such a handsome man. “And, if you allow me to, I want to continue seeing you. I want to get to know more of you.”

A snuggly heat erupted in you, and it was a novel sensation for you. Perhaps, not all men had those devilish ways in them.

“I’m terribly sorry, but I really feel like kissing you right now. But, given your astonished behaviors, I’m not sure if you’d enjoy that. What do you tell me?”

Perhaps, this new year would not be so terrible.

[newtonsheffield]

First off let me just say your writing is INCREDIBLE like holy wow!! So sad WAMK is ending, it was one of my favourites! Excited to see what happens in the other universes too though! However...would it be possible to see Anthony’s side of the proposal? Or maybe something from their wedding (not spicy or spicy🌶)?? Literally anything from this universe would soothe the hurt of it ending😂 You’re awesome, hope your next few weeks are better than the last couple❤️

Ahhh Thank you so much!

Can you believe I intended that first chapter to just be like a little what if one shot?? And it turned into that absolute monster of a fic!

Honestly, this was a really good exercise in writing regency for me, Maybe I'll do it again sometime!

No, I know everyone really wants to know what Anthony said during that proposal but I decided to keep it just for them. I think the beauty of that final chapter is Kate knows Anthony loves her, She knows that he wants to marry her, he just has to ask. Anthony knows that Kate loves him, and he knows she going to say yes, he just has to ask. And we only see it in the after. Just a private little moment. And I think I want it to stay that way.

We can talk about their wedding night if you like though? I've never done regency spice before, might be fun.

"Are you nervous?" Anthony's voice rumbled against her neck, sending a little shiver down her spine as his lips brushed her collarbone again, jolting slightly as the carriage trundled through the streets of London, towards their new home.

Anthony had dragged Kate around Mayfair as soon as they'd returned to London betrothed, viewing this house and that insisting on taking a house they could make their own. Insisting that she love it as well, because, though he intended to remove to Aubrey Hall almost year-round, he often had business in London and, as he'd said with a devilish grin. "I think you will find me not so easily parted with my wife."

Tomorrow they would be back at Aubrey Hall for their honeymoon, while his family closed out the season alone, but tonight, he'd told her that he wanted to spend their first night together, in a place that was just theirs. And Kate had pretended it didn't make tears sting at her eyes.

"Do you think I should be?" She tried to say it confidently, though her voice wavered anyway. Mary had told her last night, that she was sure Kate had nothing to worry about. That when a man and woman loved one another, it was really very nice, but still, anxiety swirled in Kate's stomach clinging to the last moments of insecurity. As she knew that were Anthony to regret his choice now, She would never recover.

"I'm nervous." She heard Anthony admit quietly as the carriage rolled to a stop, and before she could formulate a response to Anthony Bridgerton, notorious Rake being nervous to lay with her, he'd swung the carriage door open and greeted the footman before turning to help her down.

She flitted through the introductions to their small staff, her cheeks burning when he turned to the young girl who would be her maid, Emily she recalled vaguely, and said, with a roguish smile. "You may turn in early tonight Emily, I shall tend to Mrs. Bridgerton myself." And even though she longed to clap her hand over his mouth something thrilled at hearing her new name for the very first time. Mrs. Bridgerton. She wasn't Miss Kate Sharma of Somerset any more, and while part of her ached for what she'd lost, she liked the idea of being Mrs Anthony Bridgerton so much more.

Anthony took her hand shortly after, half dragging her up the stairs already laughing as the tumbled through the door of his chambers. She looked curiously around the room that she knew he'd decorated two weeks ago when he had removed here.

"So this is where you'll sleep." She said, more to herself than him really, smiling at the painting she'd done for him, hung over the fireplace. A man floundering in the Serpentine, a corgi swimming delightedly around him. "This is where we'll sleep." He was closer to her than she'd realised, she could feel the heat of him behind her, and something she didn't fully understand yet burned through her. "I meant what I said, Mrs. Bridgerton, I think you'll find I won't easily be parted from you."

Kate took a shuddering breath as she turned towards him "I like how that sounds. Mrs Bridgerton." She was once more reminded that Anthony's smile was truly the most beautiful thing she'd ever seen. "I like how it sounds as well." His voice was so soft, and suddenly, all the anxiety slipped away. Because this was Anthony he would never do anything to cause her pain, she was sure. Any man who had cradled her so softly against his chest while she cried could never be anything but gentle.

"May I?" His hands were trembling she noticed as he reached for the buttons running down her back, smiling as she nodded. His mouth falling open a little as her dress slid from her leaving her mostly bare before him. "You are so beautiful, Kate." His voice was thunderstruck, as he tugged her towards the bed, resting her gently atop the soft mattress. "It's not as though you haven't seen this before." He gave her a wolfish grin. "I'm sure I'll say the same thing no matter how many times I see you."

"Do you trust me, Kate?" Her heart was hammering, his fingers playing with her stockings, inching higher and higher, and she craved something she didn't know how to name. "Yes." She gasped as his fingers finally touched her. Moving relentlessly against her, she heard herself let out a startled gasp, felt her hands grip his shoulders tightly, could feel his eyes burning into hers. And he kept pushing her forward, leading her towards something. "I don't... I can't..." She gasped, moving fruitlessly against him. "Yes you can." His voice was rough in her ear. "I'll catch you. And suddenly it seemed like everything fell apart, her breath stolen from her body as Anthony stared down at her with a look of sheer awe on his face.

"Now that was the most beautiful thing I've ever seen." He hummed against her neck, standing to divest himself of his own clothing. And Kate couldn't help but take note of it. Wondering briefly what it would feel like to do it herself. And then he was back, kneeling over her. the weight of his body pushing her into the mattress in a way that probably should have felt suffocating but instead was incredible. His eyes hot against her.

"Now Kate, I need you to tell me something." he said conversationally.

Kate felt her brow furrow in confusion. "What do you need to know?"

Anthony sighed dramatically, his hips moving ever so slightly against her, "Why does newton look much better in that portrait than me?"

Laughter bubbled in Kate's chest and just as it did Anthony moved against her firmly and oh!

Anthony let out a low groan though he looked concernedly down at her. "I'm so sorry, I promise it won't-"

She shook her head "No, it feels nice." And it did. His body moving with hers in perfect sync, his lips and hands everywhere, her name falling like a prayer from his lips Kate Kate Kate Kate I love you. You're so beautiful. It all felt far too right, as she hurtled towards the edge again, and then she fell again and Anthony shuddered against her his forehead pressed to hers, holding one another tightly like they were all each other had.

His breathing was laboured, desperate, as he slumped against her. "I love you, so much I can barely breathe sometimes." His voice hot in her ear. Kate hummed, happiness radiating from her uncontrollably. "I love you." And the, because he was Anthony and she was Kate, and they'd probably tease back and forth forever she said, "I was right to know that wouldn't cause me shame."

And Anthony's laugh was still the most beautiful sound in the world.

[1ddiscourseoftheday]

💙Fri 11 Dec ‘20◟̽◞̽

Louis' big show is TOMORROW but that may not even be all we have to look forward to from him! Producer Alex Oriet (half of the duo Saltwives, who have worked with Zayn a lot, and he got his start working with 1D) reposted Louis' “new song” tweet to his insta with a caption- “soon”. OMG. Billboard had a 'year in livestreams' feature and wrapped up with Louis', saying “the best is yet to come” and reporting that Louis' show is Veeps' bestselling of the year “in excess of $1 million” (so either over a mil so far or a mil over the next best, hard to say, but it'll be well over a million by the end for sure so either makes sense).“I can't wait for tomorrow!” Louis tweeted, SAME, and “feels so good to be back with the boys getting ready. Can't wait for you all to see what we've been working on!” He included the brand new special Live From London twiiter emoji (!), it's a really cute lil vintage TV with the xx smiley on it, and a pic-- it's him looking over the backstage prep (so many screens) and you can see his hair flowing free and long and lovely! You can also see a piece of paper in front of him with 20 lines on it-- even if it is a set list I imagine some lines say “banter with crowd” and such like (as we saw on Louis' tour set list) but that's still soooo many lovely songs :))). Charlie Lightening says “this is going to be special, can’t wait for people to see what we have planned” and LTHQoffical is hitting us hard with the hype, posting another rehearsal pic (he's holding a beer and they didn't even scribble it out! wow almost like there's nothing wrong with that), and a time zone guide showing 66 cities around the world, and a digital fan pack, and they said more merch will be out tomorrow (heeelllp), and there's a show day itinerary-- ticket sales cut off 4 hours before the stream but much more interestingly, don't reopen (for the 28 hours of rewatch) until TWO HOURS after the start time. While they could (probably should) be allowing time for technical difficulties I much prefer to believe it's because we're getting a LONG SHOW YES PLEASE! I like my Louis shows like I like his hair, as long as he can possibly manage!! So that's plenty that we DO know to be excited about at the moment but the mystery of Louis new label also remains a hot topic nonetheless, with the known high cost of a twitter emoji stirring questions of who footed the bill (not something we're ever likely to find out sadly). If his team really understood us in the least they'd set up a viral video style Q and A where every Q pulled out of the bowl was an intensely detailed bookkeeping or promo strategy type query- tbh the faces Louis (or any one of the boys) would make would be 100x more entertaining than they get from any tired trying-to-be-cheeky standard Q and the answers sure would be!

Harry's prerecorded (months ago!) Jingle Ball performance aired at last and OH MY GOSH! SO GOOD! I think we can all agree (I know right?? I can't believe it either) that the backing band, Free Nationals, were phenomenal, and Harry's performance was terrific, just simply next level versions of the songs and Harry's sound in general. What more could we ask? For me, not much. For the Jingle Bell Ball organizers, well, they might have liked something Christmassy I suppose, maybe a holiday cover song, or a “tour of his home and holiday traditions.” LOL too bad! Whatever, they DID get vocal variations all over the place and oh did they work, a little lyric change in Golden (“I'm hoping someday I'll open”?), Harry in a sunny LA backyard (whose? who knows!) and everyone in not remotely festive Gucci. There were some decorations though! Not xmassy though- they were, can you guess, yes that's right: sky blue. And there was TRUMPET! A horn section, like revenge, is best served cold apparently: all these years on we can only assume Julian Bulian is good and sorry for denying Harry his trumpets cause DAMN did that sound GOOD. Julian may not say it but I will: you were SO RIGHT Harry, trumpets on every song!! Please! In fact, if you just took that guy on tour with you... or any of those people really? He can just have a really BIG backing band how about, then we won't have to argue about whether wanting this to be his band is mean to the old band. Anyway I hope the fan who ran into him in LA this morning told him how much we liked the show-- she did take a distanced pic, Harry is in his running gear (mostly black but bright fruity shoes) and holding a beverage. Oh yeah and Fine Line is now available to stream in “3D audio” (there's a moving in a New Direction from 1D joke in here headline writers, have at it) which is something that apparently only works with an Amazon device and is strange because physicists assure me that all sound is 3D, but what do they know. Anyway I'm sure it sounds great to those who can access it but luckily for me the album sounds great in plebian unbranded sound as well.

In the wake of Liam's no-show livestream yesterday fans are full of theories about what could be going on to cause such a thing, except actually it's only one theory; everyone is quick to ascribe the glitch to management struggles. May I simply say: there are so very very many things that could be happening in a person's life, even in a 1D member's life, that could cause a missed event and reducing any of them to 1 Dimensional figures who only have work related problems does them (and rigorous theorizing) a disservice. I hope we can all agree on wanting what's best for Liam, and that that extends to supporting him even if things are going on that are less glamorous than management villainy. I will ascribe one thing to management though-- I do believe the guys do the bulk of their own tweeting etc nearly always, but @Liam's tweet that yesterday's live didn't happen due to “technical difficulties” and they are “looking to reschedule” is one that I will make the exception for, sometimes you can just feel the PR person behind the screen! Tik Tok said it was rescheduled for next Tuesday, but the tweet was after that sooo hmm. The Billboard article about Veeps of course also talked about Liam (his Halloween show had 3.7 BILLION chat messages my god) and Liam's prerecorded alarm content today is Roman teaching Liam to do a Harry impression. How come when Roman does it it sounds like Harry but when Liam does it he sounds like Roman? Tip to Liam, just call it a Roman impression and you've GOT it!

Meanwhile, Lewis Capaldi weighs in on Niall and whether he (Lewis) enjoys golf with uncharaceristic delicacy; “we have different interests,” he says, and he sympathizes with a fan who said they'd slap him to meet Harry: “I understand.”

[emwritesfootball]

Her Majesty's Men 7 | Mason Mount

Word Count: 1,415

Warnings: declan being an ass, more stripping, more mason/reader sexual tension xx

- - -

Her Majesty’s Men take off after that.

Victoria makes one Instagram post about her night spent at the club, and suddenly, everyone is showing up. Women come from all over England just to see them perform. Suddenly, money is coming from all directions. Stonesy is able to hire a PR team and an agency that starts talking about the tour.

It all gets so big so fast.

Money Mase and Dangerous Deccers start making house calls to bring in extra press. It’s exhausting but the money can sometimes be even better than a weeknight at the club, and now they need the money because Stonesy thought they should only do Thursday-through-Sunday shows.

They knock on the door of the mansion in front of them, the music blaring even behind the closed door. The two of them are dressed up like the City of London Police, looking intimidating when a woman answers. “Hello, Officers. Can I help you?”

“D’You live here, Ma’am?”

“Well, uh, no, but I-”

“That’s fine,” Mason says, pushing past her and stepping inside. “We’ve been getting complaints of noise and underage drinking here. Is everyone over age?”

The room is full of women well over-eighteen and they all nod. “Well, we’re gonna have to see some ID all the same,” Mason continues, pointing in the direction of the room filled with women. “Can you accompany me in here, please. When’s your birthday, Ma’am?”

“Uh, M-May,” she stutters, so flustered by this intrusion she forgets her own birthday.

“You are definitely not eighteen. I’m gonna need you to place your hands on the wall; spread your legs. Everybody sit down - we’re gonna be here a while. Now, do you have anything sharp on you that I could stick myself with?”

“N-no, Sir.”

“Good. Because I do.” That was the cue for Mason to rip off the tear-away pants, leaving him in briefs with the toolbelt still around his waist. Declan turned up the music as the women started to cheer. He spotted Victoria in the crowd, giving her a wink and a nod before he turned back to her friend and finished up the lapdance.

The two men worked the room, money flying everywhere as they thrust their hips and flexed their muscles. Victoria was the last woman left, spreading her legs eagerly as Declan sauntered over to her. She wrapped her legs around his waist as he started the lapdance, rutting against his barely-covered cock-

“What the HELL is going on?!” Came David Beckham’s voice.

The music shut off, everyone suddenly freezing where they stood. Time stopped.

“David, I-”

“No! I don’t wanna hear it!” David was furious, the centre of his rage focused solely on Victoria and Declan. “You told me it was one time, Victoria! You told me I’d never have to see this… this boy again, yet here he is in MY HOUSE!” David stormed towards Declan, shoving him. “Get the fuck off my wife!”

“Whoa whoa whoa, what’s going on?” Mason cut in, throwing himself between Declan and the football legend. “We just got a call to come to this house party, and-”

“What you ‘got’ was a call from my wife to get her little boy-toy over here so she can have an excuse to fuck him in our bed. I want him out of my house!” David roared, advancing on Mason now.

“O-Okay,” Mason said, holding his hands up in surrender. “We’re leaving right now. Dec? C’mon.”

“No.” Declan’s face was hard, defiant as he stepped towards David. “Victoria told me you were okay with this. I don’t know what she told you, but that’s what she told me.” Declan got in David’s face. “I’ll leave, but you haven’t seen the last of me.”

Declan let Mason drag him out by the arm, the adrenaline racing through both of them.

“What the hell was that, Dec?!” Mason shouted as the two of them drove back to Declan’s place. “Victoria Beckham?! Really?! How long has this been going on?!”

“Since the fundraiser. She seduced me.”

“And you let it happen? Fuck, Dec, I thought you knew better than that!”

“I thought I did, too, mate, but she… god, she really knows her way around a man’s cock. Stonesy was right: this investment was a great idea.”

“No, Dec! No, it wasn’t! God, don’t you see what Stonesy has turned you into?”

“Yes, I have, Mase! He’s made me a goddamn star! I thought I’d never get to hear crowds of people chanting and screaming my name again, but here we are! They. Love. Me. Me, Mase! I didn’t think that was gonna be possible again after I lost football, but John’s done it.”

“John?! Since when do we call him anything but Stonesy?! Fuck, Dec. You might know who you are now, but I sure as hell don’t.”

The rest of the drive was spent in tense silence, both men fuming at the other. Mason pulled into the drive, cutting the engine. He banged on the door of your place, breathing a sigh of relief when you answered. “I’ve got your brother.”

“What happened?” Concern instantly makes its way onto your face. You want to reach out and comfort Mason, but you don’t. The two of you have barely interacted since your almost-kiss, but something about his demeanor tells you that he needs you.

“I don’t know the full story, but we’ve just come from the Beckhams’ and-”

“Wait. As in ‘David and Victoria Beckham’ the Beckhams’?”

“Uh, yeah. And, apparently, your brother has been shagging Victoria for the last few I-don’t-know-how-many months.”

“He’s what?!”

“Yeah.” Mason gave you a wide-eyed look. “Things got a bit heated tonight. I tried to talk to him on the drive, but he’s so far gone on Stonesy’s little fucked-up plan to take us out of London that I don’t-”

“Wow. It’s really gonna be like that, eh?” Declan glared at Mason and then turned his attention to you. “Money Mase has you so wrapped around his finger, doesn’t he? Is this all part of your plan to turn everyone against me? God, mate, my own sister?! You think me screwing Vic is bad but you’re shagging my sister?! That’s low, even for you.”

“Mason’s not shagging me, Dec! And really? Victoria Beckham?! Look at yourself! I thought this was going to be a bridge from football onto your next thing. I wasn’t expecting this.”

“Expecting what? Me to be a star?! Well, wake the fuck up, bitch! I’m a star! Dangerous Deccers is a goddamn star! The women scream for me, they cheer for me! And Victoria Beckham is shagging me over her goddamn husband! So, who’s the real winner here, ‘cause it certainly doesn’t seem like it’s either of you two.” Declan growled, pushing past you and into the house.

“Wow!” You whispered, sharing a look with Mason.

“Yeah…” Mason trailed off, letting out a sigh as he scrubbed a hand over his face. “I’m sorry he called you a bitch.”

“It’s not your fault, but thanks. I doubt he’ll apologize in the morning, anyway. When he gets like this, he-” you paused, shaking your head. “Well, anyway. Thanks.” Without thinking, you hugged him, wrapping your arms around his waist. “Thanks for bringing him here and just for… everything, really.”

“My pleasure,” he replied, running a soothing hand up your back. “I was just looking out for Dec. I didn’t expect it to turn out like this.”

“I know you didn’t. It’s okay, Mase. Really.” You looked up at him, taking his face in your hands. Your eyes searched his face before you pressed a kiss to his cheek. “Good night.”

“Can we go out sometime? A proper date. I wanna take you out.”

“Mason,” you sighed, releasing him as you stepped back. “You know we can’t. I’m me and you’re-”

“A stripper? You can say it, ya know. It’s not a bad thing. I told you once before, it’s how I pay the bills; it’s not who I am.”

“I know. But you’re also Dec’s best friend.”

“Forget about all that. If I was just some random guy you met and you didn’t know who I was and I wasn’t your brother’s best friend, would you go out with me?”

You bit down on your bottom lip. “Yes. I would.”

Mason smiled wide and your stomach dipped. “Give me a month, and just promise me that when I show up here again, you’ll say yes to a date?”

<< >>

[mediocre-writerr]

xo [dani clayton]

dani clayton x fem reader

requested: If you write some Jamie x Reader or Dani x Reader smut, I will be FOREVER in your debt! 

NSFW!!

*not my gif*

You were at your regular pub in the city of London. Sipping away the sorrows of your stressful day at the office. You took a few more sips of your beer as your eyes landed on a beautiful blonde with bright blue eyes. 

She looked up from the newspaper she was reading and her eyes landed on yours. The blonde smiled slightly before going back to read her newspaper. Only to look up a few seconds later to find you still staring.

She raised her eyebrow up and you gave your award-winning smile. You thought she was going to reject you, but she patted the empty bar stool next to you. 

“Have your parents ever taught you it isn’t polite to stare?” she asks in an American accent.

So she’s not from here, intriguing, “They did, but they also said to appreciate beauty. So I don’t know which rule to follow.” 

She smiles at you softly unsure of what to say as she takes a sip of her own beer.

“So you seem to not be from around here.” you say after taking a sip yourself.

She hums in response, smiling, “What gave it away?”

“As cheesy as it sounds I would remembered someone like you.” you say with a small smirk.

“Oh I’m sure you would.” she says sarcastically.

You raise your hands up in defense, “Hey I know everyone here. And this is my first time seeing you here. Point out anyone in the bar and I’ll say their name from here.” 

She looks around the bar before pointing at the lonely old man sitting by himself in the corner booth. The blonde points at him and you smile. 

“Hey Timmy!” you yell and you immediately get his attention.

He gives you the bird before grumbling to himself under his breath.

“Wow what was that for?” the girl asks and you laugh.

“It’s just old Timmy being Timmy. Very grumpy old man, but if I don’t say hi to him everyday he gets even grumpier.” you say and she giggles.

The next two hours the two of you continue to drink and talk. Getting tipsier and tipsier by the second. 

She looks at you through her eyelashes with a sultry look on her face. You bite your lip looking down. 

“How about we go to my hostel? It’s not too far away from here.” she whispers in your ear, her hot breath turning you on by the second. 

“I would love that.” 

Once you enter the blonde girl’s hostel you smile at her widely. Sitting down on the edge of her bed. But she’s not wasting anytime. 

She kisses you roughly, her hands flying to your hair. The blonde straddles you, placing both legs on either side of you. 

The two of you kiss with so much passion. And you think to yourself that this is probably one of the best kisses you've ever had. 

The heat in between your legs was growing with each kiss that was being shared. She decided to turn up a notch unable to control her on wants and needs. 

She started to grind her hips into yours. The stranger could practically feel the throbbing through your pants. She smirked as you moaned into her lips. Your jacket was the first thing to go, it was on the floor in a matter of seconds.

Her lips quickly attached back to yours as your hands gripped at her hips. Moving them in a circular motion causing her to release a moan of her own. You bit down on her bottom lip before sliding your tongue in her mouth. 

The two of your tongues fought for dominance. You practically ripped off her blouse as she took off your shirt. Her eyes scanned over your bare skin. Still straddling you, you kissed her right under her bra. Raking your fingers on her back.

She started leaving wet sloppy kisses all over your neck. You felt her smirk onto your neck as she continued nipping. Both of you knew that she was in control, neither of you seemed to mind. 

You quickly undid your pants and she matched your movements. The two of you in a hurry to just feel something. She immediately reattached herself back on top of you, grinding as the small clothing blocking your two heats made you want her even more. 

Sliding your hand in between her legs you made a circular motion as you felt the small little nerve. 

“Fuck.” she murmured as continued to grind on your finger. 

You sped up your motion as your other hand was on her hips motioning for her to go faster and faster. 

“Shit, I’m so close.” she says in between moans. 

You took that as a sign to finally stick on finger into her dripping wet core. Her gasps making you turned on even more. She rode your finger fast and hard. Continuing to plant sloppy kisses along your neck. 

Her bare top allowed you to nip at her collarbone. Another moan slipped out of her mouth. A second finger was added to the mix causing yet another loud moan to slip her mouth.

It caused you to let out a groan of your own. The blonde’s nails raked onto your back and caused you to let out another groan. She continued riding your fingers and you can feel her walls clench around your fingers.

“Fuck, I’m gonna cum.” she whispers in your ear, bitting at your ear lobe. 

Her hips continued to grind on your fingers in a fast yet sloppy motion. Loads of moans and curses slipped out of her mouth and fell out go your lips as well. She laid her head back as she rode out her high.

You kissed her hard as you didn’t want the moment to end. 

“Your turn.” she whispers, pushing you down onto the bed. 

Most of the night was sleepless. Many touches and kisses were shared. Until you finally fell asleep together.

But your one night stand sleep in was cut short when your phone started to ring. You quickly answered it so you didn’t wake the blonde beauty lying next to you.

“Hello?” you mumble, your voice slightly raspy from how loud you were last night.

“Y/L/N, we need you at the office as soon as possible. I need a favor from you.” your boss says into the phone.

You mentally groaned before slowly getting up and out of the comfortable bed, “Yes sir. I’m on my way.” 

Luckily, the hostel you found yourself out wasn’t too far from your work. You took a piece of paper and a pen from the complimentary notepad. 

Thank you for an amazing night, but duty calls. Can I take you out on a real date? Call me

You wrote down your number and left it on the bedside table before slipping out. Before making your way into your boss’s office, you stopped at the bathroom. Brushing your hair down and making sure your clothes weren’t too wrinkled.

“Hello Y/N, long night?” your boss asks as he stares at you.

You close your eyes, nodding slightly, “Yes I-” 

He throws you a bottle of Advil and pours you a glass of water. 

“Thank you sir. So what do you need me to do?” you ask, politely popping the pill into your mouth.

“I need you to drive the children’s new au pair to the house. She should be here any second now, but I need you to drive them to Bly. I’m far too tired and hungover to do that.” he says softly, “You’re welcome to stay at Bly for a little while as well. I know the kids miss you.” 

“Of course Mr. Wingrave.” you say. 

The rest of the time the two of you fill the comfortable air with conversations about the case he’s working on. Until there was a knock on the door from the receptionist.

“Ms. Y/N, Ms. Clayton is waiting for you downstairs.” she says politely. 

“Thank you. I’ll be right down.” she gives you a small smile before heading downstairs, “That’s my cue, I’ll see you in a couple days Henry.” 

“Bye Y/N.” 

You found yourself in front of the building. The new au pair was facing the street waiting patiently.

“Hello, thank you for being patient. Let’s get you to Bly then.” you say looking down, smoothing out your jacket.

“Oh my gosh.” the familiar voice filled your ears as your head shot up.

The blonde from the night before was standing in front of you. And your mouth was open in a slight shock.

“Well, I guess we’ll be seeing each other more often,” you stuck your hand out, “I’m Y/N Y/L/N.” 

“Dani Clayton.” she says shaking your hand. 

[iguessweallcrazyithinktho]

New love on New years day

Summary:

You meet a sweet guy at a new years party when you need to go outside for fresh air

Warning: fluff

Pairing: Chris Evans x reader

Masterlist • request for Chris closed momentarily

Author note: I just want to tell you that I'm no more longer writing smuts! I don't feel comfortable and shouldn't even write them in the first place because I'm really uneducated and shit so no more smuts for a while until I feel like I know enough. And I won't be reading smuts either. I'll be writing implied though.

Please don't post any of my content anywhere else without my permission. Comment and reblogs welcome!

Bodies were everywhere. Everytime you turned you ran into someone. They almost always gave you a dirty look before they ran off. parties aren't your thing, you hated the loud noise, the drinking, and the sweaty people grinding on you. It grossed you out. The only reason why you were there was because your friend samantha invited you but you managed to lose her in the first five minutes of entering. now you were alone and you hated it.

You made your way outside into the cool air. You took a massive deep breath as you tried to think about how bare the balcony was compared to the pumping party inside. You didn't notice but a guy was watching you the whole time and he could tell you were struggling. So he followed you to make sure you were alright.

"hey!"

You turned around to see a guy standing in a white button up. He had a beer in his hand and a concerned look on his face. "Um are you alright?"

You nodded softly as you smiled. "Yes I'm okay, thanks for asking." You turned around hoping he'll go awaybut he didn't. He walked right up beside you and looked out at the view as you did the same.

"it's a beautiful New years Eve isn't it?"

You turned to him seeing a slight smile on his face. You surprisingly felt safe around him compared to any other guys that approached you.

"yeah it is." You looked down at your watch seeing that it was 11:50. "In about 10 minutes fireworks will the sky as a new year comes and a old boring one passes."

Chris looked at you, fully taking in your image. You were beautiful, dressed casually but not too casual, and your mood was calming, he even felt so relaxed around compared to his hyped up friends group.

"yeah it was a pretty boring year." He chuckled softly causing you to chuckle. You both stayed silent for a second before you heard people enter the balcony so they could watch the fireworks. You felt your anxiety grow. "Oh no."

Chris turned to you seeing how tense you were and how your breathing started to become uneven. "Hey it's okay." He sat his beer on the ground before he took a hold of your shoulder lightly. "I got a place where we can go where there's no people and we can still watch the fireworks." Chris took your hand in his. "Come with me."

He led you through the house and up the stairs. You were severally confused. "Where are we going?" You blurted out. Chris turned to you for a second while he continued. "I'm taking you to the room on the second floor. There's no one up there and it'll help your anxiety. Don't worry I won't hurt you. I got horrible anxiety too don't worry."

Chris pulled you into a room that was a huge size. "Let's go outside shall we." He let you walk out first before he did the same. You didn't think it was possible but the view was better. "Wow this nice." You said as you turned to Chris. "Uh I never got your name. Mine is y/n by the way."

"mine is chris. Y/n is a great name by the way." You smiled at him. You could feel butterflies exploding in your stomach. You turned back to in front of you, the count down from 60 could be heard from downstairs. You count along. "56,55,54,53,52,"

You turned to Chris seeing him just smiling at you. "Come on count with me." Chris rolled his eyes playfully before he counted along with you. "30,29,28,27,26,25,24,23,22,21,20,"

You turned to Chris beaming. He was already looking at you. Your smile fell as you looked into his eyes. His eyes were literally like the ocean and you couldn't take your eyes off of them. The counting was long forgotten all you wanted was to kiss his lips.

"I don't know if this is ok but I-," you leaned in and placed your lips on his. Chris melted slowly into your lips as you both shared a kiss. It felt like fireworks were going off- oh wait there actually was. It was a new year and you have a new love. This party was worth it.

*✭˚･ﾟ✧*･ﾟ*✭˚･ﾟ✧*･ﾟ*

Happy new years to everyone around the world. I hope you all get what you want in the new year. Money, love, happiness, whatever it is I hope you get it. Remember to wear a mask if it's mandatory where you are and be a kind person because someone could need it.

@chris-butt @princess-evans-addict @patzammit @bval-1 @irespostthingsiwanttoseelater @raveviolet @rynabarnesrogers-reading @enn-j @london-dreamer71 @harrysthiccthighss @captainamerica-is-bae @la-cey @weirdowithnobeardo @lovepeacefood @baby-i-am-fireproof @denisemarieangelina @evans713 @smyfmj @thereisa8ella @rororo06 @keiva1000 @ughitsnic @kianifan @adriannajackson @marvelnaturalock @notyourtypicalrose @dummiesshort @onetwo3000 @hhiggs @a-little-counter-esperanto