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thelastofhyde · 6 months

Text

you cut your hair, and take some space. (1)

pairing. narcos!javier peña x fem!reader

synopsis. an anthology of events that precede and procede the termination of you and your father's best friend's sexual relationship. this is part 1 of 3 ! (part 2)

warnings. no use of y/n! all spanish text is followed by immediate translation (please note that i am fluent in castilian spanish, therefore some words/phrases may differ from that of other hispanic countries), age gap , student!reader, dbf!javi, post-s3!javi, officer!javi bc i said so, break up au, mutual pining, forbidden lovers kind of vibes, reader has a healthy relationship with her parents, so much crying ( reader spends half her time crying over javi p which is honestly a mood ), violence, nondescript depictions of sa ( not javi ), smut ( creampie, breeding kink through the roof, domesticity kink?? javi just wants to love and be loved and start a family, dacryphilia, indecent use of a credit card, spanking, dirty talk, prostitution kink?? i feel like i'm making these up at this point, + a hell of a lot more ) this fic is based on bsc by maisie peters except this has a happy ending bc im a sucker for mr. peña :( not all warnings listed here appear in this part, these are warnings for the fic as a whole !

word count. 15k

hyde’s input. this was written over the course of four months and could easily be used in court to prove i am, in fact, unequivocally in love with one mr. javier peña. if you take the time to read it, just know i appreciate it so much. i really poured my heart and soul into this and, as someone who's been writing for years, it's been so long since i've written something so self-indulgent that's brought me nothing but joy to write. as the fic has surpassed 40k words, meaning it would likely crash the tumblr site for anyone trying to read it, i've decided to post it in three parts. the fic will be posted in full on ao3 once all three parts are available on tumblr!

“i told you, corazón mia (my heart),” he can't meet your eyes. “made it clear from the start i wasn't looking for anything serious.” “i know,” you heave in a breath, hold back a sob. “but if it wasn't serious, why'd you treat me like it was?”

I cut my nose to save some face You cut your hair and take some space.

The mirror is not clean enough to see yourself.

Where there are usually your eyes, there’s a discoloured splotch of brown. A crack runs down the left of what should be your face. Someone’s taken it upon themselves to draw a cartoon penis just where your mouth is. But in your drunken haze and laser focus, you don’t care enough to notice. All you see is the spot where your nose is, a tiny ball of silver nestled just above your right nostril.

It’s something new to fidget with.

On the flip side, it stings like a bitch. Or, more appropriately, like the tequila shots that led you to this run-down tattoo parlour.

You wonder if, come the morning and mental clarity, you’ll regret it.

If you do, you’ll blame him.

Your night was going fine. Good, even. And, with a lack of good nights in the recent week, that was an accomplishment.

You’d dressed up, let loose, had fun. A friend on either arm and a drink close at hand, you’d giggled and gossiped your way through this impromptu girls’ night.

They’d ambushed you, in a way, forced their way through the barricade of tissues and take-out boxes into your apartment. A skimpy dress tossed at your head and four hands dragging you, limb by limb, into the shower.

Get some dinner, hit the town, get fucked up. That was the plan they set out for you.

You skipped dinner, dove head-first into the town.

You were careful all night to never speak of him.

One part fearful it would summon him, another part embarrassed to admit just who you’d gotten tangled up in. A third part, tucked away in a locked closet, ready to do it all over again.

And then it happened.

You didn’t say his name, no.

Not aloud.

You thought it, for just a second, hearing the person beside you at the bar order the same drink you’d watched him nurse time after time. It wasn’t him but, instead, a man far too short and a clean-cut kind of handsome to even begin to compare to the ex-agent.

But it was enough to make you want to leave.

Giving up your space, you’d made your way back to your girls and made up some little white lie, surprised neither of them called you out on it- what kind of bar doesn’t have white wine?

They left to find someplace with wine, you left to find some peace of mind.

The bar they dragged you into was familiar, the setting of many of your father’s stories. It only took you walking through the door, tugging down the dress-too-short, to hear your name called across the floor.

“Hey kiddo!” Your dad’s a tell-tale kind of drunk, his eyes giving away even the smallest sip of alcohol he has. He was just tipsy, scooting his way out of a tattered booth to wrap you up in his arms. It felt as nice as it did guilt-inducing, knowing you’d been avoiding his calls all week since The Incident. A punishment to yourself more than one aimed at him. “You here yourself? Could join us for the night, if you like. Ain’t that right, boys?”

It was only then that you’d realised two men were sat within the booth, collars undone and ties loosened after a week’s work.

There were usually three of them.

"We’re just waiting on Peña." Oh god, it made you feel sick. Heart in your throat, stomach at your feet. His name no longer feels real, not when spoken by anyone but you.

“And raising bets on his tardiness,” one of your father’s friends said. You recognised him from a few of the barbecues and Christmas parties your dad's thrown. He's nice, responsible. Married, to a woman his own age. “I’m saying he’s chasing some tail. God knows he could use some stress relief. Boy’s been wound up all week, nearly bit my head off for asking him about some files."

It’s a wonder none of the three men- one a retired lawyer, the other two members of the force- noticed the blood drain from your face.

“My guess is he’s pulled some muscle in his back and can’t get himself out of bed,” a nudge from your father’s elbow, delivered straight to your ribs. “Whatcha think, kiddo?”

You didn’t have an answer.

You didn’t get to give an answer.

“You need to quit speaking ‘bout me like you’re not a whole decade my senior, viejo (old man),” it came from behind you and threatened you to look. Like the foolish final-girl in a slasher, you ignored your basic instincts and glanced over your shoulder.

You’re not sure what you were expecting, but you know what you were hoping for.

Tired eyes, chewed lips, unkept facial hair. A twitch of sadness drawn between his brows and the stains of cigarette ash on a worn-out suit.

Javier Peña was none of that.

The suit, grey. One that fit him all too well and had you wishing you could stain it with your drink.

The signature moustache, perfectly groomed, sitting perched above the bow of his pouty lips, rosy-red and fresh for picking.

His eyes have always given him away but, staring down at you in that moment, they read only as passive, unaffected.

It was like, nothing.

And, yes, that’s what you’d asked for- from now on, whenever you see me, can you at least pretend that none of this happened?

But he's smart enough to know you didn't mean it, right?

“Hey officers, sorry to interrupt but,” a hand curled around your arm. It tugged and you let yourself be inched away from heavy brown eyes and your father’s smile. “She’s ours for the night. We’re going clubbing!”

That was never part of the plan.

Neither was skipping dinner, though.

You caught the back of him as you were dragged away, some pleading from your father to take it easy and call me in the morning, and noticed it only then.

His hair, freshly cut.

“‘S getting too long,” a mumbled sort of thing, hidden in your neck, spoken against your pulse. A kiss placed upon it, and then another for extra measure. Fingers dragging through his hair, ridding him of the knots your very same hands had worked into them an hour of passionate touching ago. “Lo sé (I know).”

A pause of silence. The blissful moan birthed from nails on his scalp. And, then, “no. It’s nice, I like it.”

That puppy-dog stare, so particular to the cool-down moments between you, meets your own, chin propped upon your sternum. He’s sweet like this, honeyed skin and pleasant smiles.

“Yeah?” He asks, like he even needs to. “You like it, corazón (sweetheart)?” You opt for a hummed confirmation, finger tracing over the arch of his nose. “Guess I better keep it this way, then.”

Now he’s gone and chopped the overgrown curls off.

In a way, it feels like he’s cut you off with them.

We don’t speak cause it’s too tricky But if I’m tricky, why’d you kiss me?

The next time you see him, a wedding is taking place.

He sits on the groom’s side, you sit on the bride’s.

It feels unreasonable to be surprised by his presence. Why wouldn’t he be here, sitting four rows from the back, at his cousin’s brother-in-law’s wedding?

The bride is gorgeous, the groom is in tears. The priest drones on a little too long.

Somewhere between the exchanging of vows, and the ceremonial kissing, and the cheering of guests, your instincts get the better of you and you glance back at him.

He’s already staring right back, eyes ignited with something that weakens your knees and shakes your confidence. The newlyweds walk down the aisle, cut through your line of sight. He’s still staring at you when they’ve passed.

The reception takes place in the events room of some glammed-up hotel, the kind you can barely afford the one night you’re booked in for.

An open bar, a local band. The catering is tasteful, handpicked by the couple, and the table you feast at is so far away from his that you don’t get that chance to see if he chose the chicken or the beef.

You find a friend behind the bar, in the shape of a bottle and toothpick-impaled olives.

You dance till your feet hurt, slip away to your table, take off your heels. You’re back on the dance floor in time to catch the bouquet, too busy basking in the envy of the other women to notice his eyes burning a hole in the back of your head.

If it weren’t for the dent in your bank account made by the room you booked, you’d gladly dance away the whole night. But if a bed with a view costs double your rent, you’ll be damned if you don’t get to sleep in it.

So you stumble to the elevator.

Clutch your heels and flowers to your chest, struggle to remember your floor number. The fifth floor seems to ring a bell, but it might’ve been the eighth floor. Your room key! Maybe, you hope, that’ll have your floor number on it. You struggle with your purse’s zipper, trying your best to pry it open.

You succeed, but at what cost? Heels and bouquet tumble to the floor, thumping and clunking as they knock against it, flower petals falling loose.

You try to bend down, stretch your fingers out to grasp the clasps, seize the stems. A wave of exhaustion mixed with too much alcohol washes over you and you stand up straight again. Take a calming breath, do a little song and dance before reaching down again.

“Déjame. (Let me.)”

Scuffed shoes come into view as you’re halfway down, bent at the waist and holding your balance with one arm against a wall. You stand up straight, too fast, lose your balance and stumble forward.

He catches you.

For a moment, it feels like you’ve never left his arms.

“C’mon, let’s get you to your room.” You hate the way he ends his sentence, no term of endearment and no impure intentions.

He asks for your floor, you give him your key. He punches the number into the elevator and it shakes to life.

Neither one of you makes an attempt to part. There’s a chance he pulls you closer to him. You let yourself melt, regardless, muscles relaxing and sinking into his arms.

He’s still warm. He’s still steady. but his cologne’s different and it makes your eyes sting.

You’d warned him he was about to run out of his signature bottle, made a note to buy him another one for his birthday or Christmas, whichever came first.

“You look like you had fun,” he rasps out, eventually, as the elevator slips past the fifth floor.

“I did,” you tell a partial truth. You would have had more fun, if he’d stood at your side, ate at your table, danced in your arms. But you can’t say that, because he doesn’t want that.

“I’m glad.”

It turns out your floor is the ninth. He’s careful to guide you out the mobile-box, hand on your hip, pressing you to his side. Your heels dangling from one of his fingers and the bouquet gripped in his palm, smacking against his thigh every other step. A little down the hall and there you find it, your precious and expensive home for the night.

It’s easier to let him open the door, he tells you.

It’s easier to let him guide you to bed, you tell yourself.

Dropping the heels on the floor, he disappears out of your line of sight and you stare motionless at the ceiling above, buzzing in your brain and pain in your heart.

You’ve never shared a space like this with him, one that’s hollow and decayed. The shell of a creature that’s long abandoned it, grown too big for its home.

Your eyes sting all over again, this time enough to brim with unfallen tears.

A thud against the nightstand.

You roll onto your side and find he’s still here, a glass of water and some painkillers lay to rest at your bedside. The first tear gives way, running down your cheek and dropping to the crisp white sheets below. Even more fall as he raises a damp cloth to your face, wiping away smudged mascara and bringing your lips back to their natural colour.

The undressing is gentle and so unlike his usual impatience.

Fingertips drag down each inch of skin released as he unzips the back of your dress, tugging it down and folding it by your heels. The weight off your chest helps you breathe as he unhooks your bra. Left only in your underwear, the sheets ruffle as he drags them up your tired limbs and tucks them under your chin.

“Get in bed, please,” you plead like you have any right to ask that of him. “Javi.”

It’s the first time you’ve said his name since that night in May. His shoulders tense and release, his fingers smooth down his moustache. He looks like he’s going to fulfil your request, slip in behind you and wrap you up in his soft but steady embrace.

He looks like he wants to.

His back cracks as he bends down and presses a kiss.

Against your forehead, lips that linger.

Then, he stands up straight and walks out the door.

On the forehead, way up north Pressed the scar and found the source

Vermont, ‘98.

That’s where it all began.

Your dad, turning fifty.

Javi just hit forty.

It was someone in the station who had the wild idea they celebrate it together. The sheriff and the station’s rookie- really, a hardened, inching-out-of-a-fresh-retirement former DEA agent your father manipulated back into the force, some promise of a light workload and a hefty pension. With no need for money, you wonder why he ever accepted the offer.

Plans were set, money was put in a pot, and a wheel of fortune was spun. It landed on the northern state, a downpayment to rent a ski lodge placed within a matter of twenty-four hours.

Somewhere along the way, you’d been roped into joining this boys-only trip. Your dad argued you needed a break from studying. Your mother argued there needed to be a responsible adult to supervise your dad. and, well, a free holiday never hurt nobody, right?

Wrong.

The final evening, with a constant pounding of a hangover never-quite-nursed, a litter of bruises down your back from falling and a firmly closed chapter on any possible career as a ski prodigy you may have had, you trailed your way down to the only bar in the tiny ski town.

Textbooks on the table, glasses on your face.

A half-drank glass of cabernet, an empty plate.

Peaceful and quaint, until it wasn’t.

The cheer of a frat-boy out in the wild warrants the same response as hearing a lion’s roar in the dark of the Saharan night.

The kind you hear them before you see them, spilling through the door in their obnoxious jerseys and their face-painted cheeks. one wore the badge of honour, a giant Soon To Be shackled Married printed poorly onto the back of his jersey.

You put your head down, breathed more subtly.

The pride stormed their way over to the bar, pounding their fists onto the surface and gnashing their teeth, spit spilling down their mouth as they brutally tore into the bartender, demanding pints of beer and rounds of shots.

The key was to avoid eye contact, keep low and out of sight.

They dispersed through the area, sniffing out free booths and the occasional local to irritate out of their seats.

One of them found the jukebox and wasted his coin on blasting Pour Some Sugar On Me. The group of older women playing bingo scowled and made their way out of the joint, calling it for the night.

You got up to follow suit, hands slowly packing up your belongings and slinging your bag over your back.

Inching towards the exit, footsteps light as a feather.

“Woo! Look at you,” just as you were close to slipping out the door, a single member of the pack spotted you, prowling his way over. He already had his chest puffed out by the time you turned around. “Ain’t seen an ass like that since we left the city!”

Hardly charming. Tame, compared to other things frat boys have said to you.

“Why don’cha come join me and my buddies over there?” He nodded back at them, like they weren’t the obnoxious centres of everyone’s attention.

You were not scared of him, exactly. But you’ve seen where things can go. Heard about it, countless times, from your own father.

So you spoke with caution, gripping your bag a little tighter, “thanks, but I’ve got an early flight. Have a nice night-” He told you his name, like you cared. “Yeah, thanks, bye.”

And then you were stepping out into the quiet of the night.

Fresh air, cold enough to sting your lungs. You breathed it in like it was going out of fashion.

You barely got a moment to compose yourself before that grating voice was back in your ears.

“Oh don’t be a buzzkill!” He whined, you cringed. Took a step back, watched him move an inch. “It’s early, stay. Have a drink.”

“I’m not in the mood.”

“To have fun?! C’mon, it’s too cold to be out here by yourself.”

“I have an early flight.”

“It’s just one drink, sweetheart. I ain’t asking you to sign your life away.”

A couple bumped past you both, weaved their way between you. His eyes trailed after them, your feet twisted around, carrying you away from him slowly, carefully. Best not to make yourself look like prey, not to this predator.

“Hey!” He called after you. Your steps sped up. “Where you going, sweetheart?”

It didn’t even matter that you were walking in the opposite direction of the ski lodge. You told yourself you would find your way back, once this lion was off your back.

“I ain’t done talkin’ to you!”

The lion pounced, sank his claws into your back and ripped through you.

Your hand flew out to break your fall, the contents of your bag spilling out onto the sidewalk.

Pain, the kind that stings. It nipped at your knees, and your hands, and your eyes. Pushed it down, pulled yourself up.

He froze, maybe surprised at his own actions, maybe waiting on the chance to pounce once more, this time with his fangs instead of his claws.

You wouldn’t give him the chance. Filled your bag, collected your senses and ran.

It was tricky on frozen ground, trying so hard to not look back.

He followed and you knew it, heard it. Roaring and growling, chasing you down streets you’d never walked.

You slipped, momentarily, slammed into a wall. A crossroads, go right or go left.

You don’t remember which direction you turned.

“Quit running, you bitch!”

He was still following, how was he still following?

Caving in, you glanced over your shoulder and saw the blurry figure of him running after you.

He was getting faster. Maybe you were getting slower.

You came to a screeching halt, body smacking into something solid. Eyes shut, mind alive. You feared the worst, hoped for the best, expected to open your eyes and find yourself trapped in a dead-end, nowhere to run from this predator.

Instead, you heard your name. Called softly, at first. Gentle, coaxing you to pay attention. The second time it was more urgent, worried and aggressive. You sank deeper into the wall, felt your feet shuffle on the gravel below.

“...Gotta let me know, nena,” the wall pulled you back from it, a firm grasp on your forearms. Your eyes opened and met his. “Fucking Christ, look at the state of you.”

You’d not known much about Javier Peña at the start of the trip.

Your dad had mentioned something about a family ranch. Your mom let it slip that he’d enjoyed the pumpkin pie she’d brought to the station’s Thanksgiving feast.

There’d been one time you’d caught the end of a conversation between him and your dad. Nothing concrete, just some shameful mutterings about Colombia and Los Pepes. You’d left once you heard your dad start to comfort the man, deciding your intruding on the moment had already gone too far.

You now knew he liked his whiskey, no ice. His coffee, no milk. His bread, no butter.

He didn’t like the mess of mixing things, and you had to wonder if it had always been this way. Or had he learned his lesson, the hard way? Mixed the wrong things, burnt his own blessings?

“You’re bleeding,” he announced it, fresh news for you.

A pleasant warmth thrummed through your veins as he took hold of your hand, inspecting it under his scrutiny.

His thumb swiped over your palm.

Your mouth winced, your arm pulled back.

He held you in place.

Something visceral shifted in him, enough to coax you to glance at him.

He was looking past you, eyes a deadly killer stalking their prey. You followed their line of sight and found the lion at the end of the street. Standing still, arms at his side, eyes a little wider than you remembered them. You’d not really been looking, in the first place.

The former agent twisted you behind him, an effortless shield. Took an urgent step toward the frat boy, and then another three.

You grasped at his sleeve and tugged him back, didn’t let him stray too far.

“I’m fine,” you lied. He didn’t believe you, furrowing his brow. “I’m just cold.”

He seemed to hesitate, softened by a tremble in your voice.

He glanced back to see the lion was retreating, staggering his way back to the pride of frat boys. A perfect opportunity for him to attack, from behind and unexpectedly.

“Leave it, he’s not-” The sting in your eye got the best of you and a tear tracked itself down your cheek. You wiped it away with your scraped hand, leaving behind a smear of gravel and blood. “It’s not worth it.”

You said it not for the agent’s sake, but the boy’s.

The agent puffed out a breath of frustration, then followed your plea. Turned back to you, licked his thumb and swiped off the dirt on your cheek. Pulled you in, against him once more, and pressed a deliberate kiss against your forehead.

It was instinctual, no thought placed behind his action.

He did it because that seemed to be in his nature: to nurture.

“C’mon, the lodge is this way,” he pointed in some direction.

You didn’t bother paying attention, more than willing to follow wherever he led.

“Put this on.” It was not posed as an option, not when the agent tugged off his coat and draped it over your shoulders.

Somewhere along the path, you realised you’d lost your key to your cabin. Your dad carried the other.

Officer Peña offered to take you to him, drinking down in the ski lodge’s bar with the rest of the men.

You shook your head, told him your dad couldn’t see you in that state.

He took you back to his own cabin instead.

Cleaned up your hands, put on the fire, poured you a drink.

Then fucked you into his bed, till you clawed and sobbed around him.

If you don’t love me, Why’d you act it?

Late june brings nothing but gloom.

You get bored quick, no college to fill your days. Pick up extra shifts, hope to combat the empty feeling in your chest with the rush hour traffic that torpedoes it’s way through the cafe.

Friends invite you out, you rarely go. They tease you’re becoming a recluse, and that just makes you want to shut yourself in even more.

Tonight, you’re appeasing them.

Some line dance event, downtown in a bar that’s only gimmick seems to be a worn-down mechanical bull. It’s missing a horn and no one seems to know why.

Truth be told, you don’t want to go.

You want to stuff your face with take-out while you melt into your couch, watching reruns of the first season of Friends and drooling over Joey till you forget about another smooth-talking, raven haired man.

Here you are instead, fighting against the cheesy cowgirl hat till it sits on your head correctly.

In the mirror, it’s still lopsided.

The clock sits at eight forty-seven.

They’re 2 minutes late.

You give up, decide to pretend you want the hat this way. Slip on your jacket, do a sweep around your apartment: windows locked, flat iron off, fridge closed. Grabbing your purse, you unzip it and wrestle around in it’s contents, searching for your keys.

You pull on something and- it’s a pack a gum.

Dive back in, search again.

An empty tube of lipbalm.

Third time’s a charm, you think, and try once more. Something scratches your fingers, coaxes you to tug it out and inspect it.

A broken earring.

A familiar car honk’s outside, you stay frozen in place, staring at the broken hoop and counting one, two, three.

Bile burns the back of your throat.

He opens on the fifth knock.

Any other night, he practically rips the door off it’s hinges and tugs you in, before you can so much as raise your fist for a second knock.

Maybe he was busy, on the toilet or on the phone. You don’t think too much into it.

He steps aside, lets you in. Stands so far away, it’s hard to read his eyes.

The air’s uncomfortably quiet.

You think’s it’s all in your head, self-doubt at an all time high after a bad day.

“My earring snapped today,” there’s a growing pit in your stomach, just from staring at him. He looks so distant, not present. Mind a galaxy away. "Your favourite ones, too. You know, the little hoops with-”

“The hearts dangling from them.” He finishes, on your behalf, and it’s the first green flag you see. Green enough to lull yourself into a faux calm.

The silence returns.

You rock backwards on your heels, glance around the apartment. Try to find what has changed, because this no longer feels like the place you’ve grown so familiar with. And neither does the man observing you from a distance, hands glued to his sides.

He should be touching you by now, in any way he could: his foot bumping against yours under his dining table, his hand trailing patterns over your shoulders as you settle into his side on the couch, his tongue delving between your folds as you lay splayed out on his sheets.

You notice his bedroom door is shut.

It’s never been shut before.

“Is- Am I-” You don’t have to find the words, but the courage to speak them. “Do you have someone over?”

He blinks, slowly.

It’s hard to tell if it’s from guilt.

“Because if you do, that’s fine!” It’s not. “I understand,” You don’t.

He doesn’t answer.

You keep talking.

“Totally chill, I’ll comeback some other night. Or, you can just come by mine! Yeah, actually, that sounds better. Won’t risk interrupting again-”

“This needs to stop.”

You don’t have to question it.

You do, anyway.

“What?”

“Us. This-” He’s pointing between you both, a little haphazardly. It’s like he’s rushing to get the words out, get it over with. Get you out his apartment. “Thing we’re doing. It’s done.”

“I don’t underst-”

He cuts you off with your name. “Why’d you come here tonight?”

He’s stern.

Not in the way that makes you want to bend to his will and indulge in all his sins. But in a way that makes you feel dirty, wrong. A child scorned for touching fire and getting themselves burnt.

“I,” you’re beginning to wish there was someone else in his bed, so she could stroll out of his room in one of his stupidly soft shirts and interrupt this conversation. “Uh, I had a bad day.”

“Okay,” he nods. Smooths a hands over his chin, pops out his hip. “What’s that got anything to do with me?”

Everything, you want to tell him.

For every single thing that went wrong throughout your day, seeing Javi gave you something to look forward to.

“I just thought-”

“You thought, what?” His face twists up, just like your insides. He’s angry and you’re the one to blame. “This isn’t a- I’m not your boyfriend.”

I know, you mouth.

Because you do know. Repeat it to yourself all the time.

When he calls to make sure you got home safe.

When you sneak off to pee in the middle of the night and are welcomed back to bed with a forceful tug into his chest, a sleepy, gruffed out ‘where’d you go?’ whispered into your neck.

When he picks up on the things you say, remembers silly things like your favourite toilet paper brand and the exact milk to cereal ratio you enjoy.

Javier Peña is not your boyfriend.

So why does he act like it?

“Look, kid, you’re young, and I know-”

Kid.

That makes you angry.

He wasn’t calling you kid when he bent you over your parents’ bathroom counter.

“Don’t call me kid.”

“And I know,” he pushes through your protest, keeps up the distance. “This can be a lot at your age. Don’t blame you for getting caught up. But whatever you think you’re feeling for me, it’s not-”

“Is this about the p-” The word won’t come out of you, so your change the verbiage. “The hospital? Because I told you, Javi. We’ve been safe. Safer than a pair of purity-ring wearing teenagers-”

“No, this is about me needing to do the right-”

At this point, you’re just interrupting one another.

Fighting to get in the next word, frowning at what you do hear.

He tilts his head back and pinches the bridge of his nose, a groan leaving his cracked lips. You’d imagined him doing that tonight, but not like this.

Eventually, the back-and-forth stops.

Silence.

You take the lead.

“So, what? That’s it just... over?”

“I told you, corazón mía (my heart),” he can’t meet your eyes. “Made it clear from the start I wasn’t looking for anything serious.”

“I know,” you heave in a breath, hold back a sob. “But if it wasn’t serious, why’d you treat me like it was?”

It takes him a few minutes to answer. There’s a twitch, in his hand, reaching up only to drop back down at his side.

Usually, he wipes your tears before they get chance to fall.

The rug at your feet turns darker with each wet spot that drops.

“I got caught up,” his eyes seem so sad, so lost. Staring across the ocean of his living room, searching for a lighthouse to pull him safe to shore. But he won’t let you be that. “In the way you deserve to be treated, instead of some sleazy secret.”

He breathes out your name, the most painful melody you’ve ever heard.

“This has to end,” you’re unsure if it’s only you he’s attempting to convince. “Before someone gets hurt.”

Too late, you want to say.

You’re already being torn apart by his hands, and he’s standing ten feet away.

“Corazón, I’m so sor-”

The car honks, again.

You breathe in, and find it’s hard, snot piling up in your nose and tears splashing down your cheers.

Another honk.

You never make it to the line dance.

You curl in on yourself, instead, and fall asleep to the sound of Joey and Chandler’s bickering.

Love’s a verb And not a bandage

In retrospect, it’s hard to tell where the lines begin to blur.

A promise of casual, turned into something fragile.

Whenever you think about it, for too long, your mind carries you back to the same night. A few months after Vermont, you don’t recall the exact date.

All you remember is a pounding at your front door.

1 am. Too late to be causing ruckus.

You nearly trip over discarded shoes, curse earlier-you for assuming you would remember their existence. Undo the bolt, grab the key and then-

Pause.

This could be anyone, anything.

You check the peephole, find exactly who you were hoping for.

He’s on you like a moth to a flame, pressing you flush against him the instant he can fit through the crack in your doorway. Mouth on mouth, hands on waist. The door thuds as he closes it behind you both, you’re too distracted to notice.

You let him invade your senses.

Smell his aged leather and nicotine thrill. Feel his strong arms and bulging crotch. Hear his laboured breaths and muttered pleasantries. Taste his whiskey tongue and metallic lips-

You pull back. He follows.

It’s flattering, his inability to get enough of you, but you halt him nonetheless.

Cup his cheeks, pull down his face, and stare.

“My dad finally figure out who those panties in your glove-box belong to, Peña?” It’s meant to be a joke.

There’s nothing funny about his bleeding lip and split eyebrow.

He graces no response, dives back into you and submerses himself in your touch. Kisses you slow, with deliverance, his final mission to arrest all your sense of self till you turn yourself in to his embrace.

Only as you pass by those discarded shoes do you realise he’s inching you both deeper into the dark of your apartment.

This time, you do trip over them.

It’s okay though, Javi’s there to catch you.

He finds refuge in your neck, burrowing in deep, mouthing at the skin like a dog does a wound. Your arm shoots out to find a light-switch. A warm glow fills the apartment, bathing you both in an orange hue.

The gold of his skin shines brighter.

The red on his skin appears darker.

“What happened to you?” You don’t need to worry about him. And, yet, doing so comes naturally.

“S’not important,” it’s spoken against your skin, as if he intends to seep his gravelled tone into your pores and have it grow a new life for itself within you. A gentle scraping of his teeth sends a shiver down your spine. “I’ll tell you later.”

Later with Javi never seems to come.

‘If you’re not busy, I’ll make you dinner later.’

‘Keep it up and I’ll be fucking that attitude out of you later.’

‘I’ll get these back to you later.’

He’d never made you that dinner.

He’d dragged you into the station’s bathrooms and fucked the attitude out of you only seconds after.

You’d never gotten those panties back.

You decide to grant him no time for later. Shove him down into a seat at your dining table-for-two. Roll your eyes as he asks if you’re “gonna put on a show for me, corazón?”

The makeshift first-aid kit put together by your mother resides at the back of a cupboard, hidden by mugs and cups. It takes several minutes and a smashed glass to manoeuvre it out. You step over the pieces of glass and head straight back to the table, dumping out the contents.

You click your tongue, point your finger. He scoots the chair back from the table and you slip between the space. Press back against the surface, stand between his parted knees and do your best to not look down at the jeans that grant him no modesty.

Distractions are not welcomed, your patient needs tending to.

He’s insisting he’s okay, yet he’s hissing when you dab at the tears in his flesh with betadine. His hands find a place upon your hips and give a tight squeeze as you press butterfly stitches to his no-longer bleeding brow.

“I,” he starts up, an indefinite time of silence passing between you both. He shakes his head.“It’s stupid.”

“Javi,” you stroke your finger over his jaw, tilt his head back to meet your eyes. “The less you tell me, the more I’ll worry.”

It does the trick, unlocks his tongue.

“I was just wanting one drink, was gonna head home... Or to you, after. I had a shitty day at work and... You probably don’t care about that,” he has no idea you’ll hang onto those words for the weeks to come, wondering how to lighten his workload, ease his tension. “Heard some loud-mouth kid beside me at the bar, he was talking to this girl. She gets up to leave, he follows. I was just gonna go back to nursing my drink but-”

He hisses.

You’re pressing too hard on his fragile lip.

There’s no malice in his eyes as you pull your hand back, only soft and tender. He must sense your remorse for hurting him, chasing after your fingers and grazing a gentle kiss upon them.

A splotch of red stains your skin.

“Corazón,” he croons, shifts himself closer to you. His hands grip the backs of your exposed thighs, his chin presses into your lower stomach. A few movie-strand hairs cover the molten brown eyes that stare up at you. “You’re exhausted. Vamos, basta de preocuparte (C'mon, stop worrying), I’m fine. I just wanna crawl into your tiny bed so I can wake up to your bedhead and more back pains.”

It’s a tempting offer, and one you’ve given into far too many times acceptable for the casual agreement you both share.

A deep breath. Your hand lands on his cheek, his eyes flutter shut.

There’s bags under them. Heavy, dark. Bearing the exhaustion he hides behind charming winks and dashing smiles. Your thumb grazes over one and you ache to give him the rest he deserves, the rest his body craves.

“But, what?” You persist, pleading for him to continue his story.

Javi sighs, gives in.

He always gives in, to you, eventually.

“I just- I don’t know, it’s crazy, but I kept thinking of you,” his eyes reopen, sorrow buried deep in his soul and a worry-line etched into his brow. “In that bar. Alone, in Vermont, when you...”

He doesn’t finish his sentence.

He doesn’t need to.

“So what did you do?” It’s best to keep him talking, drag his mind away from whatever dark thoughts those memories bring up.

“I followed them outside,” he admits with a tinge of shame. “Tried to be subtle about it. Lit a cigarette, took a few drags, scoped out the street. Neither of them were around,” you’ve long abandoned the first aid kit, transfixed by the tight grip he holds you in, his hands smoothing up and down the backs of your thighs in an attempt to soothe himself. “I thought I’d maybe read into it wrong. Maybe she was into him, and they’d got a cab back to her place. Or his.”

He’s rambling.

Stumbling through words he deems unimportant, rushing to push out the thoughts that clog up his brain pipes.

You listen closely, swallow up every morsel he offers.

“It was just as I turned to go back inside that I heard something,” his hands no longer dance over your skin. They sit stagnant, halfway up your thigh, fingers flexed and nails digging into flesh. He’s burying himself into any part of you he can, rooting himself in your solid figure. “Rustling, or something. Coming from the alley. And I just... I felt my stomach drop. Followed after it. Found them, him-”

He chokes.

On his words, on his breath, on his failure.

You run a hand through his curls, soothe the lines off his face.

Bend down, drag him up, press your lips to the arc of his nose.

“Didn’t think, I just dragged him off. Punched him, a few times. Felt his nose crack under my fist.” He’s still pushing through, his earlier unwillingness to talk now a streaming fountain you can’t switch off. “I must’ve tripped on some glass, lost my balance. Gave him the space to get a few hits in, and-”

“Did you arrest him?” You cut him off.

He nods.

“Did you help her?”

Another nod.

“Did you get her someplace safe?”

This time, a reply.

“An officer checked her in at the hospital, stayed till her friend arrived.”

“Then Javi,” you make a point of saying his name, remind him of who he is when he’s not on duty. Not parading around with a badge and a gun, and answering to Officer Peña. The shift in his stare tells you it helps. “You did enough.”

A weight slips off his shoulders and he slumps further into you, eyes squeezing shut.

“I didn’t,” frustration steals the show, coursing through his voice.

“What more could you have done?”

“I don’t know... I could’ve-” He groans, like something pains him, and purses his lips. “I should’ve helped her sooner. Followed them, the minute they left. Shouldn’t have let...” A whiff of whiskey reaches your nostrils. Javi pulls you in tighter, breathes in the mixture of sleep-sweat and lingering cologne on the shirt you wear- Pink, the top buttons undone, left behind by him. “Shouldn’t have let you go out alone.”

You whine out his name.

The air is miserable, dragging through your lungs and staining them.

The chair creeks at the loss of his weight, knees straightening him up to his full height. Instinctually, you lean back into the table, head tilting to meet his broken eyes.

He’s searching for comfort, in the only way he knows how.

Slap a bandage over a bullet-hole, place a kiss upon his gaping-heart.

“Not everything about that night was so bad,” you play into his game, splay a hand upon his shirt. Trace a finger over a stained blood spot. “If I hadn’t gone out, then maybe we wouldn’t be...”

The words catch in your throat.

Partially because you don’t know what you are anymore. Boundaries crossed, lines blurring. Hands that hold and eyes that linger. Too close to be nothing, too reckless to be something.

But mostly because he kisses you.

Desperate, hungry. Groaning into your willing mouth.

He’s a man on a mission, to consume your soul right out your willing body. Unravelling you where you stand, he takes pleasure in peeling his shirt off you.

Hot mouth to hot skin, the tip of his tongue meeting the peak of your breasts. Your hands pull at his hair and he grips at your waist.

The descent into madness is quick, bodies melting together in a dance that’s unique, improvised, and yet always in sync.

He tugs at your panties and you undo his belt. He hooks your thigh over his hip and you anchor yourself to his chest. He teases you with a pinch to your clit and you torture him as you cup his heavy balls.

When Javi fucks you, he fucks with purpose.

The table thuds and scrapes along the floor with each punctuated thrust he gives, driving his cock deeper and deeper into your welcoming cunt, the coarse hairs at its base gifting you the occasional thrill of friction on your aching clit.

He’s slurring out curses and pet-names, lavishing you with delightful proclaims of what a pretty girl you are when you 'shut up and take my cock'.

When he does manage a full sentence of logical wording, his forehead’s pressed to your shoulder, his cum coats your thighs and the sweat between your frantic bodies holds you both together.

“There’s not a universe where this doesn’t happen, corazón,” you feel him softening against your thigh, yet you still delight as he drags a finger coated in his own spend up your folds. “Want you too damn much to miss out on you.”

Curling up into your bed that feels too big these days, you grip at the pink shirt and wonder when that changed.

When did Javier Peña stop wanting you?

And I’m spiritual cleansing (but the truth) Is I’m good at pretending (oh and you)

By July, things change.

The stud in your nose is traded out for a silver ring.

The lonely nights in your apartment turn into stumbling back home from some nameless club in the early hours.

Boredom leads to hobbies.

At first, you try pottery.

Four plates broken and a crumbled mug later, you put on your dance shoes.

Slip. Almost break your arm. Wrestle with the doom placed on your budding dance career. Throw out the dancing shoes, bring home running shoes.

You hate it, running.

You sweat, you ache, you exhaust.

But when you’re gasping for a breath and your feet pound into concrete ground, you don’t think about it.

The heartache.

The headache.

The agent.

You drop a few pounds, tone up your muscles. Watch your body’s shape outgrow your wardrobe, investing in a new one while clinging onto the items you love too much to lose.

Like the dress that now rests just below your ass, instead of it’s usual place mid-thigh. Or the sweater that once hung loose, that now hugs new curves and creases. The jeans that were tight now sliding off your hips.

The pink shirt still lives on one of your hangers.

But you’re not thinking about it, or it’s previous owner.

Not right now.

Now, you’re balling your fists and counting your breaths. Music blasting through your headphones, sweat dancing on your forehead.

The sun is warm on your back, even as it makes way for night to begin. This is the best time to run, dusk, you’ve discovered.

No kids loitering on park grounds, no threat brought on by the dark, no slow-walking pedestrians crossing your path.

You run your self-made circuit with freedom, switching off all your senses and emptying your mind.

Today, however, it’s more challenging.

The thought of him creeps through, no matter the effort you put in to fight it. Your father’s the one to blame.

You have to come, kiddo.

The phone-call still echos through your thoughts.

Because it wouldn’t be the same without you there.

You’d wanted a better explanation than that.

Then, you tried some lame excuse of already having plans.

You had no plans.

Bring your friends then! The more the merrier!

You nearly groaned out loud at his enthusiasm, but held back. Your father’s light didn’t deserve to be dampened by your shadow.

C’mon, kiddo! I’ve not hosted the annual barbecue since you were still wearing your braces!

You bit your tongue. Fought against telling him that, back then, there were no pretty-eyed, heart-breaking agents for you to worry about.

The whole station’s gonna be there, you have to come!

He said it, like that would persuade you.

Keep asking about ya, the whole lot of them.

The more he spoke, the less you wanted to go.

Just last night Javi was asking how you’re doing!

You’d hung up.

Immediately.

Called back, 3 minutes later. Mumbled an apology and an excuse- I lost signal!- and ultimately agreed to going to the damn barbecue.

Now, you run from the phone call, from the impending doom it brings.

All this heartache and pain, it’s not good for the soul.

Of course, being dumped is a lot easier when the person isn’t your dad’s closest confidant.

It gets hard to breath. Each pound against concrete shakes the cassette player glued to your hip. There’s a sting of tears in your eyes.

Until you come to a screeching halt.

Double over.

Place your hands on your knees.

Dry heave.

You pay no mind to the figure sitting a few feet away on a bench.

Nor to the dog that’s chasing it’s ball back forth between it’s owner’s throws.

You let the sadness flood your soul, deflate you like some discarded party-balloon.

You’ll have to see him.

Spend time near him.

Watch him laugh, and smile, and share beers with your father.

It’s unfair, and you hate him for putting you through this.

For not quitting the force.

For being your dad’s friend.

For not wanting you the same you wanted him.

Want him.

You wipe your face with the back of your hand. Try to stand up straight, get lost in the knots you’d tied into your laces. Sloppy and uneven.

You’re usually more careful.

You catch, in your peripheral, the figure on the bench move. Take it as your sign to compose yourself, get over yourself.

You pick your pace back up.

Manage only a handful-or-two steps.

Your feet fly out in front of you.

Land ass-first on the gravel below.

Beneath the sounds of Olivia Newton-John demanding you get physical, you hear a muffled sorry! yelled out. Spot as the dog rushes to grab it’s ball, halfway down the path thanks to your kick.

You groan and prepare to get back on your feet.

You’re met with a hand in your face, palm open and waiting for you to accept the open offer. You take it, no hesitation.

Big mistake.

The hand tugs you.

You glance up.

And meet the eyes of Javier Peña.

“Easy, tiger,” he coughs up a laugh, like you don’t wind him as you slam into him, full-body force, nerves on fire and all systems shutting down. “You trying to break my ribs?”

It’s no less than you deserves, you think.

And instantly regret it, heart turning blue at the thought of him hurt at your hand.

You take a few steps back, create a safe distance where you can’t smell the remnants of his last cigarette or count the eyelashes that line his eyes.

He asks you how you’ve been, and tries his best to smile.

It comes off as awkward. A crooked line across his lips.

You try to remember the last time he smiled at you and meant it.

You come up empty handed.

Maybe it was back in April. A hospital hallway, one hand clasping yours, the other peeling through the leafs of some medical pamphlet.

Or, was it after, on the drive home, back to his apartment, hand still holding yours while the other spun the wheel?

There’s a vague memory that toils in the depth of your mind.

Sharing an elevator, your heels in his hand, his lips on your forehead.

Wedding attire, a post-party glow.

It’s toyed with you since you woke up in that hotel room, driven half-mad by an image you can’t quite form of him tucking you into bed.

Had he smiled, then?

Had he even been there?

Or was he merely a product of martinis and negronnis-

His fingers grasp your chin, no warning, and tilt your face.

His eyes don’t greet your own. Instead, they’re focused on the centre of your face, inspecting you like a piece of evidence.

“Hmm,” he’s so close, you smell the mint of freshly bitten gum on his breath. Dart your eyes down, catch the glint of his badge poking out his pocket.

He’s still on duty, a tailored uniform contrasting the hair roused by stress. Maybe at his desk, in the office next to your father’s, hands running through his tresses to express frustrations, tensions.

Were they his own hands, or someone with longer, brightly painted nails? Your stomach turns at the thought, your loins warm at the memory of writhing in his desk chair, legs thrown over his shoulders whilst his own dug into the ground below, eager to please mouth and a happy to taste tongue working you to a orgasm muffled by your own hand.

He’d slapped your ass, kissed your cheek and sent you out his office door, wiping your own wetness off your cheek just in time to greet your father.

“You suit the ring,” his voice and a gentle breeze bring you back to the present. To the park. To the heavy feeling that hangs between you both. “I prefer it to that stud.”

“I- What?” Confussion.

You furrow your brow, wipe your sweaty palms over your thighs.

He just smiles, still crookedly, and brings his hand up to your nose.

Adjusts your piercing, swipes his thumb over your cheek.

It’s hard to breath, but you do it anyway.

Thank him, in a struggle to find your voice, with a whisper.

His eyes bore into your own, chase them as you look off to the side, watch the dog still chasing it’s ball and failing to catch it.

You wonder if it’s a cruel metaphor sent by the universe, a symbol of you and Javi.

And then you wonder if you’re the dog or the ball.

Or both.

“You never answered me,” his voice, honey, sweet on your ears. It melts away your other senses, turns you blind to anything other than him. “I want to hear how you’ve be-”

“Peña, if you don’t report your skinny ass to my office in 5 minutes and share a celebratory drink with me, I’m putting you on cleaning duties at our next poker night.”

A static-filled voice blares out his walkie-talkie.

Your father’s voice.

It’s enough to set things right, force your body to retreat from his.

He’s not your Javi anymore, desperate to hear about your day and kiss any aches away.

He’s Peña, your dad’s best friend, meant for nothing more than to be a passing figure in your life.

His eyes are heavy with emotion as he fishes out the device.

Maybe it’s sadness you see.

There’s definitely remorse.

Guilt, too.

“We... Your dad caught the guy that’s been breaking into college girls’ apartments.” He tells you, shares information that should help you sleep better at night. You’ve not done that since the last time he lay next to you. You watch him press down on the call button, hold the speaker up to his mouth. “Do that and I’ll shit in your shower, pendejo (asshole).”

It wouldn’t be the first time he’d commit an indecency within your parent’s bathroom.

But none of that matter, anymore.

You’re already walking away.

Wringing your hands and hoping the tension in your limbs falls out.

He calls out your name, loudly.

Attracts the nosy eyes of people around.

People who know fine well who your father is, who Javier is.

You turn in time to see him half-jog, half-pace his way over to you.

He reaches out for your hand.

And quickly gives up on the thought of holding it.

“I’ll, um,” his adam’s apple bobs as he swallows, grinds his teeth in an attempt to say something. “I’ll see you at the barbecue, right?”

He knows the answer.

You still give him it, “yes.”

Smile, uncomfortably brightly, before you turn and walk away once more.

You feel his eyes on you.

And pray he takes no notice of the sob that shakes your shoulders.

Broke me big time It’s funny and I’m laughing baby You think I’m alright

You’re laughing but it’s mostly fake.

A courtesy, a polite gesture. A signal that you’re still listening, despite tuning out her voice five minutes ago.

She’s a nice lady, someone who works alongside your father. Specialised in forensics, she balances the darkness of her job with the brightness of her wardrobe.

Today, she’s paired a lemon-yellow skirt with a vibrantly orange camisole. She looks like a walking cheese cube.

You’ve known her since you were a kid, even if you can’t remember. She claims you used to stand on her desk, make a big spectacle out of nearly matching your dad’s height.

You’d got to talking to her after she helped you wipe ketchup off your chin.

That was half an hour ago, and the discomfort of wanting to be anywhere but here is finally settling in.

It’s not her fault. You know.

She’s not the one who roped you into going to this barbecue.

Your dad is.

And right now he’s stood on the other side of his backyard, half-drunken beer bottle in one hand and Javier Peña’s shoulder clapped under the other.

Even from here, you can hear him bragging.

So then Peña’s on his ass.

Chases this guy, whilst he’s driving down the street!

Catches him at an intersection, physically rips him out the car.

All while the man in question shrugs, sheepish. Dismisses your father’s praising.

He’s exaggerating.

The guy was barely going 5 miles an hour!

He stepped out the vehicle at his own will.

Sweat lines his forehead, shirt-sleeves hug his biceps, joy wrinkles his eyes.

He’s happy, at ease. Enjoying himself, in a way he was always meant to.

Something about him fits so perfectly in this picture: laughing with your father, complimenting your mother, playing fetch with your dog.

If you step inside the frame, it cracks.

Shatters.

And maybe he knows that.

Knew it all along.

Broke things off before you could try find a frame large enough to fit you all in.

And, though it hurts, you see why things had to end between you and feel relieved it happened before it was too late.

The feeling lasts all but four seconds.

“Kiddo!”

Your father’s voice is obnoxiously loud. Several of the party-goers turn their heads, follow his line of sight. Spot you, frozen in place, glass full of watered down lemonade and a belly full of dread.

It takes a moment, but you wave.

“Come over ‘ere!”

Not the response you were hoping for.

Still, you do as he asks. Smile at your mother, shuffle your feet, make your way across the yard. Do everything in your power to not look at Javi.

Even if the weight of his stare threatens to crumble you.

“You having a good time?” Your dad’s got this smile, big and dopy and oh so caring, that you can’t bring yourself to ruin with the truth.

“I’m having a great time,” you barely manage out before he’s squeezing you into his side.

The condensation on his bottle of beer seeps through the shoulder of your top, his arm secured safely around you.

He must be tipsy already, a buzz in his veins making him more affectionate than normal.

“I can’t believe it,” he laments, speaking to no one in particular.

In your peripheral, you fail to ignore tight jeans and a loose-fitting shirt.

It’s hardly buttoned, the top three undone and leaving a golden plain on display.

Perhaps you’re going crazy but he seems thinner, skin drawn a little tighter against his ribcage.

It’s not a sight you want to see.

It fills you with dread.

Pulling you out of your own head, you father continues to drone on.

“My little girl’s spreading her wings soon, going on her first adult holiday to-”

“London.”

Javi’s voice, interrupting your father, finishing his sentence.

All eyes snap to him.

Your own, wide and panicked. Scared. Trying so hard to dismiss how intensely he’s staring back you.

Your mother’s, amused and curious. Flicking back and forth between his face and her husband’s.

Your father, confused and perplexed, “I- Yeah...” He speaks slow and the arm on your shoulder slips down. “How’d you know?”

“I’ve been, you know?” Two hands dance in front of you, somewhere in the dark, intwining and unwinding. It’s a nervous habit, of Javi’s. You welcome the contact of soothing touches. “To London.”

That peaks your interest.

Enough to shift positions. Rip your hand out his own, roll onto your side and rest a hand under your propped up head. Your other, inevitably, finds its way upon his warm chest, rests over his no-longer-racing heartbeat.

“Really?”

“Yeah. I’ve been a few times, actually. I’ve got some friends out there.”

With Javi, friends could mean anything.

A fellow agent, a government official, a moonlight lover.

For all you know, this friend could be the Queen of England.

So it’s best you don’t inquire on it.

“Where do you recommend I visit then, Mr. Bond?”

“Mr... Bond?”

The room is dark, but you still notice the furrow in his brow.

You can practically hear it, in his voice.

“You know, like James Bond.” That’s the thing about jokes, explaining them makes you realise how dumb they are. “‘Cause you were an agent and you like London, and he’s an agent in Lon-”

He cuts you off in the way you like best: his mouth against yours.

The kiss is brief, and leads no place further than the simple act of wanting to silence you.

And, though it goes unaddressed, because it’s been too long since he’d last done it.

Even if he’d done so less than an hour ago, naked bodies intertwined on ruffled bedsheets.

“That was the worst pun I’ve ever heard, corazón,” somehow, the words don’t bruise your ego.

Instead, they make you giggle and burrow your heated face into the crook of his neck.

His lips press against your hairline before speaking again.

“I’d need to write you a list of places to go, too many for me to pick one.”

“Maybe I need a tour guide,” a hand of his greets your back, strokes soothing motions back and forth. It’s lulling you to sleep, at last. “Y’know, show me all the places a real Londoner goes.”

“I could,” he pauses. Clears his throat. Pulls you a little tighter against him, till your limbs are tangled and it’s hard to tell where he stops and you start. “I could check my calendar. See how many holiday days I’ve got left. Could come with you, to London, if you want me there.”

It’s too late though.

You’re already snoring against his skin.

“How does he know?” Your mother shatters the silence, tone incredulous. “I mean, seriously, are you blind!?”

For a minute, it feels like she knows.

She knows why Javi knows.

You should be panicking.

Both of you should.

Should look away from one another, should wipe the guilt off your faces, should already be working on some excuse for when your mother exposes what once was between you.

But you aren’t. Neither of you are.

You’re just staring at each other, as if you’re working to commit each other’s face to memory.

“He knows because you won’t shut up about it!”

Your dad gives an unceremonious oh.

Your mom rolls her eyes.

Javi takes a sip of beer and looks off to the side, eyes breaking contact from your own at last.

“Ok but,” your father’s back to talking before you can fully work up the courage to leave. At least that’s the excuse you try give yourself, anything to distract from Javi. “I bet I’ve not told you what she’s decided to do on her travels!”

“You have,” your mother’s tone is pointed.

Javi laughs, sputters up a little beer back into the bottle. Tilts his head back, accepts his own backwash.

There’s a worn-out cigarette box squeezed tight inside the front pocket of his jeans.

You try ignore the fact he’d promised you he was working on quitting.

“Shh,” your father waves a hand in your mother’s face, dismisses her teasing with a playful wink.

Pulls her close, kisses her shoulder.

Gives both you and Javi a display of what a relationship is.

Open, celebrated, acknowledged.

Not secretive, dirty, scandalous.

Javi cuts the tension with a chuckle and a gentle shove to your father’s arm.

As his hand retreats back to his side, his knuckles brush your skin.

“She’s gonna get herself a christmas-tree decoration every holiday,” your father reveals. You’re frozen at the fact he even remembers you mentioning it. “What was it you said again, kiddo? So in the future, when you’re decorating the tree with your kids, you’ll think of the places you’ve been and tell them all about it?”

Your heart drops.

Javi’s seems to do the same.

For a moment, you worry he’s stopped breathing.

Till his chest rises and falls, no thanks to your father’s stupid rambling about you, and the future, and kids.

“Uh, yeah,” the ground can’t swallow you sooner. You’re already planning your exit, from this conversation and, hopefully, this party as a whole. Your dad’ll understand. You just need to tell him something came up. Or came out. Tell him you’ve got food poison. Blame it on some dodgy take-out the night before. “Something like that.”

But I’m actually bloody Motherfucking batshit crazy

There are moments in one’s life where they must question their own sanity.

You’ve lived plenty of such moments.

But none quite like right now, half-crouched in the middle of a grocery store aisle, peeping into the next one through a gap between two cereal boxes on the shelf.

And all because you heard his voice.

“This is what you’re craving?” Through the crack, you see him wave about something in his hand. It’s hard to see what exactly he’s holding, though.

He’s facing a woman.

She’s pretty.

With dirty blonde hair, piercing blue eyes that not even the shelves and produce between you both can block the shine of.

And a well-rounded belly.

“No, Javi, this,” she doesn’t say his name the same way you do- did. There’s a jovial tone, but there’s no awe, no seduction. Maybe that’s just what your bias hears. “Is what the baby is craving.”

You’ve never seen her before.

Not on the mantel of photos that line Javier’s television. Not at any of the station thrown parties. Not in his wallet, tucked behind the picture of his mom.

She’s a total stranger, to you.

But that doesn’t mean she’s a stranger to him.

A very pregnant, non-stranger.

“We gotta get this kid some better taste.”

His hand rests on her bump.

She welcomes it, placing her own against it to hold him in place.

The image of the American dream, a beautiful woman and a handsome man. The promise of a child, soon, half her and half him.

The blood drains from your face. There’s a lump in your throat and a sting in your eyes.

You won’t let it fester.

Take deep breaths, pretend there’s no shake in your exhales.

It’s not enough to stop the vicious thoughts that sink their jagged ends into the soft tissues of your brain.

Was she the reason things between you and him ended?

Had he got her pregnant, decided to stand by her, and found love along the way?

Was he with her, all along, while he was with...

Surely, he couldn’t have.

But, then, why couldn’t he have?

You were never exclusive.

You were never anything.

“Did-” Somewhere, between the aisles, Javi speaks in amazement. The smile is practically dripping off his words. “Did it just kick?”

Your heart’s palpitating.

Your hands are sweating so badly, they threaten to drop the box of Cap'n Crunch in their grasp.

Jealousy turns to misplaced anger, irrational in every form but impossible to conform.

Because, how could he do this to you?

Make a mockery of you, turn you into the other woman?

Love you so deeply and leave you so easily?

Settle down with this woman and her baby, yet run from you at the first scare of a-

“He’s a real kicker, ain’t he?”

At first, you think it’s spoken to you.

But, no, it’s too distant. Too far.

A third person enters your view through the window in the shelf.

He’s handsome, in the typical sense.

Blonde haired, a nice smile.

There’s a little girl in his arms, resting on his hip, half asleep and clinging to a worn-out giraffe doll.

“He?” It’s Javi who echoes.

“Don’t get him started,” the woman seems to beg, rolling her eyes.

The man nods, pride on his face, “I’m telling ya, Peña, it’s gonna be a boy. It needs to be a boy, ‘else I’m gonna be overrun by little girls.”

The woman must give him a pointed look, or a gentle nudge, for not two seconds later he’s following his words up with a tickle to the sleepy girl’s side and “little girls who I love very much.” Pause. He leans closer to Javier, hand covering one side of his mouth as if to block the woman and the child from hearing him. “I still want a son, though.”

“Olivia,” the pregnant woman strokes a hand over the little girl's head, coxing her to keep her eyes open. It’s hard to tell if there’s a drool mark on the man’s shoulder. “Why don’t you show uncle Javi your favourite toy?”

The bile in your throat burns more than ever before.

The misplaced anger bleeds into sadness, shame, embarrassment.

Here you are, going stir-crazy over a man who never wanted much of you in the first place, raising your heart-rate at the thought of him moving on from something that never even existed.

And there he is, fine as can be- in every sense of the word-, sharing laughs and exchanging smiles with old friends in the grocery store.

Friends his own age.

Worlds apart, yet nothing but a shelf between you.

Through the gap, you watch him lean down to the little girl’s eye-level. A twinkle in his eye, he happily tugs at the stuffed giraffe’s tail.

“Glad you liked it, Olive,” curse him, and his soft voice, and his gentle touch and his everything, for still forcing you to swoon over him, knees weak and ovaries treacherously screaming. “I had to go all the way to Africa to find him.”

The little girl perks right up at that.

Eyes widened, head off her father’s shoulder.

“Really?!” She’s amazed, and how could she not be? Javier Peña is beaming at her, ear to ear.

“Mhmm,” he nods, feeds into his own lie, ignoring the disapproving looks from the other man. “If you’re lucky, maybe I’ll go back next year and get you a zebra.”

“Quit lying to my kid, Peña.”

Javi, undeterred from keeping the little girl’s smile, rolls his eyes and pokes his tongue out at her father, huffing under his breath “Your dad’s a right grump, Olive.”

You begin to wonder how long Javi’s known this couple, how he knows this couple.

“Just wait till you’ve got your own kid and I’m feeding it lies.” The man punctuates his empty threat with a dull punch to Javi’s forearm. Javi barely flinches, unfazed. “Speaking of, when are you making me uncle Steve?”

In sync and apart, you and him both physically freeze.

Your breathing stops.

Javier stands up straight. Rolls his shoulders, scratches at the back of his neck, clears his throat and, “not any time soon.”

“Really? What about that girl you’ve been seeing, the-”

“That- We- It didn’t work out, we wanted,” you begin to see cracks in his facade. Fake laugh, solemn eyes. “Different things... I want, wanted to settle down but, yeah, no it was for her best that we-”

“Sorry, can I just,” your heart jumps in your chest, flying back so quickly from your peep-hole that you nearly knock over the person behind you. “Grab one of those?”

You nod, gain composure, watch the stranger pick up a box of cereal off the shelf.

They walk away and you’re left alone, again.

Your eyes flicker up to the shelf and-

He’s no longer standing on the other side.

You turn on your heel, ignoring your half-filled cart and book it out of the store before you fall apart.

Try as you might, you can’t shake off the weight of his stare as you pass by the check-out.

I kept it in, but it wrecked my organs So pour the gin and call Graham Norton

You wake up early.

You tell yourself it’s because you’re seizing the day.

Making the most out of your time upon foreign land.

The early bird gets the worm, and all that proverbial bullshit.

The truth lies in that you can not sleep.

Jetlag. Your body clock is at odds with the timezone.

Which lands you here: strolling upon the cobbled streets of Notting Hill.

A quarter past six.

Its barely light out, the sun still fighting to rise over the horizon and the streetlights still shadow your every step.

Colourful houses, cosy shops, a melodic thud each time your feet meet the ground.

It’s picturesque, straight out of a romantic comedy.

Yet, somehow, you’ve never felt more gloom.

In the silent bustle of a city awakening to a new day, you’re startled.

Trip over a cobble, nearly meet the floor, and just about save yourself from rolling your ankle.

Your ringtone is the culprit.

Loud, imposing. It scares a flock of birds off a wire and gains you a stare from a man stepping out his home.

Scrambling to get the clunky cellphone out your bag, you spare the screen a fleeting glance.

You question if it’s one of your friends, awakened back in your shared hotel room to find you’re not there, and press the green button.

“Corazón.”

It’s funny how one word can drain the blood from your face.

You swallow the lump in your throat, made of equal parts anger and sadness.

Anger that this is the first time you’ve heard Javier Peña’s voice in nearly two months.

Sadness that it sounds so broken down the line.

“I- Shit, I can’t tell if I’ve even dialled the right number...” He’s muttering in your ear, confused and at odds with himself, mouth a fountain his thoughts pour out of. “... Probably changed it or- Can she even receive calls all the way in-”

“I’m here,” it’s only a whisper.

It’s enough to shut him up.

Silence rings down the line, a static buzz that reminds you of the distance between you.

“You’re in London,” he states.

“I am,” you affirm.

He hums, sips something.

Ice clinks against glass, and you feel a little sick.

“How have-” His voice sounds strange. Muffled. Different. Maybe it’s the poor connection. “Was your flight okay?”

“Yeah,” you spare him the details.

The truth.

The boredom, the turbulence. The fact you’re dreading the flight home.

“I’m glad,” he sighs the words out, worry going with them. “Know you’re not the biggest fan of planes, kept thinking of you alone and afraid on it.”

“I wasn’t alone,” it’s defensive, and ironic.

You sure felt alone.

“That’s right, corazón, you weren’t,” something slips, rolls, smashes. Glass shatters and is met with cursing anger, an oh, shit! followed up by hollow laughter. “You’re never alone.”

“Are you...” The street’s a little brighter, a few cars have begun to back out of driveways and you’re still there, frozen in the middle of the street, phone pressed to your ear. “Drunk?”

“No, I’m javi.” If his laughter is anything to go by, he thinks himself the comic of the century. “Had a few drinks with your dad, sweetheart, that’s all.”

For a moment, it feels like you shouldn’t be here, in London.

You should be home, in Laredo, dragging a drunken Javi to bed.

Stripping him of his clothes, kissing his rosied cheeks, urging him to go to sleep. Leaving him a pair of painkillers and a glass of water for his breakfast before curling yourself into his soft arms.

You blink, and feel the familiar weight of a tear on your lashes.

“Why’d you call me, Javi?” It’s a desperate plea.

For answers, for clarity, for closure

“I wanted to hear your voice,” that’s too vague of an answer, too unfair of an answer. Your heart swells nonetheless. “Wanted to go to London, with you. I should be there.”

“It’s your fault,” that’s as cruel as you can bring yourself to be towards him.

Even then, it kills you to do so.

“’S half my fault. Joder (fuck),” you can picture him, leaned back in his chair, pinching the bridge of his nose, eyes closed. You wonder how much he’s drank, and if he spoke to any women. Maybe he took one home, fucked her nice and good before dialling your number. “Wanted to give you my answer, too.”

Someone bumps your shoulder on the street, walking past you.

You pay them no mind, vision blurred to the world around you.

“What answer?”

“Where you should visit, Mrs. Bond,” he says it, like it doesn’t send you into cardiac arrest.

You miss the nights like that one, tangled in your bed, smelling him on your sheets and feeling him against your skin.

He’d woken up first the next day, coaxed you out of bed with the promise of homemade pancakes and his head between your legs.

“There’s this little bar in Inslington, called the Distillery Club. The owner, he makes his own gin. You like gin, don’t you, corazón?” You nod, and it’s almost like he feels it. “It doesn’t look like much from the outside. Or the inside, either. But it’s some of the best gin I’ve ever had, in the greatest company.”

You try to picture him, sat amongst friends you’ve never met. Friends who don’t know your dad.

You try to picture yourself, next to him, scooting your bar stool closer to his.

The image doesn’t quite form.

“Want you to go there, get yourself a drink. Tell him Javier Peña sent you, and that you’ve not to pay.”

It’s like he’s given you a piece of his soul. A piece of his history, someplace he’s sought out refuge in his lowest moments.

Refuge he’s willing to share with you.

That tear finally gives way, dropping off your lash and rolling down your cheek.

You wipe it off with the sleeve of your sweater, before anyone can see.

“Promise me you’ll go, corazón.”

Your reply is instant, “I promise.”

“Ok, I’ll let you go,” it’s solemn, regretful, devoid of truth. You almost beg him not to, but that didn’t work last time. “Enjoy yourself, okay? Come home, safe.”

“Javi, I-” the line cuts off, disconnecting before you even finish. “Miss you.”

I’m gonna throw you down the river Your mum can watch it over dinner

“How you feeling, kiddo?”

You startle awake at your father’s voice, eyes heavy with exhaustion.

Before you can give him an answer, you erupt into a fit of coughs.

“Not good,” he grimaces and slowly steps into your room. “Got it.”

Stepping off the plane, you’d managed only one night back in your own bed before the fever had taken over.

All it took was hearing your nasally voice over the phone for your mother to demand you come stay with them.

Just till you’re back on your feet, she’d said, like she ever needed an excuse to have you over.

She’s not quite adjusted to being an empty-nester.

Neither of them have, really.

“Actually,” your tone is matter-of-factly. “I almost smelt something earlier.”

“That’s great, kid!” And he means it, you know he does. Even if his shoulders slump at any sign of you feeling better and returning to your apartment. “Now we just gotta figure out if it’s your sinuses unclogging or your stench just growing more rancid.”

Try as you might to aim the pillow right at his head, he still manages to catch it inches from his face.

“Hey, I’m just saying! You’ve got the flu, you ain’t dying! Could be a little courteous to those who’ve gotta be around you and take a shower.”

“You’re literally in my room!”

“Which is literally in my house!”

Downstairs, your mother yells something unintelligible.

Likely, she’s telling you both to shut up and to quit behaving like children.

Making eye contact, you both can’t help the roll of laughter that comes out.

He steps a little closer, and that’s when you spot it.

Tupperware, clasped in his hand.

The contents are hard to decipher.

Luckily, your father spots you eyeing it.

“Your mom said ya wouldn’t be up for eating much but, if you’re hungry,” he pauses, at the foot of your bed. Tugs a little on the homemade-blanket you’ve had since you were in grade school. You wonder if he remembers making it with you. “One of the guys down at the station made you some stew.”

Your stomach growls, hungry and unfed.

The prospect of a hot, boiling bowl of brothy stew suddenly peaks your interest.

In fact, you can’t think of anything better.

“It’s a family recipe, he said it would cure ya right up.”

He’s popping the lid open, presenting the delicacy before your eyes.

Immediately, you spot chicken.

Some corn cob, a couple lumps of potato, flakes of chilli.

You wish you could smell it, ingest it through your nasal canal and get a taste of it before you even put it in your mouth.

Your father continues, practically talking to himself.

“What’d he say it was called again, ga-sue-lay day ah-vay?”

“Cazuela de ave.”

A change into warmer, drier clothes.

Your hair still sits wet upon your head, but it no longer drips puddles onto his floor.

Thirty minutes it took him to drive from where he’d spotted you, walking soaked upon the sidewalk.

It would’ve only taken him seventeen minutes if he’d dropped you at your apartment.

And that fact is partly what warms your insides.

You watch him, tie discarded and the top buttons of his shirt undone, strutting around his kitchen.

Objectively, you think, he’s gorgeous.

Yet the word somehow doesn’t seem like it’s enough to summarise him, when he’s making his way round to you, two ceramic bowls in his hands and a look of pride in his eyes.

He put his own bowl down first. Sloppy, uncaring, spilling a little of it’s contents over it’s edge.

And then yours. More careful, slowly, both hands guiding it down.

The scent alone is enough to have you salivating.

Warmth and care, all encased in a bowl of brothy goodness.

“It smells delicious,” you inhale deeply, for dramatic effect.

And to get more of that meaty, comfort-food goodness.

Javi sits on the opposite side of the dining table, and you try hard to stop your mind from wandering off to visions of you both sat like this, out in public, in a restaurant.

A real date.

Only, this isn’t even a fake date.

You guys don’t do that.

“It’s- It was my mom’s recipe.”

Frozen in place, you wonder if the shock spills over your face.

He’s never mentioned his mother.

Or much about his family, really.

There’s the occasional comment about projects he takes on at his dad’s ranch, and tid-bits of information you hear across a dinner table that's set by your mother and seated by your father.

But you’re no fool blind enough to not realise the obvious.

A worn-out polaroid in his wallet, his mother smiles brightly in permanent ink each time he opens it. It contrasts her impermanence in the real world, dead and gone long before you became so much as a ripple in the lake of Javier’s existence.

Across the table, he’s relaxed. At ease.

Open.

His eyes, his mind, his heart.

And so you try venturing inwards, test his waters with a dip of your toe.

“Was she a good cook?”

Lukewarm, they appear, when he favours you with a tiny smile, his eyes staring somewhere off in the distance.

“No,” and he laughs at his own admission.

Not just a scoffed out chuckle, or a gesture meant to feign joy.

A full, hearty laugh, that shakes his shoulders and splits his cheeks.

It’s disturbingly beautiful.

You wonder if there’s a life where it could be like this, always.

Javier laughing at his own jokes, you smiling at his visceral joy, plates of homemade food filling the space between you.

“No, she, uh,” he restarts, relaxing a little bit. He wipes under one of his eyes with the back of his palm, a rogue tear breaching his waterline. “She was awful. She burnt every slice of toast she made, and even served an unbaked cake at one of my birthday parties. This dish is actually one of the few she knew how to nail.”

You can picture it, a young Javi, party hat on his head and a cheesy grin topped by rosy cheeks, eating away at gooey batter mix sprinkled in icing.

It’s hard to imagine him complaining, or getting angry at her.

In spite of his reputation, and the career he’s undertaken, Javier Peña is a gentle soul, who nurtures and protects anyone he can.

A modern-day hero, a knight who’s exchanged his shinny armour for form fitting jeans and unbuttened shirts.

“Tell me more about her,” the words are out before you can reel them back in.

Because you like this feeling, and you like this Javi, reminiscing on his late-mother.

“She not only was awful at cooking, but she had the worst coordination too.” It’s like he’s been waiting to tell you this, with how easy he slips into doing so. “She was forever falling and tripping over herself. And her driving, god! Pops used to dig out his rosary each time she’d be out on the field, driving the tractor.”

There’s something intimate about him recalling details so many would see as flaws, whilst he sports the most earnest, heart-wrenching smile.

Like nothing about her was wrong, all of her perfect and angelic.

“She was brave, too. I’d like to think I’m just like her in that respect. She didn’t let anything stop her from doing things she set her heart on, and she never let her inabilities hinder her,” he’s getting a little emotional now, you can hear it in his voice, see it in the lump he swallows back. You stretch a hand across the table and watch as he leans on you for support, fingers interlocking with your own. “There was this one time when I was a kid, I was swimming in a river and got stuck in a current. She dived right in to save me... She didn’t even know how to swim!”

You don’t know what to say.

You opt for saying nothing, silence speaking more than a thousand words.

Give his hand a reassuring squeeze, feel him squeeze back harder.

Your stomach rumbles, but it doesn’t ruin the moment in the way you feared it would.

“Listen to me being a sap and starving my poor lady to death,” still, he tugs your hand closer and plants a kiss on your knuckles. You’re still trying to process the possessive adjective he’d used to address you. My. His. “Eat up.”

Both of you settle back in your seats.

You pick up your spoon, scoop up a piece of chicken out the steaming bowl and-

“Asi no, corazón (not like that, sweetheart),” he spews out, panicking to pry the cutlery out your hand. He ignores the questioning looks you give him. “You drink the soup first, eat the filling after. Like this.”

Leaning over the table, he scoops your bowl up in his careful hands and guides it up to your lips.

When your lips part and rest against the bowl’s edge, he tilts it and you feel it’s warmth invade your mouth.

And then your chest, branching out over your heart, your lungs, your stomach.

Horned-up bias you so often show towards Javier aside, it’s one of the best things you’ve ever tasted.

Like a hug on a gloomy, wet day, all wrapped up inside a ceramic bowl.

You hum, hands taking over his own to allow him back into his own seat, focusing his attention on drinking his own soup.

“Javi, this is...” You trail off, eyeing the small ring of liquid pooling at the bottom of the bowl. One more mouthful and you’ll get your taste of the stew’s fillings. “Amazing. Your mum would be proud.”

Instead of modesty, instead of 'thank yous', instead of bashfulness, Javier smiles, takes another sip from his bowl.

“She would have liked you.”

You stare across at him and find no jest in his eyes.

They’re as open as before.

“Really?”

“Mhmm. She always liked pretty girls smart enough to put me in my place.”

“Kiddo?”

You’re ripped out your own head by your father’s voice and his hand, waved repeatedly in front of your face.

“Hmm?”

“You okay there? I was talkin’ to you but you seemed lost in thought.” There’s a little excitement in you father’s voice as he presses his cold hand to your sweated forehead, the prospect of you still being ill, still needing taking care of, filling him with the relief of keeping you in your parents' home a little longer.

“I’m- Yeah, just tired, s’all.”

“Ok, let me know when you’ve finished your food,” he presses a kiss atop the crown of your head, and you hold back the pointless comment of not risking getting himself or your mother sick. “Need to get the tupperware clean ‘fore I give it back to Javi.”

Your stomach twists and longs for the meal before you, while your heart shatters into pieces you doubt will ever be repaired.

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