mygnolia · 2 months ago
Text
YOU MAKE ME GO CRAZY OVER YOU !!
Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media
୨୧ -› hey, that boy over there..isn't he the most popular student athlete on campus? how did you two meet, anyway?
pair -› jock/athlete! enhypen x fem! reader | wc -› 3.5k (700 per member) | no warnings! | library
Tumblr media
˚୨୧⋆。˚ ⋆ LEE HEESEUNG
im gonna sigh dreamily when i say he’s most DEF basketball captain. 
yes ik i wrote about this in wrong number i dont CARE i will say it with my whole chest 
DORK DORK DORK but cute dork with lethal face card. smirks after making yet another basket and winks at you
age old question how tf did yall meet!!! 
you pass by the gym and some guy on the way stops to talk to you 
like “hey i know you from somewhere”
“yes heeseung we were partners from a project two weeks ago how do you not remember..” 
he’s embarrassed asf especially because he remembers a lot of people’s names
after that he wants to be in your good graces and be friends
totally not because he remembered how you did a lot of the work for said project no complaints!!
and he doesn’t want you to rat him out to the teacher… or tell other people he’s not friendly
‘hey y/n, come to my game? i’ll do better if you’re there :)��� 
you go only because you needed to complete an assignment while you were there at school anyways 
but sometimes you’d see him laughing with his friends, or how serious he is on court and woah, heeseung looks cool for once
you wait for him after because you figured he needed you for something 
“awh, you wanted for me?” “i could be doing much better things.” “awh, come on y/n let’s get some ice cream! my treat since we get to spend time together” 
he’s annoying but you let him tag around because he doesn’t bother you LOL
more under the cut!
drags you along when he practices alone so he can have some company
you like the company and the white noise too
you definitely doubt if he likes you because he is SUCH A FLIRT but no he DOES! he writes a confession on a basketball and ‘misses’ so you can catch it
you pass it back without seeing the message 
but heeseung keeps missing and it almost hits you on the head and you’re like ‘dude you SUCK hello??” he says ‘oh lol maybe it’s the ball” byee why was he smooth with it!!!!
you check the message and roll your eyes 
“if i make this you have to kiss me” you tell him and you’re about to shoot but he picks you up and brings you right next o the next to let you throw it in and then kisses u!!!!
not to be like oh im writing an smau on basketball captain heeseung but.. *tucks hair behind ear* 
most definitely tries to be mysterious and cool when you’re dating 
dribbles in front of you, trick shots, runs up to you when you’re alone, gives you one kiss between ever basket he makes 
teaches you how to play!!!!
ABSOLUTELY lights up when someones mentions you when you two date
“oh yeah my partner in math is ___” 
“omg ___?? the love of my life ___??” 
you lowk have to drag him away i fear 
˚୨୧⋆。˚ ⋆ PARK JONGSEONG 
baseball captain *faints* 
enhypen x mariners and him speaking in english…so you want me DECEASED 
baseball captain jay and you who attends his games because jake aka ur friend on the team knows you have nothing better to do 
“i bet you won’t make it even to five games before buying cotton candy” jake says because you have a MASSIVE sweet tooth 
you tried really hard because $15 and a burger was on the line 
and you kept coming because…well there was a cute captain who always knew how to rally his teammates and get them excited 
also great sportsmanship and was super friendly to everyone! 
definitely got mad when the umpire makes a wrong call 
sharp reaction times. EVEN SHARPER JAW. 
of course you stared! of course you were not paying attention to whatever jake was saying about his test after their game..how could you when jay was doing his lopsided smile as his friend pats him on the shoulder from ten feet away??
one time you come early because they’re practicing on the field and you see jay and jake passing to each other
jay just so effortlessly throwing the ball…oh my god
he’s just so perfect and jake cheers from the sidelines because he knows his captain pays attention to every single person who has stepped foot on the baseball field iNCLUDING YOU
you come up to jake after the fourth game, showing him you still had your $5 and your tongue wasn’t stained with any blue or pink
jay comes over, arm thrown around jake’s shoulder as he waves and smiles to you 
dark hair with a twinge of sweat as he runs a hand through it, pulling it back to place on his cap 
JAY IN A BASEBALL CAP *faints again*
he walks you out to the parking lot and asks what the $5 in your pocket is for because he keeps seeing you pull it out 
you explain your whole bet to him and he nods
next game. before it starts. he gets you cotton candy and makes sure it gets to you somehow 
you smile and you’re all giddy when you eat it because there’s a p.j. on the cap and he’s just so cute 
jake doesn’t say anything he already knows it’s happening between you two. 
jay finally writes on a baseball and tells you to catch, and it says ‘let’s date’ and you grab a sharpie and scribble ‘kiss me first’ 
OH YEAH HE WALKS OVER AND KISSES YOU. 
soon every game instead of cotton candy  it’s his baseball cap when it’s sunny, his jacket when you’re cold, baseballs with notes on them, and roses for his girlfriend aka youuuuu 
jay is such a romantic and he is not afraid to show it 
he orders custom jerseys that say jay/n on the back with the day you got together!!!!! 
BEST BOYFRIEND EVERRRRRR
˚୨୧⋆。˚ ⋆ SIM JAEYUN
rugby player jake but he has dark long hair let that settle in 
campus flirt campus playboy but in reality he doesn’t go on dates and nothing really happens past the smiles, he’s just super popular
you are also pretty well known! a little flirty but super sweet and your charm and how expressive and open you are with other people is what people like!
and he sees you cheering with your friend who he remembers is dating someone from the team
rugby has no gear so he just runs like no tomorrow 
smiling in the sun or determined stare as he talks to his team, you never know 
he yells either in frustration, victory, or defeat, literally will never be silent 
so after a game you follow your friend down to the railing and she has her little moments with her boyfriend 
and you and jake kind of awkwardly stand there for a moment 
he wipes his sweat off with a towel and smiles at you, cracking the ice 
“how long have you had to deal with that?” he points over to them 
you shrug and tell him “however long you’ve been dealing with it” he laughs 
oh wow his smile when he’s right in front of you is just so pretty 
and his little chuckle as he shakes his head and looks back up at you 
‘who do you watch on the field?’ he asks, with a little smirk because he likes you 
‘whoever catches my attention’ you tell him also smiling 
oh its a CHALLENGE. he will make sure to run on the side of the field you’re watching from, winking at you on the field, ugh just everything 
you come to a party at the end of the season to celebrate and he sees you 
“you came!!” super happy and makes sure you are next to him all the time 
“y/n you know the teammates, yeah?” you smile and congratulate them 
he leaves to get you a soda/water and jungwon leans in 
“jake LOVES to talk about you by the way” 
“yeah he always says how pretty you are in the library or in class, he likes when your friend comes because that means you come with her”
heeseung nods, “super into you, no joke” 
jake comes back trying to play it off “who’s into y/n?” 
you poke at his shoulder and smile, “you” and he’s all bashful and giggly 
loves to call himself ‘y/n’s girlfriend’ 
‘sorry, i can’t i have to buy flowers for y/n’ ‘sorry y/n needs me to help her study’ ‘sorry y/n needs a ride here’ STUCK TO YOUR HIP
ofc he doesn’t abandon his friends but he loves spending time with you :3
˚୨୧⋆。˚ ⋆ PARK SUNGHOON
sunghoon’s reputation proceeds him—cold on the court and just as reserved off of it
ugh he’s so annoying, he always has his bag in the same spot as yours and he always is at the water filling station with hos annoying 32oz bottle before you
also hogs that automatic tennis ball throwing machine like how are YOU supposed to practice tennis too 
‘hey i need that’ he furrows his eyebrows and shrugs 
‘i was here first’ ‘what are you twelve????’ sunghoon tells you ‘get here earlier next time then 
oh yeah. for the next week you ran to the courts everytime to get it before him 
one day he sees you and races you to the gates and you beat him 
sulky after as if his career is over
definitely varsity and one of the best, but he never approaches girls after his games
one time you go to a men’s game because it’s one of the most anticipated of the season 
its neck to neck, third set with 40-adv, sunghoon’s serve
he chases after that ball and sends it over, it barely hits the net and tumbles over, AND HE WINSSSS BRAHHHHH 
even if you hate him you will admit that he made the game extremely interesting 
you see his friends congratulate him and you notice that he never gets his clothes dirty 
always wears white to practice—pristine asf 
secretly he loves watching you too
even if you hate him for getting on your nerves some days and almost never doing more than bare minimum, you cannot lie and say sunghoon isn’t a huge inspiration 
just as you are to him 
sunghoon thinks your tenacity and passion for tennis is what makes you so fun to watch 
so even if he has homework, he goes to a game of yours and comes down to the court after the game 
bumps your shoulder after, ‘good game, y/n’ and you’re like ?? ‘you’re here?’ and he’s sooo nonchalant when he says ‘of course, i can’t miss a fun game can i?’ 
there’s a fun mixed doubles tournament for a whole gift basket of things and you come up to him 
‘hey let’s pair up’ and he grins 
you two play each other for practice and you’ve tied the score so many times you’ve lost count
and sunghoon’s a little annoying but oh lord he’s so attrative??? so maybe he wasn’t THAT annoying…
mixed doubles tourney rolls around and oh yeah. you two win.
you know much he likes natto and you say ‘here you take the natto’ he shakes his head ‘no you eat it all the time’
you two bicker and you say ‘fine lets just share it!’ and to your surprise..he opens the package and just mixes it all in 
you two sit and share the natto, then he tells you he thinks you’re pretty cool on court 
you raise your eyebrow cuz where is this coming from!! and he rolls his eyes 
‘nevermind maybe you’re only bright on the court’ 
‘hey what’s that supposed to mean!!!’ you take the natto and eat all of it LMFAO and then he pouts because noo his natto!!!
you kiss his cheek. it’s ok everything is ok now he is a happy boy 
“you’re my match” you write on a tennis ball pin and he keeps it on his bag like his life DEPENDS on it
˚୨୧⋆。˚ ⋆ KIM SUNOO
THE CUTEST VOLLEYBALL SETTER EVER 
i hate to be like oh you’ve had the fattest crush on him for like two months BUT ITS TRUE 
you’re on yearbook and you make an excuse to go see sunoo play!!
you two met when you were at a volleyball game and you told him to smile, but he’s one of those guys who says “wait delete that take another one!!” 
and ofc you agree, snapping a few cute photos of him
he posts to his social media, tagging you with a cute song saying ‘thanks photographer :3” 
and so you it begins, your small little crush on him..
he loves seeing you at his games, always makes sure to wave to you on the court 
hey so setter sunoo is insanely good at what he does 
so graceful when he places a NASTY setter dump on the other team, a glare shot at one of the other team’s members bad-mouthing him, but a glowing smile as he high-fives all his teammates! 
super supportive, and you loveee that about him!! he cares so much about everyone it makes your heart warm 
“here, let’s eat together,” you tell him, and you bring him some noodles you made because he said he was craving some 
he smiles at you and sits down, beginning to slurp slurp slurp and SCOREEE he loves it 
“thanks y/n, let me treat you some time :)” UGH DEAD DEAD 
KIM SUNOO KING OF FLOAT SERVES 
huge smile on his face when it lands where it needs to, he loves that feeling of satisfaction and soaks up all of your praise after his games are over 
he slips out of practice sometimes to see what you’re doing in yearbook, and he’ll take your camera to tell you to smile as he takes pics
someone in your class tells you too to look overfor a photo , so he loops an arm around your shoulders to pull you close and smile 
AND OH EM GEE UR LIKE TOTALLY GEEKING OUT OVER IT HELLO??????/ 
you ask her to print you a copy of it to save in your scrapbook, but sunoo cuts in and asks for another one 
“i like seeing you” DEAD IN A DITCH esp when he smiles at you and then runs off to practice before he gets in trouble
so competitive on the court and it makes him a little sulky when he loses 
“argh i did so bad today” he’d tell you, but in your eyes hello kim sunoo could do no wrong!! and you share your snacks while reassuring him 
he swears tho, “nooo, i had to look cool for you!” and you’re tired of hearing him say and do all of these sweet things and straight up 
“why?” “what do you mean, y/n?” “why do you want to look cool for me?” “well i liked you duh!” 
but sunoo never wanted to confess, he was too scared he wasn’t good yet at showing you all of his perfect bf traits 
WELL HE THOUGHT WRONG!! he’s been perfect from d1 so now he just sneaks in like 40 kisses before every game 
˚୨୧⋆。˚ ⋆ YANG JUNGWON
see so jungwon, he’s been a little FLIRTY as of recently. 
“you like older guys? but im a younger guy with rhythm” WHAT THE FKSCNHDJFD
whatever. anyways jungwon focuses on badminton like it’s a lifeline 
hitting birdies in his sleep would be smth he would do if he could, he loves how aggressive he can be in the sport without moving too much, lots of strategy involved 
you come to one of his games because your friend is on the other team, and you want to cheer him on
but jungwon notices you’re literally from his school?? 
isn’t it weird you’re going to a game for someone on the other team…
so he sets off a plan 
he goes to you after the game before your friend can
“hey, how come you don’t support anyone on our team” so straight to the point help 
and you tilt your head in confusion because “well i don’t know anyone from the team and you’re all scary”
scary??? jungwon makes it his personal mission to debunk that cuz no one is SCARY 
maybe sunghoon but that’s because he’s varsity 1 and the best player within 150 miles but whatever
he makes it his mission to wave to you when he sees you and when he’s sat next to you in one of your classes he’s like yay perf 
“you’re the guy from that badminton game huh?” “is that a good or bad thing” 
you shrug “whatever you want it to be” 
and he asks you to go to his next game but if he wins, you have to support the team and if he loses 
and you stare at him like “wtf do i get out of it” 
jungwon did NOT think about that 
he promises to buy you a snack after 
and it’s free food so you can’t complain 
you two talk more and he finds out you used to play badminton before you hurt your ankle and wanted to focus on school 
so he takes you to practice and gives you one of his expensive rackets
lowk falling in love everytime you laugh and chase the birdie 
jungwon pretends to hate chasing after it but he’ll still hit it back even if it’s out of bounds because he doesn’t want to waste your time picking it up
you two sit down and you tell him how fun it was to be able to play, and how much you missed it from your childhood 
your school holds a small festival where other school athletes go against your team modified lighting rounds 
paired with vendors and fun carnival stands, but the main attractions are always the variety of sports to watch
jungwon is one of the representatives from your school but so is your friend from the other school, so it’s heated when they play
you tie a ribbon around his racket (curtesy of sunghoon for helping you out) and write a note saying “if you do good ill cheer for you” 
AND HE WINS. so you keep your end of the bargain and cheer for him after the game is over, giving him a high five and a hug
he walks with you and asks about what you two are BECAUSE THIS IS A DATE this is date behavior 
“of course i like you won who wouldn’t”
let’s just say he gives u little kisses all over when you two are alone sigh so cute
˚୨୧⋆。˚ ⋆ NISHIMURA RIKI
he’s been on the soccer team ever since he was a freshman and even before, retaining his cute features and mischievous personality 
when you became assistant manager you were scared but your brother heeseung was on the team and your mom told you to look after him at school 
and riki takes after heeseung a LOT when they play and heeseung even goes as far as inviting riki over 
so riki’s super good at soccer by the time heeseung leaves, but he also has this small crush on you that heeseung’s told you about 
you just never said anything because you never had a reason to nor were you uncomfortable with it 
but junior year hits and riki comes back from winter break with pitch black hair all styled 
also…a lot taller than you. and no more baby fat 
and you paid attention to some of it because you saw him for practice, but the hair really did it 
during practice he loves to mess with you saying things like “can you fill up my water y/n pleaseeee” “no you have two feet” “ill win the next game against ____ if you get me water” “i’ll kick you off the team if you don’t win” 
he sighs and gets up, glaring down at you and you try not to let his playful stare affect you, but SOMETHING was different something was in the air
if riki doesn’t play good, it’s because his team manager aka you is NOT there 
you come back the next day to find out he was sulking and didn’t play super well because you weren’t encouraging him
“go run a lap, riki” and HE DOES JUST THAT “go practice on the field by yourself”
“how about you ask me to date you next” he grumbles 
and you HEAR him. loud and clear. 
but you’re like agh what if he doesn’t mean it what if he’s just joking 
at the next game he does super well and you congratulate the whole team 
yas team hybe eats 
you two are getting ready to go home when he finally brings it up
“you heard what i said on tuesday” and you know exactly what he means 
“yep.” “so why didn’t you say anything back” “i didn’t know if you were being serious”
he scoffs “y/n when have i ever not been serious about you”  
he opens your door even if he’s passenger princess 
makes fun of you for how much closer you need the wheel to be to drive
YAYYYY Y/NKI IS REAL
he loves to drape an arm around your shoulder walking around school 
acts as if he’s older when you two are literally the same age HELP 
Tumblr media
reblogs/interactions are appreciated always!
have some shameless self promo for my spiderman!riki fic!
and my upcoming jake fic!
2K notes · View notes
empresskylo · 1 year ago
Text
Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media
➠𝐌𝐃𝐍𝐈; 𝟏𝟖+ 𝐂𝐎𝐍𝐓𝐄𝐍𝐓; 𝐄𝐗𝐏𝐋𝐈𝐂𝐈𝐓 𝐂𝐎𝐍𝐓𝐄𝐍𝐓
ZOMBIE!SIMON 'GHOST' RILEY X AFAB!READER
SUMMARY | Simon is dead. And you were forced to leave him behind as the rise of the dead took over. When you volunteer to sneak back into base to grab med supplies, you don't expect to run into Simon—alive, but certainly not himself...
WARNINGS | dead dove do not eat! this is literally smut about zombie!ghost... so... beware i suppose. gore. dub-con?? afab!reader. wc 3k
⋇⋆✦⋆⋇ lock me up! send me to jail!!! i can't believe I wrote this yes i can. This is how down bad i am for Ghost, I literally wrote smut about fucking him as a zombie... someone send the authorities, i need my internet taken away. (happy oct 1st btw)
𝐜𝐨𝐝 𝐦𝐚𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐭 ✩ 𝐦𝐚𝐢𝐧 𝐦𝐚𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐭
Tumblr media
It had been less than two days since you lost Simon.
The image of him dying in the infirmary wing, bleeding out on the bed, was plastered behind your eyes. You saw it every waking moment and even dreamt of it during the night. You could still feel Soap’s hands squeezing your arms far too aggressively as he dragged you out of the infirmary while you cried out for Simon. You tried to claw your way to him but Soap was stronger than you by a long shot. “We have to get out of here!” he shouted at you over the cacophony of voices, people running around frantically. You let him drag you away to safety, your body limp in his hold, thinking of Simon’s dying breath.
The infirmary had promptly been boarded up, the doors all sealed tight. The breakout had begun a few weeks ago and it only just infiltrated the base. When Ghost had come back, bleeding out after a mission gone wrong, you furiously checked him for bite marks. The relief you felt when you didn’t find any was short-lived. Simon had lost a lot of blood. Too much blood. You could still see it covering your hands the days following like a wraith. You felt like his blood was still wedged under your fingernails even after scrubbing your hands violently in a bucket of water. 
With the infirmary infected and the outside world gone, you had little options but to hunker down in the barracks. There were small hunting groups that would leave base and dare to edge into the city, trying to help people, and gathering resources. Ghost had been in one of those first groups to leave the safe confines of base. You wished you had begged him to stay. Pleaded with him not to go. 
The lights above you flickered, the generator not the most reliable of equipment. You looked across the table to your teammates, trying to keep yourself pulled together. It was only at night that you let yourself feel the pain, crying yourself to sleep. 
“We’re never gonna survive here if we don’t get that medical supplies,” Soap explained. 
“It’s too dangerous, Soap. We have no idea how bad it got in there. We have no way of knowing if all the bodies left behind turned,” Price retorted, pulling off his beanie and running his hand through his hair in nerves. 
“So, what then? We’re gonna send more men off to die, tryin’ to get shit from the city?”
Price closed his eyes momentarily. The bags forming under them showed just how little sleep he was getting. “We can’t risk more men. We’d be sendin’ them to their death, Soap. We don’t have the ammo to spare.”
“We don’t know that. We’re still not even sure if it's a guarantee the dead will change, or if they have to be bit.”
“It’s too–”
You cut the men off. “I can go.” Both their heads snapped in your direction. “I’m just a technician. With everything gone to shit, I haven’t been as much help as you guys have been. I can’t fight. I can’t–”
“No. We’re not riskin’ you,” Soap said sternly. 
“Soap,” you breathed. “I’m the only one here that isn’t crucial to the team. And don’t argue with me. It’s just a fact. Let me go. I can sneak in and grab what we need. I’m far quieter than any of you boisterous men anyways.”
Soap breathed your name. He was worried about you. He could see the pain in your eyes after losing Simon. He was worried this was a suicide mission. And that you wanted that. 
“Let me be of use,” you begged. Soap wanted to argue. So did Price. But you were right. You would be the fastest. And as much as they valued you, the remaining men couldn’t survive here without Soap or Price. 
“Lass, are you sure?” Soap said finally. He wanted you to feel useful, but he didn’t want you running off and risking your life because of the pain you felt from losing Simon. 
“Let me do it, Soap. Please. I need this.”
He couldn’t argue with you. He didn’t have it in him to hurt you more than you were already hurting. 
“Fine. But I’m not happy about this.”
Tumblr media
You stood in your gear, an empty backpack plastered to your back waiting to be filled with medical supplies. Price had gone over the layout of the wing with you, showing you exactly where you needed to go to get the right supplies on a map of the building. 
You stood before the infirmary doors, the ones that would lead to a long, winding hall that would bring you to the center of the infirmary. Off of that were several rooms and more halls, and a surgical floor. It was a large span of space to cover, but you believed you could do this. 
“Be quick about it, lass. We’ll be right here when you get back,” Soap said to you, his hand resting on your shoulder. 
You took in a breath and walked up to the doors that had been unlocked, a large piece of plywood that had previously been nailed against it, removed so you could go in. Before you reached out to the door handle, you turned around and rushed into Soap’s arms. He held you tightly, your head tucked right under his chin. “Don’t you fuckin’ die on me,” he mumbled into your hair. 
You pulled back and gave him a sad smile. Then you nodded at Price and faced the daunting doors again. Once you stepped through the threshold and the doors shut behind you, you could hear the plywood being put back up, a hammer nailing it in place. When you got back, you were to knock and Soap would be there waiting to let you back in. 
The hall was flickering with a few overhead lights, the generator still powering a few of the rooms in this wing. 
Tumblr media
Ghost had a glazed-over expression when he rolled off his medical bed. The room around him was silent apart from the ticking of a clock in the corner. There was blood pooled all around him and dripping onto the tiled floor as he stood. He had some semblance of who he was, of what happened, but most of his thoughts were hazed over like he was stuck in a daydream. 
He had walked the length of the room, a sudden craving for food hitting the pit of his stomach. Any sound made him snap in that direction, rushing towards it as if on cue. He heard banging coming from one of the med rooms, the door locked and nailed over with whatever scrap of wood they could find. More people like him were trapped behind those doors, their groaning echoing down the hall. 
Ghost limped as he walked, remembering how he had been shot in his leg. He looked down at his crimson-stained pants, almost like he should be feeling pain, but he felt nothing. 
Days had passed and he roamed the halls aimlessly, not even getting bored. His mind had drifted off, somewhere that wasn’t in his body, allowing him to walk around like a zombie, completely void of any logical thought. 
He grumbled as he made his rounds, stuck in a time loop, walking down the flickering hall again and again, passing by bodies that had been left behind. 
He hesitated when he heard something. He turned to look in the direction of the noise, intrigued. It sounded like someone had just walked blindly into a metal medical tray, knocking instruments onto the floor. His movements were fast and nimble as he approached the sound. 
He froze in place when he saw you–though he didn’t know who you were at that moment. You cursed yourself for being loud but didn’t hear anything in retaliation so you figured you were safe. Your hand rested on the knife strapped to your hip anyway.
You were edging towards the main infirmary double doors, your hand touching the metal of the handle. You should go in there and get supplies, but that’s where you had last seen Simon. You didn’t have it in you to see what had become of him, his body rotting alone. 
Instead, you walked down the hall and into a storage closet, oblivious to the shell of Ghost who trailed behind you. 
You left the door to the storage room open to let in a few strips of light so you could see better. You hunched over and began to dig through the supplies that had been thrown all over the floor in panic. 
Ghost rolled his neck as he saw you in the room, your back to him. He had a sudden urge to sink his teeth deep into your skin, to tear you to shreds. In fact, he wanted nothing more; the instinct was overpowering. 
But when he got close, he could hear your voice as you mumbled to yourself, going over the list of the items you needed. You held up a pack of linens, trying to see if they were clean. “These will have to do,” you said softly, shoving them into your backpack. 
A wave of familiarity surfaced inside Ghost, a strange feeling of being alive pumping through his veins. When he got to the doorframe, he could smell you. His senses heightened, the waft of your natural scent sent Ghost into a daze. He remembered—though he wasn’t sure what he was remembering. All he knew was that he recognized that smell. 
His body had felt like it was in hibernation, his motors set on autopilot as he mindlessly walked down the halls. But suddenly, Ghost’s true mind was brought to the forefront. And his body craved you, though not in the way he had just moments earlier. He didn’t want to sink his teeth into your neck, he wanted to feel your warmth against him. 
Ghost moved with such dexterity and silence, it was clear he was no longer human. When you stood, his arms immediately wrapped around you, eliciting a scream from your throat. 
Ghost still wasn’t fully comprehending what was happening; all he knew was that his body wanted you. His hand slid up around your neck, leaving a trail of blood on your clothes. He tried to speak, but he couldn't fathom what he wanted to say. All that came out was a strangled groan. 
You sputtered, trying to catch your breath as your heart raced in your chest. Ghost felt for your pulse beneath his fingertips, relishing in the way your blood pumped through your body. 
You turned your head slightly, spying the man who had you trapped against the many shelves in the closet.
It was Simon.
Terror flooded your system. He didn’t look like himself. His eyes were glossed over, his pupils and iris almost unidentifiable, the entirety of his eyes were white, appearing like he was blind. The blood that had soaked his face had congealed, the rusted color running down his clothes where he was shot in the chest and leg. He looked just how you left him, and it sent a sense of terror through you. 
“S-Simon?” You whispered, unsure if you were caught in a nightmare. 
A groan escaped his cracked lips. You gulped. He had become one of them . 
You were certain he was about to tear you apart, just as you had seen other fallen men do to your teammates. You closed your eyes, tears rushing down your cheeks as you prepared for the worst. His hands felt cold around your neck, like ice. You shivered against him. You accepted your fate—a small part of you actually wanted it. You wanted him to end you. To take you down with him. You didn't want to be alone anymore.
He nuzzled his nose against your neck and you squeezed your eyes shut, preparing for him to bite you. But it never came. 
Instead, he just moved his nose against you, smelling your hair and skin. His hands were still locked tightly against you, but they began to travel across your body. You opened your eyes in shock. Ghost’s hands trailed your chest, groping you with one hand, the other sprawling over the front of your thigh and stomach. You gasped in surprise. 
You felt him harden against you, something you had experienced many times before now, and the familiarity of it made your heart pound with mixed emotions. Your mind was too caught up trying to decipher what was happening to truly take the moment in. 
Ghost’s cold hands slid under your black shirt, snaking their way up to your breasts, cupping each one in his hands. Your nipples immediately hardened from the iciness of his touch. He ground himself against your backside, making you close your eyes in a moment of reprieve. You got lost in the past, imagining this was how it used to be. How he had touched you so many times before. 
You breathed his name and he seemed to like that, for he rolled his hips against you harder, his chest rumbling in satisfaction. 
The cold of his hands left you, making you oddly yearn to have them back on your skin. His fingers traced the hem of your pants before aggressively pulling them down. He got them past the curve of your ass and turned your bodies so your hips hit the edge of a shelving unit that acted as a table. You knocked all the supplies off as Ghost pushed you down against it, using your hands to catch yourself. 
Ghost shuffled with his own pants, wasting no time at all to slip himself inside you. You called out in a brief shock of pain. He held himself deep within you, his hands squeezing as he held you, his body bent over slightly, his chest flat against your back. Your own hands reached out to grab the edge of the table to help steady yourself. The searing heat of you against his frozen skin spread through him like wildfire.
Your cries ignited a flame in Ghost’s chest—the feel of your body, the sound of your gasps, the smell of your hair—felt natural, like this was exactly what he was supposed to be doing. That he was made to take you like this. That your body against him was something so ingrained in his system, that he had no choice to to let his limbs move on muscle memory. 
He began to thrust inside you, your hips hitting the table with each snap of his hips. His hand snaked around your neck, the smear of blood now coating your skin. One of your hands came up to wrap around his wrist, resting it there in support. 
You groaned as he rocked into you harder. The pain from his sudden intrusion had subsided, and now you were filled with a haze of rapture. A tear slid down your cheek. You were unable to process what was happening, but what you did know was that you had missed Simon more than anything and that this wasn’t real. This wouldn’t last longer than this moment in time. 
Ghost’s chest rumbled in pleasure as he thrusted into you. Your walls squeezed around him and he let out a loud groan. His arm not clutching your neck wrapped around your midsection, pulling you away from the table so you were flesh against him. He held you tight, almost like he couldn’t get you close enough. That if he had his way, he’d let you make a home beneath his skin. 
His hips snapped vehemently against you, his pace quickening. You moaned, your sounds coming out strangled as his cold hand held your neck. Your walls tightened around him, your climax rapidly approaching. You couldn’t quite believe that you were not only fucking your dead boyfriend, but you were going to come in record time. 
You were absolutely intoxicating to him as your warmth clenched down on him, your heat something recognizable to him, and yet, the intimacy was foreign at the same time. Now that he was devoid of his usual body temperature, the warm feeling of you around him was almost painful. 
When you mewled and cried under him, your walls spasaming, he drew himself to the edge right behind you. Ghost came inside you with a great urge, growling in your ear as he tried to support the two of you. You felt him fill you, the white fluid seeping out around where his cock continued to pump in and out of you. His movements became sloppy, your legs shaking, your hand clutching onto his wrist for dear life. 
You couldn’t hold back the cascade of tears, finally letting them flow as Ghost slowed his pace before stopping altogether. He edged out of you, his arms hesitantly letting you go, and you immediately turned around to face him, burying your face in his chest. You sobbed as he stood there. His arms didn’t reach out and hold you like he once would. He didn’t try to comfort you like he always did so well. 
But still, he just let you huddle against him, taking what you needed from him. He didn’t attack you. He didn’t try to kill you. He wasn’t himself, but he wasn’t fully gone either. You turned to look up at him, resting your chin on his chest. He looked down and you stifled a cry. His white eyes were going to be permanently burned into your mind, haunting you for eternity. His face was sullen and blanched, blood smearing all across him; fresh blood dripping slightly from his mouth.
You tentatively reached a hand up and rested it on his frozen cheek. “I’m sorry,” you mumbled. Ghost made no indication he could even hear you. 
You took in a deep breath, willing yourself to do this, and stepped back. You adjusted yourself before slowly reaching down for your bag. Ghost stood and watched you, the only thing moving was the tilt of his head as he traced your movements. 
You shuffled to the door, anticipating him to reach out and end this daydream, ripping you apart. But he just watched you go, his mind riddled with foggy thoughts. He wanted to tear into you, but another part of him prevented him from doing so. He wanted to grab you and hold you against him for some reason. He liked the warmth your body provided. But another part of him felt nothing at all. 
He watched you leave in a stupor, his mind just barely grasping onto the image and memory of you. It’s true, he wasn’t completely gone, but he was fading fast. 
You cried violently as you stumbled back to the exit. When you banged on the doors, you heard the plywood being ripped off and the doors swinging open. Soap pulled you back into the base and held you at arm's length. “What happened?” he asked desperately. You were sobbing and covered in blood.
Should you tell him? Would Soap let you return to Simon knowing he wasn’t gone? Or would they make you stay here, letting Simon slip away forever? 
You suddenly regretted leaving him. You should have stayed with Simon, even if he was a shell of who he used to be. You should have waited the time out together until he fully lost himself, and you would let him take you down with him. 
7K notes · View notes
maxlarens · 4 months ago
Text
53) holding the other’s jaw + logan
this is to make up for what i wrote last night viv hope u like ittt 😋🫢😌 @coff33andb00ks
Tumblr media
You meet Logan “oh, I drive race cars” Sargeant in a dive bar in Austin, Texas and you don’t know if you have the heart to tell him that you’re in Austin specifically for the Grand Prix.
It’s cute that he assumes you don’t recognise him, it’s even cuter that he tells you he drives race cars and then assumes you still don’t know he’s an F1 driver. It’s a little sad maybe— especially when Oscar Piastri and Jack Doohan are sitting in a booth across the room, trying and failing to take surreptitious glances at the two of you. But you’re trying not to think about that, probably as much as Logan also is right now.
You’re leaning with your back up against the bar drinking a vodka whatever, he’s standing in front of you. Ostensibly in line to get a drink, but he hasn’t stopped talking to you since you almost bowled him over trying to get back to your friends. There’s no drink in his hand that’s for sure, just an empty beer glass that he’s bringing back. You think that’s unbearably sweet— well, no, actually you think that’s hot.
You’re not the kind of person who’s into Formula One for the drivers. You’re into it because instead of watching football games like every other all-American family did, your dad used to sit in front of the TV every weekend to watch twenty men drive around a track. You’d grown up on the sport; the roar of the cars before they hybridised them, old-school turn names, fiery crashes ending in tragedy, the blood sweat and tears of teammate rivalry. Your dad complains that the sport has changed too much— but still he puts the races on every weekend.
You try to watch the sport for the cars, for the racing, but at the end of the day, you’re not immune to a cute guy. You follow most of them on Instagram (except the drivers you hate), find yourself smiling at promo videos and liking pictures that have nothing to do with the sport. Your dad is annoying about it, but you don’t care.
You especially don’t care when Logan Sargeant is smiling something crooked at you as he tells you he’s here with his friends. You nod, looking where he’s pointing, where you’ve already seen Oscar Piastri and Jack Doohan, you laugh a little, giggle really, and you lean toward him.
Deliberately.
“Yeah,” you take a sip through your straw, maintaining eye contact, “I know who you are, Logan.”
He goes red immediately. Pale cheeks turning a very pleasant colour. You lick your lips, lean back against the bar. He blinks his sparkling wet eyes at you, mouth gaping like a fish out of water for a moment before he snaps it shut and scrubs a hand across his stubbly beard.
“Oh— I—”
You wave his shock off, barrelling on to avoid anything awkward for him, “Sorry, should’ve told you.”
“No,” he shakes his head, apparently desperate to make it fine, to make it okay, “You’re good. I just— I didn’t expect someone so—”
He trails off, trying to start the sentence again. But you’re intrigued, very intrigued.
You cut him off, not rude, just insistent, leaning forward into his space, “What was that? Finish your sentence.”
His eyebrows go up in a flash. The blush on his cheeks grows a little more prominent. He’s biting down a little on a smile, on something.
“I—”, he flounders for words for a minute, you give him that minute in silence but you’re staring at him, a little fiery, a little intense, “I didn’t expect someone so,” he stops, whines something a little desperate, quiet enough that you’re not supposed to hear it, “cute, I guess. To know who I was.”
“You guess?”
He nods, slowly. Getting braver as he leans past you, deliberately getting in your space to put his empty glass on the bar behind you. You’re trying not to smile, you’re biting down on the inside of your lip so the biggest grin you’ve probably ever grinned can’t split across your face.
“Yeah, I guess.”
This is how you end up in a dark corner booth with Logan “oh, I drive race cars” Sargeant. This is how you end up making out with Formula One driver Logan Sargeant. You’re halfway in his lap, your legs a weird tangle as you try to fit yourselves into the space. But you’re hardly thinking about his knee digging into you or how you’re slipping off the seat every five seconds because Logan’s got a hand buried deep in your hair and another on your waist. His hand splayed against your back, a few fingers touching the bare skin at your hip.
He tastes like beer and ketchup and he kisses you like he’s starving. It’s slow, it’s deliberate but the slip of tongue and the way your mouths slide against each other is intoxicating. Makes your head feel fuzzy.
You’ve got a hand on the side of his jaw, the crook of your thumb hooked on his ear, fingertips pressing into his neck, the base of his skull. He tries to pull away from you— ostensibly to breathe, to say something. But you’re a little desperate, chasing his mouth and bringing your other hand up to his jaw to drag him back.
You feel him laugh a little into your mouth.
“What?”, you mutter, eyes closed, still kissing him, "Finish your sentence."
“Nothing,” he shakes his head, you feel his mouth move against yours as he speaks, hot breath fanning across your jaw, “Just. Do you maybe wanna get out of here?”
And this is how you end up in Formula One driver Logan Sargeant’s hotel room.
Tumblr media
this is probably the most bordering on nsfw content that i will venture to in my writing just a heads up for people:)
1K notes · View notes
eloves-writes · 3 months ago
Text
feeling’s mutual
[max verstappen x reader]
Tumblr media
desc: max overhears his teammate having some alone time in her driver’s room, and can’t help himself knocking on to see what she’s doing
warnings: swearing, masturbation (f+m), mutual masturbation, implied age gap, dom!max
a/n: this came to me like a prophetic vision. just kidding, except not really bc i wrote this so fast. it’s like 2am and i need to sleep, but i hope you enjoy, requests open as always (!!), comments and reblogs are so so loved and appreciated (just like you!). mwah mwah mwah ily
this work contains mature themes, minors do not interact
——————————————————
the first practice session had been rough; you were new to redbull after getting promoted from f2 mid-season, and you weren’t quite getting used to the car as quick as you’d hoped. pair that with some subpar upgrades and you’d been left in the middle of the time sheet, whilst your teammate had topped the board like always. to make matters worse, your boyfriend, a fellow f2 driver, had dumped you when you moved up and the sexual frustration was started to grate on you too.
luckily, you’d managed to weasel your way out of media commitments and strategy meetings between the two practice sessions and had some time to kill two birds with one stone and attempt to release some tension with your trusty vibrator. it came in a carry case that made it look completely unsuspicious in your handbag, and after a quick check outside your driver’s room to make sure nobody was lingering, you took it out and began to undress from the waist down.
for some reason, the image of your teammate came to mind as you turned the toy to its lowest setting and placed it against you. the way his hand would linger on your waist when he spoke to you, the feeling of him pressed up against your back as he tried to move past you in a crowded garage, your tits on his chest through the fabric of your suits on the rare occasion he hugged you. even his voice, that dutch accent, and the anger in it when he came back to the redbull suite after a bad session.
quickly, waves of pleasure were sent through your body and you turned up the vibrator to the next intensity. god, he could be so insufferable sometimes. complaining about podiums because he didn’t win, moaning about every interview he had to give as if he wasn’t the reigning world champion. and he was older than you, not by too much, but enough that the thought of him fucking you made you wet with a sort of dirty lust you didn’t feel with men your own age. as you started to really feel good, you let out a small, breathy whimper that wouldn’t have been heard by anybody, except that max himself was in his own driver’s room beside yours listening closely, practically with his ear against the wall.
he’d heard a quiet, mechanical whirring as he scrolled through his phone, and thought nothing of it- a common sound to hear at an f1 track. it wasn’t until he really listened, and noticed an accompaniment of heavy female breathing that he realised the direction the sound was coming from; your room. his younger, beautiful teammate who he could never touch, but could perversely rake his eyes over whenever you wore something tight, short, or low cut. admittedly, he felt like a bit of a creep thinking of you in such a way whilst you were doing nothing at all sexual, but this was different. he could listen. and it wasn’t his fault, really, that he could hear you. and it really wasn’t his fault that he could hear you moan his name, and that his legs seemed to be taking him out of his door and towards yours.
you didn’t mean to say it out loud, it had just slipped out, but the sound of it painfully turned you on so you tried it again and found yourself coming closer to the release you’d been craving so badly. you whispered it again, ready to bring yourself over the edge, before being so rudely interrupted by a knock on your door.
“shit,” you whispered, fumbling to turn the vibrator off and find some pants. you’d left some sweatpants on the floor and quickly pulled them up, hopping over to your door. you opened it to be met with the face of the man you’d been fantasising about. your cheeks involuntarily blushed a crimson, ferrari red.
“max!” you started, trying to act normal. how the fuck did you speak to him again? “what’s up?”
that definitely wasn’t it. max smirked, raising an eyebrow to look beyond you and to the sofa you’d been laying on moments before. “just checking you’re ok,” he spoke slowly.
“yeah?” you replied as fast as you could. “why wouldn’t i be ok?”
he chuckled softly. “i … heard something. thin walls.”
your face dropped again. you scrambled for something to say, an explanation, but max beat you to it.
“can i come in?”
you nodded slowly, letting him into your room and closing the door behind him. you felt sheepish, stupid for not keeping yourself quiet. you couldn’t look him in the eye, despite where your mind had been wandering previously.
“did you finish?” he asks, not struggling at all to make eye contact like you were.
you didn’t know what you expected him to say, but it wasn’t that. you stayed silent, trying and failing again to think of a response.
“i asked, y/n,” he repeated himself, “did you finish?”
his expression was not one that you’d seen on him before, and you found yourself shaking your head. “no.”
he took a seat in the chair opposite the sofa. “go on then,” he dared. you looked at him like he’d just asked you to rear end him on the track on sunday. “show me what you were doing. i want to watch.”
stunned into silence once again, your hands operated separately from your brain and pushed your sweatpants to the floor. you lay back down on the sofa, taking up the same position as earlier, and picked up your vibrator that you’d promptly shoved behind a cushion when he’d knocked. he didn’t look away once, his eyes darting from your face to your wet cunt between your open legs. you placed the toy against you once again and switched it back on. it felt so much more intense now, both from how close you’d been before and from max watching you. he didn’t say anything as you started to rhythmically move your hips in response to the vibrations, but slid a hand into his pants to stroke himself in time with your movements.
the orgasm came back to you quickly, and as you moved faster so did max’s hand on his cock.
“say my name, schat, like you did before.”
your eyes flickered over to him before you obliged without the confidence you’d said it with when you were alone.
“no, no. look at me,” he demanded. just the sight of him stroking himself, watching you get yourself off, made you moan his name again, properly.
“good girl, that’s better.”
that earned another moan from you, making you cum and release onto the sofa with a whine of pleasure. max finished himself almost instantly, spilling into his own hand. you passed him a tissue, but he shook his head.
“for your …” you said, confused.
he offered his palm out to you, covered in his release. “clean it up, schat.”
if he wanted to play it that way, you could play too. you held the bottom of his hand, and sat your still wet and naked cunt over his thigh before fixing your eyes on his and licking his cum from his hand.
“that’s cute,” he said sarcastically. “now there’s a wet spot on my jeans, looks like i’ve pissed myself.”
you shrugged your shoulders innocently and hopped off him, pulling your sweatpants on again.
he stood up and stepped towards you, towering over you. he tilted your face up to his, and leaned in. “we’ll see who’s laughing when i make you sit there again tonight. i’m not done with you yet.”
555 notes · View notes
leah-lover · 6 months ago
Text
Two hearts, one timeline. Alexia putellas x reader
An age gap romance. Part 2
Tumblr media Tumblr media
“ We are delighted to introduce you to this young star. She is a 2 time world cup champion, the youngest ever to achieve that. A 2 time NWSL winner. A final’s MVP and just overall an inspiration. Welcome to the show.” said the reporter next to you. The studio was quiet and all you could hear was your heart beating in your ears. This wasn't the first time you were on TV but you were uncertain about the way the news you were about to deliver is gonna be perceived.
“ Thank you for having me.” you respond with a smile on your face.
“ After your recent NWSL win you were the talk of the sports world. Everybody is interested in whether you are gonna resign with your club or not. What do you say to those questions?”
“ Well I am sad to say that I will not resign with Seattle but very excited to say that a team I have been dreaming of joining has reached out to sign me. I have signed a 4 year contract with FC barcelona.”
“ Oh my god, that's exciting. Tell us how you feel at the moment.”
“ Well, I am very excited,but sad to say goodbye to my family in the states and at seattle. I think this challenge is gonna help me develop as a footballer and learn new styles.”
“ Well, we wish you good luck.”
“ Thank you.”
You exit the studio and the weight of the secret drops from your shoulder. You were gonna leave your home for a more competitive team and a shot at the chapion’s league.
Your move to Barcelona was smooth. You celebrated your run at your old club with the girls, took your flight the next day and landed in sunny Barcelona, the weather was as great as they all said. You then went directly to your new apartment. The time zone change weighed heavily on your body so you took a shower immediately, put your sheets in your new bed and laid down as soon as you could. You then opened your phone only for it to freeze due tha new messages and followers you received. You could see all the comments and messages your new teammates wrote on your post congratulating you on the signing and wishing well for you. This made you excited for your first day tomorrow.
When you woke up the next day you were nervous to say the least. You got ready, called a taxi and headed to the facility. You first got a tour of the facility which was empty because it was early. You met as much staff as you could, did your fitness and health test, a photoshoot, and shot some content. By the time you were done your teammates were done training too. You were ushered by the assistant coach to go to the field and meet everybody.
Your heart was beating like a drum. You were standing next to alexia putellas, aitana bonmati, lucy bronze, and mapi leon. Those people are more experienced and have more accolades than you.
“ Everybody please welcome our new signing from the US.” said your coach which caused all of them to start cheering.
“Hola a todos. Estoy emocionado de ser parte de este equipo, compartir el campo con todos ustedes y ganar algunos trofeos con ustedes.”
“Joder, hablas español y tus estadísticas son buenas, nos llevaremos muy bien.“ said patri putting her arm on your shoulder and guiding you inside.
“Si ella hablara catalán habríamos sido mejores amigas.” said aitana sarcastically.
The rest of the day went on great, you had lunch with the girls, you laughed with them, and exchanged stories. They welcomed you very well.
“ for a young girl you really carry yourself well.” said lucy
“ I had to grow up quickly.” you respond to her.
Your first month at Barcelona was amazing. You got on with the girls really well, training was going well, you had your first start within 2 weeks of your arrival and the fans were really happy with you after your first hattrick in the last match.
“Necesitamos celebrar tu primer mes exitoso con nosotros estrella.” said mapi while you were recovering in the gym. Estrella was the Spanish translation of the nickname the fans gave you when you were getting famous, which was stargirl. That nickname was used by everybody you knew, even the press. But from them it sounded different.
“ Yeah sure, just text me the details.” You responded.
You then went home, showered, and rested. You then got a message from the group chat.“ La terrazza. 8:00.”
Since they went there to celebrate you, you decided to show up and show out. You decided on a black maxi dress, heels, gold accessories, and a red lip.
You drove to the club and got there at 8 sharp. You went inside, and headed straight to the bar to order a drink. The girls started coming little by little, and by a few hours you were all jammed up dancing in the middle of the dance floor. However, your captain didn't join you; she instead opted to watch from the bar.
Alexia has been quiet and reserved around you. Maybe she didn't like you or maybe she was just a quiet person, you never really thought about it before.
“chicas voy a ir al baño.” You yell so that you can be heard over the loud music and exit the dance floor.
Surprisingly the bathroom was empty. You got your business done and went over to the mirror to fix your makeup.
“Parece que te lo estás pasando bien aquí en Barcelona..” said a voice from behind you which took you a minute to realize it was Alexia 's.
“ Capitana I am too drunk for Spanish right now.” You respond still facing the mirror
“ You look good. I mean happy in Barcelona.” She said nervously.
“ Well that's because of you and your friends out there. Actually it was more your friends than you since you hate me.” You respond l, alcohol making you braver than you usually are.
“ I could never hate you. I just can't control myself around you.” She says half whispering. “tengo que ir.” She added before she exited the bathroom.
“ This is definitely something I need to visit tomorrow when I am sober.” You say to yourself before joining the girls again. You were told that Alexia left which caused you to have more questions but you didn't give it much thought. You partied more with the girls before leaving.
Your head was pounding the next morning but you couldn't remember anything, only that you had a great time.
The following weeks were nothing short of spectacular. You were training well, winning every game, scoring every game, and you really built a community with the girls. But Alexia was giving you more space than usual which you couldn't understand why.
Jonathan could see that Alexia was cornering herself away from you so he decided to pair you with each other on everything under the excuse of her giving you more experience since she was older than you. She didn't talk when she was near you, she barely even touched you. This caused commotion in your brain. You lost sleep over why she despised you so much.
One day you had enough of the questions in your brain so you waited in the locker room knowing that she wouldn't come to it to avoid you. You stayed there af-ter all the girls left. After a while alexia entered the locker room
“ Have I ever done anything to offend you?” you ask as soon as you see her figure.
“ Mierda, me asustaste, pensé que no había nadie aquí.” she said taking a few steps back
“ capitana please just give a straight answer. What have I ever done to you?.”
“ We talked about this and my answer was nothing, the problem is in me.”
“ when did we talk about this i don't remember anything.”
“ that night at the party now will you please leave so that i can change and go home i am really tired.”
“ Alexia, this is eating away at me. All I want is for us to be friends or just teammates. Tell me what I did so that we can get past it.”
“ You did nothing, just get over it. You have plenty of friends.”
“No puc fer això ara mateix, és massa jove i hauria de proteger-la de mi” she whispers in catalan and leave without looking at you.
You didn't understand catalan but it was close to Spanish which you were fluent in so when you heard her words you could remember them easily. After she left you reached for your phone and translated her words. “ I can't do this right now. He is too young and should protect her from me.”
Alexia’s words shocked you. You felt dizzy and couldn't focus. You never realized that alexia could have anything for you except hate. You loved her and admired her for the player and person she is. You looked up to her kind heart and intelligent brain. But no matter what you thought about it you needed her approval, her attention, and her focus to be on you as much as you were on her. That's why her distance from you left you puzzled.
You knew that you couldn't stay like that, not when your brain was filled with questions that needed answering.
You left the training facility, and headed straight to Alexia's house.
Before knocking on her door your knees were weak and your brain was quiet. She opened the door mere moments later.
“ What did you mean by protecting me from you?” you asked as soon as she opened the door.
“ What are you doing here?” she asked.
“ What did you mean, alexia?”
“ i don't want to talk about this.”
“ well i do it's the only thing i have been thinking about.”
You force your way inside and she closes the door after you
“ You are not this passive aggressive. I know you. I heard alot about you. This thing you are hiding from me is killing me.” you say to her once she is in front of you.
“ Believe me when I say that I am protecting you.”
“ it's not your choice capitana. What are you protecting me from?”
“ I am protecting you from my feelings for you god damn it. We can't be together and that is all I have been thinking about. I have been thinking about you, your body, your laughter, your eyes. It’s driving me insane.” she yells as she slams the wall behind you.
You weren't shocked, you managed to keep your calm. You held onto her hand which was still on the wall. You backed up a little bit and didn't say a word.
“ this can't happen, you are 23, i am 30. I am older than you. I outrank you in the team. I just…”
“ i dont care.” you interrupt her still holding on to her arm. “ capitana i dont give a fuck. I want you. I need you. Do you want me?” you add.
“More than you'll ever know.” she whispers.
The air was still. The tension was high. You feel your body unintentionally move towards alexia. Your face was millimeters away from her you could feel her breath on your lips. You somehow got brave enough to kiss her. The kiss cut short because she pulled away.
“ please capitana i want this. I want you.”
She then kisses you deeply. Her need for you was apparent. She took control of all of you, not just your lips. She picked you up and walked towards her bedroom all while kissing you. She then threw you on her bed.
“ Are you sure estrella.” whispers
“ I never wanted anything more in this world.”
787 notes · View notes
doromoni · 3 months ago
Text
Not Over the Papaya | OP81
Tumblr media
⊹ 。•┈꒰ა ♡ ໒꒱┈• 。゚
Ships : Oscar Piastri x Popstar! Reader , Ex!Lando Norris x Popstar! Reader
Genre : Fluff Smau
A/N : I wrote 2 chapters worth of material today … but imma make y’all wait for tomorrow 🤠👹
Face claim : Jennie Kim
Warnings : Moderate Cursing
Summary : Y/N and Oscar cope with their own breakups by making the Heartbreak Club.
Masterlist | Series Masterlist
< Previous | Part 3 | Next >
Tumblr media Tumblr media
*message sent
Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media
Notification : You received a message from Oscar
Tumblr media
*Incoming Call from Oscar
Pick up or Decline
Pick up
“Hi Osc”
“Hi to you too. You sound so sleepy”
“Yeah, I didn’t get that much sleep on the plane.”
“I told you to limit your coffee intake. I’m not there to stop you , you gremlin control yourself”
“I know I knowww”
“So why’d you wanna call? You should sleep”
“Its just weird that I’ve gotten to see your face practically everyday since last month and now I wont see you for like 2 weeks”
“Well we both work very hectic jobs, so that would be expected. But yeah ~ i’ve gotten used to your presence”
“ Hey Osc… Is it weird to say that I already miss your voice? “
“Only my voice?”
“Well your voice is like Jake Sully y’know.”
“You and your Avatar obsession . And I do not sound like Sam Worthington”
“Who??”
“The guy who voices Jake Sully”
“Ok but how do you know that?? I don’t even know that at the top of my head. I just like Jake cause he’s hot”
“I know that because you forced me to watch blue people run and swim for 10 freaking times!”
“Well you made me watch Cars with you on repeat!”
“You also loved Cars! what do you mean?”
“Ok, I do but that’s besides the point”
“What is your point dweeb?”
“ My point is that I miss you already”
“Well I miss you too”
- Hey Osc, is that Lily? -
“Hey I’ll be back. Lando’s talking to me. Don’t hang up, alright?”
- What? No. We’ve broken up , I’ve told you that -
- I thought I heard a girl’s voice. Is she your new fling? -
- I dont do flings Lando -
- Whatever you say mate -
“Hello? are you still there?”
“Helloooo?”
“You’ve dozed off huh. Sleep well dearest”
Y/N.
Tumblr media
liked by oscarpiastri, y/bf, logansargeant, and others
Y/N. Florida I love you but you’re too hot. Rehearsals are brutal! 🤠 send jake sully thirst traps pls
Y/N. Whaaaaa who said that?
oscarpiastri Youre so weird.
Y/N. Because having a crush on a blue car isnt??
logansargeant Its not weird to have a crush on Sally tho
charles_leclerc I support my son’s tastes. Crushing on Sally is valid.
Y/N. But me having a crush on a giant blue man is not???
oscarpiastri nope. thats weird Y/N
logansargeant nope. thats weird Y/N (1)
charles_leclerc nope, thats weird Y/N (2)
Y/N. ugh i h8 the patriarchy
Y/bf Y/N your glowing babeeee!! So excited for Floridaaa. Im catching myself a cowboy 🤠. (and ur Jake Sully crush is so Valid!!)
Y/N Babe give me a call, your pass is still with me! ( RIGHT? The blue man is hot)
Y/bf That he is, but I think orange suits you better 😘 liked by oscarpiastri
oscarpiastri you are so right @Y/bf but its actually papaya 🤓
Y/bf stfu Oscar, im making u a case here 😤
user1 I dont know what to freak out about??!! Y/N adding another day to her concert sched or Oscar being in Y/N’s comment section and CLEARLY being flirty.
user2 Sir that is your teammate’s ex 😮‍💨
user3 Well lando did cheat … so eff the bro code or smth like that— i dunno im not a guy
user4 we can freak out about both!!! YES MY SHIP IS FREAKING FLOATING (it aint sailing till oscar confirms his breakup)
user5 Y/N becoming more unhinged by the second
user6 Y/N looks like she’s becoming better and happier 🤍 we love to see it.
user7 Enjoy your time Queen!
User7 Y/N in American soil is built different
User8 We see that like Oscar 👀.
oscarpiastri 3mins close friends
Tumblr media
story replies
charles_leclerc do you like Americans now? well its very plausible since Logan’s American.
oscarpiastri Are you insinuating that I like Americans because of Logan?
charles_leclerc Yes, exactly that.
oscarpiastri NO.
logansargeant I knew it! Western always winssss 🤠🦅
oscarpiastri Why am I not surprised.
Y/N. Ohhhh whos the hot chick? 🤭🫣
oscarpiastri 🙂‍↔️🙂‍↔️🙂‍↔️
oscarpiastri I dunno you tell me
Tumblr media
Anyone interested to be added to the taglist? Drop a comment or DM me!
Series Taglist : @champagneproblems17 @itsjustfranzi @cheriwritesig @forza-charles @awritingtree @sltwins @gr1mes-cc @hwalllllllelujah @btsfluffsworld @tillyt04 @landotd @booksandflowrs @czennieszn @thatsouthernblondewiththeass @tellybearryyyy @wobblymug @alittlechaotics-blog @bingussthirdtoe @mirrorball-6 @demandealalune @heartsforleclerc @yoongi-holland @maneskin-slave @alenix @forensicheart @bloodyymaryyy @stereading @hahahjej @youre-on-your-ownkid : closed
Maintaglist : @myescapefromthislife @peterholland04 @charlottef1 @fangirl125reader @mel164 @gnarlycore @chloelovesln4 @vickykazuya @merchelsea @ln4author @qzmef @nxk1309 @styl1shl1v @lottalove4evelyn : closed for now
782 notes · View notes
marigoldendragon · 2 months ago
Text
Y'all I wrote fanfic. This damn game man. Re-writing my brain I swear. Floyd Leech x GN reader.
Floyd feels good. He’s at a basketball game and his Shrimpy is there to cheer him on. Sealie too but he doesn’t care as much about that.
Except he looks up at the stands to see far too many people looking at his Shrimpy in a way he doesn't like. Floyd no longer feels good. The smile fades from his face.
He’s on his best behaviour today though, he wont beat anyone up. He can’t get benched, he needs to be able to show off. And then one of the people with the far too friendly eyes lean in to smile and laugh with Shrimpy.
He can’t beat anyone up. But he still leaps up the stands, weaving in between the other people until he’s standing before his Shrimpy. Shocked gasps and disgruntled noises coming from the crowd turn into laughs and whoops as he leans forward to give Shrimpy the biggest kiss he can. Disgusted noises come from Sealie as he cups Shrimpy’s face, deepening the kiss. They taste so good.
Shrimpy’s looking a bit dazed as he pulls away. The far too friendly eyes are no longer friendly. He grins a large sharp-toothed grin and turns his long legs to getting back down to the court.
His coach is yelling at him, his teammates are rolling their eyes. He doesn’t care. He made his point. Floyd is feeling good. His Shrimpy is there to cheer him on.
Tumblr media
420 notes · View notes
leilanihours · 3 months ago
Text
Tumblr media
# YOUR LOVE IS A SECRET I'M HOPING, DREAMING, DYING TO KEEP
pairing: nika muhl x teammate!reader
word count: 896
warnings: none !
summary: apparently azzi and nika are with their..."boyfriends"
⭑ from lani: i hate how i wrote this but i was inspired when i was rewatching this live (go to 12:00 for the part im talking abt)
masterlist !
YOU SCROLL AIMLESSLY on your phone with your back to the wall as your teammates chat with viewers on some tiktok live.
every now and then, you shift your focus to kk's phone that was propped up on ice's side table, replying to light-hearted comments and laughing along with the girls.
your attention, however, was divided as you waited for your girlfriend, nika, to text you back. she had gone on a post-dinner starbucks run to get cake pops for herself and caroline since they had apparently been craving them all day.
the brunette had just texted you saying they were on their way back to the dorms, to which you replied that they should hurry back since it was getting dark out.
while waiting for her response, you directed your focus back to the livestream in front of you, where kk and ice were talking about what they should do with their hair.
"how yall feel about me locing my hair?" kk asks the viewers.
"loc journey!" ice jokes with over-enthusiasm.
you all playfully side-eye the girl on the bed in a moment of silence before returning to answering questions in the chat.
you decide to continue scrolling on your phone, as none of the comments were interesting or appropriate enough to read out loud.
"'azzi and nika are with their boyfriends'" you hear kk read quietly, "prolly," she answers.
your ears practically perk up at the mention of your girlfriend. you register the sentence, the words "nika" and "boyfriend" put in the same statement sounding foreign.
you lift your head to gaze at kk after she goes out of frame to silently laugh at both you and paige, nika and azzi's "boyfriends."
you feel a smile slowly creep onto your face at the secret, as you look over at paige who is also trying to hide a similar grin.
she turns around to look at you with a knowing smirk, one that you shared once you caught her eye. the room is pretty much silent other than kk's breathy laughs before ice tries to switch the topic.
"where's yanna?" she asks with a laugh.
you all giggle at her poor attempt of a transition, all equally amused by whatever just happened. comments are now flooding in after the viewers analyzed the suspicious exchange between the group.
user1 yall saw that look on y/n and paiges face??
user2 "boyfriends" as if p and y/n arent right there 😭
user3 bfs my ass 💀
user4 u guys dont know anything, stop assuming!!
user5 theyre so painfully obvious omg
user6 the boyfriends in question:
"look what you did kk," you laugh quietly, referring to the flood of comments about you and paige acting weird.
"shut up, y/n," she defends jokingly.
"you-" your retaliation is cut off at the sound of the front door opening.
"we're back!" you hear a familiar voice yell.
realizing that it was, in fact, your girlfriend's voice, your head snaps to look into the living room, where nika was now sitting down on the couch with her godforsaken cake pop.
you smile brightly at the girl despite her not noticing your presence yet. not wanting to leave the live so abruptly (even though you practically wanted to sprint over to nika) you try to smoothly make your exit with a swift goodbye.
"okay, bye guys, i'm gonna go to sleep now, but i'll see y'all next time!" you say to the live with a peace sign.
after a chorus of "goodnights" from your teammates, you quickly make your way out of ice's bedroom and onto the couch to sit with your girlfriend.
"hi baby," you greet as you cuddle into her side.
"hi, love," nika giggles at the feeling of your kight kisses on her neck.
"i missed you," you mumble.
"i was only gone for like twenty minutes," she laughs.
"twenty minutes too many," you argue, leaning your head on her shoulder as she scrolls on her phone.
you both watch a few tiktoks, pointing out some funny videos and simply hanging out in the peaceful environment of the quiet living room.
all was fine until a video of the livestream you were just in pops up on nika's "for you page." it was a clip of the suggestive moment between you, paige, kk, and ice at the mention of azzi and nika.
your girlfriend allowed the video to play, her curious mind wanting to watch the interaction play out.
"was this tonight?" she asks, looking down at you.
"yeah.." you answer nervously.
"y'all are funny," she grins.
"you're not mad?"
"why would i be mad? you didn't confirm anything and the look on your face is hilarious, so..."
"i mean, they thought you were into guys, i had to laugh at that!" you defend playfully.
"shut up, y/n," she laughs, "oh i need to send this to azzi!"
"she'll probably kill paige, i'm not gonna lie," you point out.
"probably," nika agrees.
you two spent the rest of the night giggling at stupid memes and watching the most random videos, entangled in each other's arms.
you loved moments like these, when it was just you and her, simply existing together. you weren't doing some extravagant activity or focusing on keeping a huge secret from the in public. you were just...y/n and nika.
— leilani signing off ! 📁
446 notes · View notes
cherry-leclerc · 1 year ago
Text
the red high heels ☆ cs55
genre: humor, secret relationship, leclerc!twins
word count: 1.9k
It's 2am and Charles is desperate to find you. Who better to help look for you than his teammate?
req... guys, i literally wrote different versions of this request at least 5 times...anyways, hope you enjoy a quick one :)
Tumblr media
Groaning, Carlos stands up from his bed, making his way to the door. It’s 2 am and he was far too comfortable until he was rudely interrupted. Opening the door, he sees a despaired Charles, dark under eyes evident. “Charles? Are you okay, man?” His voice is raw and croaky almost. His teammate shakes his head, then nods.
“Fuck, it’s just that…my sister. Mate, I don’t know where she is.” Hearing this, the Spaniard narrows his eyes, all of a sudden awake. 
“What do you mean you don’t know?” 
“Well, I checked her room, I called her and nothing. We’re supposed to be leaving for the airport in an hour!” 
Carlos stays still for a moment. “Okay, I’ll help you look for her, she can’t be too far out. She’s not like that.” The Monegasque nods slowly before beginning to slump his way into the room. Carlos sprints after him.
“Oh! Um…How about you wait outside? It’s just that the room is so messy.” Turning his gaze, he points to the spotless room. Charles frowns. 
“Carlos, this has got to be the cleanest room I’ve ever seen in my entire life.” He scrunches his nose before waving his hands in his teammates direction. “Hurry and put on a shirt so we can leave.” With tight lips, he nods. He’s slow about it too, the way he makes his way to his suitcase. Opening it, it’s empty. He slightly curses himself for being too much of a neat freak that he just had to organize his clothes into the small closet. “Some girl kept your shirt?” Charles' smile is teasing as he sends over a playful wink. Carlos winces.
“Of course not! Just have to…” He points over to the closet that is on the other side of the room. He pats his face. “You know what? I think I’m going to put my shoes on first! I’ll be quick, if you want we can meet outside.” 
“It’s no big deal. I can wait. I mean you are helping me after all.” The brown eyed man wants to yell when a kind smile tugs at Charles’ lips. Get out, get out, get outttt. 
“Of course.” Leaning down to grab his Golden Goose under the bed he takes a deep breath. His heart is beating so fast, he thinks it might leap out of his chest. Charles is talking, but all is unclear as Carlos reaches down. He quickly relaxes when he finds his shoes. He lets out a shaky breath.
“Oh no. Is your age getting the best out of you?” Charles snickers as Carlos grunts before sitting beside him, slipping on his shoes ever so slowly. Charles is growing impatient, he could tell. This was good.
“So, um, where do you think she is?” Carlos questions as he unties his other shoe. Charles hums.
“You know what? I have a feeling she’s not that far…Twin telepathy.” The broody man rolls his eyes as Charles shares a thoughtful glance. He laughs. “Call it what you want, but that shit exists.” 
“I bet.”
The green eyed boy furrows his brows at Carlos’ clumsy fingers playing with his laces. He desperately huffs. “Do you need help or something?”
“Almost got it…” The white strings become undone for what seems the millionth time before he finally gets the grips of it. Bravo, Charles mutters. 
“Coming back to what you were saying, what do you mean by twin telepathy?” Carlos stands up making his way to his empty suitcase again but Charles doesn’t even seem to notice as he becomes entertained by his bracelets. 
“Oh, well, it’s real. I feel like she can’t be that far. How else do you think I would win at tag when we were younger?” He raises an eyebrow over his teammate. He continues with a now moody face. “Though, something else tells me she’s with someone, y’know?” Carlos chokes as he turns to face Charles. I don’t, he squeaks out. “It’s just that I’ve had this feeling that she might be seeing someone from the grid. I told her not to and she said she would never, but I don’t know why I could never really believe her. Plus, she’s oddly been attached to her phone a tad bit too much.”
Just then Carlos’ phone rings. They both shoot their eyes to the bright light that shines in the middle of the messy bed sheets. Reaching out, Charles grabs it before handing it over. You should probably answer. Hastily, he takes it. 
Get. Him. Out.
He coughs as he slips his phone into his back pocket. “Hey, why don’t you start looking for her without me? I swear I’ll be out in a minute.”
“I don’t know where else to look, I’ve tried everywhere! Just hurry so we can brainstorm ideas. I swear to God when I find her-” A light thud echoes the small room as he cocks his head to the side in attentiveness. He raises his hand to his ear. “Did you hear that?”
The Spaniard immediately goes to rub his elbow. “I just hit my arm, that’s all.” 
“Be careful, mate.” He stands up. “Okay grab your shirt.”
“Mierda. I can’t find it.” But that's a lie because just a couple of feet behind Charles, it lies. Right next to a pair of red heels. Charles' eyes roam the room with a slightly annoyed expression before spotting it. Picking it up, he pauses. When he turns around he wears a toothy grin.
“Oh shit! You have a girl over! That’s why you went all shy!” He picks up the heel. “That’s crazy. Looks just like my sisters. Girls just have the same taste these days…”
Carlos quickly grabs the shirt from him before snatching the heel back too. “I-I didn’t–I mean I did, but she left! She must have forgotten her sh–” The words tumble past his lips so fast that he doesn’t notice how Charles’ expression has dropped.
The red high heel could have been anyones, true, but not everyone had your initials at the bottom. He knows since he was the one who had gifted them to you as a birthday present. You had begged for months.
“Hope you shut up now that you have them,” he says as you smile down at the designer heels. You nod happily. 
“I promise I’ll take care of them, Charlie! So sweet, I mean, you even added a nice detail!”
He’s fuming, but he’s also confused. “You motherfucker–”
“It’s just a shoe, mate!” Carlos' voice cracks in nervousness as his teammate strolls his way over. The Monegasque quickly grabs Carlos’ collared shirt as he pushes him against the closet. His body thuds as he groans. 
“Where’s my sister?” His harsh glare doesn’t equal his tone and that scares Carlos just a tiny…lot. 
“I don’t know! Let’s go look for her!” He tries to pry Charles’ hands off, but this only makes him push him back against the wood, harder. He cringes.
“Stop lying.” When Carlos looks down and doesn’t respond, he doesn’t think twice as he starts to bang his body against the brown doors. It shakes so much that the closet starts to get slightly unbalanced. And then…
It tips over.
Reacting quickly, Charles swiftly pulls Carlos away as they both fall onto the floor. The closet falls with a loud thud as they both gasp. But Carlos is quick to try to lift it up. “Calm down, it’s just a closet-”
“Fuck you, your sister is inside!”
Charles’ eyes go wide as he runs over to help his teammate. Finally, once it’s stood up correctly, they open the doors in a hurry. You moan as you rub your head.
“You both are so fucking innsufferable.” Your eyes are screwed shut when you reach your arm out for help. Your boyfriend is about to help you but your brother beats him to it. He leads you to the bed as you curl into a ball. “Oh God, I think I have a concussion.”
“We should take her to the hospital,” Carlos says as Charles bites down onto his nails. He agrees. They care, of course they do, but they’re not smooth about it.
“You grab her head and I’ll grab her legs.” Charles instructs as Carlos nods. 
“No!” You sit up straight as you crawl further away from them. “I’m fine.” 
“Amor, you should get checked out-”
“I don’t like that nickname. Stop it.” Charles mutters as he crosses his arms. You ignore him.
“Seriously, I’m fine. All your clothes saved me.” He lets out a sarcastic laugh as you giggle. Charles can’t help but glare at both of you.
“Okay, since you’re feeling well, then we should leave. Now.” 
“No.”
His gaze sharpens as you cuddle your legs to your chest. “Stop being a brat. Let’s go.” He reaches out for you but you only kick his arms away. I’ll leave with Carlos, you bicker back. “Just shut up. Let’s. Go.” He reaches out to grab your legs as he starts to drag you towards him, but you’re kicking and screaming so loud that he lets go to cover his ears. He almost loses it when you run over to Carlos as you hug him like your favorite teddy bear.
“You can go. I want to leave with Carlos.”
He clicks his tongue as he places his hands on his hips. He taps his shoe. “Listen, say goodbye or whatever you want, but you are not going anywhere with him.” You shake your head. Carlos sighs as he places a kiss to the top of your head.
“I think he’s right.” 
I don’t need your help controlling my sister, Charles wants to warn him but he doesn’t when he notices you deflate, furthermore. “No, I want to stay with you. I can deal with him later.” The Spaniard unties your hands from his waist before he leans down to place a kiss on your cheek.
“No, you should listen to your brother.” You know he isn’t breaking up with you, but perhaps a bang to the head has you slightly sensitive. Tears slowly fill up your eyes.
“Do you not want me anymore?” Your voice is small and he wants to punch himself for causing so much confusion. He’s about to say, you know I always do, but decides not to answer when he looks up at Charles, who stands by quietly.
“I…”
Charles awkwardly clears his throat as he twists his heel. You muster up the dirtiest stare possible as you say, “What do you want now?” He winces at your tone as he exhales in defeat.
“You can stay.” You narrow your eyes as you let out a wobbly smile. Are you serious? He nods as Carlos smiles at him in thankfulness. “But we spoke about this so many times, didn’t we? I always warned you that relationships like this take lots of taking care of, that's the main reason why I was always so against it, never because I didn’t want to see you happy.” His eyes flicker to Carlos, who’s attention remains on you. 
“I know that, but I don’t care. I’m willing to learn.”
“I know you are. And you.” He points sharply at the Spaniard. “I can’t believe you went behind my back! That’s my sister!” Calm down, you plead. “You know what, we’re twins, so I hope you think of me when you kiss her-”
The room goes silent as you stare back with wide eyes. Once a single giggle is let out, a string only follows as you hurl over laughing. “That’s so wrong!” Charles blushes.
“Forget I said anything, just…Be careful and treat her right.”
Carlos bobs his head as he hugs you from behind and you lean into his touch with a glow Charles has never seen on you. 
“I swear to God I will always do that.”
2K notes · View notes
lucyandalexiafan · 4 months ago
Text
Hopeless | reader x Alexia Putellas | part 1
Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media
Summary: you’re alone, even though you were part of the Barça team, you were alone. You thought being part of it meant feeling supported, liked, maybe even part of a family, but that wasn’t the case.
Warnings: angst (and fluff in the end)
Words: 4.4k
It's thanks to @muffinpink02 that this fic is seeing the light. When months ago I wrote the first part I was scared to send it to you because I thought it was boring or repetitive, but, from the beginning, you supported and hyped me during the writing process, suggesting ideas and correcting them every time I sent you even just three sentences. I'm so grateful you helped me so much 🫂
You had never really felt part of something.
Of any group.
Of any friendship.
It was as if the people around you found their people, their friendships, their relationships, but not in you.
You were motionless, with nothing and no one.
Football had been a good relief valve.
A tool useful to not think about it.
To not think about how lonely you felt.
About how everyone seemed to treat you as extra, as not necessary.
About how everyone seemed to exclude you when you were least needed or at the first opportunity.
It had been painful at first, you cried and wondered what was wrong.
Why did it always happen?
And it happened in football too, with every team you played for.
With the boys from the team when you were just a kid, who included the other girls but not you; with the first girls’ team and with the first youth teams.
You always seemed to be extra.
To be too much.
You felt too much.
Except on the field.
On the field you were good.
You were really good at football.
You had poured out every bad thought, anxiety, resentment, and self-hatred on the field, chasing those balls and perfection, trying to achieve the best possible performance and the best teams.
The possibility of changing cities, maybe countries, pushed you to play better and better. The hope of finding your place, the hope that that place was elsewhere but findable, had driven you to give your all.
And this had paid off when the Barça talent scout contacted you.
Your parents didn't care much, you were of age, you could do what you wanted. So shortly after, you boarded a plane to Barcelona, a suitcase of clothes with you and many hopes.
But it had been difficult.
Your young age had mainly put you in contact with the youngest of the team, but they seemed so carefree and spoke so little English that you felt out of place.
With the older ones, you were out of place because what did you have in common with them? With the great Alexia Putellas, with Fridolina Rolfo, what could you possibly have in common? They were so perfect, and talented.
So over time, you ended up isolating yourself, reveling in the same loneliness that had always accompanied you, in that awful but familiar feeling of not being in the right place.
You lived alone, so you could drown every tear in the pillow every time you came back from training. You could cry undisturbed at any time of the day, every time you saw your teammates' stories of them going out together and not being invited, having dinners and not being invited.
It was an endless whirlwind you had fallen into. You isolated yourself by refusing any contact, always feeling like too much, and people stopped trying.
In the end, you were good at football, your performances were excellent, and you behaved perfectly during training. What more could they want from you?
Maybe you had hoped that, seeing how they were all so closed off, they would include you, they would fight harder to help you and include you.
But it hadn't happened, or at least you hadn't experienced it that way.
You had spent Christmas alone in Barcelona and so was New Year's Eve. No one to celebrate within your hometown, no one to celebrate with in Barcelona; your parents traveling who knows where happy not to have to spend money on you anymore.
You had burst into tears, into a panic attack, a few days after training started.
Everyone talked about their holidays.
Family dinners.
Family games.
Friends reunited.
New Year's parties.
You avoided those questions, avoiding the conversations as soon as holidays were mentioned.
What were you supposed to say?
You would have just seemed pathetic, lonely, useless. You already felt that way, you didn't need them to know.
Then, the umpteenth time they tried, they managed to ask you what you had done during the holidays.
You lied.
You said you had gone home and everything was quiet.
Then, as soon as lunch was over, you ran out of the room and took refuge in a small gym in an isolated spot in the sports center.
You put on your headphones and started punching the boxing bag.
The music in the headphones and the tears on your cheeks.
Why weren't you like them?
Why was no one with you?
Why were you so alone?
You were wasting so much time of your life because of loneliness that it almost felt like living the same days over and over again.
The same identical routine, the same cycle of actions, every day, all days.
You collapsed to the ground, your body flooded with sobs, your throat contracted by moans of pain.
You felt pathetic, there on that floor crying over a fate that seemed to be yours, crying over a plot already written.
Then the door of the room had opened and you had stared at it in fear.
Alexia and Mapi had entered, a sigh of relief escaping their mouths when they recognized you.
"You're here! Dios we looked for you everywhere! Do you know what- are you crying?"
You huddled against the wall.
Her angry tone, that angry captain's tone that you had only heard once in the locker room, terrified you.
If you were already insignificant to the team, what would happen now with her that is mad?
You tried to please her, to at least feel accepted by her.
You shake your head as you stand up, your hands immediately wiping your cheeks.
Mapi takes you by the shoulders.
“What happened? Are you injured?"
You shake your head again, you move in an attempt to free yourself from her grip.
The only thing that mattered to them about you was football. It was that you could play, that you made the right passes and the perfect assists.
What did they care about how you really are?
"Then why are you crying? - you try to leave, to get away - No, stop! I said stop!"
You freeze in place, eyes fixed on the floor.
That low, angry, warning tone, almost daring to challenge her.
"Now you tell us why you're crying."
You looked at her.
Should you tell the truth?
Admit to the two of them what you really felt?
That storm of dissatisfaction and sadness?
That feeling of loneliness and apathy that hung over your life?
"Can you hug me?" You whispered looking at her, tears covering your eyes, in an attempt to receive, at least once, the love you were seeking so much.
Mapi's arms wrapped around your body without hesitation. Her strong arms held you close to her, your cheek against her shoulder, your hands gripping the edges of her shirt, tears wetting the fabric at shoulder height.
"I'm sorry" you whisper "I'm pathetic."
Mapi hugs you again.
"Don't say that, it's not true. Do you want to tell me what's going on?"
You bite your lip, your eyes now fixed on the window.
"I didn't spend Christmas and New Year's Eve at home, but in Barcelona."
"Did your family come here? Why didn't you-"
"Alone, I don't know where my parents were and I had no one to celebrate with."
There's silence.
An embarrassing, humiliating, silence.
You feel even worse.
Even more pathetic.
Even more stupid.
Why did you admit it?
For what reason -
"What do you mean you had no one?"
"I don't have friends" you answer flatly.
It was true.
You had no one.
"You could have asked us, we-"
"What? Would you have taken a burden like me to celebrate with at your home? - you laugh sarcastically - Don't lie, you're indifferent to me. Whether I'm there or not doesn't change anything for you, just like it doesn't change anything for anyone on the team."
"Don't even think about it" Alexia's voice is dangerously low "You matter to the team-"
"Oh yeah? I see it. You go out without me, you don't care about me, I'm useless if not on the field."
Silence.
Deaf, powerful, silence.
What could they say to deny what you said?
It's true.
They go out without you.
They have fun without you.
They party and celebrate games.
“Listen - you close your eyes to Alexia's voice - I'm sure the situation isn't-”
“Have you saved my number in your contacts? - she looks at you, her eyes widening - do you see it? We've been playing together for months, we're in at least three WhatsApp groups together, and you've never saved my number. Why should you? Like I said, I don't matter, why would you ever feel the need to contact me? And I'm not talking about social media, following me on Instagram or anything, but my phone number, and you're my captain, aren't you?”
You shake your head frustrated.
You know you could pay the consequences for this behavior in the future. You're yelling in the face of Alexia Putellas, your captain, in front of another person. Alexia has made your teammates run entire training sessions for far lesser things than this lack of respect.
Maybe you don't care.
Maybe you want her to make you run because it means that someone, somehow, noticed you.
You leave the gym, leaving the two women completely still, thinking.
After that discussion, you went to that room for another technical meeting. As always, you sat at the back, a notebook on the desk and a pen in hand, pretending to be attentive and the chance to keep your head down.
A part of you had hoped that by talking about it, by angrily spitting out how you felt against them, they would do something.
That they would take a step towards you.
That they would include you.
But it didn't happen.
As usual, at the end of the first part of the technical session, you went to get a coffee from a coffee machine, in complete loneliness, and no one approached you.
You went back inside, and sat at your desk, headphones in your ears, until you resumed the meeting.
You usually put your phone on "Do Not Disturb,"
You usually put your phone on "Do Not Disturb," trying to convince yourself that the lack of notifications meant you were unreachable, but in truth, no one was looking for you.
No one wrote to you.
No one invited you out.
You left it on without "Do Not Disturb" all day.
You obsessively checked your phone for any pretext.
The time.
The schedule of university classes.
Exam dates.
Training times.
Making sure that the next day was a day off.
Anything to try to find a notification.
But nothing.
Complete silence.
Had you been wrong to shout how you felt, to open up for once?
You had been pathetic, you knew it, but you couldn't stand this feeling anymore.
This feeling that eats away at you from the inside.
Of this acid that was melting you from the inside.
You couldn't live it anymore.
So you had hoped that by opening up things would change, but, like that day, the next one there were no messages.
No notifications.
No calls.
You had locked yourself in the house.
The fetal position on the bed, the nausea that closed your stomach.
How could you have been so stupid?
Why should they ever do anything?
You had remained curled up since you woke up until dinner time.
Nothing at all.
No notifications.
No calls.
The only time your phone rang, you jumped up on the bed.
The hope that someone had contacted you, the hope of counting.
The hope that what you had done had made sense.
But it was the Barça staff warning you that there was no training the next day.
For the rest, nothing.
No sound filled that emptiness of the apartment, of your body.
Yet you couldn't stop looking at the phone.
Hoping to receive a message, a call, or a like on social media.
Anything.
Any sign.
You fell asleep like that, motionless and in the same position as when you got up.
The emptiness inside that had engulfed you and the whole apartment in a black hole of sadness, resentment, nausea, and fatigue.
What was wrong with you?
The next day you forced yourself to get out of bed, make coffee, and eat something.
Anything to feed that exhausted body.
You struggled to swallow the food, to chew it, to tolerate its taste.
Everything bothered you.
Every taste made you want to vomit.
Every sound irritated you to the point of plugging your ears.
The emptiest, most useless, days of your life.
The bottom that you had finally reached. You had crashed into it, actually, with such an impact that it didn't allow you to move even a finger, not that you wanted to, move it.
The next day you forced yourself to get up, knowing that you had to reach the sports center to go to the airport to play the match.
You didn't want to go there, you didn't want to leave the house, you didn't want to see anyone, let alone play.
But you forced yourself to put on the usual Barça tracksuit that you once were excited to wear and to pick up the bag, the apartment keys in the other, and close the door's house behind you with a dry sound that echoed in the empty corridor.
Had it always been so empty?
You got on the bus with less strength than you had at the end of a strenuous match.
You sat in the same place, always alone and always near the window. The feeling that, as always, no one would sit next to you was strong, it exploded in your chest like your desire to cry, to scream that you were hurt, that you didn't want to continue to live in this way.
And so it had been.
No one had sat down.
On the opposite side of the pair of your seats were, as always, Marta and Caroline. You avoided looking at them, because this would have meant contemplating their silent and shy love, their reserved way of showing love.
Their intertwined hands.
The barely hinted smiles.
The shared headphones.
It was too much.
That love so sweet, so reserved, was too much to observe from afar, from the outside.
It seemed so unrealistic for you, for your life, that seeing it come true for someone else burned inside, wore you out.
Then you had arrived at the airport, got on the plane and got off. Someone from the staff had sat next to you, but no one to whom you attached much importance.
"Okay, the rooms are doubles."
Your nightmare.
The thing you hated most was the double rooms.
You wanted to cry in the shower, groan as the water ran down your cheeks and along your chin, and lean your back and head against the wall in an attempt not to suffer too much from the sobs.
Double rooms prevented you from having that privacy, that vital space, during away matches.
Those matches that until the first week, you had so excited about, so wanted to play, but which now had turned out to be just your worst nightmare.
A mixture of anxiety, anger, and sadness.
“Lucia and Maria, Ingrid and Ona.. you two seem to be the last - Jona had said, the tone almost bored, as he gave the key to your room to Alexia - The rules for away games are the same, double rooms or not. Please.”
Alexia had clapped her hands telling everyone to go to the rooms.
You had followed her with your head down, the whole team in front of you and you behind her. She seemed relaxed, her pace calm and her shoulders relaxed, one hand holding the trolley handle, her hair tied up.
You entered the room, she first, and you followed.
“Which bed do you want? - you look at her silently hoping she expresses a preference - you usually sit facing the door, so I suppose this one is better because from here you can see it”
You stare at her.
Wide-eyed.
How does she know?
When did she notice?
“So? - she chuckles - Is this okay?”
You nod cautiously, hesitantly, looking at the bed. A part of you thinks she'll sit on that one, telling you that she'll take it then, that she'll do it to punish you for what happened.
But she moves to the other one and puts her suitcase in it.
You look at her confused.
"Are you not taking off your backpack?"
You blink a couple of times, getting out of your thoughts and moving towards yours, turn your back to her, and lay it on the bed. 
You don't know what to do. 
You hear her opening and moving things around. 
How many things did she bring with her? 
Usually, when there are double rooms, they put you with someone from Barça B, what do people like her do during away games? 
Does she go to bed early? 
Does she eat in her room after dinner? 
Does she watch a movie? 
How should you behave?
"Hey - you turn abruptly - it’s okay for you if we talk?" She asks, her voice cautious. 
You don't answer. 
You just look at her. 
Talk about what? 
How she'll get you out of the team? 
How pathetic are you? 
Talk about what?
She sits on her bed slowly, legs crossed, hands on her feet. 
You are standing, arms along your body, hands open on your thighs. 
You both remain silent. 
She looks at you, trying not to show it, but she's nervous, she's agitated. 
You already want to leave. 
Turn towards the door and exit from this room. 
The claustrophobia explodes, and the air seems not to enter your lungs.
Months ago you would have jumped for joy knowing you would share the room with her, with Alexia Putellas, two Ballon d’Or and one of the best players in the world.
You wouldn't have been able to contain your excitement at the thought of spending time with her, even if spending time alone with her. 
Now all you want to do is disappear, to escape as far away as possible from her.
"Where do you want me to sit?"
"Wherever you want, on your bed or mine - you look at her, not knowing what to do - Why don't you sit next to me?"
You nod hesitantly, even though you know it's a rhetorical question. 
She moves towards the headboard of the bed, legs crossed. 
You sit down facing her, legs crossed, hands on your thighs. 
You don't look at her. 
You feel her hesitate, sighs that seem to suggest several times that she tried to say something but stopped before making a sound.
"Have you ever been to the Canary Islands?" - you shake your head - "Perfect, what do you think about going out for something to eat together?"
You look at her, eyebrows raised in surprise.
"Cap-Jona said that... the rules are the same and we can't go out," you respond hesitantly.
Why is she asking you? 
Does she want you to break the rules? 
Does she want a reason to kick you out? 
Does she want a reason to punish you, to get back at you for three days ago? 
You clench the fingers of one hand into the other.
Why is she doing this? 
What does she want from you?
She shrugs. "Being captain has its advantages - she smiles a bit cocky, a bit hesitant - No one will find out, I promise," and she moves her pinky towards you.
You look at her confused. 
You understand the reference to "Cross my heart," but you can't believe she's actually doing it. 
It's also a bit comical, the great Alexia Putellas moving her pinky toward you, swearing that no one will find out if you break the rules. 
Never in a million years did you think it was possible.
She withdraws her hand, palm against her thigh. "I know a good place that does street food, you know, fish and chips but also burgers, and they also do vegetarian food and I know you're vegetarian. If you feel like it, we can go."
Her voice is hesitant, and calm, her posture stiff.
Should you trust her? 
Not that you have many options and you would do anything to get out of this room, out of this hole surrounded by four walls that you're forced to share with her. 
And outdoors she can't do anything to you, right?
You nod hesitantly. "I'd like that."
Almost a whisper, a faint combination of timid and frightened words.
She smiles.
"Do you have casual clothes? Like a hoodie and pants - you nod - Great! Then put them on and let's go."
You watch her as she stands up.
Do you really want to eat with her? 
How long has it been since you went out with someone? 
You feel the tears in your eyes as you dress. 
You put on a simple shirt and baggy jeans, an attempt to hide, to not be visible. 
Are you really that alone?
Probably yes, you can't remember the last time you went out with someone. 
That you did something other than going to training, games, or grocery shopping. 
Why is your life so empty?
If you didn't work, would you have opportunities to leave the house? 
Reasons to do it? 
People to do it with?
You try to think about it, to think about the last time you went out because you wanted to, because you had to meet someone, but your mind is empty. Your thoughts run through the narrow paths of the labyrinth of your memories, but nothing refers to outings.
You close your eyes.
You can't cry.
Not now.
Not with her.
Not now that maybe you're going out with someone.
Not now that someone has invited you out, has asked you to do something together.
No matter the reason, you know she asked you to talk about what happened, but at least you'll do something together.
When was the last time you ate out with someone?
Has it ever happened on occasions other than team or class dinners?
You bite your lip and walk to the bathroom.
You wet your face with cold water, the vain attempt to freeze the sadness, the anger, the bitterness.
How to erase it?
How can you stop these feelings?
You're wasting your life.
You dry your face, almost scraping it with the towel, almost wanting to scrape away that feeling, that self-hatred.
You leave the bathroom with your head down, still doubtful that Alexia really wants to go out with you breaking the rules.
"Ready? - you nod - Perfect, then let's go."
You put your phone in your pocket and follow her out the door, she closes it and then swipes the magnetic card on the lock.
Are you really going out together?
Is this really happening?
Where's the trap?
"Shall we take the elevator, is this okay for you?"
You nod, your voice seems to have disappeared, left in the room.
She hesitates, looking at you, then turns to the right side of the corridor and walks towards the end of it; you walk behind her, the blue of her jeans the only color in your field of vision besides the awful red of the carpet and white walls.
What will happen?
Was she serious?
You hear a metallic noise and see her walking into the elevator box, you follow her and she presses the zero button.
"Do you do this often, go out during away games?" you ask, your voice little more than a whisper as you watch her adjust her hair in the mirror.
"Usually I leave this opportunity to Irene, when her family travels to the cities where we have games, so she can spend time with them. But sometimes it happens, also because Marta just cares to spend time with Caro, it doesn't matter where they are."
She finishes fixing her hair and inside you the question of 'who do you take with you' is inflamed with curiosity.
Who does she go out with?
How many times does she do it?
The image of that rock-solid captain, rigid with rules and obsessive with timings is suddenly softened by this cocky, rebellious version.
"When María got injured, I went out with Ingrid a couple of times, she was scared of leaving her alone at home and walking was helping her - she smiles when she sees we are almost there - And when Jenni used to play with us, we usually went out to dinner together, but that’s a long time ago now."
You open your mouth, your eyes wide.
So it’s true that they were-
"Come on, let's go before we get caught," she ends the conversation before you can actually speak, a smile on her face knowing she has finally drawn out a reaction from you other than fear, doubt, or anxiety.
She walks quickly to a back exit.
"Can you ride a bike? - you nod - Okay, then let's take these bikes to go to the place I told you about. You're a vegetarian, right? The local tourist guides say it’s the place with the best vegetarian burgers on the whole island."
You bite your lip.
Where did she find out?
You never told anyone, only the staff knows, but you rarely eat in the canteen with them and when you do it’s so rare that it doesn’t arouse suspicion that you eat vegetarian.
"Do you like it?"
You nod while you struggle even to eat a fry.
But it really seemed good, and there were so many flavors and types of burgers, sandwiches, and condiments.
Did Alexia really think of you?
Did she really look it up to bring you here to eat?
You’re sitting on a pier, a somewhat hidden part of the beach, away from the road.
Just you and her.
Alexia had placed your dinner on the cold, damp wood, had taken out the two packs of baked fries and Coca-Cola and then placed them on the paper bag.
You watched her as she did it, the embarrassment of noticing the time she took to do everything precisely.
Is she always like this?
Then she asked you to sit in front of her so you could eat facing each other.
You hesitated but complied.
Then, as soon as your eyes met hers, your appetite, the desire to taste this amazing hamburger, disappeared.
That smell that until a moment ago seemed like the aroma of a great dinner, now only made you nauseous.
You grab the Coca-Cola and try to swallow a few sips, hoping the nausea will go away.
Alexia paid for dinner, fifteen euros and seventy cents each, she didn’t even let you take out your wallet.
You have to eat.
What will she think otherwise?
That she wasted money?
That you’re ungrateful?
You have to eat.
You try to eat another fry, your taste buds sending signals of disgust to your brain as soon as they come into contact with that flavor.
Is it anxiety?
Panic?
Fear?
"How do you feel?" She asks.
You freeze.
How do you feel?
Bad? Good? Sad? Angry? Hurt?
You don’t even know how you feel. That torment, that gurgling, in your stomach doesn’t stop, that flow of negative thoughts and anxieties doesn’t stop attacking you.
Maybe you should tell her you’re fine, that you’re nervous for the game but that everything is fine as always.
Even though nothing has been fine for as long as you can remember.
When has something ever gone well?
When was the last time you felt good?
Maybe when Barça signed you, when you got on that plane thinking another life would begin.
You close your eyes, you can’t cry.
But it’s true. Maybe that was the only happy moment after years of feeling nothing different than a constant state of apathy, of emptiness.
It was the only moment when you thought things would change, the last moment, the last time you let yourself hope.
So maybe that’s why you feel so bad now?
"Fine, you?" You answer mechanically.
The same response you always gave the medical staff, the training staff, those few journalists who found it interesting to interview you.
But you don’t look at her, you know she would realize it’s not true.
Empty eyes, rigid shoulders, clear signs of the effort it takes to lie again, for the umpteenth time.
"Can we skip the part where you pretend everything is okay?" She asks, the tone bored, irritated.
You clench your eyes as soon as your mind registers that the tone of voice is angry by your attempt to lie.
What should you say then?
What does she want you to say?
You sigh.
It’s a dead end, isn’t it?
You and her alone on a pier, at night, far from the hotel.
There’s no way out.
"Why do you ask?" You ask, your voice uncertain, a whisper.
"Because I care."
You laugh sarcastically by instinct, unable to control yourself.
That’s what your parents always say when they call you after months of silence, telling you that you’re ungrateful and that they care about you.
Then they don’t call for weeks.
Is there anyone who really cares about how you are?
Who really cares about you?
You don’t think so.
In the end, you’ve lived in many cities, met many people of different ages, experienced things with them.
Did any of them ever really care about you?
No.
Did anyone really want you in their life?
No.
You were just a pastime of the moment, the lady-in-waiting, the entertainment.
"Anxious for the match."
Another excuse, the umpteenth.
Another lie, the thousandth.
You don’t look at her face, you know that if you did, you would cry.
You try to take a bite of the hamburger, but you have to chew it for a long time to find the strength to swallow.
"Why? You’ve been playing as a starter since the beginning of the season."
You know she doesn’t believe you.
Why is she playing along?
You shrug.
"I always feel this way before matches."
"You never told me."
"You never asked."
There is silence.
You bite your tongue.
Couldn’t you keep quiet?
"Sorry," you whisper, scared.
Will she yell? You don’t want her to yell, to get even angrier.
She says nothing, you hear her drink the Coke.
"I get anxious playing with you because you’re the best in the world," you reply.
It’s a partial truth, you’re scared to play with them, not being up to par.
But the reality is you’re always anxious because you know you’re worth nothing to them, so you’re afraid that at the first mistake they will kick you out, bench you forever.
"You don’t have to, you’re really good."
You don’t answer, a compliment thrown to the wind.
She doesn’t really think that.
If she did, you would feel part of the team, right?
If you were that good, they would have included you, you would be part of the group, and not just a marginal ornament.
You eat in an awkward silence almost half of the food.
You don’t speak, she doesn’t speak.
You don’t look at her, she doesn’t seem to look at you.
What should you tell her?
She sighs. "Look at me."
You raise your head but avert your gaze into the void next to her head, pretending to see her without looking at her.
"My eyes are here," she reproaches you, the captain's voice, that gently authoritative tone.
"I would like to talk about what happened, but I know I can’t force you -"
"Yeah, exactly, maybe it’s better not to, forget it," you interrupt her.
You know she hates it when you interrupt her.
She hates being interrupted.
You see her put the sandwich down on the box.
You close your eyes.
"Okay, we can’t continue like this."
You don’t answer.
What should you say?
You don’t understand what she wants.
You don’t understand why you’re here.
You don’t understand anything.
"We need to talk"
"Why? Because we have to sleep in the same room? If you wanted to talk to me you would have done it sooner” you spit angrily.
You attack her.
You don't care about respect, the fact that she is the captain, that she is Alexia Putellas.
What might interest you if you have already hit rock bottom?
What depth can you still reach, that they stop talking to you?
Why, do they talk to you?
Alexia is silent.
A silence so punishing, so tense, it makes you want to cry.
Why doesn't she scream?
Is she bored already?
Do you want to go back to the hotel?
“Maybe we'd better go,” you continue, while placing your hands on the pier in an attempt to get up.
"Sit down"
“Otherwise, what do you do? – you reply bitterly, in the end what do you have to lose? – will you put me on the bench? Will you hit me?”
You laugh sarcastically.
Alexia is silent, so you continue in your attempt to get up.
“I took a few days to think about what happened, about what you said to me and María - she sighs - I asked her not to tell anyone about what happened, so only we and probably Ingrid know, given that María cried all night"
You tense up.
Cry?
Why did she cry?
Does Ingrid know?
Does she really believe you believe her?
Days to think?
“I asked Jona to put us in the room together because I wanted to talk to you but I didn't want to make you uncomfortable and talked to you about two days ago in front of the others, but then I thought it would be embarrassing to do it in the room”
You do not say anything.
What does she want to tell you?
That you're out of the team?
Are you pathetic?
You don't look at her, your eyes fixed on your mismatched socks visible due to your pin-hole shorts.
Anything to avoid looking at it.
“We should have figured it out, how you were doing, what was happening. Instead, we were focused on winning, on the matches, this year the only new player besides you was Ona, but she knew all of us, and we didn't think about the shock and difficulties that playing with us could bring, that moving to Barcelona would cause - look at her - We all made mistakes, me first, and I don't know what to do to improve the situation"
Honesty surprises you
“Sit down, please”
906 notes · View notes
mercuriians · 4 months ago
Text
connect (with you)
synopsis ☆ kuroo’s walls come down after the game with karasuno.
content info — some hurt/comfort with our beloved nekoma captain because he deserves all the love in the world 🙏 SPOILERS for the dumpster battle movie so beware. reader is mentioned to be kenma’s sister a few times.
author’s note — just wanna say hi to the haikyuu fandom :) hope u enjoy this short drabble i wrote, i’ll probably make it look pretty later. lmk if you wanna see more kuroo x kozume!reader in the future.
Tumblr media
your lips are on kuroo’s before the locker room door even has a chance to close. his skin is soft and familiar, his kiss eager yet vulnerable. something compels you to reach up, circling your arms around his neck as you pull him closer, tighter, until you’re sure that his warmth has become your own. the sound of his breathing is the only thing keeping you tethered to the ground as your mouths meet again and again. no words need to be spoken.
after years of being together, and even more years of being friends, you know tetsurou like the back of your hand. as if he’s perpetually been woven into your spirit, etched into your heart since the day he moved into the house next to you and your brother’s.
you know that the cheery grin he shot his teammates, the reverent bow he gave to the crowd, and the meaningful hug he shared with daichi at the end of the match were all borne out of three things—his sworn responsibilities as the captain, his earnest respect for karasuno, and the addictive rush of adrenaline.
the moment he left behind the arena’s blinding lights, though, the high seemed to wear off.
yet an aching feeling stayed with him.
when you pour your heart out on the court and play until your muscles feel like they’re on fire, when you devote hours of your precious time towards practicing—towards smoothening out every crack within your blocks, every blemish within your serves, every falter within your receives—and when you imagine the game countless numbers of times in your head until it feels like a memory, there’s a certain type of pain you feel when it’s all over. it’s a sadness that’s inevitable, and yet one that stings so profoundly and uniquely that it becomes a bittersweet moment you’re bound to remember for the rest of your life.
just one more second, one more chance— you think to yourself in a flurry of desperation. because as foolishly selfish as it sounds, nobody ever truly wants the game to end.
that feeling of wanting to remain frozen in the experience is something you yourself are all too familiar with. volleyball, after all, was what gave birth to the connection you now so deeply share with tetsurou.
you suppose that’s why you’re able to pinpoint the exact moment his shoulders start to shake.
pulling away from the kiss, you feel your heart plummet into your stomach before you can even see the tears trickling down his face. something you’ve come to learn about tetsurou is that he rarely ever cries, so when he does, it only makes the sight that much more impactful. wordlessly, you pull him into you once more.
the way your arms firmly, comfortingly wrap around his tall figure conveys a simple but invaluable message that resonates throughout the empty room— “i’m not letting you go.”
quietly, he sobs. you let him.
you barely notice your nekoma jacket becoming damp with his tears. when his crying slowly starts to recede, you break the silence, voice soft and tender. “you were amazing out there, tetsurou,” you whisper. “and there’s three things i want to thank you for.”
withdrawing by the tiniest sliver, just enough so he can meet your patient gaze, your boyfriend tilts his head slightly in the way he always does. his fingers subconsciously trace patterns across the small of your back. “what are they, baby?” his voice is quiet and a little hoarse. really, it’s a miracle that you manage to block out your own shadows of sadness.
“one,” you whisper, fingers reaching out to gently wipe away his tears, “thank you for being the best captain this team could ever ask for.”
“two,” you continue, leaning in to kiss away the tears that remain, before a small smile pulls at the corners of your lips, “thank you for helping my brother fall in love with volleyball.”
“and three,” you breathe out, your vulnerable gaze meeting his own, lips inching towards his once more, “thank you for being as strong as you’ve been, and for carrying the world’s burden on your shoulders when none of us could.”
when you finish your heartfelt confession, tetsurou’s hazel eyes glaze over with a fresh wave of tears—this time, however, it’s for an entirely different reason.
and this time, he’s the one that kisses you first.
490 notes · View notes
azzibuckets · 2 months ago
Note
them kissing at the top of the ferris wheel i BEG. and maybe throw in some angst if u feel like it, adding flashbacks to them doing this every year even when they were just “friends” or the line between friends and something else…?
state of us
paige bueckers x azzi fudd
a/n: i wrote this in one setting omfg so this is very unedited but i hope you guys love this just as much as i do!!! enjoy :)
word count: 2.6k
masterlist
August 2017
Azzi has always looked forward to the state fair; it’s one of the few times a year she gets to see her extended family in Minnesota and gorge herself on cookies and corn dogs and all the likes. But something about this year is special, and Azzi would be lying if she said it wasn’t due to the blonde girl whose hand she’s currently holding.
“I still can’t believe I’ve lived in Minnesota my entire life and I’ve never been here,” Paige marvels, jaw slightly dropped in awe as she takes in her surroundings. Azzi is usually like Paige, letting herself get lost in the exhilarating combination of the smell of greasy, buttery foods and the cheery sound of lively music and the smiles on everyone’s faces, but for some reason this year she’s fully and entirely captivated by Paige.
“It’s like the one time of year my parents let us eat whatever we want,” Azzi informs her friend, nodding towards her little brothers who are stuffing themselves with cotton candy. Her and Paige both look at each other and share a giggle before quickly averting their eyes. It’s a novel feeling, the butterflies in Azzi’s belly that erupt every time she holds Paige’s gaze for a little too long. It’s the same feeling she gets when their knuckles brush, or when Paige is being annoying and insists on putting her head in Azzi’s lap whenever they’re lying on the couch. And it’s a scary feeling, so far from what she feels towards all of her other friends, but it’s one that makes her lightheaded and dizzy in the best way possible, a feeling she desperately chases after.
Even now, Azzi tightens her fingers around Paige’s. Her palm is starting to collect sweat, but she prays to the gods that Paige won’t notice. She’s not ready to let go just yet.
Azzi clears her throat. They’ve been silent for a little too long, and the air between them is tense. “I buy a huge bucket of cookies every year,” she continues. “Maybe if you’re nice to me today I’ll let you have some.”
Paige scrunchs her eyebrow in feigned indignation. “I’m always nice to you.”
“Well I guess you gotta be especially nice today.” Then Azzi lets go of her hand, throwing Paige a wink over her shoulder before running to catch up with the rest of their family. Paige doesn’t have enough time to figure out what Azzi’s words mean before Katie starts calling for her too.
They’re in line for the ring toss when Jose pokes Paige hard in the back. The blonde whips around, ready to jokingly give the 11 year old a piece of her mind. But before she can even get a word out, Jose says, “That guy in the very back of the line wants me to tell you that he thinks you’re cute,” then skips away to find Jon.
Paige is confused. She glances towards the huddle of teenage boys 50 feet away and sees one of them, a lanky boy with a mop of unruly brown hair, give her a smirk. Cheeks hot, she turns back to Azzi. “Um,” she stutters, seemingly unable to find her bearings. The topic of boys has certainly come up in her and Azzi’s conversations before, but only when gossiping about their teammates or their friends. In the year she’s known Azzi, Paige hasn’t brought up a single of her own crushes, and neither has Azzi. It’s like an unspoken rule floating between them, a rule now irreparably broken by a boy too bold for his own good.
Azzi’s staring at the laces of her shoes. “You should go talk to him,” she says. She tries to keep her voice casual, calm, but she knows by the shift in Paige’s body language that it was too strained, too forced.
“Why?” Paige’s eyes are burning a hole into Azzi’s forehead. “I don’t even know him.”
Azzi shrugs, toes the dirt with the tip of her shoe. Her heart is beating erratically, and she doesn’t know why. “He thinks you’re cute.”
Paige takes another look at the boy. He is handsome, with striking blue eyes and dimples in his cheeks. But when she looks back at Azzi’s frowning face, she wishes it was her dimples that she could see and not his. “I don’t want to,” Paige says decisively, narrowing her eyes at the boy to show that she’s not interested.
Azzi’s head snaps up. “Why not?”
It’s Paige’s turn to look away. “I dunno. What if we hang out and he tries to steal my first kiss or something?“
Azzi’s body grows hot at the idea of imagining Paige’s first kiss. “Would that be so bad?”
“I want my first kiss to be special,” Paige responds. She takes in Azzi, who’s wearing a neon blue tank top and workout shorts. Her cheeks are a little flushed from the late summer heat. There’s a little curl of hair that escaped from her bun, damp from the humidity of the day. Paige wants to brush it behind Azzi’s ear. So she does. She leans forward and lets her thumb trail across Azzi’s cheek before swiping at the curl, moving it away from Azzi’s eyes. “I don’t wanna do the ring toss anymore,” she says.
Azzi swallows. “We could go on the ferris wheel?” she suggests timidly.
“Okay.”
And before she knows it, Paige’s hand is in Azzi’s again, the older girl letting the younger girl guide them through the maze of bodies. And although Azzi’s hand is a little bit damp and Paige has always hated sweaty hands, not for a single second does the thought of pulling away cross her mind.
Paige drops into the bench across Azzi’s, and the operator shuts the door behind them. The car rocks unsteadily, and Paige glances around nervously.
“It’s okay,” Azzi reassures. “These things are stronger than they look.”
“I hope so.”
Azzi cocks her head curiously. “Come sit with me.”
“Are you sure?” Paige asks tentatively. “What if it makes the car go off balance?”
With a roll of her eyes, Azzi gets up and plants herself next to the blonde. She rubs her hand across Paige’s back, noting the tenseness of her shoulders. “Are you scared right now?” Azzi snickers.
“No!” Paige says defensively. “I’ve just heard stories about fair rides.”
“I didn’t know you were a pussy.”
“Shut up,” Paige demands, but she finds herself leaning into Azzi’s touch. She blames it on her slight fear of heights, but deep down she knows it’s because she’ll never be able to get enough of Azzi.
“I didn’t like it,” Azzi confesses after a brief moment of silence. “Knowing you could’ve left me to hang out with some guy.”
“I would never leave you.” Paige’s eyes are bright in the falling light of the evening, and they hold a promise that Azzi doesn’t yet know will stay true for the rest of their lives. But for now, the soft way Paige is looking at her gives her the boldness to say, “I haven’t had my first kiss either.” She drops her hand from Paige’s back. “I’m too scared.”
“What’re you scared of?” Paige’s voice is barely a whisper.
“That I won’t like it. That they’ll be too rough. Or they’ll say I’m a bad kisser.”
“They?”
Azzi looks down.
“I like girls too.” The words take a second to register in Azzi’s brain, but when they do, she feels defensiveness rise in her chest. “I never said I liked girls,” Azzi said, her voice holding slight traces of panic.
Paige’s lips twist in a frown. “It’s not wrong to like girls.”
“I know, I just….”
“It’s my first time saying it out loud.” Paige cracks a smile. “If that makes you feel better.”
Azzi lets out a breathy laugh. “It’s just hard to tell, sometimes, ya know?”
“I know.” Paige worries her lower lip nervously. “But maybe I could help?”
Azzi’s eyebrows furrow. “What do you mean?”
“Like…I could help you confirm whether or not you like girls?” Paige sounds uncertain. “And then…and then your first time wouldn’t have to be with some random asshole.”
Azzi stares at her best friend. She flips Paige’s words over in her brain, trying to make sense of it all. “You want me to kiss you?”
Paige looks flustered. “I don’t want you to. I mean, I don’t not want you to, I just-,” she closes her eyes briefly, taking her time to collect her thoughts. “I’m just offering to. You know? I wouldn’t mind. That way my first kiss can be with someone I trust too.”
Paige waits patiently for Azzi’s response. Her knee’s been jiggling against the hot metal of the bench, but the weight of Azzi’s hand from where she’s now placed it on her thigh quickly stops her movements.
Before her doubts can stop her, Azzi leans in, placing a hand firmly at the back of Paige’s neck. She presses her mouth to Paige’s, letting it linger there for a few seconds before pulling away. “There,” she says shakily. “Our first kiss.”
Paige stares at Azzi, dazed, both of them silent and still as the car slows to a stop, back at the bottom. Azzi realizes that she’s forgotten to take a picture of the sunset at the top like she’s done every year. She wonders what she’s gonna say when her mom asks about it later. Fear creeps into her heart as she realizes the gravity of what they’ve just done. It’s hard to make sense of the rapid beating of her heart, the fresh memory of Paige’s lips molded so perfectly against her own, with the growing panic in her chest that nothing will be the same ever again.
The operator opens the door. “You girls enjoy the ride?” he asks, a smile on his face.
Azzi climbs out in a rush, brushing past the operator without saying a word. Paige takes her time, picking up the water bottle that Azzi forgot and clutching it to her body. “Thanks,” she says tightly to the operator as she exits.
“No problem. Hope your friend feels better. The ferris wheel’s feeling a bit rockier than usually a lot today.”
It takes every bit of strength in Paige to not start crying right then and there.
August 2018
Paige has spent every day of the last year thinking about that kiss on the ferris wheel. And now that, almost exactly a year later, she’s in the car again, surrounded by the intoxicating scent of Azzi’s perfume, she can’t help but think about what Azzi’s hands would feel like tangled in her hair.
When Azzi looks up from her phone and meets Paige’s eyes, she knows there’s no use to try and wrangle any self control out of her body. Forcing herself to sit across from Paige instead of next to her this time doesn’t work. Within moments, she’s across the car, her hands on Paige’s waist. Her lips brush ever so gently against Paige, and she pauses, waiting for the blonde to stop her. When she doesn’t, Azzi swipes her tongue gently across Paige’s bottom lip, and this year their kiss lasts just a little bit longer.
August 2019
“I’m not gonna kiss you.”
Azzi has a date waiting for her at home, a handsome football player who she’s been texting all summer.
Paige looks at her coolly. “Okay.”
They’ve been tense all day. Their parents think it’s the heat wave combined with the stress of school starting. Paige wonders what her dad would say if he knew it was because she’s been thinking about the ferris wheel all day, a mix of dread and anticipation pooling in her stomach.
They’ve spent the entire ride sitting across from each other, their knees just barely touching. And kudos to them, they are better this year - they almost make it the entire ride.
But just 15 feet up from the ground, Azzi is on Paige’s lap, and she doesn’t know how she got there, but she’s not complaining, not when Paige is whimpering against her mouth like this.
They break apart when the operator opens the door, both of their chests heaving, neither of them daring to look at each other.
“This is the last time,” Azzi swears.
“The last time,” Paige repeats.
August 2020
Paige almost didn’t make it this year.
She should be at UConn right now, prepping for her first day of college in a few days. But one text from Azzi, one word saying Please, and she’d bought a plane ticket to Minnesota.
This time, Paige is the one to cross the boundary. This time, Paige fists Azzi’s shirt in her hand and pulls her into a searing kiss. Paige hasn’t said goodbye yet, but she hopes that the way she cups Azzi’s face in her hands and presses their lips together is enough.

Paige pulls away. She doesn’t know she’s crying until Azzi’s wiping at her tears with her thumb.
“I’m gonna miss you,” Azzi whispers.
They’ve spent almost half a year together, starting from when Paige moved in with the Fudds to train during lockdown. She’d stayed for most of the summer too, basically living in Azzi’s skin until her dad had forced her to return home.
“Come to UConn,” Paige urges.
“Paige.”
“Azzi.”
Azzi leans her forehead against Paige’s. “Okay. I’ll think about it.”
August 2021
“We’re gonna look so good on the court together.”
Azzi laughs, poking Paige’s cheek affectionately. “You’re insufferable. I’m gonna get so tired of you.”
“Oh yeah?” Paige presses a kiss to Azzi’s cheek, then begins working down her jawline, her lips burning into Azzi’s skin. “You’re gonna get tired of this?”
Azzi arches into Paige’s touch. “Paige,” she pants.
“Does this count as following our tradition?”
“You gotta kiss me on the mouth,” Azzi, always a stickler for rules, insists, but when Paige’s lips move downward to suck that sweet spot on her neck, she quickly shuts up.
August 2021
“I’m not letting you forget this time.” Paige nudges Azzi with her camera.
“Kiss me.”
Paige obeys.
They spend the rest of the ride arguing over who gets to keep the polaroid.
August 2022
Azzi kisses Paige. It’s short and sweet and all too reminiscent of 5 years ago, when they were young and dumb but still in love.
“Marry me?”
Azzi shoves Paige. “Don’t say that.”
“Why not?”
“I mean it. Don’t say it unless you have a ring.”
Paige’s eyes are hopeful. “So you’d marry me?”
“I’ve been willing to marry you since we met, you idiot.” Azzi kisses Paige again, and this time they’re smiling against each others lips.
August 2023
“I’m starting to think your NIL money is good for nothing.”
“Didn’t I just buy you a corn dog?”
“I still don’t see a ring.”
Paige rolls her eyes and shuts Azzi up with a kiss.
August 2024
“One more year, baby.”
“Stop reminding me.” Azzi turns away from Paige, her face pulled into a pout.
“It’s gonna be our year.” Paige nestles her chin onto Azzi’s shoulder. “Best backcourt duo in the nation.”
“Don’t jinx us.”
Paige wiggles her fingers into the younger girl’s ribs. “Stop being so negative.”
Azzi laughs, a beautiful sound Paige has memorized for years now. “Kiss me and maybe I’ll stop.”
Paige’s lips are familiar to Azzi. But Azzi wants more. She wants Paige, all of her. Paige needs to hurry up and buy that damn ring.
August 2025
Azzi: Missing you
Azzi: Attachment: 1 Image
Paige: screw this game
Paige: i swear i’m buying a plane ticket rn
Azzi: Stop, your team needs you
Azzi: Save me that kiss for later
Paige: i love u more than anything else in this world
Paige: so much more than basketball
Paige: i will literally leave this locker room rn all u gotta do is say the word baby
Azzi: Don’t worry, I’ll eat enough cookies for the two of us
Azzi tucks her phone into her pocket, stares out the window. Recently the homesick ache in her heart has become more familiar than the feeling of Paige’s lips, and she hates it. This next year of getting used to long distance will be the hardest year of their relationship so far, but she knows it’ll be worth it.
August 2026
She knows it’ll be worth it because Paige finally bought the goddamn ring.
“Will you marry me?”
Azzi sinks into Paige’s arms. 10 years.
“Fuck yeah.”
They kiss.
335 notes · View notes
zegrasdrysdale · 6 months ago
Text
[ sometimes goodbye is a second chance ] j. hughes
Tumblr media
paring : Jack Hughes x fem!reader
summary : Jack and his ex reunite at Nico’s wedding, reigniting some old feelings between the pair
warning(s) : a heavy makeout session, mentions of injured!jack & hockey injuries
author’s note : was reading something for jack then realized that it’s been a hot second since i wrote anything for him so that’s how this lil thing was born lmaoo. enjoy loves
༺═──────────────═༻
She wasn't going to go to the wedding. As a matter of fact, she made sure she had plans for that weekend that she was supposed to be in Switzerland so she could use them as an excuse to why she couldn't be there for the wedding.
Then Nico did everything but get on his hands and knees to beg her to come since she is one of his close friends. How could she say no to those big doe eyes that the captain of the Devils has? Even she's not immune to those eyes of his.
It's a beautiful day when she arrives for the wedding. Nico waits for her by baggage claim when she walks into Bern Airport after getting off the plane that brought her to Switzerland. She smiles and runs up to her close friend. Despite everything that happened right after the new year, she and Nico stayed close.
Well, as close as they could be while she was busy avoiding one of his teammates.
When she gets to Nico, she wraps her arms around him. "So happy you could come," Nico tells her as they back away from each other. "Mia is even excited that you're here."
"Nico, I can't ever say no to either of you," she teases. "I'm happy that I came too though. Forgot how beautiful it is here."
She grabs her suitcase and duffel bag before she walks outside to Nico's car. "So, all the guests are at the hotel already since the rehearsal dinner is tonight on the roof," he tells her as they load her stuff into the car. "There's probably enough time for you to take a nap if you want to take one since I know you're a big napper after you travel." She playfully punches his shoulder as soon as she's settled in the passenger's seat. "I'm just saying that you came in eight hours before the dinner so you have time to sleep if you want!"
"You don't have to call me a 'big napper'," she retorts with a smile on her face. Nico sticks his tongue out at her. "Oh, how grown up. Aren't you getting married tomorrow?"
"And my fiancé finds it cute when I stick my tongue out at her."
"Doesn't work on me, Nico. Hate to break it to you."
After about twenty minutes of driving, Nico pulls up to the hotel. She looks up at the building with a sigh.
The entire drive, her mind has been on her ex-boyfriend. She knows that he'll be here, but she doesn't know if he's already here.
Nico turns the car off as soon as he finds a parking spot. She sighs and unbuckles her seatbelt. She waits to get out though. She doesn't know how she feels about running into Jack, but right now she's very anxious.
It's not that they ended on bad terms. She just couldn't watch him keep playing and risking long term damage to his shoulder.
He kept forcing himself to get back on the ice before his body was ready and he wasn't able to heal correctly. She couldn't bear to watch him keep hurting himself, so she walked away.
Of course she kept tabs on him throughout the rest of the season after she walked away in January. It broke her heart to miss the Stadium Series game because she was looking forward to seeing both him and Luke play. She was ecstatic when she saw online that he was going to be getting surgery on the shoulder that he hurt in the game against Chicago.
She didn't reach out though. She didn't think she had the right.
"I know you're worried about seeing him," Nico states. "I made sure that your rooms were on different floors so you won't see each other until later. He, um ..." he trails off. "He tells me all the time how much he wishes he listened to you and let his body heal."
"He only keeps saying that because he wishes he never lost me," she comments as she blinks away the tears that have formed in her eyes. "I walked away because I couldn't keep watching him hurt himself to play a sport. I know he loves it, but he loved it more than he loved me so I walked away."
"He got surgery back in April," Nico tells her. "Before the season even ended to get a head start on his recovery. He started doing physical therapy two weeks ago so he's doing well. He'll get back on the ice in a month. I told him to take it easy."
A tear rolls down her cheek and she quickly wipes it away. "Why couldn't he just do this sooner?" she says. Her voice is so shaky that she can barely speak.
Nico grabs her hand. "He needed to lose you to realize that what he was doing was not okay," he replies. "I know how hard it's been for you. Both of you. I think that the two of you should talk this weekend. For both your sakes."
She shakes her head and looks at Nico. "I don't know if I can face him after walking away from him," she cries. "You didn't see the look on his face when I left the apartment that day, Nico. You didn't see how much I hurt him when he was already in physical pain. I don't know if he even wants to talk to me after that. I kicked him when he was already down."
He pulls her across the armrest and into a hug. She cries into his shoulder and grasps onto his t-shirt. "He's worried that you won't talk to him," he admits. "Just so you know. If you want to talk to him, do it. You both need some closure."
The worst part is that she knows it too. She walked away and didn't reply to a single one of his texts or calls. She moved to Philadelphia to her brother's apartment so she was just far enough away that he couldn't drive to her but close enough if something happened to him.
She never stopped caring, and she should probably tell him that.
With a nod, she pulls away. "Okay," she sighs. "I'll talk to him. Only if he wants to talk to me though."
✧・゚: *✧・゚:*
She doesn't talk to Jack at the rehearsal dinner. As a matter of fact, she doesn't even see him at the rehearsal dinner. There aren't a ton of people at the dinner either so she thought that she would see him. It surprises her that she didn't.
Getting ready the next afternoon though, she knows that today will be the day she sees him. At least she'll look her best when he sees her for the first time since she walked out on that cold January day. Same goes for him. Jack's always looked good in a suit and tie. She wonders which one of his game day suits he'll be in today.
Three rolls around and she heads from her second floor hotel room down to the first floor. She'd walk down the stairs if her feet weren't already killing her from the heels she has on.
The ceremony is taking place in the ballroom because of how many guests will be attending. The reception and dinner are taking place up on the rooftop at five so Nico and his new wife can get some pictures taken up there before everyone joins them.
Elevator doors open and she's met with the one person she's been wanting to avoid until the reception tonight. Jack freezes like a deer in headlights, but his eyes drink her in as she steps onto the elevator.
It's not like she's wearing something very revealing. The top of her red dress hugs her body, shoves off her curves, and pushes her breasts up a little bit. Her loose sleeves hang off her shoulders. The skirt falls to her knees and is kind of puffy.
"Uh, hi," Jack breathes out as the door closes behind her. "You, um, look good."
"Hi," she replies as she runs her fingers through her curls. "You too. Um, look good." His red tie with his black and white suit matches her red dress. Nico definitely told him what color that she was going to wear.
His eyes flicker down her body again and she feels self-conscious of the way her dress hugs her body. She crosses her arms over her chest and prays that the doors open soon.
Jack quickly picks up on how uncomfortable she is. "Sorry, I didn't mean to-"
"Stare?" she interrupts. "It's fine." The elevator dings and the doors slide open behind her. "I'll see you around."
She quickly makes her escape. Her heels are muffled by the carpet but she finds the room that she knows Nico is in.
After she knocks a handful of times, the door opens. Nico is the one that opens the door. He looks handsome in his suit and tie. He has a white rose hanging out of his flap on his jacket. "Oh, don't you look nice dressed up," she comments.
Nico rolls his eyes and lets her in the room. "Oh, shush," Nico retorts. She looks behind him as she walks into the room to and sees his older brother, his dad, Timo, and Jonas.
"Hi," she says to everyone in the room. "Just needed to come talk to Nico for a second. Won't keep him very long. I swear."
"What's going on?" Nico questions behind her.
She turns to face him. "I ran into Jack," she replies. "Wearing a red tie. Want to tell me why he was wearing a red tie when I'm wearing a red dress?"
He shoots her a smile. "Purely coincidental," Nico tells her. "He does play on a team that wears red and black so many he was missing the team when he picked out his tie."
"Nico Hischier, I'm going to kill you on your wedding day if you don't start talking in the next two seconds," she snaps.
“I don’t know what you want me to say,” Nico laughs as he throws his hands up in the air in surrender. “I have no idea why Jack’s wearing a red tie. I didn’t tell him what you were wearing if that’s why you came marching in here to yell at me.”
She sighs and rubs her fingers through her curls. “Okay,” she replies. “I think I’m just losing it or something. Kind of freaking out.”
“Have you talked to him?” asks Timo. She looks over Nico’s shoulder to look at him. “I mean, it might solve that unresolved tension between you. It’s so thick that I can feel it when he’s not even in the room.”
With a blink of her eyes, she says, “I can’t believe I never thought of talking to him. Wow.”
Timo rolls his eyes and Nico takes over the conversation. “Look, I know you’re avoiding him because you think he doesn’t want to talk to you,” he begins to say. “But even Timo and Seigs can attest to this, Jack wants to talk to you. Seriously. He’s nervous you won’t talk to him. You’ll be in the same area for the rest of the day. Please say more than just ‘you look good’ to him.”
She groans in slight frustration. “You are insufferable,” she tells her close friend. “Good luck Mia.”
There’s laughter behind her as she walks out of the room to get to where the ceremony is taking place in one of the larger rooms.
It’s almost like a very large conference room with a lot of chairs. There has to be nearly a hundred chairs in the room. She greets Nico’s mom and sister as well as some of his Devils teammates.
Across the room, she sees Jack talking to his brothers. All three of them look very handsome. That’s when she realizes that Jack’s arm isn’t in a sling like he was the last time she saw a picture of him. She was too shocked earlier in the elevator to notice that he doesn’t have on a sling. His hair is a little longer than it was a few months ago. He smiles at something Quinn said.
She takes her seat right behind the Devils, sitting right behind Jack of all people. He sits between Haula and Merc.
When she goes to say something, the ceremony starts.
Talking to Jack is just going to have to wait.
✧・゚: *✧・゚:*
There’s an hour between when the ceremony ends and the reception begins so Nico and Mia can take pictures up on the roof. She needs to touch up her makeup since she decided to cry while Nico was saying his vows. Her best friend grew up so much since they met back at the 2017 NHL draft.
A lot of the guests have already made their way to the roof when she gets up there. She grabs a glass of champagne from a tray that a waiter is holding and takes a big gulp of it to prepare her for the night to come.
She spots Dawson, Luke, Jesper, and Simon all standing by the railing. No Jack so it’s safe to approach despite his little brother standing there. She hopes that Luke doesn’t hate her guts for breaking his brother’s heart.
When she approaches the group of Devils, Dawson gets excited. “Oh my God, I didn’t think you were coming,” he says as he drapes an arm over her shoulders.
“And miss a Swiss wedding?” she laughs. “Absolutely not. I wasn’t about to skip out on Nico’s wedding.” The boys laugh, even Luke. Her eyes fall on the youngest of the Hughes boys. “And how are you, baby Hughes? Still settling in well with the team?”
Luke nods with a smile. “The guys have been very welcoming,” he tells her. “Helped me out of that slump I was in.”
She mirrors his smile. “That’s great,” she says. “Glad you were able to come in and get right to it. Being a Calder nominee isn’t an easy feat so I wanted to come congratulate you on your rookie season.”
“Thank you.”
Out of the corner of her eye, she notices Jack. He stands with Dougie, Dawsy, Haula, and Nico. Mia stands with her arm hooked with her new husband’s.
Luke, Dawson, and Nemec all walk away to get another drink. Jesper stands next to her. “How many times have you been told to talk to him?” Bratter asks.
“Too many so please don’t-”
“I’m not. I was just going to offer to go get him if you did want to talk to him.”
She sighs and finishes her glass of champagne. “I want to talk to him but do you really think he’ll listen to me if I apologize?” she comments.
“I do,” Bratter replies. She looks up at him. “I mean it. He has been kicking himself for months. I know he misses you. I don’t know if he misses your relationship or just you in his life but he misses you. I think talking to him is worth it.”
She turns her head to look at Jack. He looks happy and she doesn’t want to ruin that. “What if I just upset him?” she questions. “I don’t want to ruin his happiness.”
“He’s not truly happy without you,” Jesper says. “Talk to him. I think he’ll listen to what you have to say. Maybe he will even offer his own apology to you. I’ll be right back.”
Then he walks away. She watches him walk up to Jack and say something to him. She stands straight up and sighs when Jack looks over at her. She puts a smile on her face and heads over to the group.
It’s now or never. It’s early in the evening so neither of them are drunk yet. She’s had just enough alcohol to give her the courage to have this conversation with Jack.
All eyes are on her, but her eyes are on Jack. “Hi,” she breathes out. “Can we talk for a second? Please? Alone?”
Jack nods and hands his drink to Dougie. She shoots a smiling Nico a glare as she turns and walks inside so they’re away from the prying eyes of Jack’s teammates and her mutual friends that she has with Nico. They’re all very nosy.
She finds a little room off to the side that she walks into with a sigh. She picks at the skin around her fingernails out of nerves.
This is truly it. The next few minutes are either going to make or break whatever relationship or friendship they have left. She bites the inside of her cheek as she turns and faces Jack.
“What did you want to-” Jack begins to say before she interrupts him.
“I want to apologize,” she quickly replies. “For that night. For ignoring all your calls and texts after. I shouldn’t have given you that ultimatum. Not at that moment, anyway. I caused you emotional pain while you were in so much physical pain.”
Jack’s face falls into a frown as she talks. He starts to shake his head the longer she talks. “No, you had every right to give me that ultimatum,” he tells her. “I pushed myself way too hard and losing you opened my eyes to just how hard I was pushing myself. To what I was putting my body through. I didn’t understand why at first but now I do. I’m sorry that I saw that too late.”
Tears form in her eyes at the softness of his voice. She wasn’t expecting this Jack when she talked to him.
“I thought you’d be mad,” she admits. “I thought you’d want to yell at me for walking away. For ending it.”
“I was mad,” Jack says. “Believe me. I was so mad that I pushed myself even harder for a few weeks. Then there was setback after setback and I finally understood why.”
The tears that formed in her eyes roll down her cheeks, painting her skin black with eyeliner. She should’ve grabbed her waterproof eyeliner but she didn’t.
She stares across the room at her ex. Neither of them say a word for a second, before she asks the question she has wanted to know the answer to for nearly six months.
“Why did you do it?” she asks. “Why did you have to push yourself so hard and risk long term damage? Don’t tell me it’s because you love hockey and put your all into the sport. You shouldn’t have to push yourself to the point of surgery.”
Jack looks down at his feet and she raises her eyebrows. She presses her lips in a tight line as she waits for him to respond.
The answer she gets is not the one she was ready for.
“I thought that no one would care about me or love me if I wasn’t playing hockey,” Jack mumbles. “All anyone has talked about this season is me and my brothers. Hughes Bowl, me getting to 100 points after hitting 99 last season, whatever about me and Luke playing together. It seemed like no one would give a shit about me if I had stopped mid-season to heal. It seemed like everyone would write me off as weak or get mad at me for taking care of my shoulder. So I pushed you away and pushed myself to play until we got eliminated from contention so no one could blame me for missing playoffs. I didn’t want to be the reason we missed playoffs, but it feels like I am anyway.”
She frowns at his response. She had no idea that he felt this way.
There’s some space between them so she takes a few steps forward so she stands in front of him. “You could have talked to me,” she softly tells him. “I was willing to support you through whatever you needed to do to be healthy. Yet you seemed to care more about hockey than me.”
He lifts his head up and that’s when she sees the tears in his eyes. She pouts at the sight.
“I didn’t want you to see me at my lowest, and I’m sorry for pushing you away,” Jack comments. “I love you and I didn’t want you to see that side of me. I love you more than I have ever loved hockey. I should’ve listened to you when you told me to rest and I didn’t. I should have.” He pauses for a second and meets her eyes. “I never should have let you walk out that door.”
She reaches up to dry his cheeks when the tears begin to roll. “You know that everyone would still love and care about you if you had just pressed pause on the season,” she tells him. “Everyone that loves you would’ve supported you if you just let your body heal. No one likes seeing a player push himself to surgery. I would have stayed and helped you instead of loving and supporting you from afar.”
Jack leans down and rests his forehead on hers. His eyes are closed and her hands rest on his jaw. Her thumbs trace his cheekbones and her eyes remain on his face.
“I’m sorry,” Jack softly says.
“I’m sorry for walking out on you when you needed me,” she tells him. “I kicked you when you were down and it wasn’t fair of me to do that to you. I’m sorry I broke your heart.”
He wraps his hands around her wrists before he pulls them down so he can lace their fingers together. He doesn’t pull his forehead away and she doesn’t move either.
“You never broke my heart,” he whispers to her. “I broke yours by choosing hockey over you. I never wanted you to feel like I loved a sport more than you and that’s what I did. It’s my fault.”
She shakes her head and pulls back. Jack’s eyes open and he looks at her. His blue eyes shine with tears. “Even after everything, I still love you,” she admits. “I don’t believe that you can break my heart, Jack Hughes.”
He lets out a light laugh and shakes his head. “Same for you,” he tells her.
A small smile forms on her lips as she looks up at him. He lets one of her hands go to wipe away her tears. His thumb comes away black and he wipes her eyeliner on his black pants.
“Can I get a redo?” Jack asks. “On that ultimatum that you gave me? I have an answer for you.”
She bites the inside of her cheek before she asks in reply, “Is it going to be me? Or is it going to be your career?”
“It’s you, baby,” Jack instantly replies as he lifts his hand to cup her jaw. “It’ll always be you.”
The smile on her face grows. She licks her bottom lip as he pulls her in for a soft kiss. She hesitates for a second before she returns the kiss.
Jack drops her other hand so he can cup the other side of her jaw. Her fingers grasp at his open suit jacket so he can’t get too far. She wraps her arms around his torso under his jacket.
He takes a few steps forward so her back is pressed against a wall. She gasps as soon as her back hits the cool, smooth surface, but she doesn’t break the kiss. Jack leans down into her to deepen the already deep kiss. She presses herself flush against him.
His hands slide down to her waist before they slip behind her back. She feels his fingers graze the zipper and that’s when she pulls back. “Jack,” she sighs. “Not now.”
“Later though?”
“We’ll see,” she replies. “I think we should go back out. I’m sure Nico’s looking for us.”
Jack takes a few steps back to fix himself. She takes the moment to make sure she’s presentable as well.
With a sigh, she grabs Jack’s hand and they leave the room. Their fingers are laced together as they rejoin the reception. “So, how are we going to explain this to our friends?” Jack asks.
“We’ll just tell them that we got our heads out of our asses and apologized to each other,” she replies. “That we still love each other. I think saying goodbye gave us a second chance to do this the right way.”
They turn a corner and find themselves back on the roof with the rest of the party. “It did,” Jack says. She looks up at him. “Are you my girlfriend again? Or do I have to get down on my knees to beg you like I did the first time?”
She shakes her head with a laugh. “I’d like to see you get on your knees for a different reason so yes, I guess I’m you’re girlfriend again,” she tells him.
Jack presses a quick kiss to her lips, but every single one of their friends has already noticed.
“About damn time!” Nico shouts from across the room. A few of the Devils cheer for them and she steps even closer to her boyfriend.
༺═──────────────═༻
MASTERLIST
have a request ? check out the guidelines !
wanna be added to the taglist ? fill out this form !
taglist: @dasiysthings @axaslee @ithinkimokeei @equallyshaw @dancerbailey3 @goldihocksrocks @love4lando @stony1386 @mangoluver @prettyinsatiable @ivy-34 @bunbunbl0gs
631 notes · View notes
burstinn · 1 year ago
Note
brother, brother. since you wrote the one for the very tall male reader, up to do one about a short guy who’s built as a bulk? champ’ll be like 5’6 but able to lift a man Ghost’s size
the guys teasing him about it but then he just challenges them and BOOM super strength
slight nsfw if possible, please, it’s 03:42am and I don’t want blue balls :(
dk mate just a thought, sorry for bothering
SHORT READER, STRONG AS FUCK THO-
((Headcanons))
Tumblr media Tumblr media
People mentioned: Price, Ghost, Soap, Gaz, Alex, Farah, Rudy, Alejandro.
Warning: slight nsfw that's it, I got lazy with Farah bbg Farah and Ale and Rudy.. AUGHH
Note:Readers height is not mentioned.. So just think of reader just shorter than the boys.
And this is only for the 141 team and associates hcs
No Kortac but will be adding the Mexican special forces I.e Alejandro, ++++
Hope you don't mind-
You have trained hard though you were shorter than most of your colleagues you were just as strong as them maybe even more.
Which caught the attention of the wild renowned John Price. When he saw you with your team during a mission and watched how you worked well, you could get into small spaces and could take out just as much men.
You were swift and efficient at your job and when he offered you to work for 141, you spent no time to think and immediately agreed.. I mean like YOU in the 141?!? With the high leagues?!? You wouldn't even pass up the chance!
PRICE
-Already impressed when he first saw you, he swiftly went to speak too laswell about you.
-Not to say she wasn't impressed as well though
-So you got an offer on the spot after your mission. But Price did give you time to think about it
-When you said yes he simply nodded his head an said "Can't wait to have you be part of the team"
-He gave you time to change your mind, pack up, say goodbye to your former teammates and superiors before hopping on the heli and flying off to your new team. Excited and nervous.
-When you hopped off the Heli a hop in your step as you approach the highly revered team. Price immediately walks up beside you patting you in your back and pushing you forward.
-Happily letting you introduce yourself.
- He knows how strong you can be he's just waiting for you to finally show your potential so the team can see why he let you join the team
GHOST
-He immediately frowned under his mask.. There's no way.. Well it's not that he's very judgy with recruits... But.. Goddamn you were short.. Hell shorter than Gaz.
-But he shook off those thoughts there must be a real good reason Price chose you.
-And he won't doubt his captains choice.
- Don't judge a book by its cover or something
- When you got around base, meeting everyone getting comfortable. He comfortable with you as well you're a neat guy.
- Though when it came to training. He saw how you worked.. Like shit you broke the punching bag for fucks sake. No one was expecting that not really, so now Ghost's got really interested in seeing you train.
- When people asked you and Ghost to spar with each other he is hesitant. I mean look at you and look at him. You breaking the punching was not expected yes, but people break shit all the time.
- Thinks he could easily beat you. Worst case he would probably break something of you
- You actually seem to encourage him to fight with you until he says yes.
- Eventually said yes and quickly tried to take you down before you roll under him and lift the fuck out him and throwing him.
- face under mask went like 😨😦😐🤨
- Yoo? Tried to tackle you fails miserably now your on top of him. Sitting down on his neck cuz 😏😏 Your holding his hands on top of his head too BECAUSE RAAAAAAA
- " You're going easy on me lieutenant.."
- Going easy on you huh? YOU WANNA KNOW WHERE ELSE HE WON'T GO EASY ON YOU?!?
GWHWBWBSNSJWAAAHAHAHAHA.
SOAP
-He furrows his brow, eyes really wide when he saw you.
-Then as if there was no more other thought in his head.. He just walked up to you and picked you up.. Like a cat.
-Earning him a smack on his head from Price then Ghost. He puts you down after that. Saying a short sorry.
-He gave you a small smile. Though small doubts trickled in his thoughts. He brushed it off. You looked cute anyway not like he would pass up another cute guy that atleast won't hide their face 😒😒. Ehem ehem..
-So when you got comfortable around base he swiftly started chatting you up. Pleasantly having a nice conversation as always with you.
- He likes picking you up like a cat
- when you can't reach something, he'd pull you up to his shoulders so you can reach it
- Gets infatuated with you.. Thinks you're so cute.
- Height Jokes
- When you called him over to see how you pull up weights. Putting fucking 4 HEAVY ASS weights on each side. And you FUCKING LIFT IT
- He got so hard it's unbelievable.
GAZ
- Oh.. Uh?
- 🤨
- He thinks you're cool.. Non chalant about your height.
- He would bully you sometimes.. But it's all no harm.
-Height Jokes
- Would keep stuff out of your reach he thinks its funny, except for the part where you kicked him straight in the balls.
- One day he did that again keeping something out of your reach dangling it over your head..
-You suddenly picked him up. It made him scream and he waddled in your arms and fell off.
- Falling in his ass. HOW DID YOU CARRY HIM? LOOK AT YOU!! HOW'D YOU DO THAT??
- He opened his mouth to idk.. Scold you. Asked you how you carried him..
- Then he shut himself up when you carried him princess wedding style and moving him while looking down at your stuff finding wherever he fell your stuff.
- Blushing hee hee a little princess being carried
- You eventually set him down and he silently walked away
- Would do it again more frequently.. He just wants to be carried wedding style again.
ALEX KELLER
- Huh? 🤨
- Confuckled
- Talked to Price about you.. Asking questions then finally confirmed that you are part of 141
- Thinks of you like a small lost child sometimes
- If he sees you walking around base has to do a double take then remembers it's you.
- You're short he sometimes forgets to look down too see you. It's not like you're that short.. It's just he keeps his head up since the team is yknow... Tall.. Well taller than you.
- one day he got mad because " you weren't there" when he was looking for you.. Even though you were literally near him.
- So you reached over and grabbed his collar to pull him down. He got shocked and tried to pull away..
- But goddamn you were holding his collar like a fuckin' champ.
- Blood immediately pumps to his face.. And pumps somewhere down there YK YKKKK! ! ! WAAHAHAHAHHA
FARAH
-Bro is an inch taller than her
- Side eyes you for a moment before nodding her head to herself.. She knows you're strong but she still judging you tho
- Calls you gay.
- Plays with your cheeks.. Stress reliever face cheeks. You're the easiest to reach anyway
- She did nun wrong to you really.. She just saw how you beat everyones asses literally
- like?? Huuh?
- Wants to be like you too. Small but strong asfuck
- Not like she's not like that anyway
- Strong woman real real
- Slay
- Just gives you a small smile everytime she sees you.. Just impressed..
ALEJANDRO
- Thinks you look like a child. Even asked about if you were a child.
- Also doesn't see you sometimes.. Especially when there are other taller people in the room probably covering you from his line of vision.
- Spanish word for small, tiny, mini, short, Gremlin... Yeah..
- If he's upset with you and you get the fucking balls to turn your body away from him. Hell if you even think to walk away
- He grabs you by the back of your shirt/ collar. And turns you to face him. Close so you can see how upset he is by you.
- You even dare to give him a scowl.. Oh my god.. He'd either want to slam you on the floor or wall. Maybe scream in Spanish on you.
- May or may not still be angry with you. Or he let's you run off because he doesn't want to deal with you.
- ..... (make up sex..)
RUDY
- Treats you like a child even though he knows you aren't
- Asks you if you're okay if you even graze a shoulder, would put a hand on your head and ruffles it
- Also Spanish nickname for small... Bla bla bla
- Sometimes he picks you up and carries you around on his shoulder. Even with your protests, telling him how it's so damn embarrassing.
- it is but he don't care.. He thinks it's funny.
- Then if you turn the tables spinning him around with your legs. And flipping him over making him hit his head on the floor.
- Audible groan.. And looks at you like 😧🙁☹️
-Why'd you do that? ☹️☹️ kinda face
- Then Wait how'd you do that? 🤨🤨 face
- Now you show him your amazing ass Strength even though you're small asfuck
1K notes · View notes
isak-dot-gov · 2 months ago
Text
Lie to Girls
Pairing: Paige Bueckers x Singer!reader
Word count: 1133
My masterlist :)
......................................
Paige sat alone in her dorm room, staring at the ceiling. She had just gotten off a video call with you, and the conversation had been... strained, to say the least. You were on the other side of the country, promoting your new album, Short n' Sweet. It was supposed to be a celebratory time for both of you, but instead, the distance between you felt more like an emotional chasm than a physical one.
Paige knew she had messed up. She had kept secrets from you, told white lies that grew into something much bigger and more hurtful. She didn’t mean to deceive you, but one small lie led to another until she was caught in a web of her own making. She hadn't realised the extent of the damage until now, when it seemed like your trust in her was crumbling.
A knock at her door pulled her out of her thoughts. “Paige, you coming to the common room?” Nika poked her head in, offering a small smile. “We’re gonna listen to Y/N’s new album together.”
Paige hesitated, feeling a pang of guilt. She hadn’t even listened to the album yet—too afraid of what she might hear. She knew you wrote from the heart, and if there was anything about your recent rough patch, she didn’t know if she could handle it.
“Yeah, I’m coming,” she finally replied, getting up. Maybe listening with her teammates would make it easier.
When she arrived at the common room, the rest of the UCONN women’s basketball team was already there, sprawled out on couches and chairs. The speakers were hooked up, and someone had pulled up your album on their phone. As the opening track started playing, the room filled with your voice, warm and familiar. It was like you were there with them.
The first few songs were upbeat, celebrating love, friendship, and life’s little joys. Paige smiled sadly, remembering when you wrote those songs, how excited you had been to share them with her. She had been so proud of you, so in love. And she still was, even if she had been too foolish to show it lately.
But as the album progressed, the tone shifted. The songs became more introspective, more raw. Paige could feel the tension in the room grow as everyone sensed the change. Then, the soft guitar intro of the second last track, "Lie to Girls," began to play, and Paige’s heart clenched.
Your voice came through the speakers, softer than usual, almost fragile:
Don’t swear on your mom
That it’s the first drink that you’ve had in like a month
No, don’t say it was just
An isolated incident that happened once
Paige’s breath hitched. She could feel the weight of your words like a punch to the gut. She knew this was about her, about the lies she had told to keep things easy, to avoid conflict. But now, hearing the pain in your voice, she realised just how deeply she had hurt you.
The song continued, each line a dagger twisting in Paige’s heart:
There’s no need to pretend
I’ve never seen an ugly truth that I can’t bend
To something that looks better
I’m stupid, but I'm clever
Yeah, I can make a shitshow look a whole lot like forever and ever
Paige swallowed hard, tears pricking at her eyes. She glanced around the room, noticing the sombre expressions on her teammates’ faces. They knew, too. They knew what this was about.
You don't have to lie to girl
If they like you they’ll just lie to themselves
Like you, they’ll just lie to themselves
You don't have to lie to girls
If they like you, they’ll just lie to themselves 
Don’t I know it better than anyone else?
The chorus hit, and Paige felt a tear slip down her cheek. She wiped it away quickly, trying to keep her composure. She remembered all the times you had asked her if something was wrong, all the times she had brushed it off or made excuses. She had thought she was protecting you, but she had only been protecting herself.
All of your best excuses
No, they don’t stand a chance
Against all the chances I give you
Isn’t ideal, but damn
You don’t even have to try
Turn you into a good *girl* 
You don’t have to lift a finger 
It’s lucky for you I’m just like 
My mother (And my sisters)
All my (All my friends)
The girl outside the strip club getting her tarot cards read
We love to read the cold, hard facts and swear they’re incorrect
We love to mistake butterflies for cardiac arrest
Paige couldn’t hold back the tears any longer. She covered her face with her hands, sobs shaking her shoulders. She felt Azzi’s arm wrap around her, pulling her into a comforting hug. “It’s okay, Paige,” Azzi whispered, but Paige shook her head.
“It’s not okay,” Paige choked out between sobs. “I lied to her. I lied to her, and now… now she’s hurting, and it’s all my fault.”
Aaliyah reached out, squeezing Paige’s hand. “Paige, we all make mistakes. But you have to own up to them. You have to show her you’re willing to change.”
Paige nodded, trying to steady her breathing. The song was still playing, your voice breaking as you sang the final lines:
Girls will cry and girls will lie and (Ooh)
Girls will lose their goddamn minds for you (Oh)
They’ll cry and girls will lie and 
Do it ‘til the day they die for you
The song ended, and the room was silent, the weight of your words hanging in the air. Paige knew she couldn’t let things stay like this. She had to make it right. She had to find a way to earn back your trust, to show you that she was willing to be honest, no matter how hard it was.
“I need to talk to her,” Paige said finally, her voice barely above a whisper. “I need to tell her everything.”
The team nodded in agreement, offering murmurs of support. They knew how much you meant to Paige, and they wanted to see her make things right.
Paige stood up, wiping her eyes. She didn’t know if you would forgive her, didn’t know if she could fix what she had broken. But she had to try. She couldn’t let you go without a fight.
As she left the room, Paige replayed your song in her mind, your voice echoing in her ears. She had a lot to make up for, but she was determined to start now. She had lied to you, but she wouldn’t lie to herself anymore. She loved you, and she was ready to do whatever it took to prove it.
...........................................................
Isak speaks: Some people are gonna hate me for leaving this on a cliffhanger so I'll get the apology video ready lol. Also I promise I'll post a part two. Can I guarantee It'll be out extremely soon? No, not really(sorry again), but I will try so that's gotta count for something, right? This song has also been stuck in my head all day hence why I came up with this
375 notes · View notes
youunravelme · 6 months ago
Text
nothing happened in the way i wanted part 1
author's note: okay so let it be known that my FAV emily henry book is happy place (if you want a deep dive into my personality, if you want to know the inner workings of my mind, read the book) SO with that being said, this fic was inspired by that masterpiece. plus i've fallen down a matt rabbit hole as of late. just a warning, this is a LONG ass fic (74 pages and 30.3k words, not a brag, i kinda regret that it's this long bc my brain hurts) so pace yourselves okay? thank you for being the kindest people ever!! this is finished, but tumblr said what i wrote is too long. so i'm posting it in parts lolol.
summary: a year has passed and you are no closer to understanding why matt ended things and you have every plan of avoiding that thought until he comes back in town for the offseason, then suddenly he's everywhere.
pairing: matthew tkachuk x reader
warnings: ANGST, friends to lovers to exes to lovers, mention of sexual assault, attempted sexual assault, drinking, depression, panic attacks, let me know if i missed something!
Tumblr media
after
despite being back in st. louis for six months, summer still felt like it came too fast. your thighs started sticking to the seats from sweat about three weeks ago. summer used to be your favorite season because it meant you had unlimited access to the love of your life, you weren’t sharing him with his teammates or his crazy schedule.
but he wasn’t yours anymore. matthew hadn’t been yours in six months and some change.
the second you entered your parents’ home, you tossed your keys into the bowl and slid your shoes off. it’d been six months since you moved home, and it still didn’t feel like a space where you belonged. you walked into the living room without so much as a hello from either of your parents, both of whom were posted up on the couch. they weren’t talking to each other, just letting the noise from the news fill the room instead of conversation.
“hey,” you greeted, plopping down in the recliner.
“how was work?” your mom asked.
you shrugged, not quite having the words to convey how mundane it had been. you were working on restoring a piece for this rich couple who lived in the same neighborhood as the tkachuks. it wasn’t in too bad of shape, given the fact that you were the one entrusted to work on it. if it was actually something incredibly complicated, your boss would’ve found someone else more experienced to do it.
when you entered art restoration and conservation, you thought it would be mindless. art had always been an escape for you, a chance to remove yourself from your racing thoughts. you thought that by entering the art conservation field, you could add onto something, enhance the beauty that was lost over the years of damage, instead of creating something from your own experiences.
but no one told you how hard it would be after your breakup, that you would have to learn how to pour bottles of chemical solvent into a glass when your eyes were blurring with tears. no one said anything about how you would spend hours hunched over, fixing the problems in paintings that only served to remind you that while you could mend a masterpiece, you were unable to stop and patch up the problems in your relationship. no one spoke about how you would inevitably relate to the paintings that came to you in shambles, the only difference being that clients would pay thousands of dollars for their paintings to be restored to their former glory, your ex let you fall apart alone in a city where you had no friends outside of the ones you’d made through him.
but how could you communicate that to your mother? to your father? both of whom stayed in an unhappy marriage for the sake of optics? how could you tell them that it’s been months and you were still no more over your ex than the day it ended? how could they understand you? they stayed together out of convenience, out of a fear of ending their marriage only to never find someone else.
it had been six months since your relationship ended, and you were no closer to understanding why.
“just a mundane day,” was all you said instead. “nothing to write home about.”
both of your parents hummed.
“did you have dinner already?” you asked.
“was gonna order pizza,” your dad said.
your mother scoffed and rolled her eyes. “no alan, we had plans to see chantal and keith tonight for dinner.”
you wanted to throw up.
you weren’t sure what you were expecting, maybe some loyalty from your parents? though, they weren’t fully privy to all the information about the demise of your relationship with matt, so maybe you couldn’t expect them to stop hanging out with his parents, especially when said parents were such great people.
“oh,” was all you could say.
“you’re more than welcome to order takeout and watch a movie,” your mom commented, like you needed permission to make yourself at home when you were actively living there. “i’m sure ronald would appreciate your company.”
you glanced at the tabby cat who was perched on his cat tree. personally, you had no issue with ronald, but he liked your mom and your mom only. though on occasion, he would allow your dad to pet him. 
“i’ll figure something out,” you said.
your mom hummed before she stood up to go get ready while your father stayed on the couch. it was only another ten minutes before he got up to change quickly, and another five before they left the house without so much as a goodbye.
before
you were incredibly aware that you didn’t quite fit in. your mom drove you to school in a beat up 1997 toyota camry which looked incredibly out of place among the bmws and audis. your mom offered to walk you in, but she was wearing her scrubs from her night shift and her face looked tired, so you declined the offer and got out of the car yourself.
it shouldn’t have been as daunting as it was, but your old school wasn’t as prestigious as this one. your previous schools in cedar rapids had been public schools. no one was wearing a uniform, and most of the backpacks worn came from the same walmart in your old neighborhood. 
but your parents had decided they wanted a better education for you, even if neither of them had the money to fork out thousands of dollars for a private school. your mom’s parents, however, were loaded. they were more than willing to fork out a small fortune for your schooling under the conditions of your family uprooting your lives to missouri. you were too young to realize what a sacrifice that was, you didn’t notice the snide comments your grandparents made about your father’s choice of career or your mother’s choice in husband.
you didn’t see your grandparents any more than you usually did since you’d moved to missouri two weeks ago. they’d been out of town on a trip to rome up until three days ago and hadn’t reached out to have dinner or hang out at all.
not that you cared at the age of nine, you were more focused on unpacking your room. but now that you were standing in front of the giant school alone, you felt like you should’ve been more concerned with how nice your school supplies were.
a kind woman greeted you at the entrance of the school. she smiled and introduced herself, though you couldn’t hear her over the roaring in your ears. she stood next to a blond haired blue eyed boy who was your height.
“are your parents here?” you weren’t sure how you heard her over the noise in your head.
you shook your head. “my mom had to go home and my dad is at work.”
the woman blinked. “is today your first day?”
“mom, it’s everyone’s first day of school,” the boy groaned.
“i wasn’t talking to you, matthew,” she said, though her eyes never left your own.
“i just moved here,” was all you said, albeit a bit quietly. 
“well, you can walk in with us.” She placed a warm hand on your back and ushered you inside next to her son.
you took notice of her nicer clothing compared to your mom’s scrubs or your dad’s tattered khakis, though the woman’s clothing wasn’t as ostentatious as other parents’.
“do you know your teacher’s name?” the woman asked.
you nodded and showed her the crumpled paper in your hand. the night before, you were wracked with nerves and wrote your teacher’s on a blank sheet of paper and doodled around it. even at nine years old, you were concerned that you’d somehow forget. you couldn’t be more grateful for it now.
the woman’s face lit up. “oh how lucky! matthew look! you’re in the same class.”
matthew for his part, tried to look happy about it, but his eyes kept wandering to the hallways, like he was looking for people he knew. you felt bad for even being in this situation. you missed your friends from iowa and the light up shoes you used to wear before you were given a uniform.
matthew’s mom pointed out the classroom that was supposed to be yours and walked both you and matthew into the room. unlike her son, who immediately found his friends to do elaborate handshakes with, you stayed by her side. she was a stranger, sure, but she was more comforting that the classroom of fifteen other nine and ten year olds.
the woman sighed and bent down a little to look you in the eyes. “it’s gonna be a good day, sweetheart,” she said. “mr. terry is a great teacher, he’s really kind.” you weren’t sure how she would know that, but you weren’t going to call her a liar. “and if you need anything, ask matthew. he’s been going here since kindergarten, okay?”
you nodded.
mr. terry walked over and introduced himself. he had dark skin and a bright smile, showing you to your seat. your name was on a card with fun stickers on it. next to your seat, you saw matthew’s name. now it wasn’t necessarily an unpopular name, there were three matthews in your third grade class, so you weren’t holding out hope that it was going to be the matthew you walked into class with. but two minutes later, he was plopping down into the seat to your left.
matthew looked almost startled to see you sitting next to him, but when the shock wore off he gave you a crooked smile and stuck his hand out. “i’m matt,” he said, like you two didn’t walk into class together.
you shook his hand anyway and gave him a shy smile and told him your name, just in case he didn’t see it written on your desk.
if it was even possible, his smile widened. “pretty name,” he said.
after
you’d watched a movie and half of another one by the time your parents walked through the front door. ronald jumped off the couch to greet your mother while he ignored your father.
“oh,” your dad said. “you’re still up.”
“i’m about to go to bed,” you replied, though you didn’t move from the couch.
“dinner was great,” your mom commented. “chantal and keith said to tell you hello.”
your gut twisted at the mention of their names. you loved his family, you really did, but the mention of the family that was almost yours stung when you looked at how your parents acted like roommates on the best of days.
you remembered summer days spent in the tkachuks’ backyard, watching as matt and brady chased each other while taryn tried her best to keep up. you remembered your dad picking you up from their house, and how you begged the entire ride home for a little brother or sister. he looked at your through the rearview mirror and said “we already achieved perfection, why mess that up?”
but you were grown now. you saw how their marriage barely survived raising you, and they were probably being smart by not risking your upbringing just to have another child.
you bid your parents goodnight and headed up the stairs to your childhood bedroom. it looked less like the office it was converted into when you moved out originally. you didn’t fault your parents for taking advantage of your absence, you, like many people your age, had zero intentions of ever moving back in until an unfortunate set of circumstances happened to you.
and that’s what life had felt like lately:
unfortunate.
unfortunate shit just happening to you.
it wasn't late by any means, but you were surprised when your phone vibrated with a text message. maybe it was the fact that you hadn’t really befriended anyone since moving back that had you flinching at the shock of someone other than your parents (or grandparents) texting you.
you unlocked your phone and opened the message, sighing when you read its contents.
emma:
hey girl! just checking in to see if you’re still good for this weekend? no worries if you can’t make it!
you dropped the phone on your stomach and groaned into your hands as soon as they made contact with your face.
years of dating matthew meant you’d grown closer to brady and taryn and by proxy, brady’s fiancée, emma. you’d already committed to being a bridesmaid and bought the dress before your relationship with matt ended. when emma found out, she called immediately and gave you an out, said she wouldn’t take it personal, that she understood if it would be too hard.
but you remembered the countless conversations had about planning your weddings while the both of you watched the loves of your lives try not to kill each other from your spots on the back porch. and you could hear it in her voice, how much it meant to her that you would be there even if she didn’t want to push it on you. it didn’t matter that only one of you was getting the wedding you planned. the bets made on who’d get married first were obsolete now.
you wanted to text her back and say you were busy, but you hadn’t seen her much since her and brady came back in town. when the senators’ season ended in april, he and emma spent some time with her family and attended the playoff games for the panthers. now that the panthers’ season ended two weeks ago, all of the tkachuks were back in town which used to excite you.
now it just filled you with dread.
no, it’s not like you lived in the same tax bracket as matt’s family. you didn’t go to the same grocery stores unless you were tagging along. no, there was a comfortable distance between your neighborhoods and st. louis was filled with two million other people that the odds of running into him were slim.
but your anxiety preferred zero odds rather than a slight chance, and it made the logic that was once screaming at you sound like a small whisper.
you sucked it up anyway, though. seeing emma and the other bridesmaids was better than staying in your room and staring at the ceiling.
you:
i’ll be there! can’t wait!!!
and maybe you used too many exclamation points. maybe you were trying too hard to prove something no one would believe if they took longer than a split second glance at your face. you were a horrible liar, that hadn’t changed. you were just hoping by the time the weekend came around, you’d be too busy to focus on any of the pain.
before
the summer after keith retired, the tkachuks took you and your family on vacation with them to turks and caicos. your parents were stressed initially about the trip, but you were filled with nothing but excitement at leaving the landlocked state you called home.
missouri had slowly wormed its way into your heart. when your family moved, there was never a thought in your mind that you would ever come to love it like you did with cedar rapids. there was no way you’d ever consider this place your home. but then you met the tkachuks.
it’d been nearly three years since you’d first sat in that seat next to your best friend in mr. terry’s fourth grade class. now, you were splashing around in the waves with matt and brady while your parents looked from the shore.
school had been different the past two years, with matthew going to an all boys school after fifth grade while you stayed. it took some adjusting to being without him the entire school day. you didn’t want to think of yourself as codependent, or clingy, but mat was your best friend. it was an adjustment, having to make new friends in the same school.
now that wasn’t to say that you never saw matt. after your initial introductions, chantal offered to take you to and from school if your mom or dad dropped you off at their house in the morning. both of your parents jumped at the idea. your mother, who worked as a night shift ICU nurse, reveled in being able to go home and go straight to sleep. your father, whose job as an electrician required him to be on job sites early in the morning, didn’t mind it either, he had to be up early anyway.
and sure, you had to wake up earlier than you used to, but you got to eat breakfast and pretend like you were a tkachuk most days of the week (with the exception of the days your mom was off). keith would ruffle your hair as he passed you in the kitchen. taryn would race matthew for the seat next to yours.
the tkachuks felt more like your family than your own some days.
especially now when your parents went on a date that keith and chantal paid for while they stayed back at the beach house with you and their children. 
all six of you were seated around the coffee table with the game of life laid out in front of you. the evening started out with a game of uno, but that game got out of hand quickly. it took brady reversing the order and hitting matt with a draw four before your best friend lunged over the table to tackle his brother. while keith broke up the boys, chantal cleaned up uno and instructed you and taryn to pick out the least competitive game you could find.
which is how you ended up playing the game of life.
even though life had to be the least competitive game you knew, matt and brady still managed to argue over it, even going as far to rant about how unfair it was that they had to pay for home insurance. keith and chantal had just chuckled and told them to enjoy childhood while it lasted.
you found yourself smiling and laughing along.
you weren’t quite sure who won, or how anyone ever really wins the game of life, but the moment mattered more. taryn went upstairs with keith to get ready for bed while brady helped his mom in the kitchen pop a bag of popcorn. you and matthew were responsible for cleaning up the game.
“are you having fun?” he asked.
your smile was so wide, it hurt your cheeks. “i’m having the best time. this is by far the best vacation i’ve been on.”
“really?” he smiled.
you nodded emphatically. “most of my family vacations have been spent with my grandparents.”
matt grimaced, already aware of the testy relationship your mom had with her own parents. “when’s the last time you saw them?”
you had to think for a moment, while your grandparents technically lived in st. louis, they were often out of town or ignoring your family’s existence altogether. with the exception of the last saturday of every month, when you and your parents were practically obligated to eat dinner with them. you didn’t notice their judgmental comments when you were younger and mesmerized by the giant dollhouse they bought for you.
but you were older now. you knew that there were terms and conditions attached to the cellphone they bought for you on your twelfth birthday. you heard the disdain in their voices when they talked down to your father and mother for their life choices. you weren’t an idiot, you understood that every compliment they gave you was a way for them to make your parents feel inferior in comparison.
you weren’t a child to them, you were a pawn in a game you never asked to play.
“we saw them about a month ago?” you shrugged. “they’re on vacation until halfway through august.”
matt hummed. “i think we’re gonna visit mom’s parents before school starts back again.”
to your credit, you did your best to look happy for him, even if it meant that you wouldn’t see him for a week and a half. you had other friends in town! in fact, you befriended a girl named simone when you started middle school. maybe you could call her when you get back to st. louis?
evidently, your little act wasn’t convincing enough. matt nudged your shoulder with his. “you’ll be fine,” he said. “you’re probably annoyed from how much time we’ve spent together this summer. you need a break.”
you couldn’t help but smile. “i could never get tired of you, matty.”
he blinked, almost at a loss for words, it felt like. but you should’ve known better, because he was holding up his pinky a beat later. “you promise?”
you locked your fingers together. “promise.”
after
it’s just emma and her friends and taryn, you thought. you already know all of these people. there’s no reason to be stressed out.
which, to be fair, your inner monologue was right. you had absolutely no reason to be standing in front of your closet debating what to wear for as long as you had. 
before you could stop yourself, you were hitting emma’s contact and putting your phone on speaker. the dial tone rang out through the room while you waited for her to pick up. you were seconds away from ending the call when her phone sounded through the receiver.
“hey! what’s up?”
you exhaled. “i don’t know what to wear tonight.”
emma said your name through a laugh. “we’re not going anywhere fancy, i swear. it’s just dinner and then we’re going to a bar.”
you frowned. “so taryn’s not joining us after dinner?”
“no, she has other plans after dinner anyway. she said she was meeting up with some friends from high school.” as if she could see the hesitance on your face, emma spoke up again. “but you know all the other girls, it’s not like you’ll be hanging out with strangers.”
and she was right, you were in a groupchat with the other bridesmaids and found all of them to be quite pleasant.
“look, if you’re still stressed about what to wear, just wear jeans.”
“okay, but how nice is this restaurant?” you were rummaging through your closet. “because i’ve worn jeans to restaurants that weren’t supposed to be fancy and i found myself criminally underdressed.”
“yeah well, i’m better at communicating than matt is.” a gasp sounded through the receiver, like emma had just realized what she said. “oh my god, i’m so sorry—”
“it’s fine, you’re not wrong,” you said, forcing out a laugh even as your heart painfully squeezed in your chest.
“i really didn’t mean to,” she sighed. “i’m sorry, that was rude of me to bring up.”
you shook your head even though she couldn’t see you. “it’s fine, emma, i swear,” you said even though there were tears pricking in your eyes. “i’ll have to face the music eventually.”
“still, it was insensitive of me to say that.”
you cleared your throat. “don’t worry about it, i’m a big girl.” you pulled the phone away from your face so you could sniffle for a second without drawing any unnecessary attention. “so jean shorts tonight?” you asked.
there was a brief silence before you heard emma’s soft sigh over the phone. “that sounds perfect.”
before
matthew kissed you for the first time when you were hanging out with mutual friends after school in eighth grade. you’d been dreaming about that moment for years ever since sixth grade when you realized matt was handsome and the flutters in your stomach weren’t just from nerves anymore.
both of you were at your friend morgan’s house sitting in her basement. she happened to live in the same neighborhood as matt. so after school, you rode home with the tkachuks like you always did and then walked to her house.
morgan was the first of your friends to get a boyfriend and she wasn’t shy about telling everyone. it was easy to be jealous of her. while you hadn’t known her as long, your other friends had made it clear she’d garnered male attention since preschool. so there was no surprise that she’d announced at school earlier that week that she was dating someone from matt’s school.
hence the party in the basement.
morgan was the one who suggested truth or dare. she had all ten of you circle up on the carpet and sit criss crossed. you were keenly aware of how matt’s knee was touching your own, you could feel the heat even through your jeans. he was leaning back on his hands, with his right hand directly behind your back,in your delusions, you let yourself pretend he was doing it to be closer to you.
“alright!” morgan cheered. “who wants to start?”
no one said a word.
you made the mistake of looking around when you caught morgan’s eye. at the sight of a growing smirk on her lips, you quickly diverted your gaze.
“c'mon, no one wants to go first?” she hummed. “fine, i’ll go. babe,” she started calling thomas babe a week ago. “ask me, truth or dare?”
the only word you could use to describe the look on thomas’ face was besotted. without hesitating, he asked her the question, smiling when she grinned back at him. morgan chose dare, because she wasn’t “boring and lame.”
thomas dared her to kiss him. there was a collective groan when she leaned over and kissed her boyfriend. the second she pulled back, morgan’s eyes flitted over the rest of the group, looking like a tiger about to pounce. the two of you made eye contact and the corner of her lips raised in a smirk that was gone as quick as it came.
you prepared yourself for the worst, recalling how you let it slip that you have a crush on matt. and morgan, while she wasn’t intentionally cruel, had all but shrieked when you told her. so you didn’t think she’d out you to be mean, you wouldn’t put it past her to attempt matchmaking.
but her eyes skipped right over you and focused on simone. “truth or dare?”
“truth,” simone replied.
morgan rolled her eyes. “nerd,” but she cracked a smile anyway.
the game went on pretty effortlessly, you even got brave enough to do a dare (thankfully morgan never got the opportunity to ask you). it ended with morgan asking matthew. the smirk she had earlier, appeared as she made eye contact with you before setting her sights on your best friend.
“truth or dare?” she asked.
you immediately knew which option he was picking, matt never backed down from a challenge and had been choosing dare all night.
“matthew, i dare you to kiss the hottest person in the room.”
your stomach dropped as did your gaze. you couldn’t look anyone in the eye, you didn’t want to see matt kiss another girl, you couldn’t. you wouldn’t do it.
a moment passed when you realized matt hadn’t moved an inch. he was still leaning on his hands, with one stretched behind you. all it took was a quick glance at matt to see him already staring back at you.
“no,” he said, eyes still locked on your face.
morgan blinked. “what?”
it was only then that his eyes left your face to look morgan dead in the eye. “nope. i won’t do it.”
she guffawed. “but you have to!”
matt shrugged. “i don’t want to.”
“but you lose if you don’t!”
he shrugged yet again. “oh well.”
your head snapped up to look at him in confusion. “matt,” you nudged him.
“we gotta go anyway,” he said, before he stood up and reached out to you. you took his hand, albeit hesitantly before he dragged you up the stairs and out of the house onto the street.
a cool breeze was blowing which inadvertently caused you to shiver. matt, who still hadn’t let go of your hand, tugged you further into his side. your heart sank when he dropped your hand, only for it to skyrocket when he threw his arm around you.
“why didn’t you do the dare?” you asked. the curiosity was killing you, even if you believed the real answer would be even worse than not knowing.
matt shrugged like he had been all night. “i didn’t feel like it.”
you blinked at him, staring at his profile while he guided the two of you back to his house. “you’re literally the most competitive person i know. you’ve never intentionally lost a game. last week brady dared you to drink that gallon of milk and run a mile, which, if i must remind you, you threw up not even halfway through.”
matt laughed. “that was funny. but what’s your point?”
“my point is that kissing someone is way less work than running a mile and throwing up. so what’s up?”
he wouldn’t look at you, his gaze fell to the ground where he kicked a rock. “didn’t want it to happen like that.”
you blinked at him, refusing to move your gaze from his profile. “didn’t want what to happen like that? it’s just a kiss.”
he shook his head and stopped walking, grabbing your wrist when you kept moving. matt tugged your arm so you’d turn around and look at him. “it wouldn’t be just a kiss,” he said.
“would it mean more?” you asked, but he didn’t say anything. “matt?” your heart was beating against your chest. your hands shook at the idea of him wanting to kiss someone. you went through the list of people in that room. it wasn’t morgan, he’d told you weeks ago that he didn’t like her like that when you asked. could it be simone? she looked like a goddess on a bad day. her dark skin was flawless and free of blemishes and her faux locs were always perfectly styled. she didn’t even wear makeup on a regular basis.
oh god. did he like simone?
your gut twisted at the idea, of him falling in love with the closest friend you had at school. you could learn to be happy for them, simone was great and matt would adore her if she agreed to go out with him.
you snapped back into it when you felt matt’s thumb rub across your pulse. “matt, would it mean more?”
he shrugged again, still not looking at you, just the part where your hands were joined. “would it be a problem if it did?”
now it was your turn to be confused. “why would my opinion matter? i’m not the one you’d be kissing.”
matt blinked at you once, then twice. “you can’t be serious,” he said.
“what do you mean?”
“you can’t be that blind. there’s no way.”
“matt, what are you talking about?”
he dropped your hand to run both of his over his face and groaned. “there's no way you don’t know.”
“know what?”
matt fixed you with an intense look, one that had you squirming in your shoes a little. in all your years of friendship, you weren’t sure he'd ever stared at you that way before. a hockey game? sure, but you?
“matt what—”
“i like you,” he said as plain as day, like he didn’t just flip your world on its axis.
you blinked, you were pretty sure you stopped breathing. “what?” you whispered.
matt stepped closer to you, close enough that your shoes were touching. “i like you.”
“so why didn’t you kiss me when morgan dared you to?”
“i didn’t want it to happen like that,” he admitted. “didn’t wanna kiss you in front of everybody.”
you could feel the heat travel up your neck and to your cheeks. “and what about now? would you kiss me now?”
“would you let me?”
words failed you, you could only nod. matt hesitated for a moment before pressing his lips to yours. it was clumsy and awkward, and in the middle of the sidewalk two blocks away from his house.
but it was perfect.
after
you ubered to the restaurant before emma could suggest meeting at the tkachuk house. every single one of the bridesmaids knew you and matt were no longer together, all of them banding around you and offering support from thousands of miles away. so you didn’t think any of them would even hint at meeting at the tkachuk residence if they were as considerate as you believed them to be, but you wanted to avoid the sympathetic looks that would be thrown your way.
most of the bridesmaids were there by the time you arrived, the only exception being taryn. the entire table greeted you with bright white smiles, emma stood to give you a hug that you enthusiastically returned.
it felt great to be back in the company of people your age. despite being back in st. louis for quite some time, you still had yet to make any more friends outside of emma and taryn, both of whom you didn’t see that often because of who they were relationally attached to.
unfortunately, you’d lost contact with many of your friends from high school because of the distance. if you could go back, you’d slap yourself in the face for thinking matt was going to stick around longer than simone or morgan.
but how were you to know he would leave and wouldn’t want you to follow him?
you swallowed that question down and took a seat at the table. you sat next to a brunette named stacey, the other seat on your right was left for taryn, you assumed. there were already two bottles of wine sitting in a bucket of ice on the table. part of you considered pouring yourself a glass immediately, but you remembered the plans were dinner first, bar later. so you settled for water.
it was only a matter of maybe ten minutes before taryn was led to your table. you stood up with the rest of the girls and waited your turn to hug her. taryn saved you for last, smiling bright and wide when the two of you finally made eye contact. you squeezed each other tightly as you hugged, unspoken words being communicated.
“now, before anyone looks at the menu, i just wanted to let you know, it’s on brady tonight.” emma held up her hand as mouths began to protest across the table. “he insisted, and we won’t be taking no for an answer.”
and maybe you should’ve protested a little harder to look more sincere, but your job wasn’t paying you well enough to afford a 70 dollar steak and drinks.
the table breaks up into mini conversations while everyone was looking over the menu. you were doing the same when an elbow nudged you from the right. you glanced over at taryn who wasn’t even trying to hide the fact that she wanted your attention, it was something you’d always admired about her.
“long time, no see,” she said. but before you could respond, she spoke up again. “how have you been?”
you shrugged and moved your eyes back to the menu to look busy. “nothing has been going on really, just working.” you cleared your throat and hesitantly made eye contact again. “and you? what have you been up to?”
taryn shifted in her seat, a tell you knew was coming. you weren’t a stranger to where she’d been the past few weeks, you still followed her on instagram, you followed all of the tkachuks on instagram, even matt. so you knew she’d just gotten back after the panthers lost in game five of the finals.
you nudged her with your shoulder and gave her a small smile. “it’s okay, i’m not gonna burst into tears if you mention him.”
taryn smiled. “i’m exhausted, we were traveling everywhere for matt it felt like. it was cutting into my workouts.”
your jaw clenched at the mention of his name, mainly to distract you from feeling the ache in your chest, but you kept a pleasant look on your face anyway. “you still have the rest of the summer for your workouts, though. summer’s barely started.”
taryn nodded but she didn’t say anything for a moment. you started to shift in your seat when she reached a hand out and squeezed your own. “i miss you,” she said sincerely. “it hasn’t been the same without you around.”
“taryn...”
“you know, you’re still in, like, most of our family photos hanging on the wall. mom and dad haven’t taken them down.”
you weren’t sure if that made you happy or brought you pain.
“i begged them not to, you’re in too many memories for us to just forget you.” she cleared her throat and looked back at her menu, giving you a break from the sincere staredown the two of you were having. “they ask about you all the time, but they didn’t want to impose, mom especially. said she’d understand if you never wanted to see them again.”
you tried reading the menu through blurry eyes and pinched your lips together so no one would see them tremble. “i’ve been meaning to get coffee with your mom,” you said, though you both knew it was a lie. you’d made yourself scarce for a reason.
“she’d be happy to see you again, she just didn’t want to overstep.”
you nodded, still not looking at the girl you fully believed would be your sister one day. “i’ll text her.”
the waiter came by moments later to take your orders. thankfully, the tears had cleared up out of your eyes. as soon as you’d cleared your throat, you were telling the server your order without your voice shaking.
you bore the grief well, you thought. you laughed when everyone else did, smiled when appropriate, and asked follow up questions. socializing wasn’t hard, years of galas and charity events as matt’s plus one had trained you well for moments like these, so long as you avoided the eyes of taryn and emma, both of whom knew you better than anyone else at the table.
emma paid with brady’s card like she’d promised earlier. unfortunately for you, that’s when the anxiety started to come back. taryn was leaving after dinner, too young to go to the bars with the rest of you, and according to what emma had told you, she had plans with friends.
the group left together, with taryn waving goodbye as the rest of you headed to a bar three blocks away. your hands were shaking, so you shoved them in your pockets to hide the trembling.
it’d get better once you got a few drinks in you, you told yourself. you’d loosen up soon enough.
emma opened a tab with brady’s card and you immediately started going in. the group started with a round of shots, but you were quickly ordering more than just tequila. it was only a matter of time before your vision started lagging and your brain began buffering to keep up with what was happening.
you were on the dance floor, grinding against a stranger, who thankfully, was keeping their hands to themselves, when emma tugged your arm, giggling. “everyone else has left. and i think it’s time for us to go,” she slurred, a giant smile on her face.
you allowed yourself to be tugged away from the stranger. “how do you know?” you asked, fumbling over your words like trying to catch a bar of soap with wet hands.
emma smiled and pointed at the bar where brady was, you assumed, closing out the tab. seeing him in the flesh had your heart stuttering. the anxiety was kicking back in, hitting harder than it did when you were sober. you hadn’t seen brady since november, or was it december? the months had blurred together just like that one scene from new moon.
but now you were seeing him in the flesh, and he was getting closer as emma tugged you over to where he was. brady was just slipping his card back in his wallet when the two of you got to him. he looked up and smiled at his fianceé before he even realized you were standing there. the lovesick smile dropped but it was quickly replaced with shock before it was transformed into a smile you could’ve painted from memory.
“hey!” he said just loud enough to be heard over the noise. “i didn’t think you were coming tonight.”
if you were sober, you’d see that statement as a warning, preparation for what was to come. you would’ve noticed the way his eyes kept darting to the entrance of the bar, but you didn’t. you were just happy to see him for the first time in a while, feeling the semblance of home you’d been missing for months.
if you were sober, you would’ve remembered that brady and his brother were a package deal. you would’ve known that the nights brady wasn’t spending with emma, he was spending with your ex, and when emma had inevitably texted (or brady offered) her fiancé to pick her up, that he was more than likely already out with his brother celebrating his upcoming nuptials.
if you were sober, you would’ve noticed him walk through the door because your eyes were always drawn to him. you would’ve known it was him by the smell of his cologne, instead of waiting for him to slap his brother on the shoulder in greeting.
if you were sober, you would’ve made a break for it the second he started approaching you, emma, and brady.
but you were drunk off your ass, and all you could do was stand there like a dumbfounded idiot while matthew brendan tkachuk glanced around the room.
brady shifted on his feet a little, bracing for the moment you both knew was coming. the moment where matt saw you for the first time since november 29, when he played calgary. you’d imagine to brady, it felt like watching a car accident happen in real time. to you though, you were the accident. you were the one getting hit by a bus going full speed. you were rooted to the spot, taking in every feature of matt’s face that you’d missed over the last six months, waiting for him to see you.
if you were sober, you would’ve run away by now, knowing that being that close to him would do nothing for you.
but it was too late now.
matt finally glanced at emma, then brady, until his eyes landed on you. the smile on his lips from the song that was bumping through the speakers dropped almost immediately. he recoiled, took a small step back, almost as if he was shocked to see you there at all.
you felt like an idiot.
you weren’t sure how long the two of you stared at each other before you took a deep breath and stared at your shoes.
your hands were shaking again.
you shoved them in your pockets again.
matt’s eyes darted to your shorts at the movement, his eyes scrunched together in what looked like concern, but you brushed that thought off before you could convince yourself he still cared. but you could feel his stare on you, even as you looked around and avoided eye contact. you felt like an ant, with matt’s gaze being the magnifying glass that was burning you with a beam of sunlight.
“do you have a ride home?” brady asked. your head whipped back around to look at him and emma.
you shrugged, already feeling more sober than you were two minutes ago. “was gonna uber.”
matt scoffed. “not happening.”
out of nowhere anger bubbled out of your chest and out of your mouth. “excuse me?”
matt fixed you with a hard stare, one you didn’t shy away from. “you’re not ubering home on a friday night drunk as hell. it’s not happening.”
“i think you lost the right to make my decisions six months ago.” you refused to say his name, refused to know what it felt like to have it back on your tongue even though your heart was crying out to utter those two syllables again.
brady interjected before the disagreement could escalate. “i just wanna make sure you get home safe,” he said. “can i drive you home?”
you glanced at the man you used to know like a little brother. you saw the sincerity in his eyes, the concern.
and maybe it was the love for brady and emma that had you accepting. or maybe it was the alcohol. you nodded your head and let emma lock arms with you as you were led out by the tkachuk brothers.
you found yourself in the backseat where you used to hold hands with matt when you went on double dates with brady and emma. the two of you used to tease the younger couple when they did literally anything romantic. if brady so much as grabbed emma’s hand, the two of you were gagging in the backseat “choking on their pda” all while knowing brady and emma have caught you in more compromising positions before.
but it wasn’t like that this time around.
you slid into your usual seat in the back before emma could offer up shotgun to you. maybe if you were more selfish, you’d accept, but you weren’t going to let your friend sit away from her fiancé when you could just suck it up.
the space between you and matt felt too suffocatingly small and yet it still felt like you were on two opposite sides of the globe. you thought about taking a risk and throwing yourself out of the moving vehicle, but there was still a wedding you were both in. you needed to figure out how to tolerate being around him if you didn’t want to cause a scene later in the summer.
you just had to make it to the end of july, then you could go back and pretend like december 16th never happened, like the past nine years of your life never happened. like you never fell in love with your best friend, like you never met him and his mother in fourth grade, like your parents never moved you to st. louis. like there weren’t traces of your failed relationship in every scrapbook in your parents’ house, like he wasn’t tied to every significant moment of your childhood.
you felt like the bundle of christmas lights that you’d sworn you put back in an orderly fashion the previous year, only to pull them out and realize you had an entire project on your hands to detangle them all.
except in the end, none of the lights worked anyway.
you could hardly remember a time where your life wasn’t deeply intertwined with matthew’s. you thought it’d lead to something, to marriage, to raising kids together, to celebrating his retirement, buying a home close to his family, and growing fat and old together.
you hated the idea that you went down that road only for it to be a dead end.
brady pulled up outside your house. you were unbuckling your seat belt and throwing the door open before he’d even put the car in park. you were doing your best to get to the front porch before anything else happened, but as hard as you tried, you were still a little too drunk. you were stumbling up the driveway and to the front door, all the while trying to figure out which key was the key to your house.
a car door slammed in the distance before footsteps followed.
you knew the sound like you knew the sound of your mother’s sadness. you would’ve recognized his footfalls anywhere.
in your haste and anxiety, you dropped your keys. you squatted down and nearly tipped over at the rush to your head. matt’s hand shot out before you could grab the keys while his other hand grabbed your elbow and pulled you into a standing position. he led you to the front door and with ease, found your house key. he unlocked the door but didn’t move to open it. you could feel his stare on the side of your face, but you refused to look back.
his touch on your skin felt like it was burning, and part of you wanted to rip your arm out of his grasp, but you couldn’t.
you just—
couldn't.
matt said your name quietly, but you just shook your head, willing the tears to go away. he didn’t get to see you cry, didn’t get to know that his actions had absolutely wrecked you. he tried again, but you inhaled and jerked your arm out of his reach before you opened your front door, grabbed your keys, and shut it in his face.
you barely made it into your bathroom before you threw up.
before
you were bouncing on your toes at the airport. matt’s plane landed fifteen minutes ago, and you were anxiously waiting for him to round the corner.
matt’s first year with the ntdp made your relationship a little difficult, though, you thought it would be harder than it was. modern technology definitely made it easier on you. matt would call you just about every other night, and if he couldn’t, matt was texting you whenever he had the freetime.
the last time you saw each other was when you and the tkachuks spent your spring break in ann arbor to visit, and that had been over a month ago. thankfully, you’d managed to convince your mom to let you check out of school early to wait for him.
“someone’s excited,” taryn teased, bumping her shoulder into your side. 
“honey leave her alone,” chantal chided. “we’re all excited.”
“i’m not,” brady grumbled. not even a beat later, keith was slapping the back of his head.
moments later, matt walked around the corner with his bags in hand. you fought every urge to run to him, deciding he probably wanted to greet his family first. and he did, you watched as he hugged his mom and dad first, moving the taryn, before punching brady in the shoulder.
you were nervously playing with the hem of your school issued plaid skirt as you looked on, suddenly feeling out of place. but it didn’t linger because in a blink of an eye, matt’s arms were wrapping around your waist and tugging you into his chest.
a sigh escaped your lips, one you didn’t even know was held hostage in your chest. maybe you were being dramatic (you were almost 16, after all), but it felt like the part of you that was missing was just returned.
“missed you,” he mumbled into your neck.
you couldn’t help the smile that graced your lips.
matt didn’t let go of you, even when everyone started walking towards the car where keith parked. your hand was tightly grasped in his own, forcing brady to carry the other bag matt couldn’t. to make up for it, you offered to sit in the back of keith’s escalade so brady could have more leg room. matt ended up grumbling about it, but it was clear he wasn’t going to let you sit in the back next to taryn when he hadn’t seen you in weeks.
“i ruined my perfect attendance streak for you,” you said as you traced the veins of his hands.
matt smirked. “i messed up little miss perfect’s squeaky clean record? how will you ever get into college now?”
you ripped your hand from his and shoved his shoulder, barely restraining yourself from cussing him out. “shut up,” was what you settled for because while taryn and brady had most definitely heard their fair share of curse words, you didn’t want to be the one on the receiving end of chantal’s disapproving look, even if it meant keith would be fighting for his life to hold back laughter.
all four of you, keith and chantal excluded, all but scrambled out of the car when it pulled into the garage. you and matt grabbed both of his bags before bum rushing into the house and up the stairs to his room.
“leave the door open!” chantal called from the first floor.
you didn’t need to see his face to know matt was rolling his eyes.
“i’m tempted to ignore her and just slam and lock the door,” he grumbled.
you dropped the bag you were holding and guffawed. “you wouldn’t. you love your mom.”
matt dropped his bag and immediately took the opportunity to grab you by the waist. “and i love you.”
you almost giggled, but you didn’t want to make a fool of yourself so you beamed instead. the first time he said those words was a few months ago over facetime and it still made you giddy as it did then.
matt pressed his forehead against yours. “you’re not gonna say it back?” he asked.
you blinked, still smiling. “what?”
“you're not gonna say you love me back?”
you shrugged, knowing it would get under his skin. you knew the consequences. “hm,” you hummed. “do i need to?”
matt rolled his eyes so hard you thought they might’ve gotten stuck in the back of his head. “quit being smart.”
and maybe you should’ve given up, maybe you should’ve let it go and say those three little words you’d said countless times before. but teasing him was way too much fun to pass up when you hadn’t seen him in months. so you pursed your lips and hummed again. “i seem to recall you saying you liked how smart i am. something about being the beauty and the brains?”
and out of nowhere, taryn popped her head in. “well matt for sure wasn’t going to be the beauty, and he’s never been the brains,” she smirked.
matt let go of you and marched over to the door, all but slamming it in her face.
“matthew brendan tkachuk! that door better be open!” chantal’s voice carried up the stairs had you lunging across the room and whipping open the door in a hurry.
“sorry mrs. tkachuk!” you called out before turning around and glaring at your boyfriend. “you’re a menace.”
matthew smirked and pulled you close enough that you were chest to chest. “but you love me.”
“i love you so much.”
after
the hangover you had the next morning was probably the worst you ever remember having. well, until you remembered the night matt broke up with you, that was the worst one.
you turned over in bed, picked up your phone, and saw multiple texts from emma and brady alike, both ranging from “it was great to see you” to “i’m so sorry about last night.” you groaned and dropped your phone back on the nightstand.
last night, when you thought about it, hurt more than it should’ve. you saw him for the first time in the flesh and it looked like he was fine, like he didn’t completely upend your life six months ago when he ended things. part of you wondered if he could see through you, through the illusion of your happiness and to the core where you were just as fractured as you were december 17th. 
the rest of the weekend continued with you doing little to nothing but eating and binging trashy reality tv shows. when your alarm went off on monday morning, you contemplated calling off, but got dressed instead.
“you look like hell,” was the first thing frankie, your mentor and boss, said to you. because of the nature of your relationship, you felt comfortable flipping him off, even as he passed you a cup of coffee. “rough night?” he asked after watching you take a hefty sip of the hot beverage.
“rough weekend,” you grumbled.
frankie gave you a small smile and patted you on the back as the two of you walked to the workspace. “wanna talk about it?”
you recognized performative kindness when you saw it. while you firmly believed frankie cared about you and your wellbeing, you also knew he didn’t want to hear the sob story of how you ran into your ex drunk at a bar, at least, not at 8am. so you shook your head.
“i looked at some of your work on the bradshaw family’s piece so far, and i was impressed. i do have some notes, but for the most part, you’ve been doing a great job.”
you did your best to smile gratefully, but you weren’t sure it translated. “i really appreciate your guidance on this, and the trust you have to let me work on some of these projects.”
“you’re very talented,” he said. “you ever thought about creating something for yourself or someone else?”
there wasn’t a word to describe the noise that came out of your mouth. was it a nervous laugh? a squeak maybe? you didn’t know, and neither did frankie.
“what?” he asked. “why is that so scary?”
you shrugged as the two of you made it to the workspace. normally, you would start by pulling out the supplies you needed to begin working on the bradshaw piece, but if frankie met you at the door, it was because he wanted to have an impromptu meeting first.
“i feel like i’m good at fixing things,” you said. “maybe not creating something from thin air.”
“you have so much talent,” frankie replied. “i hate to see it wasted on fixing and preserving someone else’s work when you could be doing both. it could be your art that people hang in their houses and pay thousands of dollars to preserve.”
you nodded, but kept your eyes on the table, studying the wood grain and tracing the pattern with your finger.
“i don’t think i’m capable of that anymore.”
frankie reached over and squeezed your shoulder. “just think on it, okay? couldn’t hurt to just think on it.” he walked out a moment later, giving you space and time to queue up music and get started on the day.
you opened spotify and pressed the play button on your liked songs without even thinking about it. not even two seconds later, you regretted your decision. the soft tones and beats of frank ocean’s thinkin bout you echoed through the room and slammed against your chest. you immediately switched the song and found a classical playlist to listen to instead.
but the tune wouldn’t get out of your head.
not two minutes later.
not thirty minutes later.
not after your full eight hour shift spent hunched over your workstation.
not even on the drive home.
frank ocean’s voice permeated every fiber of your being.
it was simone who first showed you the song in high school. you remembered liking the melody enough, but you didn’t get the lyrics. and why would you? you were in love with your best friend who loved you back. even though you were fourteen and too young to even think about marriage, you knew matthew was going to be the person you ended up with. it was him or no one.
and now it was no one.
now, you listened to the song play over and over in your head, the lyrics resonating with you deeper than ever before.
you pulled into your driveway, completely unaware of what cars were parked in the street. they’d never mattered to you before. why would they now?
you sat in your car for a few minutes, taking a deep breath while you worked up the courage to go inside. when you finally got a grip on your emotions, you opened your door and grabbed your bag. you were too busy fumbling with your keys to notice anything amiss until you were on your porch and a pair of shoes came into sight.
“hey.”
it took everything in you not to scream. you dropped your keys and nearly dropped your bag. matthew stood on your front porch with his hands in the pockets in his shorts like he was innocent of any pain or suffering he’d caused you. he was in a pair of shorts and a t-shirt, and you hated yourself a little bit for thinking he’s attractive like that.
“what’re you doing here?” you hated how hoarse your voice sounded, like a low quality audio recording where things sounded muffled and broken.
“your dad wouldn’t let me in.”
“good.”
matt sighed and ran a hand down his face. “can we not do this?”
“not do what?” you asked. “not act like you ended things for no damn reason?”
“if you—”
“we dated for nearly ten years and you decided to end it over a five minute phone call. and you still think you’re entitled to my time?” and maybe you should’ve been kinder, maybe you should’ve been more civil. but you hadn’t seen or heard from him in months (until a few nights ago) and he just turned up out of the blue? expecting you to do what? forgive him? move on?
matthew said your name delicately, but not in the way he used to, like saying your name was a luxury he was honored to have. no, he said it like you were going to break, like you were fragile, like he wasn’t the sole cause of your pain. “please—”
the anger was draining out of you quicker. you were exhausted between work, and frank ocean’s stupid song, and the other night. 
“what do you want?” your voice cracked on the last word. “wanna ruin my life a little bit more? put the final nail in the coffin?”
“no,” he shook his head fervently. matthew took a step towards you and looked something close to devastated when you stepped back. but it didn’t make sense, he ended it, he had no right to look or feel that way. “i just wanna talk.”
“six months,” you said, doing your best to keep your voice clear. “you had six months to say something. what could you possibly have to say now that you couldn’t then?”
“i know we didn’t end on the best of terms—” he started, but it was cut off by your scoff. you turned your head away and used your palm to wipe at your eyes before you crossed your arms over your chest. “—but i don’t think we should let this ruin brady and emma’s summer. we’re gonna see a lot of each other and i don’t want things to be tense around them.”
you took a minute to really look at him. blonde frizzy curls, blue eyes that wouldn’t leave your face. he hadn’t changed one bit.
one summer, you’d attempted to count the number of freckles on his shoulders. you got up to 87 before you gave up.
and yet you felt like you were standing in front of a stranger.
there were so many things you wanted to say, so many things you’d dreamt of screaming at him, but now that he was here, in front of you, asking something of you, you felt drained, tired. you used to crave his presence, now it felt like a leech.
you loved him, but he was sucking the life out of you.
so you nodded. you nodded and said “okay,” before you walked inside your front door and left your heart on the porch.
you pressed your back against the door and slid to the ground, pulling your knees to your chest. there was no telling when you started crying, or when your dad joined you on the floor, hugging you as close to his chest as he could.
“why wasn’t i enough?” you sobbed into your knees.
your dad petted your hair before he pressed a kiss there. “you’re more than enough, honey. but you can’t make anyone love you if they’re not willing to.”
“he used to!” you wailed. “he used to love me!” then, in a smaller voice, “what changed?”
a beat of silence, then your father’s somber, quiet voice. “maybe he did.”
before
“so what are your plans for after high school?” ms. meyer, your high school guidance counselor sat across from you at her desk. her stare was kind, but unwavering.
you’d already applied to notre dame, knowing that’s where matt committed. so when you answered, it was confident. it had been your plan since matt said yes to the school. “i’m going to notre dame and majoring in art history.”
“do you have any back up schools?”
you nodded. “ucla and the art institute of chicago.”
ms. meyer pursed her lips. “you know all of those places are highly competitive, right?”
“my transcripts and resume are impressive and I did really well on the SAT and ACT. i think i’ll be able to get in.” and you were, you were pretty confident as they come when it came to academics. any school would’ve been lucky to have you, that much you believed.
ms. meyer nodded. “i understand ucla and the art institute, both of those schools have incredible arts programs, but why notre dame? it doesn’t seem to fit with your aspirations.”
“oh,” you laughed under your breath. “that’s where my boyfriend is going.”
your guidance counselor blinked. “you’re incredibly smart and gifted, i’d hate to see that talent wasted when you could be developing it elsewhere. what do you want?”
“i want to be with matthew.”
ms. meyer sighed and gave you a sympathetic smile, you weren’t sure why though. you’d never been more sure of anything. “honey, can i be honest with you?” she didn’t wait for your response. “you have so much talent, so much to offer, i’ve seen many girls come in here, putting off aspirations for their significant others only for that relationship not to last.”
“i know we’re young,” you started, already feeling the heat rise up in your chest. she didn’t know anything about you personally, she didn’t know about you and matt. “but we’re gonna make it, i swear.”
ms. meyer nodded. “of course you are.” she cleared her throat and adjusted the papers in front of her. “so, notre dame...”
after
you weren't exactly sure what compelled you to do it, but at dinner a few nights ago, your mom had asked about what happened to simone, your friend from middle and high school. so you reached out, though it made you feel like you were contacting someone to join your mlm.
it legitimately surprised you when simone replied to your facebook message. the two of you made plans to get coffee on saturday.
and now it was saturday.
you weren’t getting coffee until 9:30, but you were awake and staring at your ceiling at 7. you’d done the due diligence of stalking simone’s profile, so you knew she was married with two kids who looked just like her. she worked as a data analyst for kroger and her husband was a public defender. she met her husband in college and they got married shortly after they graduated from grad and law school respectively. 
if you were a better woman, you’d admit you were jealous. jealous that she got what she wanted in the end. but when you put that aside, you still felt overwhelming happiness at her station in life, regardless of how yours turned out.
you kept scrolling through her social media until it was eventually time for you to get up. you stayed to facebook, not even wanting to bother with going on instagram and accidentally stumbling across one of the tkachuks’ posts.
it was 9:10 when you finally finished getting dressed and ready. you came down the stairs and threw a goodbye over your shoulder before grabbing your crossbody bag and your keys and running out the door.
despite your sprinting and nearly running red lights, you were still five minutes late. you came into the coffee shop, gasping for air after sprinting down the sidewalk from your parking spot.
the second you entered the business, simone’s hand lifted and she smiled brightly, calling you over almost immediately. she stood to greet you, and like no time had passed, pulled you in for a hug.
“it’s so good to see you,” she said. “wasn’t sure if you still liked an iced chai latte, but i got one for you.”
“oh my god, yes,” you gasped before taking a seat and taking a sip of the beverage.
she kept smiling, which made you feel lighthearted for once. most people kept looking at you with pitying eyes, but simone saw you for more than the grief of the last six months. she had to know about it, she just had to, but you thanked her for not bringing it up in the first minute of your conversation.
“how’s work going?”
you shrugged. “it’s mostly tedious, but it’s been fine. what about you? working for kroger? that’s a huge deal.”
simone shook her head. “it’s just a means to an end, a way i can pay for my family’s lifestyle.”
“but are you passionate about what you do?”
she shrugged lightly. “it’s a job, it’s not my life. not everyone is going to work a job that fulfills them. my husband? he loves being a public defender, and he’s good at it. me though, as fun as analyzing data all day sounds and as helpful as it is, getting to have a job that doesn’t come home with me is probably my favorite part of it.”
you nodded along like you understood. and maybe you didn’t do a good enough job at being convincing because simone sighed.
“i wanted to wait to ask this, but i can’t hold it in any longer. how’re you holding up?”
it took you several seconds to answer her question. your mouth open and closed multiple times. “i— i don't know.” you sank back into your seat and picked at your cuticles. “it’s been a shitty few months,” you admitted. “you’d think i’d be over it by now.
simone shook her head and leaned in, arms braced on the table. “you two were together for a decade, what’s a few months in comparison to that?”
you shrugged. “i saw him the other night, when i went out drinking with the other bridesmaids. it was like, i don't know, i got dunked in an ice bath or something. he looked completely unaffected and i couldn’t breathe.”
simone whispered your name.
“but i’m fine!” you asserted. “i’m trying to be.”
simone nodded. “so what do you do now?”
you could’ve kissed her feet for the change in topic. “i’m working in the art restoration and conservation field.”
simone blinked. “you’re restoring art? do you like it?”
you shrugged. “most days, it can get repetitive, but that’s what i like.”
your friend sighed and fixed you with a soft, sympathetic look. “but is that what you want to do for the rest of your life? restoring someone else’s art? doing something repetitive? you are so talented, i hate to see you wasting that talent restoring someone else’s work.”
“it’s not a waste! it’s incredibly difficult and some things deserve to be preserved.”
“but some new things deserve to be created.” simone leaned in closer, her forearms braced on the table. “i think it would do you some good to start creating something again, even if it’s shitty. and you think you aren’t ready, just try something new. a new bar, a new hobby, a new man, something new.”
your stomach twisted at the thought of going on a date with someone other than matt, but simone was right. it had been six months and he seemed to be doing fine, it was your turn to start moving on, to find yourself again.
so you nodded. “we should do this more often,” you said. “i’ve missed you.”
simone smiled. “i’ve missed you too, i’m glad you’re home.”
you talked for another hour about everything the two of you had missed over the years of you being elsewhere before she had to leave and relieve the nanny at home. simone hugged you goodbye and texted you her new number before she left the coffee shop. 
the drive home was quiet because you were pondering the things she’d said. you weren’t sure you were ready for making your own art, you sure as hell weren’t ready to go on a date. but maybe you should try.
maybe you were ready to put yourself first for once.
before
the biggest argument you’d had with matt was after you found out he wasn’t playing at notre dame at all, he was going to play for calgary.
you felt so stupid for committing to that school when you should’ve known your boyfriend was talented enough to skip it altogether. maybe you should’ve taken a gap year, then you wouldn’t have to be doing even more long distance in two different countries.
the two of you never argued, or maybe never was too strong of a word. you hardly ever had a disagreement if you thought about it long enough. most of the time, you suppressed the disappointment and the anger, shoving it to the side because you were surely being dramatic.
but now you were standing off to the side, waiting for your name to be called to cross the stage at your high school graduation, and you wished you’d said something to convince matthew to delay settling into his new calgary apartment with one of his teammates.
but you swallowed your disappointment and pride and just dealt with the fact that he wouldn’t be there.
it was fine.
just high school.
you were snapped out of your reverie when your name was called. you smiled and walked across the stage. when you dreamt of this exact moment, you always thought you’d walk with grace, that all noise would cease to exist as you honed in on the sheet of paper you’d spent the last 13 years working towards.
but it wasn’t like that.
because you heard one specific voice above all the others. as your principal handed you the diploma, your eyes searched the crowd and saw him.
matthew standing up and yelling with his family next to him. he had a sign, the words you couldn’t read because there were tears forming in your water line. he was pointing at you and kept yelling and clapping, hooting and hollering like it was his full time job. your parents were smiling, though they were seated, and your grandparents were stone faced clapping like they were at the masters tournament.
so you kept your eyes on him, even as you walked back to your seat. you might have stumbled, tripped even, but all you could see, all you could feel was him.
you were back in your seat by the time the person calling out the names spoke again.
“please hold your applause until the end.”
you could hear his scoff, even from your seat.
your leg bounced for the rest of the graduation ceremony. you didn’t even register the turning of your tassel. you just couldn’t wait for it to be over so you could be in matt’s arms.
as soon as the ceremony concluded, matt was shoving his way past families, nearly taking out an elderly gentleman in his quest to get to you. on the other hand, you were being pushed to move farther away from him as the procession of students filed out of the gym. you kept looking over your shoulder to find him, but it looked like brady had caught up to him, wrangling his older brother to follow the crowds outside.
“outside!” brady pointed.
you nodded.
as soon as you got through the gym doors, you were booking it outside into the sunlight. it blinded you momentarily, but you whipped your phone out seconds later to see if matt had texted you where he’d be. you pulled up his contact and were seconds away from calling him when arms wrapped around your waist and lifted you up into the air.
a squeal left your lips until he set you down a moment later. you spun around in his arms and before you could say anything, matthew was kissing you like no one else was around.
when the two of you finally needed air, you pulled away. “i thought you were in calgary!”
matthew scoffed though there was a large smile on his lips. “you thought i’d miss my favorite girl’s graduation? calgary can wait, your high school graduation only happens once.”
“i’m glad you’re here,” you whispered. 
“me too, baby.”
unfortunately, matt pulled away so you could hug your parents and even your grandparents who were standing off to the side. taryn and brady pulled you into a group hug afterwards, with taryn going on a tangent about all the fun things the two of you would have to do before you left for school.
but brady was taking your graduation cap off your head to ruffle your hair as matt grabbed your purse and took your car keys out. keith and chantal were offering to pay for a celebratory lunch while your grandparents gave an irish goodbye. your parents were smiling, you were tucked into matt’s side, and brady and taryn were bickering and—
everything was perfect.
you wanted to freeze that moment, that sensation in your chest, take the saccharine feeling and bottle it up and store it on your bookshelf. 
and if you could’ve, you would’ve savored the sensation of matt’s lips pressed to your temple while both of your dads discussed the best route to get to the restaurant.
but you had no idea how the future would turn out.
you thought matt was forever.
after
you were on a double date, or at least, hyping yourself up to go into the bar and meet up with simone, her husband, and a friend of theirs. you didn’t want to be a bitch, but you also didn’t want to send yourself into a panic attack. simone had suggested just entertaining something with someone, didn’t even have to be serious, it could just be sex.
you could do that, right?
just casual sex?
the thought was nauseating. you’d only slept with matthew, no one knew your body like he did and—
you stopped yourself before you could go down that rabbit hole.
your hands shook as you stepped out of your car and locked it. maybe you should’ve gotten an uber, but then again, you weren’t really planning on drinking like that. you were hoping you’d still be sober enough to go home.
the music in the bar shockingly wasn’t as loud as you expected. it wasn’t the bass bumping, ass grinding bar like the ones matt used to take you to after games. even still, your palms started sweating as you looked around. you spotted simone’s natural hair across the room and made your way towards her. 
her husband, stephen, stood to greet you first, followed by simone, then lastly your date. a guy named andrew who was a partner at his firm, the youngest on his team.
his handshake was firm, but there were no calluses on his palm. his hair was slicked back with what you guessed was a pomade.
he was so unlike matthew it was alarming.
but maybe it was for the best.
you smiled and took your seat next to simone, you sipped on the water in front of you.
“we didn’t want to order drinks without you just yet.”
“thank you,” you mumbled just loud enough for everyone to hear.
“it’s nice to finally meet you,” andrew started. “simone spoke highly of you. she said you’ve been friends since middle school.”
you felt bad because simone didn’t really say much to you about him. if you were a gambler, you’d assume it was because she didn’t want you to back out. you barely even knew him and you were already comparing him to matt.
which wasn’t fair, you knew that. andrew deserved to be a human without the baggage of your last and only relationship determining how you viewed him.
you would try, at the very least for simone. at the very most, you’d try for yourself.
“nice to meet you too. i heard you’re a partner at your law firm? how is that going?”
oh god. you were so bad at this. asking about work on a friday night?
but he smiled. his teeth were perfectly straight and white. you'd bet your last dollar that he'd never needed braces, not like you did.
you hated yourself for thinking of the gap between matthew’s teeth.
“it’s going well,” he said. “lot of work, but i managed to get enough done this week that my friday was free. i wanted to meet the ‘best artist on planet earth,’ according to simone.”
“oh i don’t know about that,” you flushed.
simone scoffed. “don’t downplay yourself.” she turned to look at andrew. “you should see the art she created in high school as a teenager. it was so impressive.”
“what medium do you like working with the most?” he asked.
“mostly acrylic.”
andrew’s eyes lit up. “do you have any photos of your art? i’d love to see your work.”
you shook your head, feeling a little embarrassed at all the attention. “i don’t really paint like that anymore. i work in art conservation now, not a whole lot of time to create something new.”
“that’s such a unique career! what does your average day look like?” andrew leaned forward a little and took a sip of his water.
you told him a little bit about what you did. about how you spent hours hunched over a painting and fixing the smallest problems in hopes it would satisfy the client.
“you must’ve gone to some prestigious art school for that. if you don’t mind me asking, where did you go to college?”
your spine stiffened. “university of calgary.”
and just like you anticipated, his face twisted in confusion. there was no logical reason you should’ve gone out of the country for a regular school. it would be one thing if you went to an art institute, but you didn’t.
“why calgary?” he asked. “seems a bit random, if you don’t mind me asking.”
you shifted in your seat and wouldn’t meet anyone’s eyes. it wasn’t until you cleared your throat in a sorry attempt to get the lump out, that you spoke. “it’s a long story,” you said. “thought i had a future in calgary.”
andrew, to his credit, knew when to not ask questions and changed the subject immediately.
the rest of the night passed in a blur. you were only halfway present, your mind reeling at how you wasted those years in calgary waiting for a man who would dump you as soon as he moved to a warmer state.
he, quite literally, left you in the cold.
andrew offered to walk you to your car, an offer you accepted because it was dark and st. louis.
“i had a great time tonight,” he said. “it was really nice to meet you. you’re even better than simone and stephen said.”
you gave him a small smile. “it was nice to meet you too.”
andrew shifted on his feet. for a moment, he didn’t look the part of the youngest partner at his law firm, he looked like a boy. “i was hoping maybe you’d want to do this again? maybe get some dinner?”
your throat felt like someone had force fed you cotton balls. but then you thought about how pathetic your life had been the last six months, how pathetic it was going to be when you flew to new jersey to be in the same bridal party as your ex.
you refused to be pathetic any longer.
which is probably why you smiled (albeit shakily) and said yes.
before
you were bouncing on your toes in the hallway as you waited for matt. it was a brutal game, and he spent a good portion of it in the penalty box, mostly for minor things, but one incident was for fighting. which wasn’t atypical, but you’d never seen him that keyed up before.
and given his reputation, there were any number of things that could’ve caused the fight itself. two weeks ago, matt had fought someone for being too forceful with one of his teammates, which after years of watching the game, was on par with the sport and your boyfriend.
because he fought so much, you weren’t necessarily surprised whenever he did. sure, you flinched when he was punched, knowing how badly it would bruise, praying to whatever higher power existed that he would still have all his teeth. but usually, matt wasn’t trying to fight everyone on the ice at all times.
tonight was different.
safe to say, you were a little anxious waiting for him to come out.
you weren’t exactly sure about what was said on the ice to get him so riled up. the worst you’d seen was when someone on the other team said something about taryn. you used to think that was the angriest you ever saw him. and it was.
until tonight.
you could feel the energy rolling off of him in waves as he exited the locker room. usually, after a win, matt is relaxed and easy going, but despite the victory from tonight, he was tense and pent up, frustrated even.
“hey,” you said, meeting him halfway.
matthew didn’t respond, just dropped his bag and wrapped you up in a hug, tucking his head into the space where your neck met your shoulder.
“you okay?” you asked.
he nodded. he squeezed your waist once before letting go, taking your hand instead. “ready to go?”
the car ride was silent minus the music matthew had playing through the aux. his hand rested on your thigh, though the grip was particularly tighter than normal, especially after a win. part of you wanted to ask, the other part not wanting to spoil the rest of the night with your curiosity.
but this was the man you loved. and it hurt you to see him this upset.
normally, you would’ve left well enough alone, but you were going back to notre dame in two days and didn’t want to spend the rest of your time walking on eggshells around him. you couldn’t help him if you didn’t know what was wrong.
“what happened?” you asked when the car came to a stop at a light.
“nothing,” he grunted.
“your team won and you’re still grumpy, matthew. so tell me, what happened? i want to help you.”
“there’s nothing to help.”
“matthew,” you groaned. “i’m only here for two days, can you just be honest with me? i don’t wanna waste the rest of my trip with you being upset when i can help you—”
“then go back to indiana!” he all but yelled, ripping his hand off your thigh so he could shove it through his disheveled hair.
your jaw dropped. in all the years you’d known matt, he'd never talked to you that way. and you weren’t starting a bad habit by letting him think he could ever do it again. you unbuckled your seat belt and grabbed your bag. you tugged on the handle of the door. “i’ll see you at home,” you said.
matt scoffed. “don’t be dramatic.”
“i’m not being ‘dramatic,’ matthew. you’re being an asshole.” you braced yourself for the cold as the door opened and let in a cold breeze.
matthew called your name, but you ignored him and slammed the car door shut. it was a little petty, considering how matt had berated his siblings over the same thing.
a car honked, probably because the light had turned green and matt was still sitting at the light, looking at you.
a cold wind blew and for a moment, you thought about hopping back in the car with matt, but he was pulling away and your pride wasn’t ready to take a hit just yet.
his car sped away until, with an efficiency you only wish you had, he parallel parked in a spot just up the road.
“get in the car,” he called, slamming his car door shut. “it’s too cold for you to be proving a point.”
“and what point am i trying to prove, matthew?” you asked over your shoulder.
you kept walking.
“would you please stop walking and just get back in the car?”
you kept walking.
a hand reached out and grabbed your wrist, you might’ve shrieked had it not been gentle, had you not recognized the scent of matt’s cologne.
gently, he turned you around.
“baby, just get in the car. you don’t even have to talk to me. don't even have to look at me if you don’t want to. i’ll sleep on the couch or something, but it’s not safe for you to be walking home alone.” he ran his thumb back and forth over your pulse point in a soothing manner.
you kept your eyes on his hand. “what happened during the game?
he sighed, shoulders sagging like they were tired from carrying the weight of the world. “they were talking shit.”
you blinked. “and that’s different....how?”
with the hand that wasn’t holding your wrist, matthew pinched the bridge of his nose. “they were talking shit about you. saying you deserved better and shit.”
“matthew, you know that’s not true—”
“they called you names.” his voice was dark, angrier than you'd ever heard before. “things i’m not comfortable repeating.”
a shiver went down your spine, for matt to be that upset made you uncomfortable. you didn’t want to think about what they said, you didn’t want to dwell on it any longer.
“well,” you said, voice feeling small and weak in your throat. “well, we know it’s not true, so it doesn’t matter.” you tried to make your way back to the car, but matt’s grip on your wrist stopped you.
“but it does matter,” he insisted. “what they said, i get it wasn't true, you and i both know that. but i’m not gonna let anyone talk shit about you, i don’t care who they are.”
your eyes finally met his own and in the blue you saw determination and conviction there. you started towards him and wrapped your arms around his waist.
“i love you, matty.”
he kissed the top of your head. “love you more.”
after
“where are you going?” your mom asked from the couch.
your dad looked up from his james patterson book to squint at your outfit: a square neck black dress. “are you going out?” he chimed in.
you felt sheepish, like the fifteen year old girl going on her first solo date, no parents picking her up because matt just got his license. “remember that guy i went on a double date with?”
“with simone and her husband?” you mom asked.
you nodded. “we’re going out again, just us tonight.”
your mother gave you a small smile while you dad kept staring. “have fun, sweetheart.”
your dad, however, put his book down and looked at you above the rim of his glasses. “are you gonna be okay?”
“alan, this will be good for her!”
but your dad’s eyes never left your face. “you’ll call if you need something?”
“andrew’s a good guy, dad.” or at least, you were assuming so. you’d only met the guy one other time and he seemed alright.
but you could see the look in your father’s eyes, you could hear what he wasn’t saying.
so was matthew.
you swallowed and nodded at your parents. your phone pinged with a notification that your uber was outside. “i’ll be back.”
the drive to the bar was silent. usually, you wouldn’t have taken an uber, but you were unsure how drunk you would get tonight. the date could go well, it could be everything you wanted, even if all you wanted was matthew. 
but you were prepared for the worst. you were prepared to drink until you couldn’t see straight just to get through the night.
andrew was a nice guy, but he wasn’t who you wanted.
and you hated yourself for it.
the uber pulled up to the bar. and simply because he didn’t kidnap or talk to you, you gave the driver five stars.
andrew was waiting at a high top table for you, a glass of water ready to go. you waved at him and carefully made your way across the room, avoiding people and drinks and people with drinks.
“hey,” he greeted.
you gave him a small smile. “hi.”
“was traffic bad on your way here? i wasn’t sure, given that it’s friday and what not.”
you shook your head. “not too bad.” 
c’mon, think of something. say something. anything.
“crazy busy tonight, huh?” you wanted to facepalm. that was what you came up with? all the words in the world and that was what you—
“yeah,” andrew cut off your mental tirade. “i think some famous guys are here tonight, heard murmurs of it.”
you nearly broke out into a cold sweat. “d-do you know who?”
andrew shrugged. “i didn’t ask, i just heard someone talking about it when i was getting a drink.” then, like he finally realized, he snapped. “do you want anything? i can grab it for you.”
you gave him your drink order with a smile. he tapped the table with his knuckles before promising he'd be right back.
you traced the grain of the table with your finger, allowing it to feel the grooves and water stains left from other customers. it felt awkward, sitting by yourself with no one to talk to. andrew said he'd be back, but the bar was busy, it could be ten, fifteen minutes before he'd come back.
your phone buzzed.
simone: 
how’s it going?
you smiled despite yourself. 
you:
he’s nice. he went to get me a drink.
you put your phone down to look around the bar. it was busier than normal, or at least, what you thought was normal.
you were scrolling through your social media feeds when andrew finally came back. he had your drink in hand with a smile on his face.
“sorry, the line took forever,” he said.
you glanced at the bar to see a small crowd of people. “doesn’t surprise me,” you said. “friday’s are usually busy.”
“yeah especially when there’s two hockey players in town. heard someone at the bar talking about it, thought you might wanna know. simone said you were a fan?”
your stomach dropped to your feet. you took a hefty sip of your drink to avoid andrew seeing a frown on your face. there was a chance that it was a blues player still in town, but your gut knew better. if you were a betting woman, you'd bet your last dollar on it being brady and matt.
you wanted to throw up.
instead, you chugged the drink.
“whoa, you okay?” andrew’s eyes widened a little, maybe in concern, but there was something about the smirk on his face that said otherwise.
you gave him a shaky smile. “just fine. can i get another drink?”
he smiled immediately and got up to get you another.
and another.
and another.
your vision was blurring a little when you tried to cut yourself off, even as andrew was sliding another glass in front of you. you threw the drink back again, not even blinking at it.
matt and brady could be here. it was too soon to see them again, you weren't prepared to see them again. maybe if you drank enough, you’d black out and forget all about tonight.
but then andrew was grabbing your elbow, he was leading you towards the door, encroaching upon your personal space. his lips were on your neck, whispers of what he had planned for you.
your skin crawled, you wanted him off of you, but your arms were sluggish, you were tripping over your feet and he was the only thing holding you up.
“no,” you slurred. “lemme go.”
but he either didn’t hear you or was ignoring you because he kept dragging you to the door.
then the panic set in.
it felt like it came out of nowhere, but maybe the surmounting panic was always there like a loyal friend. you tried squirming out of his grip, shoving at his chest, but the panic was building the longer he held onto you. your head was shaking furiously, your mouth doing its best to protest, but it was like the alcohol made your tongue heavy.
“lemme go—” you tried shoving one more time before you heard a shout in the distance. 
“hey!” you weren’t aware of the people around you being shoved to the side, you were unaware of the rage surrounding you. you were unaware until andrew was ripped away and you were being shoved into another body.
“matt hey—”
brady. you were right, brady was here.
god you loved brady.
“brady?” you slurred, smiling lazily up at him. “you’re here! why’re you here?”
with one arm, brady kept you pressed to him, but he wasn’t acknowledging you. his eyes were focused on his brother holding the collar of your date.
oh. your date.
there was no rhyme or reason for the feeling of horror that washed over you when you realized what almost happened before matt and brady showed up.
you were gonna throw up.
or pass out.
you weren’t sure when you started hyperventilating, but it felt like the walls were closing in. was the music always this loud? was matt always that loud when yelling? you wouldn’t know, he hardly ever yelled at you—
“hey,” brady’s gentle voice sounded it your ear, but it was like you were hearing it from underwater. “hey, breathe, it’s okay. you’re safe now.”
the funny thing about hyperventilating is no one wants to be hyperventilating. it’s similar to worrying in that telling someone to stop worrying is ineffective. brady telling you to breathe wasn’t helping because it wasn’t like you wanted to be light headed and struggling to get oxygen.
your mind was just racing with the thoughts of what almost happened.
were your hands shaking? or was the world just rocky? was it the alcohol? why did andrew give you so much? was he planning on—
oh god.
oh god.
“matt!” brady’s voice again sounding like a deep echo in a cave, one you could barely hear. “matt, i think he got the point, she needs you.”
did you?
but it didn’t matter what you thought, because you were being gently pulled into a pair of arms you would’ve recognized anywhere. you could be deaf, blind, and mute, you could’ve had your nose plugged so you couldn’t smell his aftershave and you still would’ve known it was matt. his arms were the only ones that felt like home.
maybe it was the way your head tucked under his chin perfectly, or the way you could hold your own hand when you wrapped your arms around his waist. maybe it was the way matt tried to fit you into his ribcage whenever he hugged you.
“hey,” his voice was quiet, hoarse from the yelling probably. “you’re okay, i’ve got you. nothing’s gonna hurt you, not while i’m here.” his lips were on the top of your head, mumbling the words into your hair.
“he—he was gonna—”
matt was shushing you, running a hand up and down your back. “do you wanna go outside? get some fresh air?” you nodded against his chest, a place you used to lay your head on at night.
matt walked you outside, brady not far behind. he was supporting most of your weight. you were still incredibly drunk even if the event that just happened sobered you up a little.
your hands were still shaking, your knees a little weak, though you weren’t sure what the original cause of that was. if it was from alcohol, the sleazy date, or just being held by your ex, you weren’t sure.
what a year tonight has been.
your heartbeat slowed down as you listened to matt’s. his hand continued to rub your back in long lines.
“you’re okay,” he continued to say. “i’m not gonna leave you. you’re safe right here, baby.”
your heart soared at the pet name until gravity kicked in and you were right back where you started.
rock bottom.
you pushed away from matt, now that your heart rate had decreased. you stumbled a bit from the lack of stability, but you managed to right yourself before matt could get his hands on you to help you balance.
“you okay?” he asked.
“no,” you mumbled, shaking your head despite the world feeling like it was spinning too fast already. “no. i’m not okay.”
matt took a step towards you, it was like watching a film in slow motion, seeing his face fall as you immediately took a step back.
“baby i—”
“stop! stop calling me that!” you yelled even as your words slurred, throwing your hands up in the air before pulling at your hair. “you—you don’t get to call me that, not anymore. and you certainly don’t get to ride in like some white knight coming to my rescue either!”
“what’re you—” he cut himself off before running a hand down his face. “he was going to hurt you, i wasn’t going to let that happen!”
maybe it was the alcohol that made you more honest than normal. “why? you don’t seem to care what happens anyway?”
“what the hell are you talking about? i would never let someone hurt you, not if i can stop it.”
“but you had no problem hurting me? leaving me in a country alone?”
matt’s jaw dropped. “you can’t seriously be comparing the two. he—he almost—he had every intention of—” but he kept cutting himself off. and by the looks of his clenched fists, it was hurting him more just thinking about it.
and he was right, what almost happened with andrew and what actually happened at the hands of matt were two different things, but it hurt more from matt, the man who swore he’d be at your side, to love you through it all. he’d dropped you like a bad habit and was expecting everything to be normal again? like you hadn’t spent over half your life completely in love with him?
you sighed, your shoulders sagged, all fight evaporating your body once more. “thanks for help, i’ll see you around.” you turned on your heel and nearly ran into brady, whom you forgot was even there.
“let me drive you home,” brady said. “‘s the least i could do.”
brady at least let you sit shotgun this time, with matt in the back. and when he pulled up to your house, matt was the one to walk you to the door like he had many times before.
“can we talk?” he asked. “sometime this week? or next? or whenever you're free?”
you looked at him, really looked at him. his hands shook at his sides and you longed to hold them in your own to steady them like he did for you earlier. “why’re you doing this to me? why can’t you just leave me be?”
matt stared at you before he pressed his lips together. he looked off to the side almost like he was looking at brady waiting in the car or a scrap of self control, or maybe just the right words to say. “i don’t think i’m capable of letting you go.”
your voice caught on the words in your throat. “i need you to try, matt. because i can’t keep doing this. you can’t call me baby when i’m not your baby anymore.”
he nodded. “just one conversation, i promise.”
you should say no. you should just let it go, but you didn’t think you could deny matt anything if he really asked for it. “okay,” you said. “just one conversation.”
578 notes · View notes