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sunbeamlessreads · 2 months ago

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Private Negatives - Oscar Piastri x Reader One-Shot

❝ You’re good at seeing things people don’t mean to show. ❞

[oscar piastri x reader] ~7.8k words | rated: E

tw: 18+, smut, voyeurism themes, power imbalance, emotionally explicit content, unprotected sex (wrap it before you tap it, kids), workplace tension

you’re the one behind the lens. but he’s the one who sees you.

notes: this one was super fun to write for me. i really hope i didn't screw anything up lol. i hope you guys enjoy it as much as i enjoyed writing it. <3

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You keep your head down as you move through the paddock, your camera strap biting into your collarbone and a fresh credential swinging at your hip. The McLaren media lanyard feels heavier than it should. Not in weight—in implication. New territory, new rules; three races embedded with the team, to finish off the season. Vegas, Qatar, Abu Dhabi. Your name on the contract, your watermark on the final selects.

Just don’t make noise.

The paddock is already thick with it—generators humming, pit lane chatter bouncing off the concrete, PR staff herding talent like overcaffeinated sheepdogs. You’ve worked in motorsport before, mostly on the American side: IndyCar, IMSA, a brief stint with NASCAR that taught you everything you never wanted to know about beer sponsorships and flame decals.

But Formula 1 is something else. Sleeker. Sharper. Quieter, even in its chaos. Everyone moves like they already know what comes next. You’re the only variable.

You duck into the McLaren garage and make yourself small in a corner, lens already raised. You find your rhythm fast—motion in bursts, posture quiet, shutter clicks softened by muscle memory and padded gloves. You’re good at being invisible. Better at looking than being looked at.

That’s when you see him.

Oscar Piastri, back turned, talking to an engineer in low tones. Fireproofs rolled to his waist, team polo damp at the collar. His posture is precise—his arms are folded, one foot is slightly out, and his weight is settled like he’s bracing for something. You know the type. Drivers are like that: built for pressure, too used to watching every move replayed in high-definition.

You lift your camera and catch the side of his face—jaw set, eyes somewhere far off. The light’s doing strange things to his skin. You click the shutter once. Just once.

He doesn’t notice.

You lower the camera and frown. It’s not a good shot. Or maybe it’s too good, too telling. You can’t tell.

You move on. The lens doesn’t linger.

Through the next hour, you cycle between pit wall and garage, hospitality and media pens, cataloging the edges of everything: mechanics with grease under their nails, engineers pointing at telemetry with a ferocity that doesn’t match the volume of their voices, Lando laughing too loud at something a comms assistant said. You catch him mid-gesture, mouth open, eyes crinkled—a perfect frame. That one will make the cut.

Oscar again, later—seated now, legs splayed, one knee bouncing under the table during a pre-FP1 briefing. Someone’s talking at him. He’s listening, but only barely. You zoom in. Not close enough to intrude, just enough to see the faint vertical line between his brows.

Click.

He glances up, just then. Not directly at you—at the lens. It’s only for a second.

You drop the camera a beat too late. You’re unsure if he saw you, or if you just want to believe he did. Doesn’t matter. You move.

By the time the session starts, your card’s half full and your shoulders ache. You shoot through it anyway—stops at the pit, tire changes, helmets going on and coming off. Oscar’s face stays unreadable. You begin to think that’s just how he is. Not aloof. Not rude. Just… held.

Held in. Held back.

You catch a frame of him alone in the garage just after FP1. Not polished, not composed. Just tired, human, real.

Click.

You keep that one.

You spend the next hour doing what you’re paid to do, but not how they expect.

Most photographers chase the obvious: the cars, the straight-on portraits, the victory poses. But you don’t work in absolutes. You’re not looking for the image they’ll post. You’re looking for the one they won’t realize meant something until later.

Lando’s easier. He moves like he knows he’s being watched—not in a vain way, but in a way that’s aware. Comfortable. Charismatic. You catch him bouncing on the balls of his feet while waiting for practice to start, race suit zipped to the collar, gloves half-pulled on, teasing a junior mechanic with a flicked towel and a crooked grin.

Click. Click.

He’s animated even in stillness.

You crouch by the front wing of the MCL39 as the garage clears and the mechanics prep Oscar’s car for the next run. The papaya paint glows under the fluorescents, almost too bright. You let the car fill your frame—the clean lines, the blur of sponsor decals, the matte finish of carbon fiber. You shoot the curve of the sidepod, the narrow precision of the halo, the rearview mirror where someone’s scribbled something in Sharpie.

You zoom in: “be still.”

It’s faded. Private. You don’t ask.

Oscar again.

He’s suited now, fully zipped, gloves tugged on sharp fingers, balaclava pulled to his chin. A McLaren PR assistant hands him a water bottle, saying something you can’t hear. He nods once. That’s all.

You adjust your position. The light behind him throws his figure into sharp contrast—full shadows across the orange and blue of his race suit, his name stitched at the hip, his helmet in hand. It’s a photo that shouldn’t work. But it does.

Click.

Helmet on. Visor down. The world shifts. He’s gone behind it again.

You lower your camera. Breathe out.

The difference between a person and a driver is about seven pounds of gear and one hard blink. You’ve seen it before. But this is the first time it’s made your fingers tremble.

You offload everything just before sunset, feet sore, mouth dry, memory cards filled past your usual threshold. The McLaren comms suite is quieter now—the day's buzz winding down into a lull of emails, decompression, and PR triage.

You’re at a corner table, laptop open, Lightroom humming. You work fast, fingers skimming across the touchpad and keys, instinctively flagging selects. You’re not here to overshoot. You’re here to find the frames. The ones that breathe.

A shadow crosses your table.

“Show me something good,” Zak Brown says. His voice is casual, but not careless. Nothing about him ever really is.

You shift the screen toward him. He slides his hands into his pockets and leans in. Just enough to see, not enough to crowd.

Silence.

You’ve pulled ten frames into your temp selects folder: Lando mid-laugh, a mechanic half-buried in the undercarriage with only his boots showing, Oscar’s car being wheeled back into the garage under high shadow, smoke curling from the brakes.

Then there’s him.

Oscar, post-FP1. Fireproofs peeled down to his waist. Sitting on the garage floor with his back against the wheel of his car.

Zak exhales. “Didn’t know the kid had this much presence. Or soul.”

You hover the cursor over the next shot—Oscar standing behind the car, half-suited, helmet under one arm, visor still up. His gaze off-frame. Brow furrowed. Light skimming the cut of his jaw.

Zak glances at you. “You ever thought about sticking around longer?”

You don’t answer. Not because you haven’t thought about it, but because you’re not sure you should.

That’s when you feel it. The shift in the air. That quiet, unmistakable stillness that means someone’s watching.

You turn.

Oscar is standing a few feet away.

No footsteps. No sound. Just there—calm, unreadable, still in his fireproofs. His eyes are on the screen.

“That’s not what I look like,” he says.

His voice is even. Not guarded, not accusing. Just… uncertain.

You click the laptop shut. “That’s exactly what you look like.”

A pause.

He looks at you, not the screen. “You’re good at your job.”

Then he turns and walks off, no nod, no glance back—just the low hum of the paddock swallowing him whole again.

You don’t head out with the rest of the team.

No drinks. No debrief. No passing your card off to the media coordinator and pretending to relax. You just take your hard case, your bag, and the image of Oscar Piastri walking away burned somewhere behind your eyes.

You don’t touch the selects folder.

You open the other one. The one you didn’t label. Just a generic dump of the shots you couldn’t delete but didn’t want reviewed, not yet.

Inside, there are maybe five frames.

One of Lando, overexposed and blurred, laughing so hard his face distorts like motion through glass. Another of a mechanic in the shadows, holding a wrench like a confession. A stray shot of the track, taken too early, too bright. A mistake. But not really.

And then there’s the one of him again.

Oscar.

Captured between moments—not posed, not aware. He’s sitting on the garage floor, one knee bent, one glove off, rubbing the bridge of his nose. His suit is creased. His helmet is behind him, forgotten. His head is tilted just slightly toward the light. Not enough to be dramatic. Just enough to feel real.

You zoom in, slowly.

The edge of his jaw is lined with sweat. Not the fresh kind—the dried kind, salt clinging to skin after exertion. There’s a furrow between his brows, soft but persistent. His lips are parted like he’s just sighed and hasn’t caught the next breath yet.

You should delete it.

It’s too much. Too intimate. Too still. A kind of stillness that belongs to someone when they think no one’s looking. It feels like something you weren’t supposed to witness, let alone keep.

But you don’t delete it.

You hover the cursor over the filename. The auto-generated one: DSC_0147.JPG.

Your fingers drift to the keyboard. You add a single character.

DSC_0147_OP81

No tags. No notes. No edits. Just the letter. Just the truth, you’re not ready to say out loud.

You sit there for a long time after that. Laptop closed. Lights off. The glow of the city is bleeding through the curtains in faint, uneven lines.

You wonder if he knows—not about the photo. About what it means to be seen like that. About how rare it is, and how dangerous.

The hospitality suite hums around you in low tones—lights on dimmers, coffee machine off but still warm, the faint scent of citrus cleaner clinging to the corners. The carpet is that neutral industrial gray meant to hide wear. The kind of flooring that swallows footfalls. The type of silence you can live inside.

The rest of the team cleared out hours ago. You told them you needed to finish sorting shots for socials. No one questioned it. Louise nodded once, already halfway out the door, and Zak offered a distracted goodnight without looking up from his phone.

Technically, it’s not a lie.

You told them you were sorting selects. You didn’t say which ones.

You’re tucked into a corner booth at the back of the room, laptop open, knees drawn up, one foot pressing flat against the faux-leather seat. The day’s weight settles in your spine—low, dull, familiar. Your body aches in the ways it always does after being on your feet too long, shouldering gear heavier than it looks.

You haven’t eaten since lunch. You haven’t cared.

A few dishes rattle faintly in the back as catering finishes their sweep. After that, it’s just you. You and the quiet click of your trackpad. You move like you’ve done this a hundred times—and you have. This is your space. Not the paddock. Not the pit wall. Not the grid. Here. The edit suite. The after-hours.

This is where the truth lives. After the lights are off, the PR filters are stripped, and no one’s watching but you.

You scroll through today’s selects—the public ones. The safe ones. There’s one of Lando on a scooter, wind in his curls, mid-laugh, and practically golden in the late light. He’ll repost it within the hour if you give it to him. Another of the mechanics elbow-deep in the guts of a car, all orange gloves and jawlines under harsh fluorescents. Sweat stains, sleeve smears, real work.

And then… him.

Even in the selects folder, Oscar’s different. Cleaner. Sharper. More precise. You didn’t filter him that way. He just arrived like that. Controlled. A study in restraint.

But that’s not the folder you’ve got open.

You tab over. The unlabeled one. The one you didn’t offer.

Five images. One thumbnail bigger than the rest—clicked more. Held longer. A private gravity.

The shot is unbalanced. Technically imperfect. You should’ve deleted it hours ago.

You didn’t.

You should color correct. Straighten the angle. Try to fix it. But some part of you—the part that works on instinct more than training—knows that would ruin it. The frame only matters because it wasn’t supposed to be seen. Not even by you.

You sit back against the booth and stare at it. Not studying. Just being with it.

And then you feel it—not sound, not movement. Just a shift in the air.

A presence.

You glance up.

Oscar’s standing in the doorway.

He doesn’t speak right away. Just holds his place near the threshold, one hand resting loosely on the doorframe, like he’s not sure if he’s interrupting. He’s changed—soft team shirt, track pants, hair still slightly damp. Not a look meant for a camera. Not a look meant for anyone, really.

“I didn’t know anyone was still here,” he says.

You sit up a little straighter. “Didn’t expect to be.”

He steps in quietly, letting the door close behind him. Doesn’t make a move to sit or leave. Just hovers a few paces off, gaze flicking from the booth to the glow of your screen.

“What are you working on?” he asks, softer this time. Not performing curiosity. Just… genuinely curious.

You pause. Then turn the laptop slightly in his direction.

“Sorting photos,” you say.

He tilts his head to see. You expect him to take the out, nod, change the subject, or wave off the offer like most drivers do. Instead, he steps closer. One hand is on the booth’s divider for balance, and the other is loose on his side.

He looks at the screen. Really looks.

You’ve clicked back to the safer folder. The selects. It’s still full of him, though—his car in profile, a side view of his helmet under golden light, his hands resting lightly on the halo as a mechanic adjusts something behind him. Not posed. Just there. Present.

You glance at him.

He’s quiet.

Then: “Do I really look like that?”

The question isn’t skeptical. It’s not even self-deprecating. It’s something else. Wonder, maybe. A genuine attempt to see himself from the outside.

You don’t answer right away.

You scroll to the next frame. Him post-practice, hands on hips, visor up. Sweat cooling on his neck. The curve of tension in his spine visible through the suit. You scroll again—him in motion this time, walking past a barrier, the shadow of a halo bisecting his cheekbone.

He leans closer. Almost imperceptibly.

You look up at him. “What do you think you look like?”

He exhales slowly, not quite a laugh. “Flat. Quiet. Efficient.”

You click on the next photo—one you weren’t planning to share.

Oscar, half-turned. Not looking at anyone. Not performing. His face caught in mid-thought, eyes unfocused, something private flickering there and gone.

“You’re not wrong,” you say. “But you’re not right either.”

He studies the screen. Closer now. You can smell the faint trace of soap on his skin. He’s not watching himself anymore—he’s watching what you saw. And something about that visibly unsettles him.

“These are different,” he says after a moment.

You nod once. “They weren’t meant for the team folder.”

He looks at you then. Really looks.

Not guarded. Not suspicious. Just aware of you, of the space between you, of whatever it is this moment is starting to become.

You don’t look away from him. Not when his eyes finally lift from the screen. Not when they meet yours.

It’s not a long stare. But it’s not short either.

He blinks once and turns back to the laptop, brows drawing together—not in discomfort, but in something closer to focus. Like he’s still trying to understand how you’ve caught something he didn’t know he was showing.

You let the silence hold. Let it stretch into something close to peace. There’s no PR rep in the room, no lens turned back on him. Just you, the laptop, the low hum of refrigeration from the kitchenette, and Oscar Piastri looking at himself like the photo might answer a question he’s never asked out loud.

He gestures faintly toward the screen. “Do you photograph everyone like this?”

You know what he’s really asking. Not about composition. Not about exposure. About intention. About intimacy.

“No,” you say.

That’s it. One word. No performance. No clarification.

His mouth twitches. Not quite a smile—more like a muscle catching a thought before it can turn into something else.

Another moment passes.

Then he shifts his weight slightly, hand brushing the table's edge as he leans in just enough to be beside you now, not just behind. Not touching. Not crowding. But near.

You don’t move away.

And he doesn’t move forward.

You both stay still, eyes on the screen now, like that’ll save you from the implication already thick in the air.

On the screen, he’s in profile. Brow relaxed, mouth parted like he was about to speak but didn’t. You remember the exact shutter click. You hadn’t meant to capture that. It just happened.

“I don’t remember this moment,” he murmurs, half to himself.

You almost say, That’s what made it real.

Instead, you close the photo. Not to hide it. Just to breathe.

You don’t open another image. You don’t need to.

He’s still standing beside you, and the silence between you has started to feel like something structural—a pressure system, an atmosphere. He hasn’t moved away. And you haven’t pulled back.

You’re not touching. But you feel him. The warmth of his shoulder. The stillness of his breath. The way his presence shifts the air around your body like gravity.

You glance sideways.

He’s not looking at the screen anymore.

He’s looking at you.

Not boldly. Not playfully. Just… plainly. Like he’s seeing you in real time and letting it happen.

He doesn’t speak right away. You think he might—you think the moment’s cresting into something spoken, into confession or contact or maybe just a name dropped between sentences. But instead, his gaze flicks once back to the laptop. Then to you again.

And all he says is:

“You’re good at seeing things people don’t mean to show.”

It’s not a compliment. Not exactly. It’s not judgment either.

It’s just true.

You swallow. Your throat is suddenly dry. You don’t know what to say to that. You don’t think he expects an answer.

He steps back.

Not abruptly. Just enough to break the spell.

His hand brushes the table's edge as he moves—the lightest contact, accidental or deliberate, you don’t know. Then he straightens.

Doesn’t smile. Doesn’t say goodbye.

Just leaves.

The door clicks shut behind him like a shutter closing.

You don’t move for a long time.

The garage is quieter after a successful qualifying than anyone ever expects.

There’s no roar of celebration, no sharp silence of defeat—just the low, rhythmic scrape of routines. Cables coiled. . Tools clacking back into cases. Mechanics speaking in shorthand. Half-finished water bottles stacked in corners like the day couldn’t quite decide to end.

You stay late to shoot the stillness. The after. The details no one asks for but everyone remembers once they see them: the foam of rubber dust around a wheel arch, the long streak of oil under an abandoned jack, the orange smudge of a thumbprint on a visor that shouldn’t have been there. These are your favorite frames—the ones no one knows how to stage.

You think you’re alone.

You aren’t.

Oscar’s there—crouched beside his car, still in his fireproofs, the top half tied around his waist. His undershirt is damp across his back. His gloves are off. One hand rests on the slick curve of the sidepod, like he doesn’t want to leave it just yet.

He doesn’t look up at you. Not at first. Maybe he hasn’t noticed you’re there.

But you raise your camera anyway.

Not for work. Not for the team. Just to capture what he looks like when no one’s telling him how to be.

You half-expect him to move—to shift, to block the frame, to glance up with that quiet indifference you’ve learned to recognize in him.

He doesn’t.

He lifts his head.

And holds your gaze.

You freeze, viewfinder still pressed to your eye. Your finger hovers over the shutter. One breath passes. Then another.

You click once.

The sound is soft but rings like a shot in the hollow space between you.

He doesn’t blink.

You lower the camera.

He stands. He steps closer.

Not dramatically. Not like someone making a move. Just a fraction forward, enough that you catch the warmth of his body before you register the space between you is gone. His suit still carries the heat of the day—sweat-damp fabric, residual adrenaline, maybe even rubber and asphalt baked into the fibers.

You could step back.

You don’t.

You look at him. Not through a lens. Not through the controlled frame of your work. Just him. Face bare, eyes steady, skin flushed faintly pink from the effort of the race, or maybe from this—from now.

His gaze drops—not to your lips. Not to your hands. To your camera. Still hanging there. Still between you.

“I thought it’d bother me,” he says, voice low. “Having someone follow me around with a camera.”

You don’t speak. Just let him say it.

“But it doesn’t,” he adds. “Not with you.”

That lands somewhere in your chest, soft but irreversible.

You tilt your head slightly. He mirrors it, barely perceptible—like you’re both circling something you’ve already agreed to, but neither of you wants to be the first to name it.

Your hand twitches—a half-motion toward his arm that you stop before it lands. He catches it anyway. You see it flicker in his eyes: awareness, restraint, the line he’s thinking about crossing.

And for a second, you both just breathe.

You can hear his, shallow and careful. You wonder if he can hear yours.

He looks at you again, not past you, not through you. At you.

He takes that final step toward you.

Close now—too close for the lens, too close for performance. Just the space where breath meets breath. Where silence turns into touch.

Your camera strap tugs lightly at your neck, caught between your bodies. The lens bumps his ribs—not enough to hurt, just enough to remind.

He glances down at it. Then back up at you.

You hesitate.

For a moment, it’s a question: leave it on, keep the wall up, pretend this is still observational. You could. You’re good at hiding behind it.

But not now.

Not with him.

You reach up, slow, deliberate, and lift the strap over your head. The camera slides down and into your palm with a soft weight. You turn and place it on the workbench beside you. Careful. Quiet. Final.

When you face him again, the air feels different.

Lighter. Sharper. Bare.

He looks at you like something just shifted—like whatever existed between you when you were holding the lens has burned away, and now you’re just here. With him.

You take a breath.

So does he.

And then he kisses you.

No warning. No performance. Just the simple, exact motion of someone who’s been thinking about it too long.

His lips find yours with surprising clarity—not tentative, not rushed, but precise. Like he knows how not to waste the moment. Like he doesn’t want to use more force than he has to. His hand comes up to your jaw, steadying. Guiding. His thumb brushes just beneath your ear.

You sigh into it before you realize you’ve made a sound.

It isn’t a long kiss.

But it says enough.

You part—barely—breath warming the inch between your mouths.

Oscar looks at you the way he did in of some your photos. Like he sees you and doesn’t need to say it.

You don’t speak.

You just pull him back in.

After that second kiss—deeper, hungrier, not rushed but no longer careful—your back bumps against the edge of the workbench. Something shifts behind you, a soft clatter of tools or metal. Neither of you reacts, beyond a quick glance to make sure your camera is still ok.

Oscar’s hand finds your waist. Not pulling. Just grounding. He’s breathing hard now—not from nerves, but from restraint. From the way his body wants more than it’s being given.

You want more too.

But not here.

The garage is still too open. You can feel the risk of movement beyond the wall, the flicker of voices down the corridor. You know better than to do this out in the open. And so does he.

You draw back slightly. Not far. Just enough to say: we can’t stay here.

He meets your eyes. Doesn’t ask where.

He just follows.

You slip out through the back corridor, your boots soft on the concrete, camera long forgotten. The hallway narrows. The air feels different—more insulated. Familiar layout. You’ve walked this path before, with your eyes forward and your badge visible.

But this time, you pause.

The door ahead is unmarked, but you know it’s his.

You don’t hesitate.

You open it.

Inside: the quiet hum of ventilation. A narrow cot. A low bench. His helmet bag in the corner. A duffel unzipped and half-collapsed against the wall. One small light left on, warm and low. A private space, lived-in but untouched. No one else is supposed to be here.

The door clicks shut behind you.

It’s quiet. Not padded silence—earned silence. The kind you get after twenty laps of tight corners and exact braking. The kind where everything else falls away.

You put your camera on the bench now.

Oscar stands behind you.

You feel him before you hear him—a shift in air, in presence. And when you turn, he’s already moving.

This kiss is different.

Less measured. More real. His hands find your waist, then your back, sliding up beneath your shirt—fingertips slow, but sure. Like he’s still learning the shape of permission. Like he won’t take anything you don’t give.

But you give it.

You pull at the hem of his undershirt, and he lets you. It peels off in one clean motion. His skin is flushed, chest rising with each breath. The restraint that’s lived in his shoulders for days has nowhere left to go.

Your hands map over it.

He kisses you again, harder now, with that same focused precision you’ve seen in every debrief photo, every lap line, every unreadable frame. But this time, it’s turned inward. On you.

He makes a sound when you push him back onto the bench—not a moan, not yet. Just a low breath punched from his chest, like he didn’t expect you to take the lead. But he doesn’t stop you.

He just watches.

You settle onto his lap, knees straddling his thighs, and he lets his hands drag up your sides like he’s cataloguing every inch. Your shirt rises. His mouth follows.

He kisses you there, just beneath your ribs, then lower.

By the time you reach down to tug at the knot in his fireproofs, his breath is uneven. Controlled, but slipping.

“You okay?” you ask, voice low.

He nods. Swallows.

Then, quietly: “You’re not what I expected.”

You lean in, lips at his ear.

“Neither are you.”

Oscar doesn’t rush.

Even as your fingers fumble with the tie at his waist, even as his hands trace your hips like he’s memorizing something that won’t last, he stays grounded. Breath steady. Eyes on yours. Like he’s still trying to be sure—not of you, but of himself.

You press your forehead to his, lips brushing his cheek, and whisper, “Lie back.”

He does.

You shift to the cot together, clothes half-off, half-on—his fireproofs peeled down, your underwear already sliding down your thigh, your shirt somewhere behind you on the floor. It’s not perfect. It’s not staged.

But it’s real.

He lets you settle over him first. Let's you find the angle, the rhythm, the breath. His hands stay at your hips, thumbs pressing into the softness there like he doesn’t want to grip too tight, like this might still vanish if he closes his eyes.

He exhales sharply when you take him in.

You sink down, slow, controlled—the way he drives, the way you shoot. Like it’s all about reading the moment.

His breath stutters. His mouth opens, but no words come out.

You roll your hips once, slow and deliberate.

Then he says it. Quietly.

“Thank you.”

It’s not a performance. Not something meant to be romantic. It slips out like instinct, like he doesn’t know how else to name what’s happening.

You still, just slightly, your hand on his chest.

“For what?” you breathe.

He looks up at you, eyes wide, completely unguarded for the first time. His answer is barely audible.

“For seeing me.”

You freeze, just for a breath.

It’s not what you expected. Not from him. And not here, like this. But he says it without flinching, without looking away.

And then, just as your chest tightens, just as you reach for something to say, he exhales sharply through his nose—

And flips you.

Your back hits the cot with a soft thud, the thin mattress barely muffling the motion. You barely manage a breath before he’s over you, hips slotting between your thighs like they’ve always belonged there.

It’s not rough. It’s measured. Intentional. Every part of him radiates heat, tension, and restraint held so tight it hums beneath his skin.

Oscar leans in—forearm braced beside your head, the other hand gripping your thigh as he presses it up, open, wide. He looks down at you like you’ve stopped time. Like he’s memorizing what it feels like to have you under him.

“You don’t get to do all the seeing,” he murmurs, voice low and firm. “Not anymore.”

Then he thrusts in.

Slow. Deep. Full.

You cry out—not from pain, not even surprise, but from the way it takes. All of him. All at once. The way he fills you like your body was waiting for it.

He doesn’t move right away. Just holds there. Buried inside you, chest rising and falling against yours. He dips his head to your neck—not kissing, just breathing there, letting the moment press into both of you.

Then he rolls his hips.

Long, steady strokes. Not fast. Not shallow. Each one drags a breath from your lungs, makes your fingers claw at his shoulders, his back, anything you can hold.

“You feel…” he starts, but doesn’t finish.

He doesn’t need to.

He shifts, adjusting your leg higher on his hip, changing the angle—

God.

He feels the way your body stutters, tightens, clenches around him, and groans—quiet, rough, broken. His control flickers. You feel it in the way his pace falters for just a second, then steadies again, even deeper now.

Your thighs shake.

Your nails dig in.

His mouth finds your jaw, then your lips—hot and open, tongues brushing, messy now. Focused turned to need.

He thrusts harder. Not brutal. Just honest. Like he’s done pretending this isn’t happening.

“You wanted this,” he pants into your mouth. “You watched me like—like I wouldn’t notice.”

You nod, breathless. “I did. I couldn’t—fuck, Oscar—”

“That’s it,” he whispers. “Say it.”

“I wanted you.”

His hips snap forward.

“I want you.”

He groans, low in his throat, and fucks you harder.

The cot creaks under you. The air is damp. Your legs are wrapped around him now, pulling him closer, locking him in. He thrusts deep, precise, again and again—your body no longer holding shape, just pulse and friction and heat.

He knows you’re close.

You feel him watch you—not just your face, but your whole body as it trembles under him. His hand slides down, between your thighs, two fingers pressing exactly where you need them, circling once—

And you break.

It tears out of you—sharp and full and shattering. You gasp his name. Your back arches. Your whole body pulses around him, and he feels it—curses once, softly, like he’s never come like this before.

He thrusts twice more, rougher now, chasing it, falling into it.

Then he groans deep in your ear and comes, spilling into you with a low, drawn-out moan. His body stutters against yours, then goes still.

You stay like that. Twined together. Sweaty. Breathless. Quiet.

Not speaking yet.

Just feeling everything settle.

He stays inside you for a few long seconds—breathing hard, his forehead pressed lightly against yours, the heat between your bodies thick and grounding.

Neither of you speaks.

Eventually, he shifts.

Withdraws with a low groan, like he didn’t want to but had to. You wince a little at the loss, at the sensitivity. He notices.

“Hang on,” he murmurs.

He stands—a little unsteady, a little flushed—and crosses to the corner without putting anything back on. You watch him: tall, bare, hair a mess from your hands. He grabs a towel from a low shelf and brings it back, gently nudging your legs apart to clean you up.

You half-laugh through your haze. “Didn’t take you for the towel type.”

“I’m methodical,” he mutters, like that explains it.

You tilt your head. “Is that what we’re calling this?”

He doesn’t answer right away. Just focuses on being careful—one hand steady on your thigh, the towel warm and folded, the silence less awkward than it should be.

Then, quietly: “I’m sorry I didn’t have a condom.”

You blink.

His voice is low, calm, but not casual. Intent.

“I’ll get Plan B tomorrow,” he says. “I’ll—figure it out. I just didn’t think…”

He trails off.

You reach for his wrist. “It’s okay.”

He looks at you, really looks, and nods once. More to himself than you.

He tosses the towel to the floor. You sit up slowly, legs unsteady, shirt still off, everything about this moment too real to feel like aftermath.

He starts to pull his fireproofs back up.

You watch him for a second. Then, without thinking, you ask:

“Do you regret it?”

He doesn’t flinch. Doesn’t hesitate.

“No,” he says. Then, quieter: “Do you?”

You shake your head.

“I don't think so,” you whisper.

And you mean it.

For a long moment, neither of you moves.

Then your eyes drift to the bench, where your camera still rests, right where you left it.

You reach for it.

Not out of instinct. Out of something slower. Softer. He watches you, but doesn’t stop you.

You flick it on. Adjust nothing. Just cradle it in one hand as you shift down onto the cot again, your body still warm, your shirt forgotten somewhere on the floor.

Oscar follows.

He lies beside you, then settles halfway across your chest—head tucked into the curve of your shoulder, one arm looped around your waist. His breathing slows against your skin.

He doesn’t speak.

You lift the camera, carefully—just enough to frame the moment.

No posing. No styling. Just him, resting against you, the tension drained from his body, his face soft in a way you’ve never seen it before.

You take one shot.

Just one.

No flash. No click loud enough to stir him. Just the soundless capture of something unrepeatable.

You lower the camera and let it rest on the floor.

Then you press your hand to the back of his neck, fingers brushing the sweat-damp hair there.

He doesn’t move.

And for the first time all night, you let yourself close your eyes too.

The light coming through the slatted blinds is too thin, too early, and absolutely not the kind of light you wanted to wake up to.

You blink. Once. Twice. Then freeze.

Oscar is still asleep on your chest.

His arm’s heavy across your stomach. His mouth is parted just slightly, his breath warm against your ribs. The sheet barely covers either of you. Your leg is tangled between his. Your camera’s on the floor, lens cap off, body smudged from where your hand landed in the dark.

And from somewhere beyond the door, you hear voices.

Early. Sharp. Professional.

Your blood runs cold.

“Oscar,” you hiss.

He doesn’t move.

You jab your fingers into his side.

He grunts. Groggy. “Five more—”

“No, Oscar. People are arriving.”

That wakes him up.

He blinks fast, eyes wild for a second, then zeroes in on your very, very naked body, “Shit.”

You’re already rolling off the cot, grabbing for your shirt, your underwear, anything. He sits up, hair sticking up in every direction, blinking hard like he’s trying to reboot.

“Where are your—?” he starts.

“Somewhere under you,” you snap, tugging your jeans over your legs with one hand while trying to find your bra with the other. “How the fuck are people already here? It’s—”

He glances at the clock.

“Five fifty-eight.”

You freeze. “AM?!”

He shrugs, one leg in his fireproofs. “We’re a punctual operation.”

You glare. “You owe me a coffee for this.”

“I’ll bring it with the Plan B,” he mutters, hopping on one foot, still trying to get the other leg into his pants.

You both freeze.

Half-dressed. Half-wrecked. Fully undone.

Your eyes meet—and something flickers. Not fear. Not regret. Just recognition.

Then the laugh slips out.

His first. Yours chasing after it. Quiet. Breathless.

It’s not elegant. It’s not even sane. But it cuts through the panic like oxygen.

And somehow, it’s enough to pull yourselves back into motion.

By the time you make it out of Oscar’s room, it’s six-fifteen.

The sky is still dark, just starting to take on that pale, pre-dawn blue that makes everything look more suspicious. The air is cool against your sweat-damp skin. Your shirt clings uncomfortably beneath your jacket. Your hair’s a disaster. There’s dried spit on your collarbone.

You try to ignore it.

You sling your camera bag over one shoulder and walk fast, like speed is professionalism. Like maybe if you move quickly enough, no one will notice that your bra is in your pocket.

The paddock is starting to stir—lights in the garages flipping on, early logistics staff wheeling carts, someone laughing too loud over a radio.

You don’t look at anyone.

Instead, you beeline for the McLaren hospitality suite—the same corner booth you’d claimed last night.

You slide into it like you’ve been there for hours.

You open your laptop. Plug in your card. Scroll through a few photos like you’re reviewing footage from a very long, very productive night.

You sip from the cold cup of tea you left there the evening before.

Someone passes by and nods. You nod back, like, Yes, I live here now.

And when you’re finally alone again—no footsteps, no voices, no Oscar—you flick through the frames.

And there it is.

Oscar. Half-asleep on your chest. One arm slung across your waist. Face soft. Human. Completely unguarded.

You don’t smile. You don’t linger.

You just right-click and rename the file:

DSC_0609_OP81

Then you close the folder.

The room is quiet. Still holding the shape of him.

You let it sit for a few more minutes—the aftermath, the ache, the image that still feels too close.

Then you move.

Hotel. Shower. Clothes. Routine like armor. You scrub his breath from your skin and pull your hair back like a statement.

By the time you reappear, you look like someone who’s been working since dawn.

You slip back into the hospitality suite just after seven-thirty, hair still damp, your badge hanging neatly over a neutral jacket. You walk like you’ve been here all night. Like you didn’t sneak out of Oscar Piastri’s driver’s room just before the first truck arrived.

The booth where you left your laptop is still yours—same coffee cup, same open Lightroom window, same half-edited photo of brake dust curling off a rear tire. You slide into the seat like nothing’s changed.

Your body aches.

Not in a bad way.

Just in a you-should-not-have-done-that-on-a-thin-mattress-with-an-F1-driver kind of way.

You sip lukewarm tea. You click through a few photos. You try to find your place again—in the day, in your work, in your skin.

You almost have it.

And then Oscar walks in.

He’s clean. Composed. Damp hair pushed back. Fresh team polo. His eyes sweep the suite once, briefly, and stop on you.

Not long. Just enough to register.

You feel it in your throat. In your chest.

He keeps walking.

You don’t look up again. You wait until he’s out of sight.

Then, casually, like you’re just checking the time, you unlock your phone.

There’s a tag notification at the top of the screen.

@oscarpiastri tagged you in a post.

Your stomach tightens.

You tap it.

The photo loads slowly—the Wi-Fi is never good this early—but you already know. You can feel it before it appears.

And there it is.

One of yours.

Oscar, from Friday. Fireproofs rolled to the waist. Helmet in hand. Standing just off-center, eyes somewhere past the camera. The light is warm and sharp. The moment is quiet.

He looks human. Present. Exposed.

You didn’t submit that one for publishing yet.

You didn’t even color-correct it.

But he posted it.

No caption. No emoji. No flair.

Just a tag.

Your throat goes dry.

You swipe up to see the comments.

'he NEVER posts like this' 'why does this feel personal' 'who took this photo?? i want names' 'soft launch energy or what'

You lock the screen.

Then unlock it again.

Same image. Same tag. Same hush in your chest.

He chose this. Publicly. Silently. Deliberately.

You don’t know what to feel.

Except seen.

And maybe a little bit fucked.

You flip back to Lightroom, but your fingers don’t move.

The cursor hovers over a batch of unprocessed photos. Tire smoke. Candid Lando. Engineers pointing at telemetry. Everything you’re supposed to be focused on. Everything you usually love.

You stare straight ahead, forcing your breath to even out.

Footsteps approach—light but confident.

You don’t look up until he’s beside you.

Zak.

Coffee in hand. Shirt pressed. Sunglasses hanging off his collar like it’s already noon. He doesn’t sit; he just leans one hand on the booth’s divider and glances at your screen.

“Anything good in there?” he asks.

You click once, purely for show.

“A few,” you say.

He nods. Then gestures vaguely toward your phone, which is still facedown on the table.

“You see what Oscar posted?”

Your throat tightens.

You don’t look at him.

“Yeah,” you say. “This morning.”

There’s a pause.

You don’t fill it.

Zak hums. A noncommittal sound. But there’s something behind it. Something knowing.

“Don’t think I’ve ever seen him post a photo of himself that wasn’t mid-action,” he says. “Certainly not one that… quiet.”

You glance up. He’s not looking at you. He’s scanning the room, like he’s talking about the weather.

Then he looks down.

“That one yours?”

You nod. “Yeah. From Friday.”

“Hm.” He sips his coffee. “Good frame. Eyes open. Looks like a person.”

You don’t answer.

Zak straightens, adjusts his watch.

“Well,” he says, already turning away, “don’t let him steal your best work for free.”

And then he’s gone.

You don’t move.

Because your heart is pounding.

Not from guilt.

From the sick, unshakable feeling that something real is happening, and people are starting to see it.

You’ve made it almost four hours without thinking about it.

Or at least—without actively thinking about it.

You’ve answered emails, flagged selects, and dropped a batch of your best Lando photos into the team's "for publishing" drive. You’ve even had a second coffee. You’ve done everything you’re supposed to do, professionally and invisibly, just like always.

But your phone’s still sitting face down next to your laptop. And it keeps catching the corner of your eye like it knows.

You flip it over. No new notifications.

You open Instagram anyway.

The post is still there. Still climbing.

Sixty thousand likes now. More than three hundred comments. You stop scrolling after the third one that says something about the way he looks at the camera, like he knows who’s behind it.

You close the app.

You open it again three minutes later.

You don’t know what you’re waiting for.

Until the screen lights up.

Oscar Piastri

10:02 a.m.

You okay with me posting that? Didn’t mean to make things harder.

You read it once.

Then again.

Then three more times, like you’re searching for a different meaning. Like the phrasing might shift if you look long enough.

It doesn’t.

You picture him typing it—sitting somewhere behind the garage partition, race suit half-zipped, that permanent crease between his brows as he stares at the screen too long before hitting send. You picture him thinking about the photo. About what it looked like. About how it felt.

About you.

You rest your phone on your thigh and stare out the window beside your booth.

It’s bright now—full daylight. The paddock’s humming. Lando’s somewhere laughing too loudly. Zak just walked by again, talking about tire wear. You’re surrounded by normal.

But nothing feels normal.

Your phone buzzes again.

Same name.

Oscar Piastri

10:06 a.m.

I’ll still get the Plan B. After work. Just didn’t want you to think I forgot.

You let out a breath you didn’t know you’d been holding.

Not because you were worried—but because he remembered.

Because even now, back in uniform, back on the clock, back in the world where no one is supposed to see what happened, he still thinks about what comes after.

You rest your phone on the table. Thumb hovering.

You type:

Thank you. Don’t worry about the post.

You don’t overthink it. You don’t reread it. You just hit send.

And that’s enough.

INBOX

Subject: Assignment Continuation: Photographer, Track & Driver Coverage

Hi,

Following an internal review of mid-season content delivery, we’d like to formally request that you continue in your current capacity with McLaren through the following season. Your on-site coverage—particularly around driver documentation and live access environments—has added measurable value across platforms.

Please note that this recommendation also reflects internal feedback, including a request from one of the drivers for continuity.

If you’re open to continuing, we’d be happy to align on updated terms and logistics for the remaining calendar.

Best regards,

Lindsey Eckhouse

Director, Licensing & Digital

McLaren Racing

notes: well... it's no 'let him see,' but i'd say not too shabby. let me know what you think!! <3

taglist: @literallysza @piceous21 @missprolog @vanteel @idontknow0704 @hydracassiopeiadarablack @andawaywelando @yeahnahalrightfairenough @whatsitgonnabeangelina @missprolog @emily-b @number-0-iz @vhkdncu2ei8997 @astrlape

IF YOU’D LIKE TO BE ADDED TO A TAGLIST FOR ALL OF MY FUTURE F1 FICS, COMMENT BELOW

#f1 #f1 smut #f1 x reader #oscar piastri #op81 #oscar piastri x reader #oscar piastri x you #oscar piastri smut #ln4 #mclaren #op81 x reader

816 notes · View notes

watermelondip · 16 days ago

Text

seasons | summer pt. one

pairing: stiles stilinski / female reader word count: 11k tags: friends to lovers, jealously, miscommunication, little bit of angst, mostly fluff, pre-season 3/post-season 2 warnings: underage drinking, brief/vague mentions of sexual content (will become more graphic later on) a/n: this story is going to be three parts, and this is part one of part one basically, bc i just wanted to post it. i'm gonna cross-post onto ao3 but i don't wanna do that until the whole chapter is finished, which it nearly is. at that point i'll post the second part of part one. been working on this since the beginning of the year! don't know why it's taken me this long!

At the end of sophomore year, your boyfriend dumped you, you threw your finals, and Stiles decided to grow out his hair. Of those three things, the hair was the only one you were willing to talk about, so the first week or so of summer was emotionally muddled, mostly consisting of days in bed and text conversations about dorky movies or hypothetical plans that were bound to fall through. Plus, Allison jetted off to France, and Lydia was generally MIA per mysterious Lydia reasons; you were looking out at three months of Stiles and Stiles alone, which was intensely overwhelming.

Foremostly, Stiles had been a good, unwavering, PB&J (a.k.a. everything you’d expect, want, etc) sort of friend since Elementary school, but he had never taken such a central role in your life before. Since, of course, your boyfriend, tall-blond-asshole-Pearl-Jam-listening Kenny, had always been the leading man. But Kenny was bored with mediocrity, and according to you, and maybe also Jessica from lit who loved to talk shit, he just wanted to whore around until college, which was fast approaching, the senior that he was.

So, when you sobbed, tried to stop sobbing, nearly vomited, and then decided to call Stiles, screeching he’s such a jerk, I hate him, god, he’s such a jerk, you know into the phone, it was almost cathartic. But when he rambled back at you over the line, something about you being better than tall-blond-asshole-Pearl-Jam-listening Kenny and needing to stop letting him get under your skin, something sweet like that, an urge that had been buried on the playground emerged with full force, albeit a little morphed for the modern day.

Too desperately for your own good, you wanted to fuck Stiles. In fact, you wanted to make love to Stiles, like in an 80s movie, something smooth playing in the background, basking in candlelight, or maybe after prom, makeup fallen under your eyes and dress half laced up in the back. The specifics weren’t entirely important. Most vitally, you asked yourself if you understood love at all, and if what you had felt for Kenny was genuine love, or if that had been reserved all those years for your sudden realization. You thought, most assuredly, that you very well could be in love with Stiles, for all that was worth.

It had been apparent for years that it was more than a friendship. Kenny would hardly ever shut up about it, but you were good at brushing things off. Stiles is Stiles, you’d say, a shrug or a slump accompanying your deliberate nonchalance. I could never date Stiles, you’d affirm, but you’d be at a loss if asked to explain why (except, maybe, to say that Stiles would never date you, but admitting something like that to yourself was unpleasant, so you shied away from it).

Cataloging memories and coming up with the logistics in your mind, it was important to consider that Stiles was perpetually obsessed with Lydia to the point of derangement, so it seemed unlikely that he would abandon all of that for a girl that was functionally opposite. You were, of course, a girl with hair and eyes and cute enough clothes, but you were also overtly normal and lacked the minx-ish qualities that seemed to be so attractive to him. You were friends with Lydia and you understood her most of the time, occasionally sharing in her girly-isms on Saturday nights, but there was something fundamental in your DNA that prevented you from ever being her carbon copy. You thought, how could he want to fuck you if you didn’t smell so strongly of vanilla and cashmere, and when he touched you your essence didn’t transfer onto his skin in a gold, sparkling sheen?

Sometimes, though, when it was late and you were sitting on the couch in your basement, the only thing separating you being an empty popcorn bowl, and he turned to you and made a joke about whatever was on the TV, but he was smiling so wide and you just couldn’t stop staring, it didn’t matter if you weren’t Lydia. You knew it would never be like that with her, and you let yourself be mean spirited about it, too, because you were so jealous sometimes that it consumed you. You wanted to pull him over by the sleeve and throw the empty bowl on the floor and tell him how cute he was, how potently him he seemed.

It was a hellish summer.

You got a job at this isolated little coffee shop at the edge of town, rustic fixtures and squeaky tap and all, but it paid decent enough. There was this cute senior named Josh that would always be working there when you were on your shifts, spouting, I’ll miss you when I graduate, Ace, and running his fingers through his overgrown hair. He was tan and he played sports and you probably should’ve dated him, if only for a few months, just to wean yourself off Kenny and prevent yourself from salivating over Stiles, but you could never bring yourself to fully reciprocate his banter.

“Guy’s a douche,” Stiles murmured, playing with the sleeve on his coffee cup, leaning overtly over the countertop. “He was on lacrosse last year, which he sucked at, by the way, and he kept calling me scrawny, a total projection, obviously, since he’s got major chicken legs and that super long, like, Slenderman neck that he always juts out like a creep–” Stiles mimed the action, “–you know? And, besides, if you’re gonna rebound, you should do it with somebody cool like a famous person or a teacher or something.”

“Stiles.” You fussed with the faulty register, shooting him a warning look. “Sit,” you chirped, nodding towards the tables behind him.

“Just kidding, about the teacher thing, definitely don’t do that. Actually, I heard that Mr. Sanders isn’t gonna be there next year because he got caught hitting on Lauren Johnson, which is kind of crazy considering his wife just got pregnant, pretty sure, and–”

“They’re gonna fire me if you keep talking my ear off, you know.” He grinned, tightening his grip on his coffee.

“Yeah, well, that’s sort of my goal.” He leaned closer, tilting his head with a hesitancy that made you frown. “You spend all day here. It’s boring.”

“You could always get your own job.”

“Har har, good one. Me, working, very funny–

“–Stiles–”

“–No, a zinger, really.” It was too early for him to be so bright, and you squinted at his shine.

“Customer, due east,” you declared, shooing him away with your hand. Someone burly and un-caffeinated stumbled through the door. “Stiles, sit down,” you urged, pushing at his hands, splayed lazily over the counter. You narrowed at him and he relented, slouching over to a seat by the window. Even in defiance, he pulled out a book and stayed for an hour.

It was a half-an-hour drive to the beach, which felt like hours in the Jeep since the seats were always sticky and the air conditioning was temporarily busted. You had done yourself up in the most severe way, with a tiny bikini and a face of makeup that would inevitably be washed away by the water and the heat. You kept running your hands over your thighs, trying to decide if the skin there was smooth enough, scratching nervous lines up and down. Rilo Kiley was on the radio and the sun was reaching you through the window; the backseat was oppressive.

“Water?” Scott asked, dangling his arm over from the passenger’s seat. His water bottle had rolled under the seat, and you contorted yourself in an attempt to grab it. It was old, scuffed on the cap, half-filled and a nauseating shade of green that looked worse with age. Stiles took a turn and you huffed as the bottle skirted out of your grip. “Are you digging for gold back there or something?”

“Just gimme a second,” you snapped, clawing at the bottle until it relented into your palm.

“She’s testy because Kenny has a new girlfriend,” Stiles remarked, slapping Scott’s expecting arm. You handed him the water bottle.

“He has a new girlfriend?” You pushed your hair from your face, feeling the slick sheen of your back resettle against the seat. You crossed your legs, quelling the oncoming tremor.

“They’re not really dating, are they?” Scott questioned before chugging his water like an Olympian, throat pulsating, expanding like a beast. There was something animalistic that lined his every action post-bite, and you found it occasionally off putting, like he was some strange dog on the side of the road, swaying towards you with an open, heaving mouth. He swallowed, gasping for a moment. “You’re talking about Tana, right?”

“Uh, no, no, I meant Bree.” Stiles glanced at you in the rearview, frowning. “Sorry.”

“It’s fine.” You pulled at the hem of your shorts, wondering if Kenny took Tana or Bree to the same diner he always took you to, or if he told them to close their eyes and kissed them soft and quick like he used to do with you. Begrudgingly, you let in the reality that your relationship with him would never be the snowglobe you made it out to be, and that he had processed things fully while you were still mourning.

“Tana’s a total slut,” Stiles tentatively reasoned. Scott elbowed him to no avail. “And Bree too, so,” he trailed off, throwing you a look over his shoulder, something slathered with sympathy. “We’ll find you a beach hunk, don’t worry.” He patted your knee, his burning fingertips and good intentions infecting you all throughout.

Cute-senior-coffee-boy Josh was playing volleyball a few feet away, and from your position on your front, head turned to the side, maybe just to stare, you felt undeniably voyeuristic. In a sense, with sweat dripping down his chest and hair flopping into his face, he was coital. Beach hunk, you thought, daydreaming.

“Stop drooling,” Stiles puffed, pulling off his t-shirt. You furrowed.

“Where’s Scott?” You sat up on your elbows, glancing to the empty chair beside him.

“He hasn’t scored a single point this whole game, and you’re still ogling him, which is sort of pathetic on your part.” Stiles’ hair stuck out unceremoniously from his scalp, morning-esque, and he tossed the shirt into the sand. The sun hit him in a nasty way, and he dug through the communal bag for a pair of sunglasses. “Of course fucking Josh is here today, fucking douche.” He began to murmur, and you sighed, flopping back down onto your arms, chin poking harshly into your flesh.

Stiles pushed on a pair of large, boxy sunglasses that you recalled pulling out from your vanity that morning.

“Those are mine.” You suppressed a laugh, shoving your nose into your forearm.

“I kinda pull them off though, right?” His anger subsided for a moment, and he easily diffused the conflict with a grin. He hated to dwell, you knew. Things were never very gritty for him. He turned his head to either side, shrugging. His nose was a little sunburnt, and you pictured what he might do if you lathered it in aloe and kissed him hard right after, saying, god, will you stop picking at it?

“You’re the one who brought up the beach hunk.” You returned to the side-facing position that gave you a good view of Josh’s serve. Your feet kicked up behind you. “You think he’d go for me?”

Stiles was quiet for a moment. Josh grunted whenever he hit the ball. His swim shorts were low on his hips. You were so inexplicably piggish with your gaze that what you had assumed was a post-breakup horny brain seemed to really just be the birth of a nympho, you thought. There was something mad about you.

He cleared his throat: “Course he’d go for you. Doesn’t mean you should throw yourself at him.” You turned to look up at him, squinting, incredulous.

“What��s your problem?” He slumped into his beach chair, running his fingers through his hair in an attempt to fix it, only managing to make it messy in a different format, charming all the same. You liked the taut folds of his stomach, the moles on his chest, on his arms, his shoulders, the ones that were reaching for his face through his neck. You found it difficult to be frustrated with him when he was half naked and sweltering.

“Guy’s a douche. That’s all.” You could hardly see his eyes through the dark lenses. “At least be tactful.”

“Tactful?”

“Subtle. At least be subtle.”

You pondered on subtlety as Stiles looked off at the water. He shifted, crossing his arms over his chest, baking a bit. You thought to ask, can I get your back, squinting up at him and maybe pushing your boobs together a little, but then you reprimanded yourself and remembered that you shouldn’t be a perv. When you were eleven you’d asked him if he’d ever kiss you and all he could get out was nowaynowayuhgrossno, choking on his Cheerios. It seemed futile.

A few minutes later, Scott returned with a mint-chocolate-chip, which he handed to you, and a rocky road, which he had already taken a decent chunk out of for himself. Stiles seemed offended, mouth ajar.

“I don’t like what you said about Tana and Bree in the car,” explained, crashing into his chair. “Also it was really expensive and I still owe her twenty bucks.”

“Don’t worry about that,” you assured him, vaguely waving as if to say I’m cool, and licked off a drippy bit. “This works. Ice cream is, like, how much it costs times two and then some.”

“Why don’t you have a chair?” Scott asked, tossing his leg over his knee. “You look like you hate us,” he laughed. Stiles looked over at you, and even though you still couldn't see his eyes great, you imagined that they were raking down your back, subtly like he’d said, and got sort of hot in the neck.

“I’m basking,” you explained, wiping some mint-chocolate-chip from the corner of your mouth.

“She’s trying to be sexy for Josh,” Stiles chimed in, gruff. “Which you don’t need to do because he already likes you, by the way.”

“You don’t know that,” you argued, flattered. It showed; you meant to say that you knew he liked you, but that wasn’t the point, and that you really just wanted to be dramatic, since everything had felt so grey since Kenny had ended and all.

“He likes you,” he retorted firmly.

“Ask him out,” Scott suggested. You hated that he was an ice cream biter, and the sight made you shrivel up a little. He had his mouth full. “He’ll probably say yes,” he decided, examining you.

“Aw gee,” you teased. He hardly ever said stuff like that to you. Mostly, if he did anything at all, he’d flick your head and say you make me laugh at lunch or maybe in the hallway, if he had the time. You liked that he was so casual. Stiles gave him a look like they had some big secret, like you were just a little kid sitting on the edge of the bench, getting words spelled out to you like you were dumb and wouldn’t know the meaning.

It was out of place, but you started to think about sex. Building up the courage to talk to Josh, with Scott and Stiles arguing about something inconsequential, maybe lacrosse or maybe Allison, in the background, it became incredibly important to you. Not just sex in terms of the act, but sex like the aura, like the way you might walk towards him, hips swaying, and the way you might bear your neck to him as if it were some sort of animalistic ritual. You had never gone that far with Kenny, and you asked yourself if you could fake that sort of thing or not. Josh was older and you were sure he’d slept with plenty of girls, which was scary and you were psyching yourself out too much.

“Give me those,” you demanded, wiggling your finger at the sunglasses Stiles had adopted.

“What? No, I like them. Why?” Half of you wanted to let him wear the silly girl sunglasses because they were yours and that must’ve meant something.

“You told me to be subtle and I have expressive eyes.” You stretched out your hand, urging. Stiles paused, almost like he had been talking in hypotheticals and he’d never thought you’d do it, not with Josh who you were sure had slept with lots of girls and was a douche, that’s all.

“You’re really going to talk to him?” He was quieter, more reserved, like you’d juiced him dry and now he was just reeling. Scott smiled, but maybe just because Stiles was being stubborn and he looked dumb in your sunglasses.

“I do it almost every day, Stiles.” You jutted your hand forward impatiently.

“That’s work. Work is different. This is voluntary and you’re in underwear.”

“Give me the sunglasses,” you demanded, tucking your hair behind your ear on the left, giving him a look that usually garnered affection, eyes big. He was a sore loser, but he handed them to you anyway, and he sucked it up okay, digging his heels into the sand.

Josh smelled like something from the mall, something like lake water and rough pine, and he had a sweaty beach face, tan and dark in the eyes and a little bit of condensation on his upper lip. You looked at him through your sunglasses, confident in the way they concealed you, and he said, “you look hot”, laughing and grinning and being overall very effective.

When you licked your ice cream, you wondered if he found it all sensual or if you were just embarrassing yourself. He was so easygoing that you couldn’t really tell.

He ran his fingers through his hair like he always did, with it falling on either side all piece-y and smooth. You thought about how much Lydia would like him. She always told you to go for more typical sorts of guys. She never wanted to hear about Stiles, who was non-typical and didn’t smell like mall scents and never wore the right thing. She said, “he’s too much of a cartoon, with his clothes and his blah, you know”, but his clothes had changed since last year. He was more typical than he’d ever been before.

“We’re all going over to Miller’s place after this,” Josh said, picking over your appearance, lingering a bit on your collarbone. “You can come. So can Stilinski and McCall and whoever else.”

“It’s a party?”

“It’s a thing. I guess it’s a party. Anyway, I want you there.” That made you extra sweaty. You wondered if he’d pull you into an empty room and try to put his hands in your pants like you’d always feared, even if it was that kind of fear that teetered on the edge, dipping into something different, more like curiosity. It didn’t matter much because Peter Miller had the third biggest house of anyone you could think of off the top of your head, and he had a pool too, and a giant basement with a bar, which was always stocked because his parents didn’t mind for him and his friends to drink.

Josh ran his hand along your hairline, clearing your eyes, and said, “crazy wind today”, boyishly aware, so you just knew you’d go to the party.

Stiles took you home so you could change. He said, “I’ll be back in a little”, and he left with Scott and the Jeep and some of your sanity, too. It was intensely hot outside and you knew that finding a balance between comfort and sexuality was important. Still, your trademark was your lack of formality. Lydia always said it was charming that you picked shorts when she might have picked a skirt, and you didn’t do up your hair like she did, and that when you wore makeup it was just different, like it didn’t make as much sense for you. This was all a construction, everything just as innately tailored as it was with her, but in a different strata.

You wondered if Josh liked boobs or butt or neither or both or maybe a subtle, uneven mix, like sixty-forty or something. If you asked Stiles you knew he’d say eyes, and when you’d say no really, he’d say you’re right, it’s boobs, and then he’d grin for days.

Your shorts were the girly kind, with big buttons and a chunky foldover hem, paired with something thin and airy that Allison had said was so cute, something she’d buy for herself if the color didn’t wash her out. You thought you might shower, but then you thought of Stiles, how he could be back anytime, and how he’d be mad if you held him up. He already didn’t want to go.

“Josh, like Josh Dubie? Like the one who sucked at lacrosse?” your sister asked. You had three. Three sisters and two brothers and an uncle in the basement and two parents who didn’t talk very much, probably because one of them was a little too close with their siblings.

“Stiles is worse,” you said, wiping off your lipstick. Lucy, aged fourteen, had barged in to borrow a sweatshirt that she couldn’t seem to locate. She had a bonfire later. You knew she was going to drink but you were too muddled to complain to her about it.

“Yeah, but it’s funny with Stiles. Josh should be good at lacrosse, so it’s just kinda sad.” You shot her a look. “That color is too much,” she said, furrowing at the red all faded on your lips.

Scott had decided to stay home. Even though his werewolf-ness had given him strong arms and an underlying sense of urgency, he still carried remnants of the wallflower you’d grown up with. Stiles would’ve stayed home too, had it not been for you and Josh and you and your terrible driving skills and you. He was wearing his nice plain blue t-shirt, not his nasty old one, which you found only slightly endearing.

“You need to clean in here,” you grimaced, kicking around an old bag of Doritos by your feet.

He pressed his lips together all taut-like, frowning, something forming in his throat that made him contract, retreat, reorganize.

“Do you think we’re gonna know anyone?” he asked, glancing at the footwell.

“Definitely not. Well, not unless you’re familiar with my good friend, the Twisted Tea.”

“Or the lacrosse assholes,” he added, hinting at a depression that made you feel obtuse. It would’ve been a fine night to re-watch Tremors and have an expired popsicle. He tried to smile but you watched the way it fell, his mouth twitching at the sides. You wondered what he’d do if you were alone with Josh and he was stuck downstairs or on the patio or something, and he called you but your phone was in your purse and your purse was on the floor. You wondered if he’d leave you there.

“We don’t have to go,” you offered, shifting uneasily. “I mean, we can do something else. We can go see Bad Teacher. It has Jason Segel; you like him, right?”

“No, no, we’re going.” He bit his lip, and you realized you were staring. “Sure, I’m dreading it, but hey, it might be fun, and maybe Josh isn’t as bad as I think.” He gesticulated haphazardly.

“Really?” You tucked your hands under your thighs, looking down at your feet. The Converse probably weren’t the right choice. You and Stiles matched. His eyes flickered over to you for a moment, and he smiled softly.

“Well, for starters, he likes you. That’s already, like, five points at least.”

“You don’t know that he–”

“–he likes you, and he’s generally hygienic, which has gotta be another two. Then there’s his prowess in all non-lacrosse sports, although after today I might add beach volleyball to the list of things he’s not very good at. Oh, and cold brews.” You puffed out a scoff-laugh. “Minus a bajillion points for not being very nice to Stiles, though.”

“I can scold him later if you want.” It never made much sense to you why people were nasty to Stiles, since he was cute and sweet and even if he was being a little annoying, it was always easier to laugh at him than kick him down. But then Lydia would say you’re too nice, it’s not good for you and you’d think that maybe you were just fated to feel that way about him, to see him as tolerable, because otherwise no one would be there quietly worshiping his ground. “I could blue ball him or make him confess some deep dark secret and then mass text it to the whole school like they do in movies,” you finished, trying to lighten whatever damper had lined his lilts and movements.

“Just be careful, okay?” he asked, more sincere and rigid than you were used to seeing him. Still, you knew that he thought you were a bit funny, and that he didn’t mind who you tried to date as long as you didn’t stop going to him for rides and helping him with his essays. You wondered if you weren’t careful, if you drank the darkened cup and entered the unknown room, if he would come to save you, and if you would fall in love forever after that.

You took your first shot, first shot ever, or at least since Kenny, which felt like a lifetime ago, and Stiles looked you in the eye and tugged on your arm and he whispered, “Hey, slow down party girl”, but Josh was giving you sex looks from the couch, so all you wanted to do was accelerate. You still felt obtuse, though. Stiles really didn’t know anyone at the party. It’s different for girls because guys don’t have to know girls to like them, but Stiles was just the bad-at-sports kid with one friend and a handful of decent grades. It was one of those things where not even the ugliest girls there, who really weren’t ugly at all, and probably had boyfriends at the end of the day, would even try coming up to him.

“I’ve been meaning to ask you out, you know,” Josh said, leaning against the wall like a real cool guy. He had this sly grin that made you go shivery. Stiles was symbolically hooked to you, symbolically sewed to you by his elbow or his fingertips. He gave Josh a funny look, a look like really? You giggled.

“Ha,” you coughed, sipping, “right.”

“Stilinski, you drink, don’t you?”

“I’m driving,” he said tightly. His fingers ghosted over the back of your hand, dangling at your side.

“You know, you guys can totally crash here. Pete’s parties aren’t really much unless you get wasted, and he’s got a million couches in the basement.” This was your surging, everlasting, fear-and-curiosity nightmare. Stiles would drink, and babble, and pass out, and then the hand in your pants, the mouth on your neck. Your legs felt tired and your head pounded a bit. He should’ve been more pushy with Scott, then you might still have a savior.

“Stiles is responsible,” you murmured, grabbing onto his arm and shaking it a bit. There was always something intoxicating about touching him ever since you hit puberty and became wholly conscious. His eyebrows pinched together as he looked down at you, and you just wanted to cry a little, just to let something out other than another wobble. You knew it was a lie; he was just as much of a boy as the rest of them, and he let things go just as often.

“Yeah, we’re good,” he assured. Your hand fell from his arm and you straightened yourself up.

“No, no,” Josh shook his head, eyeing you with a strange determination. “No, man, let's get you a drink.”

“Really, it’s okay, I'm driving.” Josh pushed himself off the wall, going to grab Stiles’ shoulder, but he shoved him off. You tried to sink into the houseplant beside you, become one with the dirt and avoid the confrontation you saw slowing bubbling in front of you.

“Like hell!” Peter Miller jogged through the archway. He was bigger than you remembered. He muffed up Stiles’ hair and nudged him where Josh had tried to grab him, and you sort of just wanted to steal the keys and declare celibacy. “Like hell you aren’t drinking, Stilinski,” he reiterated, shoving a cup, something identical to yours, into Stiles’ hand. Stiles looked at you like you’d have some great big answer for him. All you could do was shrug and blame the whole scenario on the poor decisions caused by a false sexual drive.

Thirty minutes later, you ran off to the bathroom to puke. You never drank as much as you had that night. Maybe it was nerves, you thought, but it wasn’t as if you even liked Josh all that much, aside from his solid chest and his charming expressions. Maybe it was Stiles, you thought, who had made you second-hand upset with his uncharacteristic quietness. You hated when things really did get to him, since he never let it linger, never liked to dwell, not usually.

It felt like five whole minutes that you were hurling. Someone knocked on the door a few times, but you were still frantically pulling your hair back, heaving, as she said, “I have to piss like a fucking racehorse”, clearly to a friend, and you couldn’t half care.

When you came back downstairs, Stiles was gone. Right away you figured he’d been murdered, but when Josh wrapped his arm around your shoulder and tried to swing you into the kitchen, it became pertinent that you didn’t let assumption overtake you. Josh breathed heavy down your neck like a predator, whispering you look nice as he drank beer from the bottle like your father always did. You sobered, and you knew this wasn’t your fantasy.

You found Stiles by the pool. His shoes were placed neatly next to him, socks stuffed inside, with his feet dangling in the water, texting. Even with his neck craned over and his shoulders hunched forward, you found him so innately attractive you nearly became stone and fell to your knees at the sight, cracking at every corner.

“I’m sorry,” you said. He shut off his phone as you sat down next to him, crossing your legs. Even though you had rinsed out your mouth under the tap, you feared the vomit stench, and made sure not to get too close.

“For what?” He rubbed the heels of his palms over his shorts, hesitant to engage with you.

“For making you come. I’m sorry.” He nodded, eyes locked on the water, rippling as he moved his legs back and forth. “How drunk are you?”

“Tipsy. I mean, I can’t drive, if that’s what you’re asking.” He looked at your lap, the way you fiddled with your hands, picking at the skin around your nails. “You?”

“I puked,” you said, swallowing down a bit of shame about it. Stiles laughed, which made you smile a little too wide, since you were still feeling so warm and loose, but his hair flopped and his eyes were clouded. Your thumb dug into your palm. “Also definitely screwed up the whole Josh thing, but I probably could have managed that sober too.”

“Well, okay then, final verdict: he’s still a douche.”

Even though you very well could have been in love with him before, you were suddenly so sure that it was definite, that you loved him and there was nothing else to call it. It was a summer thought, something that appears when life is uninterrupted by school and fleeting connections. You thanked yourself for puking because you could have kissed him then. It wouldn’t have been much of anything.

You picked at your cuticle so hard it made a noise, and Stiles winced.

“Stop that.” He reached out to pull your hands apart, taking one of them on his own, interlocking your fingers. He squeezed once, pulling your joint hands into the space between the two of you, which you had thought was just for the bile smell but seemed to be of more meaning the longer he looked at you. “You do that when you’re stressed. I hate it.” Even with the lukewarm chill of the night, the back of your neck was burning, and your stomach was spinning like a car tire.

“You play with your pencils,” you accused, but still frowned at you, “and you bite your nails.”

He furrowed: “No I don’t.”

“You do. And you scratch your knees. You did it a second ago.” His pupils were big and brown, dilated. You weren’t sure how drunk you were anymore, but it all felt very hazy. You thought that he’d probably only held your hand like that a few times ever, which made it all very special and exhilarating, even if you couldn’t show it with your slight slur, speech slowed down just a fraction.

“Yeah, well,” he trailed off. Not very jovial, you understood. His grip around you loosened and, fearing that he might let go, you squeezed as tight as you could, smiling obscenely big even if you didn’t mean it.

“Let’s go find an empty couch and pass out, hm?” you asked, and you shivered a bit at the idea of sleeping so close to him. You figured you were drunk enough to let it happen. He nodded and you pulled him to his feet, your smile unwavering.

“Josh called you his girl at the Panera yesterday,” Scott said. He had ketchup on the corner of his mouth. “And he said you guys did stuff at Peter’s party.”

“No he didn’t,” you retorted, a bit incredulous and a bit embarrassed, maybe, like you didn’t want to be the kind of girl that was Josh’s girl.

“Really, he did. There’s this guy on the team, Toby; he can’t keep his mouth shut about anything.”

“I’m not his girl,” you stated, stony.

“Yeah, I mean, sure, but he still said it.” You gave Scott a laced glare. Stiles’ hotdog was going cold in his hand. He grimaced.

“I told you,” he murmured, finally taking a bite.

Near the end of June, Kenny and Bree got froyo. He kissed her on the cheek; that’s when he first said I love you. She licked his spoon clean. You saw it from your car. Lydia said ew and then she stuck out her tongue and asked if you could take her home.

Under the surface, Stiles spun in and out of himself, choking on a laugh before he jolted up for air. You were always better at holding your breath. Once, when he was eleven and you were eleven and your older brother Joey was twelve, you won the who-can-stay-underwater-for-the-longest-no-breathing contest by ten whole seconds. You got the last cherry popsicle. Everything post that was a lot less climactic.

He grabbed you by the shoulders, pulling you back up with a rough tug.

“Okay, no! You for sure went down after me that time.” You pushed him back, swiping at the water.

“You’re such a sore loser!” His hair was matted to his forehead. It was his youngest moment in years, reveling in whatever the sun and the grass dew and the chlorine provided. He gave you another dilated look, more defiant than before. “If you’d just admit I’m better then we could move on.”

“Yeah, well, I don’t tell bold-faced lies.” He swiped back, splashing your face. “Plus, you’re way too cocky.”

“I’m not cocky, I just won, you ass.” Your next splash was over-zealous. Stiles coughed on pool water, but he did it with upturned lips, fighting another laugh. Sometimes, though, when he was smiling and laughing and getting splashed in the face, you’d think of the time he’d cracked his head open on the blue tile when was seven, and how he’d cried so hard you thought you might puke.

You faltered, slipping a bit as you waded over to the ladder. You glanced over your shoulder. He was pushing the hair from his forehead, stationary.

“No round four?” He pouted.

“No round four!” You grabbed your towel, checking your phone. “Scott’s gonna be here in ten. Did you warn him about Lottie?”

“Why would I warn him?”

“Because she’s in love with him and he’s going to take his shirt off.”

“She’s thirteen!” Stiles splashed around carelessly, moving to the edge of the pool.

“Thirteen and insatiable, yeah. She won’t stop asking me about him now that he and Allison broke up.” This, you thought, and showed glaringly in your twist of features, was silly, since it was one of those things, something you’d known all too well in your youth, where it didn’t matter if the guy had a girlfriend or was married or just madly in love; for Charlotte, it was a fantasy, just like it was for you with Stiles.

“I think Scott can handle himself against your little sister.” He pulled himself out of the pool. You looked away; it felt ambiguously wrong. You decided to stop inviting him over for a swim.

“Insatiable,” you repeated, making sure to enunciate slowly. “You want food?” Stiles scoffed.

“Like you ever have to ask.” He slumped down into a patio chair, reaching lazily for his towel, splayed across the table. You only ever tolerated his disorganization because he was so boyish and appealing with it most of the time, only occasionally acting annoyingly unaware. “Can you make sandwiches? I love when you make sandwiches.”

“Yeah, sure.” Your phone buzzed. Lydia was entranced by a collegiate asshole named Rick Bigabsshinycar, which she didn’t shut up about for at least a week “You want the crusts cut off those, little guy?” He spat out a laugh, ironic, and gave you a playful expression of un-amusement. Of course, he ended up making his own sandwich.

Lydia said that her first time was with Jackson. She said it hurt more than she had expected it to, and that he wasn’t very attentive, not in the way she would’ve liked. But she also said that she loved him with all of her guts, all innards and organs, so it didn’t matter how horrible it had been. She still thought back on it fondly.

“You could try it with Stiles. He definitely would,” she remarked, running the pads of her fingers along her new manicure. “But then, of course, you could never just be his friend again, so you’d have to deal with that, which I don’t think you want to do.”

You shook your head, sweating at this idea, but she was looking elsewhere, in her own mind too much to observe you.

“Like with Scott and Allison,” she said. “They’ll never just be friends, even if they talk. It’ll always be different, you know? I bet it’ll be worse with Stiles too, since he’s so neurotic.”

This was a dilemma you had never been forced to face. It stung you thoroughly and left you aching.

Scott picked Roadhouse for movie night, which you always thought was super macho, but ended up coming back around in this overly-sensitive, girly way that only self-obsessed man films can achieve. Still, he was Scott, so when the movie was funny he laughed and when the movie was serious he laughed again.

“I watched this with my dad when I was a kid,” he said, mouth full of popcorn. He was always eating, savage.

“The sex?” you questioned. “The violence?” Your voice raised in volume. Scott shrugged.

“It’s not the same for boys,” Stiles chimed in, academic in tone. “We’re exposed to these things at an early age. That’s what gives us the cooties and over-zealous sex drives.”

“Ew.” You grimaced, deciding against another handful of popcorn.

“It’s true,” Scott agreed. “If I hadn’t watched Roadhouse, I’d probably be celibate. I mean, who knows if I would’ve ever even wanted a girlfriend.” You doubted, furrowing.

“Yeah, but it's not just about sex. There’s emotional stuff there too.”

“Sex emotions,” said Stiles. He shot you a popcorn-littered grin. You shoved his gleeful face, palm against his cheek, and he chuckled, tossing a few kernels in your direction. He fought back with no spine, limp as your hand drifted to his shoulder before dropping back to your lap. “I’m serious! It’s a lot more important for us than it is for you.”

“Sure, but that doesn’t mean that watching Roadhouse at infancy permanently alters your brain chemistry.”

“It doesn’t have to be Roadhouse,” Scott added, waving his hand over Stiles’ head, pointing at you vaguely. “Could be, like, porn or something really scary. Poltergeist or Jaws.”

“It’s puberty,” you said. He dropped his arm, frowning. “And I know that you weren’t just with Allison because you wanted to sleep with her.” You fiddled with your thumbs, Stiles noticing with a held glance. “That was love.”

“God, now you’re the gross one,” Stiles groaned. Patrick Swayze kicked ass in your periphery. Without drawing focus, he pulled one of your hands away, stopping the fidgeting. “Do we really have to talk about love during movie night?” He crossed his arms, head falling back on the couch.

“I think it’s important to be candid about your emotions with your friends.” Stiles returned the face shove you’d given him, playfully pushing you away and sticking out his tongue with a big blegh. He threw you off center, and you grabbed onto the arm of the couch to adjust.

“Course I loved her. The point is that I still wanted to you know with her, like, all the time, which was only because of the culture, A.K.A. Roadhouse, slash all that other dude stuff I saw as a kid.” Scott didn’t talk about his father a lot. As the conversation continued, you saw yourself in a bad light, wondering if you really just weren’t part of the hivemind in the same way that he and Stiles were. You felt stale, like heels clicking down a tile hall, stiff and unsmooth.

“Whatever,” you drawled, turning back to the screen. “I just think that sex isn’t as all-consuming as people make it out to be.” You reached over Stiles’ lap for the popcorn bowl. “And I definitely don’t think that Roadhouse has anything to do with child sexual development.”

“This is why we never should’ve made friends with a girl. It’s actually revolting how sweet you are,” Stiles spat out through a bothered facade. You knew he found you novel.

“I’m not sweet!” Your argument fell flat when you tossed a palm of popcorn in your mouth, muffling your protests.

“It’s a good thing,” Scott assured. “You’re like a friendly bird.”

“Oh, yeah! Like a canary. You remind me of a canary,” Stiles said, shooting you another popcorn grin. He smelled uncharacteristically mall-esque, something you suddenly noticed as you re-adjusted, scooting a bit closer to him. It was one of those things you cataloged to your constant string of evidence that he thought about you, that he wanted to smell good because he knew you’d be able to tell. “Don’t worry, we love you just the way you are,” he teased, patting your shoulder.

The rest of the movie was a lot of the same, and then a whole different argument about condiments, and then another about Kenny’s new haircut, which Stiles adamantly despised while Scott was mostly impartial, maybe leaning a little on the positive side at certain points.

Later, Stiles’ fell asleep on your shoulder, and Scott reacted with a quiet laugh, saying, let him stay there, I think he’s been having nightmares.

stiles 9:56 p.m. lydia is dating a college guy?! u shud have told me wtfff

Kenny called you, drunk, late, on a Sunday. It was right after you got off work. On work: things were averagely stilted with Josh, and he didn’t bother you much. Sometimes you caught him looking at the back of your neck, though, and so you knew he still wanted you at least a little carnally.

“Can you pick me up,” Kenny asked, mumbling. He hadn’t spoken to you since he’d dropped off a few miscellaneous belongings at the start of summer. The way you missed him felt almost pavlovian.

“No.” You stared at the crack in your ceiling, limbs splayed out across your bed.

“Please, ohmygodohmygod, please please, it’s so late, please,” he said. “I know you want to,” he slurred, an attempt at cheeky.

“Can I hang up now?” You knew that if he passed out on a bench and swallowed his own puke you’d blame yourself forever.

“Wait! Come on, come on, I miss you,” he whispered, and you could tell he was getting closer to the phone. “I miss you, really. Can you come pick me up?”

“I don’t have a car,” you admitted, shivering. Before he called, you had been thinking about Stiles, about how his hair might feel under your fingers, how his shirt might look draped over the back of your chair, that sort of stuff. Still wistful, you meandered in the conversation.

“Since when?” You sighed momentarily, picturing the way Kenny used to love you, to look at you with love, and say it all the time, even if he didn’t mean it for every one.

“Since it broke down in May.”

“Take your mom’s. Take the van. I just really need a ride, okay?”

“I’m not stealing the van while she’s sleeping.” He scoffed faintly from the other end, pausing to think, you thought. You hung onto the phone, glancing over at the night shone through your window. You liked the view from the house at night, with the quiet street and grass lawns, all generally manicured, comfortingly monotonous.

“What about Stiles? Can you get Stiles to do it?”

“Do you seriously not have other people you can call?”

“No, and stop being such a bitch about it.” His tone made you feel dirty, like there was a layer of grime on your skin that you couldn’t scratch off. It was nearly nauseating to talk to him so casually, to want him so little, and still have to hear his voice.

“Yeah, good luck,” you murmured, hanging up.

To: stiles 11:47 p.m. don’t worry he’s ugly 11:49 p.m. also kenny just called supa drunk. blerguh

You hadn’t masturbated since Kenny dumped you. Lydia said it was good for the soul, but she was too candid about things, and sometimes you thought she was wrong anyways, no matter how much she seemed to mean it. It all felt unbalanced. The desire to have sex with Stiles became more emotional as the weeks went on, and the physical part of your wants fell to the background. Besides, if you did think about him when you did that sort of thing, you always felt a bit nasty after and wished you had just searched for some semi-artsy softcore, not that it ever did much as a replacement.

Stiles sat vacantly on the end of your bed most nights, staring off into space, murmuring softly to himself, glancing down at you every so often. He never touched you, too far to reach out for, but when you woke up in a jolt he’d be sitting there, back hunched over, chin in his palms, smiling like he knew everything all the time.

Lydia always wanted you over early to help with party set ups; her new solo cups were pink, which you found way too exuberant for the sort of night it was, too birthday, but took them out of the bag and set them on the counter nonetheless. She was still curling her hair, huffing every few minutes, teasing and spraying and wetting and drying and brushing, clearly tempted to rip it all straight out.

“You didn’t invite Stiles did you?” She put down the iron, fussing with her ends, looking at you through the mirror.

“Was I not supposed to?”

“He just lame-ifys the atmosphere, you know?”

Once people filled out the space, Lydia got lost in it. You sat on the couch, crossed-legged, staring at conversations. You held your cup with two hands. Your legs felt cold. You had invited Stiles, but he’d said maybe, a foreign response for a Lydia party. He wanted to be her arm guy, her arm-around-the shoulder-at-a-party-leaning-on-the-wall-all-suave guy, with a smirk and a confidence that always evaded him. His intense distaste of social gatherings never kept him from her, not until the maybe.

“Where’s your lover?” Kenny had a blazer on. It was his occasion blazer. He washed it once a month even if he didn’t wear it and always kept it ironed. He was holding a real beer, not just a half-empty pink solo cup that was stained with lipstick and spit.

“Who?” You glanced over quickly, refusing to turn to the side to give him a proper look.

“Stiles, obviously.” He shifted uncomfortably in your periphery. You closed your eyes, lips pursed.

“Why are you here? Lydia hates you.” He banged the tip of his shoe against the foot of the couch a few times, flittering.

“I wanted to say sorry about calling you, for saying all that stuff, and I just figured you’d be here.” There was a rush when he implied that he had been thinking about you. It had been days, nearly a week, you thought. You pictured him roasting in guilt at all hours, pushing away a smile.

“Well, I really would’ve preferred a text, so,” you drifted, glaring from behind your hair, head downturned. You picked at the hem of your skirt.

“Can I sit?” He waved his beer at the place beside you. Finally deciding to look at him fully, your eyes caught on his short hair, freshly cut. In response you shrugged, biting your cheek.

Stiles showed up two and a half hours after the time posted on Facebook, which was a half an hour before people were supposed to show up anyway, so he was only around two hours late, not two and a half, but it still felt rude and little like he was doing it all just to spite you. Why he’d ever want to piss you off, you were entirely unsure. It seemed, though, as Kenny talked your ear off about how he had gotten so drunk that night and why he had decided to bother you about it, that it was the ultimate purgatory after all.

“Bree, she’s got a convict dad, you know? He’s out now but he was locked up when she was a kid, so she’s a huge drinker. She loves to drink and she hates when the people around her don’t feel the same. I just got so caught up in it; you get that, yeah? Getting caught up in stuff? I do it all the time, leads to the worst shit. Once, I stole a tow truck on a dare, you know, because I was so high after this party, and I almost got arrested.” He had gained a bit of weight, maybe muscle, since you’d gotten a good look at him last. His nose less thin, cheeks less gaunt: he was more objectively attractive than he’d ever been, but a bit more intimidating, too.

“A tow truck?”

“Yeah, one of those little ones.” He sipped down something big before tilting his bottle off into the distance. “Your lover,” he indicated. Stiles was wearing black jeans and a fat frown, looking at you, his hand on Scott’s shoulder, tapping incessantly.

“Why do you keep saying that?”

“That he’s your lover?” Kenny circled the beer bottle on his kee, tilting his head side to side. “Well, mostly because you’re in love with him, but also a little because I like seeing the face you make,” he smiled, “like that, yeah.”

You furrowed: “I’m not.” Your lipgloss was starting to feel tacky, separating around the little cracks on your lips, the ones you struggled not to bite off. Scott dragged Stiles into the kitchen.

Kenny laughed: “Okay.” You could feel him staring at the side of your face, the heat of it. He put his hand on your shoulder, fingers prickling up the side of your neck, teasing the nape. “You look really pretty tonight,” he murmured, breath warm.

“I think Kenny wants to fuck me,” you told Lydia, refilling your cup. “He touched my neck, like, sensually.”

“I’m opposed to the idea that Kenny can do anything sensually.” She messed with the hair on the back of your head, tossing it around before flattening it back down again. “But you know I don’t like him.” Her hand pressed into your elbow, a sign to stop pouring. She had pity face when you met her eyes. “If you’re going to fuck someone tonight, make it Stiles.”

“You don’t like Stiles either.”

“I like him more than Kenny, and so do you.” Her lips pressed together, narrowing tentatively. “Also, like, your summer ennui is getting really old and I just think you should do something exciting with your life.”

“My summer ennui?” You drank. Warmth invaded your self-imposed isolation.

“Yeah, I don’t know. You just seem kind of depressed right now and I think fucking Stiles would be good for you.” You scowled at her from behind the sanctity of your drink.

Stiles had his arms crossed in the family room. Harley and Josie and Steve from pre-calc made up a mini-conversation circle around him, Scott glued to his side. He spotted you once you entered the room, your heeled shoes causing you to stumble through the archway, confidence wavering. Kenny had wandered, and you supposed that you feared him, what he might try to initiate, eyes skirting the perimeter.

“Hey!” Stiles broke the circle to jog over to you. “Hey, I’m here!”

“Yeah, I can see that you’re here.” He vibrated on his feet. “You should try to find Lydia. That college guy just dumped her and she’s super drunk.”

“The ugly one?” Even inquisitive, he seemed oddly disinterested, like he was just floating around the topic, not caring to collide.

“No, I just said that to make you feel better. He was really hot.” Your heels burned, and the atmosphere felt dizzying. Stiles laughed. He beamed.

“Hey, so, why were you and Kenny talking earlier?” His brow creased, something to dig into.

“Well, I think he wants to have sex with me, but I’m not really sure why. He can be cryptic.” You were a blunt drunk. Stiles wrinkled his eyes with a hesitant annoyance, biting the inside of his cheek. He was buzzing, hands twitching, noticing your detachment, eyes in a constant spiral.

“You think you’ll do it? If he tries.” The question was kryptonite. You wanted to melt at his feet. He chewed at some dry skin on his bottom lip, and you knew this was a whole different purgatory, one far more tailored.

“You mean, have sex with him? Are you really asking me that?” Stiles wasn’t the sort of boy you discussed your sexuality with. Even though you’d trust him with your beating heart in his palms, he got sweaty when he remembered you had a vagina, and there were things you knew to keep concealed. He smiled on one side, tilting his head with an inward chuckle.

“Yeah, I don’t know. Sure.”

“Well, no, I won’t. He dumped me.” You wondered if he could see you in a form that weak. Everything withered, and Stiles seemed disheartened. Trivial things were allowed in the summer. In the summer, it was okay to be sixteen.

“Yeah, course, I know I just–”

“I don’t like Kenny anymore.” You took a sip of your drink, concealing your growing urgency, everything bubbling in your throat. “He’s a dick,” you explained, swallowing hard. Stiles had a bit of a vacant thing, hollow, mind in another room.

“I’m aware,” Stiles barked, half sardonic and half like he had somehow been scorned. The party surrounded like hounds, shoving, forming a mass. It felt like the room was caving in, something inherently uneasy about the way he spoke to you and the way he looked you in the eye. He bit his tongue.

“You’re aware?”

“Yeah, I’m aware.” He teetered on his left foot, pressing hard into the floor. He glanced down at your drink. “He said some stuff, like, a few months ago, when you guys were still dating. I just don’t like him, whatever.”

“Some stuff?”

“Yeah, like, dumb shit. I just–” he caught himself. “It doesn’t matter.”

“Your face is telling me that it does.” You grinned for a moment, toothless, and he scoffed. In dreamland, Stiles uttered, he called you easy, a slut, so I sucker punched him, grabbed him by the collar, and told him never to talk about you like that again, because I’ve loved you since we were little, and I’m also infallible, by the way. Your throat burned. His mouth hung agape for a moment, expecting some sort of out, but failed to find escape.

“He was jealous,” Stiles admitted, scratching at the back of his hand. “Just, don’t talk to him anymore, okay?”

He had never commanded you, not once, not really. If he did, he was joking, or he wasn’t, but you were, and it didn’t end up mattering. Despite the way he’d wavered around his vague notions of a prior argument, playing it off as another quickly passing mishap in what was, knowing him, a haphazard day, his voice was flat, mouth tight. You gave him a withering look, stepping back unconsciously. You shook your head, and you were leaning harder on one foot, oblivious to a piece of hair hanging down into your eyes. It wasn’t the time for dynamics to shift.

“Why are you being weird?”

He countered, moving forward: “I’m not being weird,” he reached out.

“Yes, you are. Stop it.” He ran his palm over his forehead in exasperation.

“I’m sorry, but I just don’t like that you’re talking to him again.” His hands gestured at his sides, emphatic. He was a few decibels away from exclaiming, only hushed in fear of you scurrying away. You shook your head again, a few times, indignant.

“Don’t be an ass, Stiles.”

“Me, an ass? Kenny is the one who dumped you so he could fuck other girls!” Your ears rang. Drunkenness hadn’t quite hit you until his tone raised. You thought that, yes, you agreed with Lydia. If you let him stick it in right there and then, it might feel therapeutic in some sense, gaining back control. Still, he had big, brown eyes and they were wet and they were open and he was staring, almost beastly, hand outstretched. Something struck him, and he surged forward. “Hey, no–”

“Whatever.” You pushed past him, needing a nap. In dreamland, he grabbed you back by the wrist, pulled you in, gripped your waist, kissed you as hard as he could without tongue, and told you it was love for him too. There was no beckoning call, just “Dancing On My Own” and a bundle of roaring laughs. You huffed to yourself, finding the hallway, setting down your drink, and leaning against the console table, trying not to heave.

Kenny rediscovered you in Lydia’s guest room, your face stuffed into a throw pillow, eyes leaving smudged black marks, even though you would've denied that you ever cried. You could hear that it was him, his chunky shoes and dragging feet entirely emblematic of his hardened core.

“It wasn’t me, was it?” He sat down on the end of the bed, glancing at his lap.

“No,” you muttered, leaning up on your elbows. He still had his beer.

“Ah,” he spoke, nearly spat. “So, Stilinski?” There was a moment of silence, as if this idea angered you, and a tense feeling surrounded your shoulders and your neck.

“What did you say to him?” you questioned, sitting up to lean back against the headboard. Kenny’s brows pinched together.

“What?”

“Stiles said you told him something, when we were still together, that you were jealous.”

Kenny pondered on this, his lips twisting up strangely. Half of you thought he might hold you down by the hips and lie about love again, but he only shook his head, smiling crookedly to himself.

“Course I was jealous. You want to be with him.”

Post-party, you didn’t speak to Stiles for days. Lydia, in infinite tact, was right. Kenny didn’t seem to want to talk either: no calls or texts or handwritten letters. He very well could’ve fucked you that night, if he had been more kind and less insistent on your priorities. Mostly, you spent time with your sisters and mowed the lawn. Once, you saw a movie with a friend from cross country.

stiles 11:34 p.m. are u mad at me?

“I’m not mad at you, Stiles.” He was a bad phone call. He talked entirely too much, and since there was no physical manifestation of him beside you in bed, you couldn’t punch him in the shoulder or send him a glare to shut him up.

“You seem mad.”

“Well, I’m not.”

“You ran away from me. I pissed you off.”

“You didn’t piss me off. I was just drunk.” You sighed, glancing at the clock. Monday loomed ominously in the corner of your eyes. There was a residual ache from the colder months, even though work often broke the boundaries of weekend rest. “I left because I didn’t want to be mad. I wasn’t mad.”

“But you would’ve been?”

“Stiles,” you chided, rubbing your hairline.

“I’m reasonably concerned! I didn't want to make you angry; I was just being honest. I mean, the guy is a complete fucking loser, he doesn’t care about you, but he does you the small kindness of striking up a conversation and you just, what, forgive him?” His voice cracked over the line. Your thumb hovered inadvertently over the red button, but you knew it to be some greater sign, your muscles pushing you to pull the plug.

“I don’t forgive him,” you muttered, about to retort with something like you don’t understand or it’s not like that, but he very much did understand and it was, in fact, very much like that. Being wanted was a bliss more intense and all-consuming than a fresh cherry slushie. “And it’s not really any of your business,” you added on, trying to find your edge.

A groan ripped out of him, but he’d taken a step back from the phone, so it came to you muffled and softer than intended.

“What is the deal with you and assholes?” he asked, incredulous.

Kenny wasn’t the asshole that Stiles made him out to be. He had a conflicting household, and you were sure the weed had been getting to his brain. He was just a rodent. You were too simple for his universe, too concise, and you were in love with your friend, which you didn’t think helped any. In the smaller moments, Kenny saw you in a pure way, and he admired that. He liked you. You wondered if Stiles found that perverse.

“Are you jealous?” you threw back, too in the heat of it to consider the implications. You had to remind yourself that this wasn't dreamland, and he wouldn’t be at your window, saying yes, I'm jealous, because I love you like hell, so can we kiss now, finally? You choked on a breath waiting for him to reply, which took a while. You could hear him thinking into the phone, a wavering “uh” spilling out.

“What?”

Considering a path to take, a way to flip this on its head, you stuttered, “I–”, swallowing, “it’s just that, no one wanted me before, when we were younger, but they do now. I mean, I have a life and you’re acting like it’s a sin or something.”

“That’s not true.” He was even.

“Yes, it is! You keep berating me for–”

“No, no, the thing about no one wanting you before, it’s not true.” This you clocked as a play on his part, a way to defuse your tone. He knew, of course, that when he said something sweet, you’d get soft and forgive him forever, because you always forgave him forever. The pit in your stomach boiled.

“That’s not my point.”

“But it is your point, and it’s not true, so your entire argument is null. I know for a fact that Drew Pike had a huge thing for you in fourth grade, so much so that he asked me, who he despised intensely, if you liked him back. Sure, I said no, because Drew was a mouth breather and wasn’t nearly enough of a gentleman, but still.”

You scoffed: “That doesn’t count.”

“Why not?”

“Because it’s dumb, and it’s just one small example amidst sixteen years of barren landscape.” You felt that you urgently needed to stand up, take space from the phone, and pace circles around your room for a few hours, or maybe until you wore down your socks into thin strips of unwearable fabric, feet bleeding. “I don’t want to talk about this anymore,” you confirmed, stale.

“Well, I do. Are you with him now?”

“Drew Pike? No, he moved to Texas, and I think that ship sailed.”

“Kenny,” he spat, firm. “Did you get back together with Kenny?” He had a tone to him that you were unfamiliar with, something sharp and awful, something like you’d seen at the beach, or at Peter’s party.

“No, Stiles, I didn't get back together with Kenny. I told you, I don’t like him anymore.”

“Yeah, well–” he breathed heavily, “well, good.” You knew he wouldn’t be saying those things if he could understand how much you wanted him, how much you didn’t mind his poor tendencies or his social miscalculations. You knew he’d hang up the phone and never spend another night with his sleeping head on your tired shoulder. The nail of your thumb scratched at your knuckles hard, picking and peeling and biting bad.

“Awesome. I’m going to bed.” You ended the call without a goodnight.

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