#and dark wood furniture. coffee bar

[vintheuk]

Traditional Bedroom - Bedroom

[merwilson]

New York Transitional Basement Large transitional look-out light wood floor basement photo with gray walls

[cherryl4na]

˚₊· ͟͟͞͞➳❥ `"lamborghini miura and date nights pt. 1"

abstract || you and lando enjoy life outside of all the chaos that comes with him being 'The Ace'

fem!reader || fluff. steamy. mafia au. lamborghini miura. will be a pt. 2. heavily inspired by the suit at a mclaren event and the outfit at cannes. 3.6k words

Lando Norris’ penthouse is the epitome of luxury and power, a sanctuary high above the city’s restless heartbeat. The expansive living space is a testament to modern elegance, with floor-to-ceiling windows offering a panoramic view of the skyline, the city lights twinkling like distant stars.

When stepping out of the private elevator, you’re greeted by a foyer with polished marble floors, leading into an open-concept living area. The décor is a blend of classic and contemporary, with rich, dark wood paneling and sleek, minimalist furniture. A grand piano sits in one corner, its black lacquer finish reflecting the soft glow of the overhead designer lighting.

The lounge area is dominated by a large, plush sofa that faces a state-of-the-art entertainment system, and a glass coffee table holds an array of high-end spirits and crystal decanters. Original artworks adorn the walls, and a collection of rare books fills the built-in shelves, revealing Lando’s taste for the finer things in life.

The dining area features a long, ebony dining table surrounded by leather-upholstered chairs, perfect for hosting intimate gatherings or conducting discreet business meetings. Adjacent to it is a gourmet kitchen, fitted with professional-grade appliances and a sleek breakfast bar.

The penthouse also boasts a private gym, a spa-like bathroom with a Jacuzzi and a rain shower, and a walk-in wardrobe that houses an impressive collection of designer suits and racing memorabilia.

Lando’s personal quarters are a sanctuary within a sanctuary. The master bedroom is spacious, with a king-sized bed taking center stage, draped in the finest silk linens. A private balcony extends from the bedroom, offering a secluded spot to take in the breathtaking views or simply enjoy a moment of solitude.

Every detail in Lando’s penthouse speaks of a man who commands respect and enjoys his success, yet values privacy and comfort above all else. It’s a space that’s both a showpiece and a retreat, reflecting the complex character of ‘The Ace’ himself.

As of now, the evening had settled over the city like a velvet shroud, the skyline a jagged silhouette against the twilight sky. Inside the luxurious penthouse, Lando Norris watched you with an intensity that belied his calm exterior.

You stood before the full-length mirror, the soft fabric of your Versace dress cascading down in waves of midnight blue, a stark contrast to the elegance of your skin. The room was filled with the quiet rustle of silk and the subtle scent of vanilla from your perfume. It was a rare occasion, this dance of preparation, and Lando found himself captivated by the ritual.

He leaned casually against the mahogany door frame, arms crossed over his chest covered with a white Nordstrom silk shirt that has been left unbuttoned just slightly to exude enough sensuality but keeping it decent, his two usual gold chains around his thick, tan neck as his eyes followed your every move. There was something about the way you moved, the confidence in your gestures, that drew him in. It was a dance he had seen many perform but none with such genuine disregard for the world’s expectations.

“You don’t have to impress anyone,” Lando finally spoke, his voice a low rumble in the opulent room.

You met his gaze in the mirror, a small smile playing on your lips. “I’m not trying to impress,” you replied, your voice steady. “I’m trying to remember who I am beyond all this,” you gestured vaguely, encompassing the grandeur of the room and, by extension, the life you had found yourself entwined in.

Lando pushed off from the doorframe, his steps silent on the plush carpet as he approached. “And who are you exactly, in this world?” he asked, stopping just a breath away from you.

You turned to face him, the intensity of his gaze compelling you to answer with truth. “Someone who still believes in a bit of normality, even in a world as cynical as ours.”

His chuckle was soft, a sound that warmed you more than any embrace. “Then perhaps this will serve as a reminder,” Lando said, producing a small, black velvet box from his pocket.

He opened it to reveal a delicate gold chain, from which hung a pendant crafted in the shape of a lotus, its petals open as if reaching for the last rays of the sun. “The lotus blooms in the mud,” he murmured, his fingers deft as he clasped the necklace around your neck. 

The lotus flower, revered across cultures and spiritual traditions, embodies profound symbolism and meaning. Emerging from muddy waters yet remaining unstained, it symbolizes purity of heart, mind, and spirit. Its ability to bloom immaculately amidst adversity speaks to resilience and strength, teaching us to persevere and flourish despite life's challenges.

It serves as a timeless metaphor for the human experience — a reminder that through adversity, purity, and spiritual growth, we can rise above the murky waters of life and blossom into our fullest potential.

You reached up to touch the pendant, its cool metal a stark contrast to the warmth of his fingers still lingering on your skin. “It’s beautiful,” you whispered, gratitude lacing your words. Lando stepped back, his eyes never leaving yours. “As are you,” he said, not as a compliment, but as a simple statement of fact.

With a smile that matched the warmth of his words, you followed Lando out of his luxurious penthouse. The evening air greeted you with a gentle breeze as you made your way towards the private garage, where a sleek, vintage Lamborghini Miura awaited. Its navy paint gleamed under the soft glow of the penthouse's exterior lights, exuding elegance and power in equal measure.

"You're driving this?" you asked, your voice a mixture of surprise and excitement, a smile slowly inching its way on your face.

Lando nodded, a playful glint in his eyes as he held open the passenger door for you. "Well, how else did you think we’d travel? I figured we could take a little drive before our reservation. Trust me, it'll be an experience you won't forget."

As you move to settle into the plush leather seat, Lando places a hand on your head to make sure it’s protected from the roof of the car. Heading around the car, Lando enters the driver side, and effortlessly starts the engine, causing the powerful rumble to fill the air around you. The car eased out of the garage with grace, navigating the city streets with the familiarity of a seasoned driver. The night enveloped you both, the city lights painting a canvas of twinkling stars overhead.

With each turn and straight away, the Lamborghini carried you through the cityscape, the wind whispering secrets as it tousled your hair. In the midst of this exhilarating journey, Lando's presence beside you remained a constant source of comfort and excitement, his occasional glance your way a silent promise of more adventures to come.

As you ventured further into the night, the world outside seemed to fade away, leaving only the hum of the engine and the shared moments between you and Lando. In the soft glow of passing street lamps, you realized that this impromptu drive wasn't just about the destination—it was about the connection forged in the quiet moments between heartbeats, where each glance and smile spoke volumes about the budding romance in the air.

And as the Lamborghini carried you both towards an unknown horizon, you couldn't help but feel that this night was just the beginning of a journey filled with endless possibilities, where every twist of fate was waiting to be explored together.

With each mile that passed beneath the Lamborghini's wheels, the cityscape transformed into a mesmerizing blur of lights and shadows. Lando navigated the streets with effortless precision, occasionally stealing glances at you, his expression a mix of anticipation and contentment.

As the vibrant pulse of the city gradually gave way to quieter, tree-lined avenues, the Lamborghini slowed to a stop in front of a stately building adorned with ivy-covered walls and softly glowing lanterns. You looked up, realizing you had arrived at a charming and exclusive restaurant known for its exquisite cuisine and intimate ambiance.

Lando turned off the engine, and the sudden silence enveloped you like a comforting embrace. He stepped out of the car, swiftly coming around to open your door with a gentlemanly flourish. As you emerged, the cool evening air wrapped around you, carrying with it the tantalizing aroma of fine dining and the promise of a memorable evening ahead.

The entrance of the restaurant welcomed you with a warm glow from within, casting a soft halo around Lando as he extended his hand, inviting you to walk with him towards the door. You accepted graciously, feeling a flutter of excitement mingled with a touch of nervousness. This evening had already surpassed any expectations you might have had, and yet, you couldn't help but wonder what surprises lay in store.

Inside, the ambiance was elegant yet inviting, with soft music playing in the background and flickering candlelight casting a soft glow over linen-covered tables. The maître d' greeted you warmly, confirming your reservation and guiding you both to a secluded corner table with a breathtaking view of the city skyline.

As you settled into your seats, Lando's gaze met yours across the table, his eyes sparkling with a quiet intensity that mirrored your own emotions. The evening stretched out before you like an uncharted path, each moment unfolding with a delicate grace that seemed to deepen the connection between you.

Conversation flowed effortlessly between bites of exquisitely prepared dishes and sips of fine wine, punctuated by shared laughter and stolen glances that spoke volumes. In the intimate setting of the restaurant, surrounded by the soft murmur of other diners and the gentle hum of city life beyond the windows, it felt as though time had slowed to a perfect cadence, allowing you both to savor every fleeting second together.

And as the night progressed, you found yourself caught in a whirlwind of emotions—excitement, attraction, and a growing sense of intimacy that seemed to bloom with each passing moment. Across the table, Lando's smile was a beacon of warmth, his presence a reassuring anchor in the sea of possibility that stretched out before you.

As dessert arrived, accompanied by a flourish of culinary artistry that mirrored the magic of the evening itself, you couldn't help but marvel at how a spontaneous drive in a Lamborghini had led to this moment of shared connection and undeniable chemistry between you and Lando.

The restaurant hummed with a subtle buzz of conversation and the clinking of glasses, yet your attention was solely on the man sitting across from you. Lando, with his easy charm and magnetic presence, had swept you off your feet from the moment you met. His laughter was infectious, his stories captivating, and as the evening progressed, you found yourself drawn deeper into his orbit.

The evening had been filled with unexpected turns—a scenic drive through desert landscapes that stretched endlessly under a starlit sky, conversations that ranged from lighthearted banter to deeper musings about life and dreams. Each moment seemed to unfold effortlessly, as if fate had orchestrated this encounter.

And now, as dessert was served—a masterpiece of flavors and presentation—you felt a surge of anticipation mingled with a hint of nervous excitement. Lando caught your gaze, his eyes sparkling with a mixture of mischief and admiration. Without a word, he reached across the table, his hand finding yours with a gentle yet confident touch.

"Care to dance?" he murmured, his voice low and filled with a magnetic charm that sent a shiver down your spine. You couldn't resist the invitation, nor did you want to. With a smile that matched his own, you nodded, allowing him to lead you onto the small, cleared space between tables where other diners watched with subtle curiosity.

As "Hola Senorita" by GIMS and Maluma began to play softly in the background, Lando pulled you close, his hand firm on your waist as he guided you in a slow, sensual sway to the seductive rhythm of the music. The heat of his body pressed against yours, sending a wave of electricity through every nerve ending.

In that intimate embrace, the world around you faded into a blur, leaving only the two of you moving together in perfect synchronization. His touch was both gentle and possessive, his gaze never leaving yours as if trying to convey a thousand unspoken words.

The sensual dance unfolded like a whispered promise of what could be—an unspoken acknowledgment of the undeniable chemistry that simmered beneath the surface. Each step, each turn spoke volumes of desire and connection, drawing you closer to Lando in ways words could never capture.

As the song neared its end, you found yourself breathless yet exhilarated, caught up in the intensity of the moment shared between you. Lando's lips curved into a tender smile as he guided you back to the table, where dessert awaited—a sweet ending to a night that had begun with a drive and culminated in a dance that resonated with the magic of newfound connection and possibility.

And deep down, beneath the surface of whispered promises and shared glances, you knew that this evening was only the beginning—a prelude to a story waiting to unfold, where each chapter would be written in the tender moments and stolen kisses that danced on the edge of tomorrow.

After settling the bill, not without a bit of banter over who pays, you both stepped out into the cool night air, the echoes of laughter and shared stories still resonating between you. The Lamborghini awaited, a sleek silhouette against the dimly lit street, its engine purring with restrained power.

"Where to now?" you asked, half in jest, half in earnest curiosity.

Lando grinned, a mischievous sparkle in his eyes, "Anywhere but here."

With that, you slipped into the passenger seat with his help of course, the leather embracing you with its luxurious warmth. The engine roared to life, the city lights streaking past in a blur as you navigated the winding roads together. The night was young, and so were you, in this ephemeral moment where time seemed to slow down just for the two of you.

Conversation flowed effortlessly, weaving through dreams and aspirations, fears and triumphs, each revelation knitting your souls closer together. It was as if the universe conspired to create this perfect interlude, where nothing existed beyond the confines of the Lamborghini and the burgeoning connection between you.

As the city lights began to fade into the rearview mirror, you found yourselves on a quieter stretch of road, surrounded by a tapestry of stars overhead. The car slowed to a stop, and you both stepped out onto an overlook, the city sprawling below like a sea of twinkling lights.

Lando's eyes held yours, their intensity magnified by the intimacy of the moment. You could feel his heartbeat, steady and reassuring, echoing the rhythm of your own. The night draped around you like a velvet cloak, cocooning you in a world where only the two of you existed.

His hand found yours, fingers intertwining effortlessly as if they had always belonged together. The warmth of his touch sent a shiver of anticipation through you, a silent invitation to let go of any lingering doubts or hesitations.

Leaning closer, his breath mingled with yours, warm against your lips. The air crackled with unspoken words, each heartbeat resonating like a whispered promise of what could be. You could smell the subtle scent of his cologne, a comforting familiarity that grounded you in the present moment.

When his lips finally brushed against yours, it was like a symphony of emotions unfolding in slow motion. Soft yet insistent, his kiss spoke of desire tempered with tenderness, a delicate balance of passion and restraint. Time seemed to stretch and bend around you, the world narrowing down to the sensation of his lips moving against yours, tracing the contours of a connection that defied words.

His arms encircled you, pulling you closer until there was no space left between your bodies. The warmth of his embrace cocooned you in a sanctuary of shared vulnerability, where every touch and caress spoke volumes of unspoken longing and mutual understanding.

Under the canopy of stars, the Lamborghini Miura stood sentinel, bearing witness to a moment that transcended the mundane. The engine's purr became a backdrop to the symphony of your shared breaths, the quiet rustle of fabric as you leaned into each other, seeking solace and passion in equal measure.

As the kiss deepened, the world around you faded into insignificance. There was only the taste of him on your lips, the press of his body against yours, and the electric current that surged between you, binding your souls in a dance as ancient as time itself.

In that timeless embrace, you felt a surge of emotion swell within you—love in its purest form, unguarded and unfiltered. It was a declaration whispered in the language of touch and sensation, a silent vow that this connection was worth cherishing, nurturing, and exploring with every fiber of your being.

When you finally pulled apart, breathless and exhilarated, Lando's eyes held a glimmer of unspoken promises yet to be fulfilled. His thumb gently brushed against your cheek, a tender gesture that spoke of reverence and devotion.

In the quiet aftermath, as you stood entwined under the stars, you knew that this night had forever altered the course of your story together. Each heartbeat echoed the cadence of a new beginning, where the chapters ahead would be written in the shared moments of vulnerability, passion, and the unwavering bond forged in the embrace of that unforgettable night.

Feeling the cool metal of the Lamborghini Miura against your back, you smiled as Lando drew you close, his touch tender yet commanding. His fingers traced a delicate path along your jawline, sending a thrill through you that echoed in the warm summer night around you.

His lips met yours in a kiss that was both soft and consuming, a perfect blend of longing and urgency. You leaned into him, feeling the strength of his embrace against the smooth, cool surface of the car's hood beneath you. The night seemed to hold its breath as you lost yourself in the sensation of his lips moving against yours, the mingling of your breaths creating an intimate symphony.

His hands, strong yet gentle, explored your back with a reverence that made your heart race before finally reaching their destination. He grips the back of your plush thighs in a way that makes you feel weak all over. The hood of the car digs into you as he places you gently on it, moving to stand between your legs. 

Making this moment as intimate as possible, his veiny hands move to grip your waist and pull you closer till there is absolutely no space between the two of you. Every touch, every caress deepened the connection between you, amplifying the heat that coursed through your veins. Time seemed to stand still as you savored each moment, each kiss a testament to the unspoken desire and passion that burned between you.

In that moment, surrounded by the soft night air and the distant murmur of the city, you were entwined in a dance of intimacy and yearning, where nothing else existed except the electricity of his soft lips against your own, his touch caressing you as if you’re made of glass.

As you both pull away from each other, the air between you thick with unspoken words and the promise of what the future might hold, Lando reaches out to gently stroke your cheek. His touch is warm against your skin, sending shivers down your spine that have nothing to do with the cool night air. 

"Let's head back," he murmurs, his voice low and filled with emotion, lips plumped up and red. You nod in agreement, feeling a sense of contentment settling over you like a soft blanket. Together, you gather yourselves and step back towards the waiting Lamborghini Miura.

The drive back to Lando's penthouse is quiet, the purr of the engine providing a soothing soundtrack to your thoughts. You steal glances at each other from time to time, exchanging small smiles that speak volumes about the bond you've forged this evening.

Arriving at the penthouse, Lando parks the car with practiced ease. He takes your hand as you both exit the vehicle, his touch reassuring and grounding. The night feels alive with possibilities as you step into the elevator, riding it up to his luxurious apartment high above the city.

Inside, the penthouse is a sanctuary of modern elegance and comfort. Lando leads you to a balcony overlooking the glittering skyline, where the city lights twinkle like stars in the night sky. He wraps his arms around you from behind, pulling you close as you lean against the railing together.

"This night," he begins softly, his voice carrying a hint of wonder, "it feels like everything has changed, but at the same time, hasn’t."

You turn in his arms to face him, your heart skipping a beat at the sincerity in his eyes. "It has," you reply, your voice barely above a whisper. "In the best possible way."

Lando smiles, a smile that reaches his eyes and fills you with warmth. "I'm glad," he says, leaning in to kiss you gently for the third time that night, as if sealing a promise made by the night itself.

And as you stand there, in each other's arms, the Lamborghini Miura waits below like a silent witness to the beginning of your love story — a story that started with a car, a journey, and two hearts finding their way to each other.

an || hey guys! i've had this in the works since early june and finally got around to semi finishing it. this will have a pt 2 and i apologize if it takes a while to come out. hope you enjoyed this and there will be more to come! and to my girls, you know who you are, i hope you loved this.

©2024 cherryl4na. - please do not copy, repost or translate any of my works on other platforms without my permission.

[cowboydisaster]

* ˚ ✦ Compass * ˚ ✦

chapter one: La Belle Fleur Sauvage

pairing: arthur morgan x f! reader

word count: 7.9k

summary: modern au; Living out your dreams on a ranch in Colorado; Arthur finally proposes.

a/n: This is a little gift for @margowritesthings. I originally wrote this for you a year ago, but I've rewritten it for you for this christmas. xx

Arthur is nervous, his palms clammy as he pulls a Carharrt t-shirt over his head. The dark hardwood floor is cold against his bare feet as he slowly pulls his clothes on, layering up to defend against the harsh weather. You sleep comfortably in his bed, unaware of Arthur's absence from your side. He slowly approaches, pressing a chaste kiss to your forehead. You smile in your sleep. 

"Gonna be a good day, darlin'.” He murmurs, pulling the white, fluffy blanket up over your shoulders before stepping out of the room, trying to keep his footsteps quiet.

The coffee machine beeps twice, notifying Arthur that the morning pick me up is finished. Two mugs sit by the machine, as always. But today Arthur doesn't grab his usual, opting instead for a travel mug. It's an old one. One that he'd gotten from some random bank event a while ago, "Strauss Financing" it read. 

He'd used that bank to get a loan for the house and the barn. God– nearly ten years ago now, Arthur realizes. 

The coffee is black and hot, steaming as it's poured into the mug. Arthur leaves the pot on for you before opening the door, and whistling in the direction of the bedroom. He can hear Copper jumping down off the bed, and then he rounds the corner, trotting towards Arthur and out the door. 

"Hey there boy!" Arthur laughs and gives Copper a few pats. He's had the old vizsla about as long as he's had the ranch. Copper follows Arthur outside, happily trotting after the man. Everything outside is coated in a dusting of white. It's the kind of snow that looks like diamonds, where ice clings to the trees and rooftops, but the sun shines down, making everything sparkle. 

When Arthur gets about a hundred feet from the house, with Copper circling around him, he stops and turns around. The log cabin stands proud before him, even after all these years. Arthur had built the place with his bare hands, just him and Copper. 

The Colorado mountains stand proud behind the house, hues of purple and blue painting  their cliffs, the morning rays of sunlight reflecting off of the snow on their peaks.  When he looks at the slowly aging wood of the house, and the warm glow of the porch lights he can't help but smile. It's not the house itself that he is so fond of, it is what you have made the house– a home. 

When the walls were bare, and the house was empty, save for the few pieces of furniture that Arthur could afford, it was incredibly lonely. He tended to the animals and worked on the ranch all day to avoid sitting alone in the house. He spent his evenings at the only bar in town, Pearson's Pub, drinking to forget and to ignore the empty house. 

Things got better once you moved to town, working as a bartender. You warmed the man's cold heart. You were like a breath of fresh air in this old town. You still are. You managed to take his frozen, barely beating heart and melt it in the grip of your soft hands. 

Arthur began to chat with you while you worked. After only a few interactions, he started coming in on the days he knew you would be there. 

Then, one day, he offered to cook you dinner, and you accepted. Now, you lie in his bed, cozy and happy while he plans for the future. Funny, how things work out like that. All those years when Arthur was young, he'd hoped for someone to love. As an adult, he was content with his solitude, until you came along, of course. Divine intervention, you are. 

Copper barks, stomping his paws in the snow, pulling Arthurs attention back to the present. The poor dog is probably cold. The nip in the air makes Arthur's cheeks and nose red, and his breath lingers in the air like a morning fog. 

The truck isn’t far, sitting halfway between the house and the barn. Arthur shoves his hands in his pockets, shaking some snow off of his hat as he makes his way towards the old rust bucket. Snow and ice fall from the door frame as Arthur swings it open, leaning in. 

He reaches across the steering wheel, jamming the key into the dash and turning it. He mutters a small prayer when the engine starts to stutter and hiss, but after a few seconds, it turns over. Once the engine is running, Arthur turns the heat the entire way up, setting the knob towards the windshield. 

“Should be right as rain, now, huh, boy?” Arthur smirks, stepping down from the truck, shutting the door. Copper barks, running into the wooden barn where Arthur is heading, stalking the chickens, as Arthur slides through the wooden door. 

He shakes the snow off of his hat, boots clicking on the floor as he grabs a few scoops of feed and dumps them into each horse's trough. Arthur greets each one, scratching behind their ears, patting their necks. He feeds, avoiding stepping on loose hens, until he reaches Boadicea's stall. A warm smile graces Arthur's face at the sight of the old chestnut mare. She brightens up at the man's arrival, and not just because of the feed he carries. Her head tosses as she whinnies for him..

“There's my girl." Arthur hums, dumping the feed, soothed by the sound of her chewing. Arthur scratches the underside of Boadicea's jaw, earning a slight whinny from the older mare. 

"S’a big day today, y'know." Arthur releases a shaky breath as he strokes the mare's neck. Boadicea lips at Arthur's jacket, searching for treats that he doesn't have. 

"I'm gonna ask her to marry me."

He huffs through his nostrils then, smiling as he pats the mare one last time. 

"You're gonna be a part of it. I'm countin' on you, girl." 

He then looks to the black quarter horse in the stall beside Boadicea. The horse has a star on his forehead, and a thick dark forelock that covers his eyes. When Arthur had gifted you the gelding, you'd named him Whiskey. It was both an homage to the bar where you met Arthur, and your preferred poison. 

"Hey there boy. You better be good for the lady today, ya hear?" 

He pats the horse who is hungrily lapping up his grain and then brings his wrist up to check his watch. The watch ticks quietly, showing the time as being 6:17am. 

Arthur decides that the truck has had plenty long enough to heat up as he makes his way out of the barn, pulling his jacket tighter around himself. Copper has gone off, probably chasing birds in the woods, or attempting to play with the cattle. Once he's done playing he will come into the barn for shelter, at least until you wake up and let him back in. 

Arthur's hands are tinted pink with cold as he opens the truck door, sliding in and shutting the cold out. The heat from inside the cab is nothing short of cathartic as it begins to thaw his frozen features, slowly melting away the ice and causing his nose to turn pale again. 

Arthur turns the radio up a bit, driving down the long road towards the city. He tries to avoid Denver as much as possible. The tall, leering buildings are suffocating, reminding him of a very dark time in his life. 

When Arthur's ma and pa died, he was placed into foster care. When he was twelve, he fought with the other kids, even beat a few nasty boys that were older than him. Arthur learned quickly that anger and aggression were the best ways to protect himself. 

He ran from every foster home he was placed into, never having anywhere to go, just running. Arthur slept outside many nights, surrounded by vermin– both rats and people. He was spat on, cursed at, and kicked down by many of the people he encountered. It wasn't until he was fifteen that he found shelter- a home. 

— — —

Arthur's feet pound against the pavement as he runs. The door remains open, swinging, as Arthur barrels down the driveway without shoes. The blacktop is rough on Arthur's feet, scraping and cutting into his heels as he scrambles, but he pushes through, determined to get away from the outskirts of Denver. 

He follows the driveway until it meets gravel, avoiding it by running through the grass, into the forest. Tears stream down his cheeks, rough gasps for breath mixed with raspy sobs erupting from his chest. 

Arthur bolts from yet another foster home– another abuser. He can barely see as the street lights get farther away, but he pushes on faster at the sounds of sirens. Sticks and rocks dig into the soles of his feet, but he continues, terrified. 

In his hand, Arthur clutches a small bag, carrying the few things that remain of Arthur's childhood: his momma's ring, and a photo of her when she was young. His knuckles are white in their grip.

Horror trickles up his spine, sickness twisting his guts and making him sick. Tears prick at his eyes, threatening to send him to the ground 

Did he just kill a man? 

Disgust bubbles up in Arthur's throat as he searches around in the dark forest, looking for somewhere to hide for the night. Not far in the distance is a building with a light on outside, it appears to be a barn. Arthur tries not to think about anything as he stumbles towards the barn, feeling like he may collapse at any second. His arms are wrapped around himself, and he shivers as he parts the barn doors, stepping inside, sheltered from the cold winds.

A few animals grumble at the intrusion, but Arthur can barely hear them. His vision is blurry, breaths coming in quick pants as he trips. He makes it a few steps to a pile of hay, mind fuzzy and body cold. Arthur is exhausted and unable to breathe.

Suddenly his feet are falling away from him and he collapses. The impact is made softer by the pile of hay, but it still knocks the wind out of him. Arthur stares at his blood stained hands as they clutch his mother's things. 

— 

There is a shuffle. A door? Footsteps? They stop. 

"My, my… What on earth do we have here?" A man says, his timbre deep enough to rattle the barn walls. Arthur's eyes flutter but he is not able to open them. 

"Christ, Dutch– the poor boy's covered in blood, he can't be more than sixteen." A second voice chimes in. 

Then Arthur is being hoisted into the air. He tries to fight, but slowly begins to lose consciousness again. 

"Well take him inside, have Bessie and Annabelle fix him up… Once he's awake, we'll find out who he is, and.. what he needs."

— — —

Arthur thinks back on that time with distaste as his truck rumbles loudly through the crowded streets of Denver. Things got better after he found Dutch and Hosea. He stayed with them, working on their ranch for many, many years, and once he turned twenty-five the two gentlemen gifted him one hundred acres, enough to start a small ranch of his own. 

Arthur sits at a red light, not far from his targeted destination. His fingertips tap the steering wheel impatiently as he thinks of that bag, his mothers contents inside. His stomach twists with anxiety. He hasn't been down this street in fifteen years. Muscle memory tightens his lungs as he pulls his truck along the street parking, brakes squealing before he pushes it into park. 

Arthur sighs, eyes glancing up to the ornate, tall buildings before him. It makes his stomach turn. All this money poured into concrete structures when kids are starving in the streets. 

He gets out the truck, straightening his shirt and jacket out of habit, before approaching the golden gate outside of the apartment building. 

It's not long before he's in the elevator.

Arthur goes to knock on the ornate door, knuckles hesitating for a moment before rapping on the wood twice. It's the only barrier between him and the penthouse. 

Arthur plans to make the trip as quick as possible. He’d vowed not to come here ever since the verbal assault had been thrown at him during an expensive dinner. He’d left in shambles, still young and naive. Arthur places his hands behind his back and pushes his shoulders back out of habit when the door swings open.

"Mary." Arthur acknowledges. 

Her voice is soft, her southern accent spilling from her lips, "Arthur?” She seems worried, shocked. Her eyes scan him quickly, identifying that he's not hurt, “Is everything okay? Dutch? Hosea?"

"Yes Mary, everyone's fine." 

Arthur takes note that Mary's father mustn't be home, and he instantly relaxes. His shoulders come down and his hands rest at his sides. 

“Come in.” Mary says, opening the door, gesturing to the white couch in the middle of the living room.

Arthur hesitates at the door, but complies when she starts leading the way. Nothing has changed in all the years that he's avoided this place. The carpet feels the same as he walks across it.  The couch dips under Arthur as it used to when he sits. 

Mary sits on a chair across from him. The couch he's sitting on is far more comfortable than the one at home, but he prefers the quiet oak house compared to this busy modern apartment. 

She looks to Arthur, her eyes curious. He hesitates, eyes unsure where to land– dancing between Mary's eyes and the floor. 

"I-” He starts speaking and then stops a few times, before taking a breath, getting the words out, “I've met a woman…” 

A pang hits Mary right in the chest, but she hides it well. 

“Happened a few years ago." Arthur speaks low and quiet, his timbre is deep as he explains. Mary remains quiet and allows him to continue, eyes drifting towards the windows, mind caught up in memories that threatens to pull her under.

"She's a fine woman Mary, and… Well, I'm gonna ask her to marry me." 

Arthur looks up to Mary then, her dark eyes contrasting his own. She has a puzzled look on her face as she replies, 

"Arthur, I'm happy for you, but I’m afraid I don't understand…? Did you come all this way just to tell me–”

“Mary…” Arthur whispers, cutting off her snowballing thoughts, redirecting her to the point that he is trying to get across without being harsh. Without demanding. 

She stops in her tracks then, realization dawning upon her, “Oh. I see.” She smiles, bittersweet. Arthur can see the regret in her eyes. He is quick to ease the tension, leaning forward, trying to soothe the old wounds that Mary has yet to heal. 

"I'm sorry, Mary, I am– that things didn't work out between you and I, but– it means a lot to me, and there's no other-”

Arthur is stopped in his tracks as Mary raises her hand to stop him, “It belongs to you, Arthur. She should have it, really.” Mary smiles sincerely. 

She loves Arthur, though she'll never admit it. She loves him enough to let him go, to let him be loved by someone he deserves. Mary doesn't know you, but she knows that since he came here, for this– you must be deserving of his love.

Mary places her pale hand up, signaling Arthur to wait as she stands and disappears into the doorway towards her room.

Arthur fiddles with his hands, emotion bubbling up as he waits. This is the final obstacle. Once he has his this item back he will be able to give you what you deserve, and if you accept, Arthur will be the happiest man alive. 

Mary rounds the corner, her lips pulling into a bittersweet smile, a few tears dripping down her cheeks. There is a small black box in her hand, extended out to Arthur.

His green eyes transfix on the box. The one he hasn’t seen in almost fifteen years. Arthur places his hands on his knees to push himself off of the couch, staring in disbelief at the old thing. 

It is carefully placed in his hands, and he slowly creaks the lid open, staring. It's a gold band, with a ruby placed in the center, and intricately placed diamonds on either side of the gemstone. It’s the one thing he has that ties the man he is now, to the happy young boy he used to be- when he was good. It was his momma's. One of the only things he has left of her. Arthur closes the box, tucking it away into his pocket. 

“Best of luck to you, Arthur.” Mary whispers, a sad smile on her lips. 

“Thank you, Mary.”

The ride home is quiet, for the first half anyway. As soon as Arthur is out of the city, back on dirt roads, he switches the old truck stereo on. A familiar song is playing, one that's been bringing him quite a bit of comfort in the past weeks. 

“Now I know the only compass that I need”

He smiles. One of his hands rests on the steering wheel, the other rests on his jean pocket. He palms at the box as he drives, making sure it doesn’t slip away. 

“Oh, is the one that leads back to you”

His voice is deep, rumbling in his chest as he taps his left foot against the floorboards of his truck. He thinks of you, riding your horse, smiling, of your hair in a messy bun and you in his too-big t-shirts. He thinks of how you love him, with a passion and a fervor. 

“Now I know the only compass that I need Oh, is the one that leads back to you”

He thinks of when you met for the first time, your fates tying together in ways you never could have imagined.

— — —

Arthur enters the old bar, same as he does most every night. It's the same bar he's been going to for fifteen years now. Contrary to some of the other fools here, he doesn’t always drink when he comes here. Sometimes, he just sits at one of the tables, drawing the scenery.

Arthur comes here to drown out the silence of the house, to get away from the loneliness that he refuses to admit is swallowing him whole.

Tonight, he walks around the tables that adorn the small place, straight up to the bar, sitting down in his usual seat. The place is busy tonight. Arthur assumes there's a game being played, or a rodeo on the tv, but he doesn’t ask. Plenty of patrons sit around the bar, most with women or men in their clutches. Laughter and the sound of glasses being slammed on the bar fill the air, and a neon light flickers on the wall.

Arthur is all too aware of the familiar atmosphere around him, and yet somehow, he misses the new bartender serving tonight. Typically Pearson himself is behind the bar, but tonight someone else is handing out drinks. 

Arthur knocks on the bar once, eyes watching the TV in front of him, a bulldogging competition. Suddenly, a form slides in front of him, blocking his view of the television. He adverts his attention to the person blocking his view, and his eyes go wide. 

You stand in front of him, smiling and whipping a bar towel over your shoulder. 

“What can I get for you, mister?” You ask, wiping your hands against each other. 

Your eyes twinkle like they're among stars, and Arthur is sure that he’s never seen a smile so bright. He doesn’t respond for a few seconds, basking in your beauty. Your hair is not tied up, and it falls down, cascading over your shoulders.

Your black long sleeved shirt is tight, clinging to your figure, but Arthur is caught up in your eyes. He shakes his head lightly before responding. 

“Yeah, uh… Sorry– just get me the strongest drink ya got. Make it neat.”

Arthur's typical order is a bourbon on ice, or a beer, but tonight he's going to need something stronger. Everyone knows everyone in this small town, but you're a new face, and Arthur can already feel the singe of the hot brand, burning you into his memory.

“Coming right up.” You raise a curious eyebrow, wondering about this man’s choice of drink. With your interest piqued, you grab a rocks glass and a bottle of patrón, pouring a few fingers of golden liquid into the glass, sliding it across the bar. 

“Have one for ya’self too.” Arthur tosses a bundle of cash onto the bar. 

“Thank you, mister.” You smile, pouring yourself the same drink. 

You eye the mysterious cowboy curiously, noticing the softness hidden behind his rough features. He is attractive, very attractive, with dirty blonde hair, and a five o’clock shadow that exaggerates the scars on his lip and chin. His eyes are hidden from you by a dark cowboy hat, until he peers up and you are met with the most strikingly beautiful, bright, blue-green eyes you've ever seen. 

You have to look down to hide the blush that creeps up on your cheeks from being caught in the act of staring. If he notices your gaze, he doesn’t say anything. Both of your crystal glasses are set on the bar as you lean onto it with your elbows. 

“You ain't from around here, are ya?” Arthur asks. You smirk. The ruckus from the bar seems to die down in your ears. Even your busy mind quietens as you focus on the peculiar man before you. 

“Is it that obvious?” You laugh, “No, I'm not from here, just moved.”

Arthur hums, content. There's an amused sparkle in his eyes. 

“How'd you know?” You ask, wondering what gave it away. What's making you an outsider? You moved here to get away, to blend in. Anxiety curls in your stomach at the thought of being found. 

“Well, miss, you’re far kinder, n’ far prettier than anyone in this old town… Don't help that everyone knows everyone here. We don't come by new faces much.”

Your anxiety quells, cheeks blushing a deep crimson, and after a moment, you raise your glass slightly, angling it towards his. 

“Well thank you kindly, mister.” You hum. 

“Arthur.” He corrects, clinking his glass against yours, swallowing down a swig of the burning liquid. You cock your head, not tracking at first. 

“My name's Arthur. Arthur Morgan.” He reiterates, and you smile. 

“Pleasure to meet you, Arthur Morgan.”

— — —

Your eyes flutter open slowly. The first thing that meets your eyes is the vase of purple flowers on your bedside table. The morning light hits them beautifully, reflecting off of their vase, refracting on the deep purple petals. 

A wave of realization dawns over you.

Sunlight? What time is it?? 

You sit straight up in bed, eyes immediately seeking the alarm clock on Arthur’s nightstand. It reads 9:25am and your heart leaps into your throat.

“Shit!”  You curse, swinging your legs out of bed, body barely covered by your cotton shorts and cami.

You feed the horses at 6am every day. Today your alarm mustn't have gone off.  You feel terribly, knowing that the horses must be starving. You frown, hair messily falling around your shoulders as you hurry to your dresser. 

A piece of paper sits on the mahogany, and you hesitate in your rush, placing your pointer finger on the paper and reading its contents. 

Fed the horses so you could sleep in. I had to run into town real quick. Should be back before lunch. Call if ya need anything, Sweetheart. Coffee is hot in the pot for you and Copper is outside. - A

The panic leaves your chest, replaced with warmth as you pocket the note, pulling your slippers on as you move towards the kitchen. 

Arthur is always doing this for you, taking on little tasks to remove some weight from your shoulders. Doing anything he can to ease your troubles. He knows that you've been crazy busy with work lately, as horse training always picks up in the winter, and he's been doing everything he can to help. 

You hum a tune as you round the corner, hand trailing along the smooth oak wall. Your slippers are soft and quiet against the floor as you enter the kitchen, eyes trained to where the black coffee pot rests on the counter top. 

You grab your clay mug, the one you'd made back when you were taking pottery classes, and you fill it with black coffee and a splash of cream.

Wrapping one arm around your torso, you move to the glass french doors in the kitchen, overlooking the barn and the pastures. You sip at your coffee, eyes slipping closed as the coffee wakes you up, the warm liquid heating down your cold bones. Your eyes trail over your farm, the brown and black cattle, starkly contrasting the snow. Snowflakes flutter past the glass as you watch the sun peeking behind a few pine trees in the yard. 

Copper runs through one of the pastures, throwing a stick up into the air and then grabbing it in his maw. You can’t help the smile that graces your lips. 

You head back towards your room, pulling out a pair of jeans. They hug your hips and waist, but leave room for your boots to lay under your pants at the hem. You pull on a long sleeved black shirt and your beige ranch coat before leaving your room and pulling your boots over your socks. 

With one last swig, you finish the last sip of your coffee and set it in the otherwise empty sink before opening the glass door and stepping out into the elements. 

You expect the cold to wind-whip your face, but it doesn’t. Instead, the sun shines down, adding some resistance to the cold weather. It causes the snow and ice to sparkle like diamonds as your boots crunch through the snow. 

You push the barn door aside, heart humming at the warm sound of nickering horses. 

“Alright. Who's up first?” You hum, looking to the chalkboard on the wall. It's outlined with feeding schedules, medication times and dosages, and your training schedule.

You find the designated box for today, seeing that today you'll be getting your work cut out for you. You're working with Doob, a seal brown thoroughbred, off the track, with more energy than he knows what to do with. His owners had brought him in for a bucking problem, one that you're already beginning to curb. 

You make your way down the aisle until you find his stall, promptly grabbing his dark green halter and slipping it over his head. 

“C'mon, boy.” You whisper, petting behind his ears, “You're just a big sweetheart, aren't you?” You chuckle as he nuzzles your palm. Of all the client horses, he's definitely carved a home in your heart. He’s a funny little horse, a character. You'll be a bit sad to send him back when you’re finished, but you know his owners will treat him right. 

A short walk through the snow leads you both to the round pen. You leave him loose in the small pen, and he immediately starts running. 

“Yeah, here we go.” You hum, cold biting your nose. You grab a green lasso from the fence post, moving him up with it, pushing him forward as he runs around the pen.

“Good boy.” You call, “Easy does it.” 

Doob gets his energy out, running to his heart's content, wind flying through his long black mane. You just let him run, only correcting when he tosses a buck or kicks. After a long while of working, he eventually becomes tired out.

“That's a good boy, whoa now.” You cue, and he stops on a dime, turning towards you, walking into the center of the circle. Your head turns at the sound of a rumbling truck, and your eyes brighten at the familiar sight of Arthur coming down the lane. 

“Good job, Doob. That's all for today. You go on and play now.” You smile, handing a treat out to the thoroughbred. He takes it happily before you remove his halter, letting him out into the pasture with the other client horses. He'll surely run off more steam out there. 

A few snowflakes are stuck in your hair, and your nose is already turning red as Arthur steps down from his truck. You make your way to him, ignoring the chill in your bones, and leaning towards the warmth before you. 

“Hey, baby.” You smile as he turns to you, shutting the door to his truck. Arthur smiles back, his hands extending as he grabs your waist, pulling you in for a kiss. Your lips are cold compared to his, and he runs his hand up and down your arms to warm you up. 

“Shit darlin’, you’re froze. I was gonna ask if ya wanted to go for a ride but-” 

His eyes go wide as you jump a little, gripping at his coat with your cold hands, interrupting him.

“No, I wanna go for a ride! I'm not too cold, I've got more clothes in the barn.” 

He chuckles, his warm breath creating a fog in the air as he hugs you tightly. You've never turned down a trail ride, not in all the time you've known him. 

“Alright, why don’t you start tackin’ up the horses. I gotta run in the house quick. I'll grab some food too. We can have a picnic.” His deep voice rumbles against your ear as he holds you in his embrace. 

“Okay, I'll grab the horses. Oh- grab the chocolate, okay? The good kind. There's some in the cupboard above the sink.”  

Arthur chuckles, “Sure thing, darlin’.” 

You go to pull away from Arthur, but before you're fully released from his grasp, he gently pulls you back by the chin, catching you in another kiss. He hums against your lips, and you relax into him, allowing him into your mouth. He chases after the taste of you.

After a few seconds, another light peck– or two– you pull away from each other. When your eyes slowly flutter upwards, you see intense emotion in Arthur's eyes. Love. 

Arthur loves you, and he always makes sure to display it, but he's being extra affectionate today, which has your eyebrow raising in curiosity. 

“Why are you lookin’ at me like that?” you chuckle, hands resting on the thick blue fabric of his wool coat. You look up at him with those sparkling eyes, and he falls in love with you all over again. The snow has made your nose pink and cold, and Arthur leans down to kiss it.

“Cause I love you,” Arthur pulls away, “Now, go tack up those horses. I'll grab us a snack.” you peel away from him then, shaking your head. 

One whistle for Copper, and the orange flash is running down from the pasture. Then, he's at your feet, whining happily. The snow crunches and creaks against your boots as you lean to pet the dog, and you both look at Arthur’s back as he opens the door to the house. 

“Your daddy’s actin’ weird today.” You whisper, curiously eyeing the blue coat that moves through the door. Copper barks, as if he is trying to explain, but Arthur had sworn the dog to secrecy. 

You pet Copper before standing up and brushing the snow off of your knees. When you step into the barn,you’re immediately surrounded by the soothing smell of oats and hay. The warm scents envelop you, and wrap you up like the warmth of the barn. 

By the time you have both Boadicea and Whiskey fully tacked up, Arthur is walking through the front barn doors. He pushes the door open wide enough for your horses to step through. 

“So where are we ridin’ to today? Maybe we could trail down to the creek? It's beautiful this time of year.” You ask, pulling yourself up into the saddle. The cold leather sends a chill down your spine as you rub at your thigh in an attempt to make warmth.

Arthur shakes his head lightly as he climbs up into the saddle, “Actually I was thinkin’ we’d go on up to the overlook today…”  

The overlook? You hum. Typically you and Arthur only go to the overlook for special occasions. The last time you'd gone up there was about a year ago. It's a special place. 

You both had said your first admissions of love there, let the words pour down into the plains below. Your first kiss with Arthur was at the overlook. 

But the overlook doesn’t just house good memories. You and Arthur had split up, briefly, a few years ago. The separation took place there. It’s a place of much love and heartache, it's you and Arthur’s spot. 

“Okay, sure… It’s been quite a while since we’ve been up there.” You respond quietly, curiously. Anxiety swirls in your stomach, but you push it down. 

You and Arthur trot beside one another, carried by your mounts. The air is chilly, but your heart is toasty warm as you and Arthur chat, laughing and smiling as you go. The ride to Horseshoe Overlook is a long one, and you make the most of the time as you and Arthur ride through the bright snow. 

“I'll race ya cross’ this hill up here.” Arthur drawls, his lips ticking up in a smile as he looks at you from under the brim of his hat. 

You eye the hill in front of you. It's open, probably over one hundred yards. The snow isn’t deep over the grass and it doesn’t appear to be slippery. Adrenaline seeps through your veins as you eye it, swirling and pumping through your heart, flicking the hairs on your neck up like static electricity.

“Alright then…” You adjust yourself on Whiskey, preparing to run.

“Get ready…get set–” You are cut off as the wind whips your hair and Boadicea starts charging forward. Your jaw drops and you watch Arthur barrel ahead of you. Quickly, you spur Whiskey and kiss and cluck to move him forward. 

“You cheated!!” You scream loudly, trumping the sound of pounding hooves. 

Determination sets in your bones then, and you lean forward, spurring the horse forward with every ounce of might in your body. Whiskey shoots forward until he is running side by side with Arthur’s mare.

“I don't play dirty, mister!” You yell in Arthur’s direction. Hooves are pounding loudly against the snow. The two horses are breathing heavily, each determined to win their own races. You see Arthur laugh, but he stops when you spur Whiskey, charging forward. 

Arthur curses as you shoot ahead of him and Bo. Whiskey's hooves kick up snow as he passes, sending it flying into Arthur's face. It slows him down, giving you the advantage. 

You and Whiskey run hard until you reach the top of the hill, and Whiskey slides into a deep stop right before reaching the tree line. After ten seconds, Arthur and Boadicea are at the top as well, stopping hard and breathing heavily. 

“Dammit woman, you can ride, I'll give ya that.” Arthur pants, face wind-whipped as you ride up beside him and lean over your saddle to kiss him. 

His lips are cold, as are yours, but the kiss is still alight with warmth. You grip onto the collar of his shirt, not releasing when your lips pull away from one another. If anything, your grip tightens on his collar as you eye him.

“I know.” You smirk, winking at Arthur as you pull away and canter your horse away from him, and towards the entrance to the overhang.

He watches you canter on, shaking his head. 

“You are somethin’.” He jests, trotting after you.

When the trees break, you nearly gasp. Though you have been here a handful of times, it always steals your breath away. You can see the house and barn in the distance, separated from you by miles and miles of white snow. Evergreens stand tall, dusted white, with a few herds of elk at their trunks. You can see for miles, past the house and to the tall blue mountains far in the distance. 

“So beautiful.” You murmur, eyes bright with wonder. 

“Sure is…” Arthur whispers, eyes not on the landscape, but on you. 

You hop down from Whiskey, patting him for his good work, and offering him the same treats that you'd offered Doob earlier. You always keep a few extra in your pocket. 

You walk towards the cliff, keeping a safe distance from the drop. Your eyes flutter over the rolling hills and plains before you. Everything seems so quiet up here. Troubles seem so far away. Unique snowflakes slowly drop from the sky, dusting your hair and coat with white diamonds. 

Boots crunch in the snow behind you, stopping just a foot from your back. You smile, but don't turn around when Arthur's chest presses against your back. One of his hands wraps around your middle while the other, unbeknownst to you, rests on the small black box in his coat pocket. 

The serenity of the overlook envelopes your senses as you breathe in deeply. The cold air carries notes of pine and sap, familiar scents that comfort you.

“Love you, y'know.” Arthur hums, leaning down, pulling your hair away from your neck, kissing the soft skin under your ear. Blood rushes to your cheeks, and you turn in his embrace, chest to chest. 

“You’re actin’ strange, Arthur. Are you feelin’ okay?” You chuckle. 

Arthur exhales sharply, otherwise ignoring your question. Instead, he pulls you up onto your tiptoes, your boots on top of his as he kisses you. 

You melt under his touch, kissing Arthur feels like your muscles relaxing after a long day’s work, like rain after a drought. Kissing Arthur feels like coming home. He's been kissing you all day, unable to pull himself away from you. 

You pull away only for a quick breath before your lips meet again. You wrap your arms around the back of his neck, straining on your toes to remain in contact with his lips. Arthur pulls away with a bite to your lip, smiling when he sees how yours are plump and swollen. 

The wind brushes Arthur’s hair into his face as he backs up, pulling you by your hand. He has placed a thick wool blanket on the snow for you two to sit on. You plop down on the blanket beside Arthur, your head resting on his shoulder. Your head rests on his shoulder. Heat radiates from the man, and you are glad for the extra protection from the cold.

“So what snacks did you bring, baby?” you ask, curiously peaking into the bag that Arthur has laid on the blanket. 

“Alcohol.” He says plainly. You laugh, smacking Arthur in the arm as he chuckles. 

“And your chocolates.”

“Arthur!” You chide as he hands you a bottle of golden liquid. You peer at the label. 

It's patrón. You quirk a brow at the drink of choice. Arthur rarely buys the expensive tequila. Curiously, you pull the round cork out from the neck of the bottle and take a small swig. The alcohol burns its way down your throat, warming you from the inside. 

You don't mind the burn, watching as a pair of pronghorn bucks fight in the hills below you. Their hooves slip in the snow as they each attempt to win their battle. Your hands numbly grip the neck of the bottle as you pass it back to Arthur. 

You huff before you speak, “I can’t believe we’re here Arthur. After everything we’ve been through we can just… live now…” You pull your knees up, curling more into his chest. Your past hangs over you, haunting you like a dark cloud. Bit by bit, Arthur has been helping you to push it away, to heal and move on. Today is a good reminder of that progress. 

His hands place the tequila in yours, and you down a swig.

“S’ like your readin’ my mind, sweetheart.”

You smile up at Arthur then, placing your hand on his stubble.

“Y’know this is the first place you told me you loved me…” Arthur says, low and quiet. You smile, the good memories filling your heart as Arthur continues,

“Also the first place I kissed ya…  a lot ‘a memories up here.” 

Your stomach flutters at his words, your brain is flooded with warm memories of Arthur and you in the overlook. 

“C'mere.” Arthur whispers, smiling, taking a shaky breath. Your eyebrows furrow together. but as he stands and extends his hand, you take it. Arthur pulls you up, hands in his own. 

The overlook is beautiful in front of you, serene and perfect. A moment he'd capture with a camera if he had one with. Whiskey and Boadicea watch on from the treeline, ears perked up. They know what's about to happen. Arthur's been telling them about it every day for months. 

“I love you.” Arthur whispers, deep and serious. His eyes soften, and your heart begins to pump loudly in your ears. A delicious red flushes into your cheeks.

“I love you too, Arthur… but why are you.. what's going on?” Your voice is higher than usual, eyes sparkling bright with wonder, reflecting the sun and the white snow.

It isn’t unusual for Arthur to admit his feelings to you, but there are too many factors for this to be a coincidence. Arthur was ‘shopping in town’ all morning, but had come home empty handed. He brought you out to your special spot, bought you your favorite expensive tequila– and is treating you with such delicacy, and love, that butterflies flutter in your stomach. 

Arthur huffs, letting out a humorous chuckle and looking up to the sky, projecting a short prayer, before he holds your hands a little tighter and begins.

“I love you more than I ever thought possible.” He looks away from you for a split second, staring at the ground, before anchoring himself in your eyes again, and continuing, “I didn’t think my life was goin’ nowhere before I met you… I gave up in my twenties, said I wasn’t gettin’ attached to anyone.” Arthur admits, and you frown. You know about his past. You've talked about it, and now you're trying to show him how much he deserves to be loved. 

“I stood by that for a long time…” Arthur's lips crack into a beautiful smile, a chuckle falling over them, “And then you stumbled along.” A single tear drips down his cheek, and landing in the snow below. Your eyes are threatening to overflow with tears of your own.  

“Arthur…?” You whisper, voice cracking. He squeezes your hands reassuringly. 

“You showed me what it felt like to be loved. And love ain't somethin’ I've felt in many a years.” Arthur pauses, gathering his words. A few tears trail down your cheeks, and Arthur’s thumb wipes them away.

“You make me want so much more outta life. You make me wanna wake up every day and work on this ranch, take care of these animals. You make me want a family. I wanna wake up n’ watch our kids playin’ from the window.” 

“But what I want most in life? More than anything…?” A pause ensues, his loving, green eyes locked onto yours, “I want to be with you, every day, for the rest of my life.” 

Arthur thinks back to the song he had been listening to earlier on the way home from the city.

“As long as my compass keeps pointin’ to you, I’ll be where I belong… I’ll be home.”

Tears flow freely from your eyes, and you gasp as Arthur reaches into his pocket, kneeling down on one knee in the snow. 

He looks up at you, one hand still intertwined with yours, the other extending out the black box. Arthur snaps the ring box open, presenting a stunning gold ring to you. The band is adorned with a ruby, and several small diamonds decorate the sides of the gem. Your hands come up to your mouth, as Arthur looks up to you, smiling. 

“This was my Momma's…” Arthur explains, and your eyes flicker down to his, “You’ve already made me the happiest man alive… and I wanna spend the rest of my life with you… So, would you do me the honor–”  Arthur chokes up, “Would you marry me?” 

He looks into your teary eyes, holding the ring box a little higher as he asks the question. You wipe the tears away from your eyes, sight locking onto the scene, wishing you could etch it into your memory forever.

Your head frantically nods, tears flowing down your cheeks as you cry tears of joy, “Yes, Oh, Arthur–of course. Yes, yes!” 

Arthur smiles the brightest that you’ve ever seen, standing before you and slipping his mother’s ring onto your ring finger. The band fits you perfectly, and you marvel at it for a second before Arthur’s arms wrap around your waist. He lifts you up into the air, and you wrap your legs around his waist, laughing and crying, overcome with a happiness unlike any other. Your heart leaps with love and passion for the man in front of you.

His lips crash against your, wet tears dripping down your face as you kiss him. Your hands entangle into the hair at the back of Arthur’s neck as you both kiss, pulling apart only to breathe or to laugh. The kiss is deep, bodies singing with love, energy overflowing from the both of you. He keeps kissing you, over and over again, never wanting to leave the taste of your lips. 

You pull apart, foreheads pressing against eachother's, his hands on your thighs, keeping you off the ground. 

“I love you so much darlin’.”

“I love you too.” You whisper against him, the happiest you have ever been. 

The ring rests on your finger as you kiss Arthur again, senselessly. The band of rubies and diamonds holds promises of a future, of a marriage  and a life with him.

As the wind rustles through your hair, carrying your joy so far down the mountains that it can be felt radiating even miles away, you can’t think of anything you could ever want more than that promise.

taglist: @margofiore @mrsarthurmorgan7 @woman-with-no-name @tillith @luvliewriting @pine4pple-b0i @photo1030 @dudsparrow @holyratrimony @twola

[foxymoxynoona]

Over the Falls (Ch. 5)

Sexy Banner & bar by @borabae-gx

Summary: Jungkook sees a lot of things as a pool tech. It’s…  fine. It pays the bills between mornings on the water and evenings  rocking out with his garage-band. His favorite thing to see on the job has been Grace Birch –older but a hottie, wealthy but nice, and  unfortunately very married. At least until Grace learns what her husband  has been up to behind her back. Now that she’s free, Jungkook finds  himself wondering: what does it take for a guy like him to catch the eye of a woman like that?

Genre: Poolboy Jungkook x Rich Divorcee OC

Tags: Age gap (older woman), socioeconomic gap, Surferboy JK, drummer/guitarist/vocalist JK, Wealthy divorcee OC, househusband

CW: Mature/Explicit,  Infidelity (not between JKxOC), language, alcohol, recreational drugs, lots of explicit sex, ageist/racist/classist remarks down the road, outdoor sex, beach sex

Chapter Four | Masterlist | Chapter Six

The scent of coffee wafted around the kitchen, the gurgle and sigh of the Keurig tinkling coffee into her mug. For a moment, Cafe Bustelo overpowered the smell of drying paint. She dragged her finger impatiently along the warming mug, her nail catching the glaze coating the blues and browns of the stoneware ceramic. She’d bought a set of these when Tim had dragged her along to Germany one year –ostensibly for business meetings but shockingly they all took place at Oktoberfest events and the most expensive BierHalls to be found in Munich. Grace had spent most of her time wandering the museums and historic churches and a lively marketplace where she’d found the handmade mugs.

She loved those mugs. She decided they made her think of beauty and independence and times when she had made the most of being dragged around as a trophy by her ex-husband, so the mugs were allowed to stay. The other option would have been to donate them; no way would she have allowed Tim to keep something she’d carefully selected for its beauty, which he refused to use because “it’s like drinkings from rocks.” 

The second the coffee was done, she snatched the mug up and breathed the scent deep into her lungs. This was one of the small things she was trying to make more space for in her life: the scent of coffee, the crisp look of freshly done nails, the warmth of a steamy bath at the end of the day, perhaps with a glass of wine and a mystery novel perched on the edge. 

She glanced at her nails, then turned her grip on the mug so she couldn’t see them. Her nail tech was going to have a fit. They were a mess, but she didn’t see the point of getting them fixed until she was done with the cabinets. Which would be soon!

She tentatively touched the doorless cabinet above her, testing the dryness of the most recent coat of paint. One more, she felt like, and probably the same for the cabinet doors that had been outside drying overnight. The new hardware sat in a box on the marble counter. She couldn’t wait to screw those in and put the doors back on. Having work finished on a central room was going to feel so fucking good. 

The rest of the house seemed to call to her, reminding her of all the in-progress things standing between her and her finished home. But at least she was almost to the fun part, the filling out part. The walls and ceilings, once dark and oppressive, were now white and taupe throughput, a much more fitting canvas for the art she intended to collect. There would be furniture to buy once the floor guy was finished restaining all the wood, and plants to tuck everywhere she could fit them, and functional space to fill out. When she hosted, did she expect folks to congregate in the living room or the dining room or the deck? What would she need to make them comfortable?

It was easy for her daydreams to run away with her and to feel impatient about it. She was trying to romanticize and enjoy, but the truth was she felt late to be starting a new life from scratch. She’d already done this! She’d already worked so hard to make dreams a reality… Sometimes starting fresh was fun and at other times utterly demoralizing. 

The remodel of the master bedroom and bathroom were the most frustrating right now and the living room wasn’t far behind, but at least the kitchen would be done soon. She hadn’t even been in the house eight weeks yet. She sold houses, she knew the settling in took time. When she’d moved in with Tim though, it had been such a simple, straight-forward process. He’d wanted something totally move-in ready, no updates needed, and he’d never wanted her to “fuck with it” much in terms of personalizing. They’d ordered whatever they didn’t already have between the two of them in a week and paid for expedited shipping to get it done quick.

This time, she wanted quality, even if she had to wait for it. 

Which she reminded herself daily, hourly. Every time she noticed more “little things” she suspected she would want to do later, once this big things were done. A re-do of the downstairs bathroom, turning the downstairs guestroom into a work out room, adding at least a pool shed–

“Breathe out,” she told herself, lifting the coffee to her nose again. One thing at a time. Well, several things at a time, but not all the things at a time. She could chip away at things around the house until she had it exactly the way she wanted it, even if it took years. There was no rush, no one to impress, no expected interruptions to this pursuit. Life stretched before her with blue skies and gentle breezes. She could do whatever she wanted for as long as she wanted. No husband, no kids, no real financial worries once this shitty divorce was behind her. So long as Tim didn’t successfully clean her out. Thank god her lawyers were going to make sure that didn’t happen.

She breathed out again. Yoga that morning on the deck outside the master bedroom had given her the strength to keep the stress at bay. Yoga and a healthy dose of snuggles from her partner in crime. 

Foam headbutted against her leg and curled around, stepping on her toes and then ducking down for a nibble. He was an odd cat, that was for sure. She loved him. She gave him a little scratch behind the ears and then lifted him to ride on the crook of her arm as she gathered avocados, eggs, and her favorite artisanal bread. Foam sniffed and stretched, then pulled back quickly when she let him sniff each ingredient, no longer interested. She set him down and pulled the Everything Bagel topping from the painfully bare spice drawer. The glass bottles of her collection had broken during the move and she hadn’t had time to order replacements.

Foam wove in and out of her legs as she cooked before dashing off to chase ghosts, which so far seemed his favorite pastime. At first she had thought he might hear mice or insects in the house –but of course he wasn’t hearing anything! Nor could she find any evidence of pests, thank god. Just a silly little cat living out his best life. 

Coffee and avocado toast and eggs arranged, she was just carrying it out to the outdoor dining room when she heard the back gate grind open. She’d only given the code to a couple of the contractors she trusted enough not to show up in the middle of the night and murder her –namely the woman managing the bathroom remodel and the pool guy. 

JK’s truck crunched to a stop on the gravel, muffled music breaking the quiet stillness of the morning. He banged out a drum solo on the steering wheel, then the music abruptly shut off seconds before he stepped out, still singing along. It was only eight, earlier than she’d expected him, though he wasn’t on some set schedule. He looked shockingly awake and she suspected that meant he’d been out surfing this morning; other days he looked like he’d just rolled out of bed at ten. 

“Surfing this morning?” she called over as he lowered the tailgate of his truck, so he’d know she was there and not think she was just standing around gawking.   

He stopped what he was doing and grinned over at her; it caught her off-guard, that grin, like he’d known she was there and expected her to ask. He grabbed a big white bucket and hauled it closer, at which point she realized his hair wasn’t just wild today but wet, like he’d just hopped out of the shower. 

“I was out, yeah,” he said. He didn’t look it now, more bundled up than she’d ever seen him in a gray hoodie and long pants. 

She worried he’d noticed her look him over and teased, “You look cozy. Not very beach bum.”

“I took a cold shower before I came here,” he said. “So… I’m cold.” He grinned wider, dimples showing on each side of his mouth.

Damn. He had quite a smile.

“Do you want coffee or tea?” she asked.

“Nah, hate the stuff. I’m more of a Bacchus-D guy.”

“I’m not familiar.”

“It’s an energy drink,” he answered, shrugged. 

“Ah.”

“I’m good though. Thanks. Figured I’d get an early start today scrubbing that baby down.”

She had the urge to bite her toast and realized she was just standing there, holding her plate and her mug, still wearing the tank top and leggings she’d done her yoga in. A tap made them both look back at the French doors, where Foam was pawing to get her attention.

“That your cat?”

“I should hope so,” she laughed. “Isn’t he cute?”

“Yeah. I’m more of a dog person but cats are ok.”

She didn’t know why that made her feel a bit put off. You could be a dog person but still think cats were cute. Or you could just be polite and say yes, your pet is cute. 

“I’ve never had a dog or a cat,” he continued. “Once I had a bird.”

“What kind?”

“Oh, it was wild. Like a bird that you just see in the yard. It had a hurt leg so I took it in. My mom was pissed,” he laughed.

“So… what happened to the bird?” she asked, because it seemed like the right question to ask.

He grimaced and admitted, “I don’t know. She told me she took it to a rescue but… I doubt it.” He looked to the side and scowled. “She’s kind of– I don’t have a good relationship with my mom.”

“Oh.”

“But I do with my stepmom, I don’t have like sad puppy syndrome or anything,” he quickly clarified. “I’m not weird about women just because my mom probably killed my bird.”

“You think she was capable of killing it?” Grace asked, not quite sure what else to say. He was an interesting character, this JK, telling her all of that first thing in the morning.

“Even if she just tossed it out, it probably died, right?” He shrugged, like he’d learned to live with this. Grace decided not to mention she’d been dragged along on duck hunts several times as a teenager until she threatened to become a vegetarian. It was natural to search for those types of thematic connection when someone shared something personal, as a way to comfort, and yet this conversation felt like it didn’t quite follow the rules of etiquette she’d learned growing up. Conversations with JK rarely did. 

“I’m sorry. That sounds… upsetting.”

“Anyway,” he said, and stretched, allowing a glimpse of a tanned toned stomach. “I’ma get started.”

“Need anything at all?”

“Nope.” He grinned and waved and grabbed his bucket in one hand. “Actually can I give you a CD to put on?”

“Sure…” Actually she’d been looking forward to her quiet breakfast but fine, music could be ok.

It felt too awkward to sit outside to eat anyway, since it might seem like she was just watching him, even though she couldn’t see him at all once he hopped down into the empty pool. Instead she ate in the kitchen, windows open to hear the music, trying to identify the heavy drums and shout. It sounded like… old rock music? But maybe it was a modern band that only sounded old, like Greta van Fleet. 

Foam leapt into her lap and she scritched under his chin, almost asking if he liked the music  –would he be able to feel the vibrations from this far away? She wondered if he’d enjoy it up close. She kinda liked it. It sounded like the thing she would have listened to as a teenager to piss off her parents, if she’d been that kind of teenager. Maybe it was the kind of music you listened to even into adulthood to piss off a mom who’d killed your rescue bird. Yikes.

But it was endearing, him being the kind of guy who’d bring home a wounded bird, expecting to take care of it. That was charming. 

She bobbed her head along to the music as she chewed her toast and scrolled through a digital copy of The New Yorker on her iPad. She was trying to get back into breakfast being a routine rather than something to grab on the go or skip, now that her time was her own. She used to love slow, coffee-laden, literature-infused breakfasts, but over the years she’d lost them in favor of the hustle. It became a bagel on the way to a house showing, a parfait halfway through the morning when she realized she’d forgotten to grab something between yoga and the list of phone calls to make with her clients’ real estate attorneys and inspection officers and the occasional mortgage broker. An occasional brunch with friends had done its best to keep breakfast alive as a tradition, waiting for her to return to her roots. Growing up, her family ate breakfast together every morning.

It took her long enough to notice the harsh buzzing to also recognize that the person held the buzzer for a painfully long time. Grace startled and Foam vaulted from her lap, back claws leaving red lines of nearly-cut skin in his haste. She winced and hobbled to the console by the back door to see which damn door had something going on.

An older woman with a visor and long-sleeved shirt and large sunglasses stood at the back gate, her lips pursed so tightly the camera seemed to zoom in on them.

“Hello, can I help you?” Grace asked.

“This is a nice neighborhood, you know!” the woman shouted. “Turn that horrible noise down right this instant! Good people are trying to have a good morning and you’ve got the gall to–”

Getting yelled at by an irate neighbor was not on Grace’s to-do list today.

“I’m sorry, ma’am, I’ll look into it,” Grace interrupted her. Curious if the music seemed louder away from her house –where she could hear it but not excessively– she stepped outside. She could see the shadow of the woman’s feet still standing at the gate, shuffling like she couldn’t decide whether to stay or go. A small dog stuck its nose under the gap.

The music didn’t seem that loud to Grace, even directly on the patio where the speakers were. Still, not excessive. She thought this had just revealed she had at least one annoying old lady neighbor, but maybe a weird acoustic was happening and causing it to somehow seem louder elsewhere, so she walked the perimeter of the yard. 

The inside of the pool briefly distracted her from her investigation. She hadn’t come to look since JK’s friend had finished draining the pool the other day, nor when JK had come by to do an inspection of all the pumps and filters and heaters and decide what needed to be replaced (everything, unsurprisingly.) The water had been green and slimy before but she hadn’t realized there were plants beneath the surface. It looked like the bottom of an aquarium down there, with actual patches of moss or grass or whatever it was, and leafy plants, and who knew what else!

Something went flying through the air and landed behind her. 

“What was that?” she asked, worried JK was going to cover her grass in slimy shit.

“Oh!” His eyebrows raised and he stiffened in surprise at seeing her. “Uh, a frog.”

“A frog.”

“Would you um… rather I catch them and put them somewhere else? They’re just frogs though.” He looked so completely guilty that she half expected the frog was a lie but when she looked back at the blob, it was in fact a frog.

“Won’t they just come right back in?”

He looked around at the ecosystem he was charged with dismantling, thinking about it, then answered with that familiar confidence he had, “Nah, there won’t be anything good for them down here once I finish today. All this will be gone.” He spread his hand out, gesturing to the whole pool. Grace didn’t see how that was possible to do in a single day. “Hey, did you know there’s all this pretty tile at the bottom?”

“No,” she admitted. He crouched and dragged a bunch of plants to the side and wiped at the muck with his hands to reveal a glimpse of small bright-blue tiles.

“It’s kinda cool. I feel like a– what are those guys that dig up dinosaurs?”

“A paleontologist?”

“Yeah. Hey, don’t laugh at me, smarty. English isn’t my first language,” he said. She was positive she had not laughed at him but quickly checked herself.

“I didn’t laugh! I would never.” 

“I know, I’m teasing.”

“Oh.” It was a horrible thing to tease about. It kept her from asking what she was curious to know now, what his first language was. She worried there wasn’t a way to phrase the question that wouldn’t sound racist, especially since he might be joking about that, she realized. He might be messing with her, waiting for her to ask what is your first language? She couldn’t quite understand this man, or how to tell when he was serious or teasing. She used to think he was always serious and polite but now she wondered if he’d been teasing a lot. Or making fun. She suddenly felt very self conscious about it.

“She doesn’t like being teased,” he muttered, seemingly to himself. “Sorry.”

“No, it’s fine! I just would never insult you like that.” The self conscious feeling got worse. It was like he’d read her mind!

“I know that’s why it’s funny… so, frogs? Stay, go? Put ‘em in a box to toss at that lady?”

“Oh, you heard that?” she asked, glancing over to the gate. The woman’s feet were gone but she had the sixth sense she hadn’t gone far.

“Yeah, I even turned it down from where you had it. Guess you were partying last night?”

“That’s where we left it the other day! I didn’t think it was that loud but thanks. I guess I don’t want to go to war with my neighbors just yet.”

“Guns n’ Roses is a good thing to go to war with a neighbor over though.”

Instantly she thought of the band’s logo design, something she’d seen printed on the T-shirts of trendy twenty-somethings. She didn’t know their music but she did know they were an older band and felt very proud of herself for having blindly guessed correctly.

“Maybe once I’ve established myself…” She trailed off, contemplating now just where that woman could live. She’d already gone around to all the neighbors on this street with boxes of pain au chocolates from Republique and her business card which had her phone number and email on it, putting her best food forward. It amused her that every single one of them had seemed so surprised by the introduction. None of them knew each other, she understood. This wasn’t that kind of neighborhood. Her previous one hadn’t been either. But it was the way she’d been raised! Her parents would be severely disappointed when they came to visit if she couldn’t name her neighbors and wave to them when they passed on the street.

She had not met this woman yet though.

“And how do you do that, exactly? Establish yourself?”

“Hm?” Belatedly she processed the question and answered, “I prove myself to be a good neighbor.”

“Which means quiet music? Lame. Guess I’m the shittiest neighbor but no one’s egged my house yet.”

“Maybe at least quiet until ten. I guess folks around here are late sleepers.”

He was coming towards her and she instinctively backed up, watching with dumb curiosity as he leapt up to grab the pool edge and pulled himself out the way she might if the pool was full of water. He’d done it so quick and fluidly that it startled her; there was no other explanation for why it felt like an adrenaline shot through her.

He dusted off his hands but the muck remained. 

“Folks,” he muttered, she didn’t know why. “Well, what’s the verdict on the frogs?” She blinked at him, her mind dragging confused at how he’d gone so quickly from standing beneath her in the Jurassic Park of her empty pool to now looking down at her. How had he actually pulled himself up that way? She never would have that upper body strength.

He added, “I’ve got a bucket in the truck, I can take ‘em with me if you don’t want them in your yard.”

“And do what with them?”

“Kill them probably, like mother like– no, shit! I’m joking!” he laughed because her face had failed not to react to such a blunt answer. In an instant his face went from an intense, lowered-brow stare to lifted eyebrows, softened eyes, a supplicating smile. “I wouldn’t kill them,” he quickly assured her. “I’ll set them loose in a park pond or something.”

“Won’t that upset the balance of the ecosystem there?”

“Uh… don’t know, don’t care? It’s fine, they’re just frogs.”

“They can stay, I don’t mind some frogs as long as they aren’t going to live in the pool,” she assured him. Because obviously she couldn’t be like his mom. And his jokes were weird and kind of flustering her. “Maybe I should make a pond somewhere… They’ll eat the bugs in the yard, won’t they?”

He grabbed two blue tubs and tossed them right down into the pool before answering, “I’m not an expert on frogs but I’ve heard they do that.”

OK, that made her crack a smile.

“You don’t watch Planet Earth documentaries in your spare time?” she teased.

He seemed to take this seriously though and gave her a curious look as he admitted, “Ah, no. A documentary? You watch those for fun, huh?”

“That’s a very normal thing to do,” she said, a combination of flustered and annoyed by the way he grinned at her.

“Watching documentaries for fun?”

“Yes, don’t you like animals?”

He laughed and held his hands up, like he didn’t understand what she was talking about, and assured her, “Yeah I do. And I like the earth. I watch little clips of stuff that come across my feed.”

“What feed?”

“Tiktok?”

“Oh, isn’t that…” She cut herself off before finishing for teenagers? “I’m not on that.”

“YouTube has short animal things too. I’ve probably watched one about frogs but if I tried to watch like an hour of frogs, I’d fall asleep.” He nodded, as if thinking through it more and growing more certain.

“That’s a shame. You really learn a lot and they’re beautiful…” What the fuck was she talking about, preaching nature documentaries to this guy? God, he brought out weird behavior in her. Not her best, sadly. 

“Know what’s even better than a nature documentary? Being in nature, riding the waves. I bet I could make you a better documentary while I’m out than like the mating cycle of two-tone shrimp or whatever. I see animals every time I’m out. You ever had a seagull snatch a hotdog out of your hand?”

“...no, I have not,” she could say with certainty.

“Scared the shit out of my sister,” he snickered. “You want to learn about nature, you should be out in it.”

“I go out into nature,” she clarified. “I hike. I… travel. But I’m not trekking through the forests of Madagascar the way documentary filmmakers are. I’m certainly not taking an Arctic cruise.”

“Why not? God, if I could afford to go see all that crazy stuff…” He shook his head, then grabbed a sort of rake lying on the ground. It thwacked her leg as he lifted it, not hard enough to hurt, but he flinched like he’d been the one hit and apologized.

“You may be more adventurous than I am,” she suggested, not sure what else to say.

“Nothing stopping you now though, right? Now that you’re free.”

Free. What a word to use. She liked that better than ‘divorced.’

“I don’t think getting divorced made me suddenly athletic.”

“You work out, I’ve seen you,” he argued. He suddenly clutched the handle of the rake to his chest and looked stunned, like he’d said something he hadn’t meant to. His reaction made it weird; what he’d said on his own wasn’t, because he’d come over when she was coming up from the gym, that would have been fine. But again, he looked so guilty! His face was more expressive than she’d realized before. “I mean, you know, yoga or whatever it is you do.”

It was kind of fun watching him squirm instead of herself for once.

She crossed her arms and leveled a serious look at him as she demanded, “Is that how you got that video that we promised never to talk about? Do you peek in–”

“Fuck no, I swear I don’t!” he cried. “I swear I’m not a window creeper. I just happened to see that one time because they were making so much noise–”

“Lovely, thank you.”

“I just meant— I just know you work out because you’ve come out to say hi after you’ve clearly been working out,” he said. “At least I think so? I don’t know, I don’t know what you do in your house. I swear that’s all I meant. I don’t look in windows. Not one of my hobbies. I just surf and play in my band and thrash my roommates in video games and… and hang out with my family. That’s it, that’s my life.”

He seemed sincerely panicked now, but not guilty. Grace studied his face. He sure could flip back and forth quickly between sexy smirk and doe-eyed innocence. She wondered how intentional it was. She didn’t really know much about JK, after all. Maybe he fucked women over too. 

Well, not her at least, because he just worked on her pool and did a good job of it.

“Fuck,” he huffed. “I swear I’m not a creeper. I felt like a fucking creeper taking that video but I didn’t think you’d believe me any other way and I knew you deserved not to be with that piece of shit so… yeah, sorry. I swear I’ve never looked through your windows– through anyone’s windows!” 

Ok, he looked like he was literally starting to sweat.

“I believe you,” she relented. 

“Ok good I’m going to shut the fuck up and just clean your pool now…”

She didn’t like that it was all so awkward between them now though. She hadn’t meant to leave him squirming, she’d just gotten briefly thoughtful about how little you could ever actually know anyone. She hadn’t even known her husband, of course she didn’t really know JK either. And he didn’t really now her and now he was anxious. She could recognize the power dynamic. She could imagine the damage done by an errant accusation like that from a wealthy customer, just one phone call to his boss.

“I mean it, I believe you. You don’t seem like the type.”

“You’re familiar with the type of guy who looks through women’s windows–”

“Maybe not that in particular but I was married to an asshole for years so…”

“True.” That seemed to have placated him, a weird sort of peace offering she hadn’t expected.

“All right. Cool. I just don’t want you to worry that like… I’m not an asshole or a predator or anything.” He held his hands up, the rake handle still deftly held in his fingers. Not that it weighed a lot, but it still demonstrated an impressive finger strength. Drummer, she remembered. Damn. “I swear,” he continued. “I’ve got two sisters, I babysit my nephew a lot, I’m a good son to my stepmom.”

His insistence continued to be weird but in a way she was starting to equate with him. He talked so much sometimes, like he had no idea when to stop. Her lawyer would hate him.

She couldn’t help it, she propped her hands on her hip and pointed out, “Lots of assholes are good sons though. I think it’s more telling what your ex-girlfriends would say.” 

“Ah, that I’m great in bed but not going anywhere in life and I spend too much time with my family and my band,” he quickly rattled off. It obviously wasn’t even a brag or a joke, he meant it sincerely, he had been given this direct feedback.

Grace couldn’t help it. She laughed. She covered her mouth and laughed and he responded with a crooked grin like he was relieved she found this funny.

“What, do you give your exes a poll?” She couldn’t help herself. “God, I can’t imagine what Tim would have written.”

“Well none of my exes were like that asshole.” He shrugged. Which was kind of refreshing, actually, that he didn’t take the opportunity to claim his exes were all crazy bitches. Low bar? Maybe she’d just been hanging around the wrong men all her life. 

Damn. Maybe Tim really had done a number on her expectations of men. Most of her friends were women. Actually, maybe all of her friends were women… was that just a natural order of things, or was it because Tim had always tensed up if she mentioned other men… she hadn’t thought about that until right now. 

“You ok?” JK asked, looking at her like something embarrassing had flashed across her face.  

“Yes, just… every day realizing new things about myself and the type of men I’ve had in my life…” She trailed off, realizing she was saying too much while talking to a man. But not a man in her life. Well, a man in her life, but not in a relationship way. In an employer-contractor type of way, that was all.

“Well don’t think too hard about it, you deserve to just have some fun now.”

Whyyyyy did he say things like that? With that smirk? With the rake propped against the ground and held out from his body, showing off the flex of his muscles as he swayed it playfully, possibly a bit coy?

She was imagining things. The whiplash from the weird things he said and the weird things she thought and that thing he kept doing with his tongue in his cheek that she couldn’t figure out if he was doing it without realizing it or to be sexy except obviously he wasn’t trying to flirt or be sexy right now as he dug amphibians out of her pool –see? She was losing her mind.

“You can leave the frogs,” she decided, not sure if she’d already said that. “I’ll leave you to your work.”

“Wait!”

She’d turned but hesitated at his call, much too loud, as if she was already halfway across the yard. She hadn’t even begun to move.

“Uh, what about you?”

“Hm? What about me?”

“I answered what things I do for fun. What about you? What do you do for fun?”

Grace found herself baffled by the question. Why would he ask her that? Her pool guy? She stared at him, trying to comprehend what would lead him to ask such a flirty question. It was flirty, right? She definitely hadn’t asked that… had she? Oh god, had she flirted with the pool guy? No. Definitely not! And he definitely wasn’t either. No way, not possible. Maybe it was just friendly. 

Did men sincerely ask friendly questions of women? No, right?

“I don’t know, you know, normal things.”

“Like…” 

“Like… reading books. Going to museums. Yoga. Travel… brunch….” She could see clearly on his face that she was growing more foreign to him by the second, which made no sense because she was listing the most normal things for a woman to do. “Not a museum guy?” she guessed.

“I got kicked out of one once… haven’t been back.”

“Wow, real bad boy, huh? What did you do?”

“I laughed too much.”

“That’s not true,” she said with a sigh.

He looked immediately and obviously offended and defended with that innocent look again, “It is true!”

“What, was the artist standing right there or–”

“...maybe,” he admitted. Cheeky grin back. “It was a lot of nudes. The guy was definitely exaggerating…”

“Ah, a dick measuring contest?”

“Trust me, you would have been giggling into your little nails.”

“My nails?” she gasped and immediately closed them into her fists. Really?! The guy was going after her nails?!

“Yeah? You know, tee hee?” he demonstrated, covering his mouth with one hand. “The little polite lady laugh? I don’t think you’d laugh loud like that.” He hesitated, then added, “I don’t think you know how.”

“How… to laugh?”

“Yeah, loud.”

“I… what a weird thing to accuse me of…? I know how to laugh.”

“I’ll take your word for it,” he shrugged, clearly not believing her.

“Maybe you just aren’t very funny.”

He threw his head back and laughed, eyes scrunched tightly closed, full rows of white teeth on display.

“Now that, that is definitely something my exes have said on the morning after survey,” he laughed. There was a joke to be made there about him saying “morning after” and not “end of relationship” but she couldn’t figure it out quickly enough. Instead his laugh flustered her. People didn’t usually think she was very amusing, that was true. 

He shook his head, still winding down, and added, “But hey I don’t think they went home with me because I was funny, so…” He shrugged and looked down at himself, as if inviting her to do so. It was kind of crass. She refused and kept her eyes leveled at his face, as if she didn’t understand.

This seemed like it was maybe nudging against inappropriate, didn’t it? This was definitely more than she needed to know about her pool guy. Her pool guy didn’t need to know what she did for fun. She didn’t need to know what women said the morning after fucking him. She was glad now that her answer had bored him instead of giving any indication she was flirting back. 

“A sense of humor is really important.” She didn’t know what else to say.

“Oh right, that’s what drew you to your ex, huh?”

She leveled a stern look at him, which he met only with a cheeky grin. Ok, this had definitely gone on long enough. 

“Weeeell,” he dragged out. “Now that I know how boring your life is, I’d better get this pool into shape so at least you’ll have something exciting in your life.”

“I’m remodeling my house. That’s pretty exciting.”

“You think my music is quiet enough for your bougie neighborhood?” he said, which she thought meant it was another joke but she didn’t know what that word he’d said was and she wasn’t about to ask. 

They’d had an entire conversation over the rock music. If the nosy lady complained about this, Grace would have to correct her.

“It’s fine,” Grace assured him. 

“Do you know who it is?”

“You said it’s Guns n’ Roses.”

“This is Iron Maiden.” He suddenly pulled the rake across his body and played it like a guitar along to the music and mouthed the lyrics.

“I thought you’re a drummer.”

“You can be more than one thing, you know.”

She didn’t know what to say. He seemed to be doing that to her a lot, leaving her unsure what the right next thing to say was. He was a hard one to figure out. He didn’t follow the normal rules of polite conversation and while she spoke with plenty of people who didn’t, none were quite as baffling to her as this guy. He was weird and borderline inappropriate. Maybe more than borderline.

“I will keep that in mind,” she said, pulling on professional real estate agent persona because it was all she had left. “Thank you, let me know if you need anything else.” 

“You got it!” he called after her, then immediately began singing the song. She glanced over her shoulder just in time to see him jump down into the pool like a movie superhero. The mucky wet sound of his landing made her glad she was paying him to deal with that. Hopefully frogs were the worst thing he found, but maybe there’d be snakes or dead things too, who knew! She might not ever know. He’d handle it. That, at least, was very nice, to not have to worry about it. He might be odd, but he was a great pool guy.

Great in bed. Definitely not something she needed to know about her hot pool guy, what the hell was wrong with him, telling her that?! She didn’t think he, young and clearly with women dancing at the ends of his fingers, was trying to flirt with her, old divorced idiot. Was he mocking her? But nothing he said ever seemed unkindly meant… teasing, not mocking… unless her Bullshit Rader was as bad with him as it had been with Tim.

Maybe, she considered, JK was just really bad at conversation. Guess you could be if you moved through life looking like that and being Great in bed.

The scrubbing was a bigger job than he’d expected. Getting the plants out was no big deal and he’d made good headway power-washing the green hue out of the grout lines. He’d called for Grace to come once he got the power-washer hooked up, so she could watch the grand unveiling of all that pretty blue tiles from beneath what had to be at least eight years of muck.

To his gratification, she had been just as excited as he was, she got it. He didn’t have to explain himself at all to her! He thought pools were pretty cool and he got to see some really nice ones and this had once been a really nice one, that’s what he would have defensively explained if she looked at him like he was making a big deal out of nothing. A swirling mosaic of overlapping waves in shades of blue covered the bottom of the pool, hand-tiled, not quick-lay blocks. It was rad as hell, someone had put a lot of time and money into this thing.

Sadly, the glass tiles had not weathered the neglect. The grand unveiling revealed a significant number of them had chipped and dislodged over time. He didn’t think that came from sitting underwater, but that it had sat empty for a while at some point, which was way worse. Judging by the large ring of busted tiles in the deep end, he suspected someone had dropped something. Maybe someone had tried to skateboard in this thing? If so, they’d eaten shit pretty bad. 

Darker thoughts came to mind. Jungkook blamed it on watching too much Walking Dead the night before and decided not to suggest those things to Grace in case someone really had died or something and she’d freak and want the pool ripped out. It probably wasn’t a body anyway, it would have had to fall from higher than that, right? He didn’t really know the physics of it but probably. Not big enough for a car driving in. Maybe someone dropped a table or threw a chair. 

He really needed to not watch Walking Dead right before bed. 

But he could fix it! The only thing really sad about the damage was that it was going to cost Grace more money than he’d estimated. He did give her the option of trying to fix it cheap but she didn’t want cheap. She didn’t even bat an eyelash at the number when Bob texted him the time and materials estimate. He felt bad to add to the project cost, he should have predicted there might be an issue like this but he’d assumed the water meant it hadn’t sat empty!, so he pushed off the decision to Bob –only for her to not even care. Bob had offered Kyle to take over the tiling job but Jungkook was confident he could do it, and Bob knew he was good for it. Jungkook had done plenty of repair jobs with Tyle Kyle and there wasn’t enough damage to warrant two guys, he could handle it. Grace wasn’t in a rush. Also that guy was a such a fucking flirt with customers, Grace didn’t need that guy bothering her.

The sun wasn’t out today. The waves had been too choppy for him to hit that morning, and he’d slept through dawn anyway and then had a morning of pools to clean before he could make it over to Grace’s.

Damn, it really felt wrong still to call her Grace. It felt like… like calling a doctor by their first name or something. He hadn’t called her Grace out loud yet –not that he was talking about her to anyone anyway, but it would feel weird to call her… what, Miss Arison? Yeah that made him sound like a fucking second grader. If somehow she ever came up in conversation, he was going to have to just avoid calling her anything…

He chipped away at the broken tile, thinking normal thoughts like that about the woman who’d hired him to repair her pool. 

He shivered in the shade and crouch-walked around the space, hammering away at the chisel to pop out the busted tiles. The replacements sat piled beside the pool, hauled over first thing to get that sweaty task out of the way, but this was tedious and he found himself wondering if he should have let Tyle Kyle help with this part after all. He’d been here over an hour without a sight of Grace anyway. Her car was in the driveway but she hadn’t even come out to say hello. There was no way she didn’t know he was here, with how loud that fucking gravel driveway was, and he’d put on a Tori Kelly CD because he had a suspicion Grace might like Tori Kelly, just based on the things she’d said about the things they’d listened to so far. 

He glanced towards the house over the edge of the pool and contemplated pushing the buzzer to ask if he could use the toilet as a way to get attention. He supposed it was just dumb luck that so far his work days at the house had aligned with days she was also outside a lot. She was fun company every time she wandered over to chat for a couple minutes. She was easy to talk to and never asked something stupid or acted like she was judging him or whatever –unlike some women his own age he could think of who acted like conversation with him was such a fucking chore. So what, they just wanted a fuck and get the fuck out? Maybe he wanted to just shoot the shit sometimes, huh? And it wasn’t one-sided, he was down to listen. 

Annoyed with the state of conversation in his life, he took it out on the tiles, crawling across the bottom of the pool to find the cracks in the design. At least he had Jimin and Taehyung, they talked to him, but lately they were both so busy… Yoongi had taken some extra hours to get the amp they needed for Flowerfest so he’d bailed on dinner plans Jungkook tried to make, and it wasn’t a big deal, but it wasn’t like Jungkook made plans with just anyone. He’d put effort into texting him about why didn’t they hang out and cook and whatever.

Yeah and while he was thinking of things that annoyed him, he was positive Yoojin was texting with a fucker and if it was her fucking ex again, Jungkook was going to fucking lose it. The guy had commented on a photo Yoojin had posted of Max’s birthday –months late, to be clear– and Yoojin had responded with a fucking laughing emoji and wouldn’t answer Jungkook’s question about whether she was laughing at him or with him. Fuck, if she let Jordan slide back into her life like that… and Max’s life, especially! If she was going to fuck around that was one thing, but Max deserved better than a flake for a father and Jordan had made it pretty fucking clear he had no interest in his own son…

The crunch of feet on gravel was his alert that Grace had stepped from the house. Immediately he popped his head out of the pool and spotted her looking around the back of his truck. He wasn’t there, obviously. He waved at her from the pool when she looked further around, then felt kinda stupid about it and dropped back down.  Let her come to him, that kind of thing. 

He was being an idiot. He shook his head at himself and tried to look busy surveying his work as he listened to her footsteps across the gravel, then more quietly along the deck and walkway.

“Good morning. I didn’t know you were here,” she immediately said. He couldn’t help but think she sounded a little put out about it, which he liked. 

“How did you miss me driving across that gravel? Sounds like a fucking landslide every time,” he complained. Fuck, his voice had hitched when he looked up at her and he hoped she hadn’t noticed. She was dressed up today, a little skirt suit, dark blue, blousy white shirt.

Wait, damnit, did he have a thing about skirt suits?! He’d never had a thing about that before. Usually he thought they made a woman seem… mean. Not in a good way, in an principal’s office way. But her legs looked fucking whatever as she balanced on one foot and brushed the gravel out of the slip-on sandals that didn’t match the look at all. He liked the combination. A lot. 

“Well it’s good, means no one can– well, I was going to say it means no one can sneak into my house without my knowing but I guess you basically did…”

“Yeah, get a dog or something, don’t rely on gravel,” he scolded. Instantly agog. Surely she wasn’t being serious…

“I have a really good security system, I was only joking. You’re on candid camera!” She said it like it was a joke. He didn’t understand and waited for her to explain more. “Oh, it was an old TV show…”

“Never heard of it.”

“It… nevermind.” He wished she had explained it so he’d understand the joke but she didn’t.

“You’re dressed up,” he pointed out at the same moment she said, “You’re making a lot of prog– oh, I… yes.” She looked down at herself as if remembering and added, “Yeah, long morning and then I got wrapped up in stuff and haven’t changed yet.”

He couldn’t help it, he had to know and asked, “Is that what you wear to sell houses?”

“Uh… sometimes, why?”

“I don’t know, I don’t know what real estate people wear,” he quickly shrugged. It wasn’t that he thought she was only good at her job because she looked like that in a skirt suit but he did feel like it probably helped. Like were inspectors not going to give her whatever she wanted? 

Ok, he really didn’t know anything about what buying or selling houses meant. 

“It’s not uncomfortable as long as you get a nicely tailored suit,” she told him. “Well the shoes get a little uncomfortable… not these. Obviously I wear heels.”

“Obviously,” he repeated, and smirked, because she was talking more about her outfit than he’d expected and it was kinda cute. 

“But I wasn’t selling houses this morning, I was– nevermind. This looks tedious.”

“What were you doing that’s not selling houses?” he asked because why not? Sometimes she seemed confused enough by his nosy questions to answer them, even if he knew they were kinda borderline not okay to ask the lady paying your boss. “That sounds suspicious. Do you actually sell houses or do you launder money for the mob or something?”

“Actually I was at a funeral.”

“Well fuck me.”

“No,” she gasped and covered her mouth. “It was a joke.”

“Which part was, the funeral?”

“I wasn’t at a funeral,” she laughed and touched her forehead and flinched like she was not someone used to telling jokes and was positive she’d done it wrong. Which made it even funnier. He liked that kind of almost-mean humor. He didn’t know she had it in her. He was glad she was talking to him but it was even better if she was joking. 

He didn’t want to be standing down in the pool anymore and pulled himself up onto the ledge while teasing, “Well now I’m even more convinced you work for the mob.”

“I think if I worked for the mob, my ex would already have been ‘taken care of,’” she suggested, complete with air quotes –only to quickly correct, “Oh shit, now if something happens to him I’ll be the first suspect.”

“I think you’d already be the first suspect.”

“Oh. True…”

“But I’m offended, actually. You think I’m going to rat you out?” He’d meant to sit casual and cool on the side but it put him on eye level with the fabric hugging her thighs so he decided to stand instead. “I’m ride or die.”

“Are you offering to help?” she laughed. “We should change the subject…”

“I’m saying I wouldn’t rat you out. What’s the amendment that says I wouldn’t have to say anything in– no wait, that’s only for a husband, right?”

She nodded and laughed, “Yeah, that’s only spouse privilege. You’d be legally compelled to turn me in.”

“Well… nah. They can try and catch me first.” He crossed his arms, trying to look like someone experienced in flouting the law.

“We should probably be careful what we say out here, that neighbor lady might be listening. Oh my god, I didn’t tell you– yesterday I drove around the front of my house coming back and I swear she was peeking through the cracks in the gate.”

Jungkook could not have explained why he was so excited by her excitement to tell him this. 

Immediately he assured her, “I don’t doubt it for a second.”

“She hates me.”

“She’s a nosy bitch,” he snorted. 

“Well… that may be a bit much but… I definitely think she’s not thrilled I’m living here, but I haven’t figured out yet where she lives. She’s not on this street so she must be a couple over.”

Jungkook immediately considered this and pointed out, “She’s like eighty-five, how far can she walk?”

“Oh my god,” Grace laughed. There was a brighter laugh! “She’s like in her sixties, JK, she’s not that old.”

“Isn’t that old?”

“How old are your– nevermind,” she said and held her hands up. “We’re off topic.”

Jungkook took his time, letting his face do the talking before asking, “Was there a topic?”

“I’ll let you work,” she suggested and turned to go. 

“Oh, you were telling me what you got dressed up for this morning.”

“I don’t think I was telling you that,” she countered. Then shook her head at some thought Jungkook would have loved access to before she ruined the topic with honesty, “I don’t mean to make it sound secretive. It was just a divorce mediation bullshit thing.”

“You wore that to see your ex?”

Her face immediately scrunched up, transparently unhappy, as she said, “I wore this to a court mediation I had to endure his presence for… why?” He worried he’d insulted her somehow without meaning to.

“Oh, just seems mean which, good for you.”

“Mean?”

Damnit, the compliment wasn’t any good if he had to explain it!  

“You know, because, like….” He waved his hand and looked away from her, wanting to get back to work now. It sounded so stupid to say something like you look nice and it’ll make him jealous. Because the stupidest thing was, Tim was a fucking idiot who didn’t appreciate his hot wife and probably was too busy trying to screw her out of money to even notice how she looked. “Like dressed to impress or whatever.”

“Oh. Right, well, I need to look professional around lawyers and obviously I don’t want to look like my life is falling apart.”

Jungkook looked around her yard, across the back of the mansion she lived in by herself, her shiny car, all of it, and snorted, “Yeah, it definitely doesn’t look like that.”

“Speaking of falling apart…”

For the briefest moment Jungkook thought she meant him. But very quickly he realized of course she meant the pool, which currently was looking worse as he ran around prying out the broken tiles.

“It’ll get worse but then I swear it’ll get better. I got a late start today but it’s going. I should be able to get a lot of the tiles replaced today before I have to head out.”

She held her hands up and assured him, “No criticism from me. It’s fascinating to watch the process.”

She hadn’t asked, but he wanted the chance to brag and continued, “Yeah, I’d be willing to stay later but I’m supposed to watch my nephew tonight. Uncle-nephew time is very important.”

“That’s really sweet. How old is he?”

“One.” Yep, that’s right, I’m good with babies.

“Well he’s lucky to have you.” He liked the words, but the tone she used was disappointing. He didn’t think she sounded that impressed. Maybe she didn’t like babies? Or families? Or involved uncles?

“Do you have any nieces or nephews?” he asked.

“Yes, though none are close by,” she said, obviously distracted and looking at something in the yard. “You know what, it’s a really nice day –if I’m not going to bother you, I think I’ll try to get some gardening done.”

“Gardening?” he repeated, before reminding her, “Hey, it’s your house, lady.”

Her smile seemed more sincere then as she agreed, “It is. I was in such a bad mood after this morning, but I think some time in the yard will be just the thing. You can turn the music up if you want, this is nice. Who is it?”

“I’ll start it over. It��s Tori Kelly. Promise you’ll protect me from bitchon freeze lady?”

“It’s pronounced bee-shaan free-zay,” Grace whispered, “and you shouldn’t go around calling women bitches.”

“No, it’s the dog!” he insisted. She pursed her lips and gave him a look like she didn’t believe him, and he wasn’t sure if it was worse for Grace to think he was cleverly calling the woman a bitch or that he genuinely didn’t know how to say that breed of dog. “The little white yippy ones at dog shows.”

“Uh huh.”

The look she tossed him over her shoulder had no right being as sexy as it was. He knew she didn’t mean it sexy, but damn. The things he’d do if he let this fantasy roll…

Later. Fuck. He tucked that little look away into his pocket, eyebrows raising at the way that look and pencil skirt combination were going to play out when he took a shower tonight… 

When she’d said she was going to work in the garden, she really meant it. Jungkook restarted the CD once she reappeared from the house, changed into a different blousy shirt and blousy pants and a wide-brimmed sunhat, which he supposed was what you should wear when gardening but it all looks so summery and fresh, not like what you actually wore digging around in the dirt. Like what you wore in a photoshoot or something. She had a bucket of gardening tools, all clean and new looking. She had a little purple pad thing which he eventually figured out was for her to kneel on, like a princess.

Needs a pillow under her knees, he noted for that later fantasy. That made sense, since she was older.

He’d expected her to wander around pruning things that probably didn’t need it, watering things, maybe sweep some leaves off the patio. He was prepared to swoop in and save her when she screamed upon finding a bug unexpectedly. He’d only tease her a little about it. Never in their conversations had she mentioned any skill at gardening and she didn’t seem like someone who’d done a whole lot of digging in the dirt. Maybe she’d clip some flowers to take into her rich house so she could post to insta bouquet from my own garden and call it a day.

That is not what she did. 

Grace got it into her head that pulling a bunch of plants out of the ground was the gardening that she herself wanted to do. He watched with mounting fascination as she pulled out a shovel, shears, and one of those little gardening spade things, and tore her way through a flower bed like a berserker. He didn’t even hide that he was watching as she’d bend at the waist, wrap her hands around the base of a pretty thick plant, and yank with her whole weight –without budging a fucking thing. Then she’d dig around the base, bright yellow gardening gloves like little gopher hands, then go back to the bend and yank.

The spank bank content she was blessing him with today was starting to make him feel kind of predatory. It was too generous. 

He’d just decided to be a better man and focus on getting the last of the broken tiles out when she yelped, “FUCK!”

Jungkook was out of the pool and across the yard to her side in a matter of seconds, already bracing for the toe she must have sliced off with the shovel, or a rake spike to the eye, something that had caused that cry.

She grimaced, clutching her gloved hand.

“Shit, did you cut your finger?”

“I… I broke a nail,” she grimaced, slowly opening her eyes. The pitiful look she gave him did something really stupid in his chest. “And I just got them done…”

For the first time in his life, Jungkook understood what Taehyung meant about high maintenance girls being good. If you’d told him six months ago he’d find it endearing for a woman to cry over a broken nail– No, in fact, he’d found it very prissy and annoying in girls he’d dated before! But something about the way she gingerly removed the glove and looked down at the manicure with the same dread as if a bone was going to be sticking out, it just made him want to take hold of her head and kiss her forehead and tell her you beautiful idiot, go get your nails fixed and I’ll rip the plants out for you.

Then he actually looked and saw the broken nail and he turned quickly away and hunched his shoulders and made a strangled noise. 

“What’s that?!” she cried.

“Jesus that looks bad. Do you need to go to the hospital?!”

She laughed and insisted, “It’s not that bad.”

“Is it bleeding?”

“Oh my god, are you bothered by blood?”

“No, I get fucked up all the time surfing, but nails… how bad is it?”

“JK…” Her laughter at least reassured him that she was not, in fact, badly hurt. “It just scared me more than it hurt. I guess it’s fine… but I’ll have to file it down and go get it fixed… damnit.” He glanced over his shoulder, only to startle when she thrust her hand into his view. “See? It’s fine.”

“It’s bleeding,” he insisted, and grabbed her hand to show her, mainly so he could control where it was and not look.

“Oh. A little bit…”

She, shockingly, did not seem that bothered by it. So was she high maintenance or not?! Meanwhile Jungkook felt like chills were rolling up his spine because there was a part dangling. He’d seen people knock their teeth out on boards. He’d been adjacent to a bar fight where a dude busted his face open. He and Mo had gotten into so much shit as teenagers and it never phased him but this…

“Maybe you should go lie down,” he suggested because he wasn’t sure what else you were supposed to do. “Does your nail lady do house calls?”

“No, she doesn’t.”

Grace was clearly laughing at him.

“Ok, it’s freaky looking,” Jungkook told her defensively. “It’s really broken.”

“I’m going to go file this down before you faint,” she teased. 

“I’m not going to faint.”

“Maybe you should lie down.”

He rolled his eyes aggressively and announced loudly, “I’m going back to my work where I manage to use a hammer and chisel without breaking a nail.”

“Oh, you want to put acrylics on and make this a competition?”

It had Jungkook laughing all the way back to his pool and helped him endure the boring part where she went inside and fixed her nail. He figured she might be done for the day, but eventually she was back and pulled her gloves on and went back to the flower bed and picked up her tools and got back to work.

Damn, what a woman.

He put on a new CD and an hour passed. He was to the point now he could start filling in the replacement tiles, which was going to be fun. He stood on the edge of the pool and looked down, surveying, calculating if he’d brought the right amount and shades. And maybe watching out of the corner of his eye as Grace tried to pull a rather large shrub out of the ground. She had a grip on it and pulled in repeated short jerks, like a dog playing tug, which Jungkook thought was probably brutal on her muscles and didn’t seem like the right way to go about that.

Just as he opened his mouth to offer some help, some of the shrub ripped from the ground and smashed her in the face, sending her tumbling backwards onto her ass. Dirt flew everywhere, covering her eyes and mouth; she spluttered, trying to slap it away as he once again flew to her side.

“Hold on, hold on,” he encouraged, grabbing her massive water bottle. “I’m going to pour water on your face, hold on.” He figured that was enough warning and dumped it over her forehead, but she gasped and choked like she was dying. He didn’t know what else to do but pull his shirt off and wipe the mud from her face. 

“Oh my god it’s in my mouth!” she cried, dirty tongue hanging out as she wiped his shirt across it. He froze, certain she didn’t realize what he’d used to wipe her face off, not sure how to react to her licking his shirt. “It’s everywhere!” She wiped at her eyes and brushed at her hair.

“Yeah, what are you doing, lady, you have a yard guy! Let him pull this shit up!”

She let out a deep sigh through her makeshift mud mask and looked up at him with those eyes again and said, “Well I want only native plants in here and these are invasive.”

“Ok? I’ve seen your yard guy, he can get ‘em out of here.”

“But he got all booked up and can’t come for a couple weeks–”

“So wait.”

“You know I like to be able to do things on my own though,” she insisted and damnit if he wasn’t flattered that he did know that about her. “It’s just ripping up some plants, it’s not rocket science.”

“Well the plants seem to be winning.”

“No they aren’t, I’ve got almost all of them out,” she argued and pointed to the pile of her defeated foes. 

“That one got you pretty good though.”

“Yeah well… I’ll win in the end. Don’t give me that look, I realize this is a little pig-headed but I spent two hours in a room with my ex-husband this morning, it was either rip out plants or tear down a wall and I don’t know which ones in the house are load-bearing so…”

“I was going to suggest boxing but maybe not with your nails.”

She snorted, “I can’t imagine what my mother would say if she called and I was boxing. I come from more… yoga people, you know?”

“Hm… drumming.” Instantly he thought of setting her down at his drum kit, showing her the ropes, then showing her how it’s done, her sliding into his lap all admiration–

“I have absolutely no rhythm,” she admitted. 

“You just need someone to– oh, damn, you’re bleeding.”

“Again?”

Without thinking he brushed the blond whisps of her bangs away from her forehead, where a decent cut had now bled enough to show through the mud. 

“How bad?”

She flinched as he brushed the dirt away and he suggested, “Not bad. Sorry, I don’t want to hurt you, but you should get the dirt off and wash it good.”

“Fine,” she sighed with an obvious huff, like this was all his fault. He found that funny too. She was a little bit of a brat, huh? As to be expected of a rich white lady. At least her brattiness seemed harmless. He half expected her to stomp off like a toddler when she returned to the house, shaking dirt off like an angry cat.

As soon as she was gone, Jungkook grabbed her tools and began hacking at the roots. If she was so fucking stubborn that this shrub had to come out today, fine, he’d help before she actually busted her tailbone or eye socket. The piece she’d managed to unearth lay limp across the path, a martyr for a cause Jungkook wouldn’t let stand. At least he had the wherewithal to realize that she had probably been trying to pull up what were actually several trunks at the same time. The roots were all twisted together and he went to town snipping them, snip snip snip until he could wrestle one, two, three of the trunks out of the ground and toss them on top of the other one.

“What are you doing?” she called, running over like he was doing something. It gave him a jolt of panic; had she decided she didn’t want the shrub out after all and he’d just killed her bush?

“Saving you from yourself,” he offered. She’d put a bandaid on her forehead over the cut and it looked adorably stupid.

“The roots have to come out too,” she said. “I didn’t cut because I thought that was the easiest way to pull them out…”

“Just brute strength? They didn’t want to come out that way, I tried. And before you say anything, I’m pretty strong.”

“But now how am I going to get the roots out?”

“We’ll pull them,” he insisted. He wrenched another trunk out, yanking several times to pull up as much of the roots with it as he could, which was certainly more than she would have been able to do. Dirt went flying but only thwacked him in the stomach and he tossed it aside, then brushed it away from his skin. Grace watched this quietly.

“One more,” he said. “Then you’re done, right?”

“Except I have to get the roots out.”

“Geez, woman, one thing at a time.” He shook his head at her doubt in his method. Hers hadn’t been working so great! He bent at the waist and crouched and took hold of the last, thickest trunk as close to the roots as possible. The cut ones snaked all around, and he suspected he was only going to be able to get it partway out of the ground before he’d need to hack at more of the roots. 

“Excuse me?”

Oops.

He gave her his most charming smile and said, “Sorry. Lady. Um… Miss Arison? Feels weird to call you Miss though–”

“Grace is fine– wait for me to help!” She rushed forward.

“I don’t want you to get hit,” he grunted out, giving the trunk several sharp tugs to test the hold. It wiggled. That was good. 

“We’re stronger together.”

He was not sure that was true, but she was so damn determined, and her closeness as she pressed against his side and wrapped her hands just above his was kind of nice. 

“Put your gloves on,” he scolded, and at least she did that, grabbing them where she’d ripped them off. She had a bandaid around her broken nail finger and it made him shudder again. Then she was back by his side, and damnit if he didn’t have the urge to just playfully knock her over, body her to the ground. She was still covered in dirt, crumbs of it in her hair and around the edges of her face. He could make it worse, press her down into it–

She yanked and he scolded, “Wait for me! We’ll do it together.” Oof that combination of words paired with where his mind kept trying to wander –this was a problem he’d need to handle. He shook his head. “On my count ok? Pull a little each time like one–pull, two–pull–”

“Ok ok I’ve got it. Wait! We should have goggles.”

He’d been about to pull and just let go and sat down on the lawn.

“I’ll be right back.”

She ran off and he sighed and shook his head. He definitely wasn’t going to finish the tile today. Not that he minded another day added to his work here, but she really did make projects difficult, didn’t she? He could already have the bush out of the ground. In fact…

He stood and grabbed it, ready to just do it on his own when she started shouting from the house, “Don’t you dare, JK! Wait! Wait for me right now or I will…” She trailed off, clearly unable to think of a threat as she slammed the door and ran back to him, two pairs of goggles in her gloved hands. “Safety is important! It will be traumatizing for both of us if I have to drive you to the hospital with a twig sticking out of your eye!”

He rolled his eyes because he did not think that was likely to happen, but he took the goggles and put them on.

“Happy now?” he asked her, knowing he looked ridiculous –but also secretly a little glad she’d insisted and provided the safety gear because actually he’d be kind of fucked if he had to be out of work for a while. And he didn’t want to lose an eye. He liked his eyes.

“Do you want a mask in case dirt flies into your mouth?”

“Nah, I’ve had worse things in my mouth.”

Her eyebrows raised but she didn’t say anything. 

“You have a sick mind,” he teased her, thrilled she’d displayed this bit of juvenile depravity.

“What?!”

“I saw that look,” he snickered, and crouched to reach the trunk again. 

“What look? There was no look!”

“I saw the look.”

She crouched as well and grabbed the trunk, her hands right above his, and insisted, “There was no look. I don’t know what kind of things you put into your mouth. OH, do you want gloves? Don’t you have work gloves?”

“Just pull the fucking plant or I’ll never get your pool done. Ready? One –yeah, rock your body like that.”

Well shit. He heard it too. He’d meant because when he said one, she pulled afterwards like he’d told her to do, using her weight to tug! 

He quickly let go of the plant and insisted, “I meant that purely professionally–”

“Pull the fucking plant, JK,” she said right back and he kind of loved her a little in that moment. He took hold, counted again, tried not to let his mind wander to the way she crouched and tugged and grunted and how her hands looked wrapped around –though admittedly he was not as thick as this trunk, sadly.

At three, they both pulled back, legs straining, feet sinking into the dirt. The plant stretched and a bunch of roots popped but it didn’t come out.

“Ok one more time,” he said. “We’re almost there.”

She nodded, gasping for breath. 

Again they counted, again they pulled, and this time Jungkook could walk his hands further down, and dig his fingers into the roots beneath the trunk. They strained and pulled and her feet slid out from under her, rendering her mostly ineffective, but still she pulled!

Enough roots finally snapped and the plant went rocketing over their heads to land in a defeated heap behind them. Grace simply laid the rest of the way, and Jungkook stretched out beside her because why not?  The damn thing was out, and a lot of the roots with it.

“There. Done,” he beamed at her through his own strained breath.

“I still have to get the roots out.”

“Make the yard guy do it! Damn, you’re really determined, huh?”

“I am.” She beamed at him, lying next to him in the dirt, and damnit if that wasn’t a moment ripe for kissing… and grabbing… and maybe fucking, yeah? Right there in the dirt under the shade of the trees… animalistic. He’d never done something like that. Could be cool.

But he wasn’t so fucked in the head not to know his little fantasy was one sided. Obviously he wasn’t going to do something aggressive like that. It helped when she started to giggle.

“What?” he asked, eyes narrowing.

“You are covered in dirt.”

“Yeah you too.”

“That plant put up a fight but we won.”

“With minimal blood.”

She sighed loudly, “God I wish I could jump into the pool to cool off.”

“Jesus, lady, I’m working on it!” he laughed, knowing she wasn’t actually complaining but eager to pretend he was offended. 

“No, I’m sorry! I didn’t mean that as a complaint!”

He pushed to his feet and continued to pretend, “Fine fine I’m going, I’ll get back to work.”

“No, I’m sorry,” she cried, and grabbed his arm. “I really wasn’t complaining! Thank you so much for helping me and– here, let me get you something to drink and–”

He grabbed her arm too and pulled her to her feet before admitting, “I know, I’m just playing with you. Jumping in the pool would be great. It’s going to be a great fucking pool.”

“I know. It’s worth the wait.”

“Lots of things are worth the wait.”

“I know…”

“So I’ll get back to it.” He grabbed his shirt from the grass and shook it out because the sheen of sweat was now leaving him quite cold in the chillier air. He didn’t mind the dirt or blood on the fabric, but she grabbed it from his hands.

“I’ll wash this for you.”

“Nah, it’s fine.”

“You have a sweatshirt, don’t you? I’ll wash this, it’ll be done before you leave. It’s the least I can do. I can see my blood on it.”

“It’s not much blood.”

“Do you want something to drink? I don’t have those Bacchus-D things you like but I have water or lemonade or wine or… oh, I got Sprite.”

“For me?” he asked, surprised into it.

“Yes, you want that?”

“Sure. Ok. Thanks.” He didn’t know what else to say as she walked off with his shirt to get him a Sprite she’d bought for him. She was nice. It made him feel a little bad for the depraved things he thought of doing to her –but they were nice depraved things! He was a giver, even in his fantasies, he’d make her cum really hard, definitely harder than that asshole little Timmy ever had.

She seemed almost meek about it when she brought him a Sprite and a wet towel to wipe his face with and also a box of Girl Scout cookies. He wasn’t going to say no to Girl Scout cookies! 

“I really appreciate it. You don’t have to keep helping me like that,” she insisted. “Or at least let me Venmo you some money or something for the extra help–”

“Nah, it’s fine. Seriously. Thanks for the cookies and Sprite though.”

To be honest, he was a little annoyed by her offer of money. He appreciated it but still, couldn’t they just be friendly enough he could help and it wasn’t a big deal? He couldn’t imagine Tim-tim racing over to help her rip up plants, so it made him feel superior. 

“Ok well I promise not to get into any more trouble while you’re here.”

“Better than getting into trouble without me,” he argued.

“I don’t always need saving, you know.”

It was like he could read it on her face, hear it in her voice, that she was getting a little defensive. He’d just meant to be playing with her, but he’d seen that defensiveness from her come up enough now to recognize it. She wanted to be independent and strong on her own. Ok, he could understand that, especially with her ex. He did think she was strong and independent and all that. Smart and nice and a really good eye for things, and not afraid to get her hands dirty. He could see the cabinets installed and her kitchen looked nice as hell. 

“I know, you just need some muscle sometimes.” Yeah, he heard how that sounded. To make it better or worse, he flexed his bicep; probably it was for the best he had his sweatshirt on so she couldn’t see. At least she’d know he really did mean strength and not dick. Though he’d be happy to help her with that too, if she wanted.

She did not want. 

“Well, thank you,” she said again, and that was that. He couldn’t think of an excuse to keep her there any longer, so he went back to tiling and she went to clean up the gardening mess she’d made and dig out the remaining roots. He heard her hiss again at one point and wondered if she’d broken another nail. If so, he didn’t want to know.

By the time he was wrapped for the day, he’d managed to replace all the missing tiles in the bottom of the pool, but not yet started the new tile pattern she wanted around the lip. She brought him his freshly cleaned shirt, hanging on a fucking wooden hanger. The shirt was still warm from the dryer and he couldn’t bring himself to pull it on his sweaty body. When he went to fold it to carry with him she insisted he just take the hanger with him, so he did because damn, that was a nice hanger. 

He drummed on the steering wheel, singing along to the Green Day CD as he headed home. Dookie had come out a few years before he was born but come on, everyone knew Green Day. Even Grace had known Green Day. She said her brother had the album and listened to it in secret and it made him want to ask her about her brother, if he got into trouble too or if listening to Green Day was the worst thing he ever did. Rich kids could go hard, but they could also just be bratty over nothing, if he’d learned anything from the couple somehow stuck in his public high school.

The memory of Grace singing along to I went to a whore, she said my life’s a bore when she hadn’t realized he was listening made his smile grow. It was the first time he’d heard her sing and he regretted it was too quiet to really hear, more like talking. Did she sing well? He wanted to know! She said she couldn’t but maybe she was just humble, possibly the first humble rich person to ever exist. 

By the time he parked at his parents’ apartment that afternoon, he was showered, changed, and his favorite jacket now hung on the wooden hanger in his closet. He bounded up the steps and pulled out his key and sang out,

“Helloooo, favorite uncle is heeeere.”

Max’s shriek of delight revealed his location: systematically pulling the take out containers from the low cabinet in the kitchen. 

“K!” he called. “Hi, K! Hi!”

“My man Max,” Jungkook greeted and scooped Max up to blow a raspberry on his cheek. “Where’s your mama?”

“Just getting ready.”

“Ready for what?” Jungkook asked, eyes narrowing as she came around the corner. She had a headband with a floppy bow on and it fell across her forehead in a way he thought looked silly and also reminded him of Grace’s silly bandaid. 

Apparently it made him smile without meaning to because Yoojin crossed her arms and demanded, “What are you so happy about?”

“Huh?”

“You’re smiling like an idiot. You’re in a good mood, I can tell. Get a girl or something?”

“What a weird question to ask your brother but no.”

“Come on, I’m a cool sister. You can tell me if someone finally took pity on you–”

“Why do I have to meet someone? Why can’t I just be happy about… you know, life. Good waves and a new amp–”

“So you didn’t meet anyone, you’re just being weird. Whatever, that’s fine. Seems like you two will have fun,” Yoojin cooed to Max. “Uncle JK isn’t grumpy today!”

“Screw you, I’m never grumpy. You’re the grumpy one this week.”

“Um, I’m in a great mood, I’ve got a new job and everything,” she pointed out. He didn’t think desk girl at the gym was going to pay great but it was definitely better than her big fat paycheck of $0 she’d been making before.

“Hope it’s great.”

“Day two,” she beamed. “Be good for Uncle JK, my big Max Man.” She took Max for a moment to hug and kiss and giggle with before handing him back.

Max immediately told Jungkook a stream of gibberish he couldn’t make any sense of.

“Good luck!” Yoojin called and was gone. Max frowned for a hot second, then waved at the closed door, “Bye bye! Bye bye bye. Akka?” he asked Jungkook.

“What’s that?”

“Akka? Akka?” He whined and reached towards the cabinets.

“Akka… banana? Apple? Rice cakes? Crackers?”

“Yaaaay.”

Jungkook bounced Max on his arm, tossing him playfully over to the other arm, as together they went to dig out all of those things and see which was right. Maybe Yoojin was right, he did feel pretty light and energetic. Had he been cranky lately? He didn’t think so. But he felt very much the opposite of that right now. Maybe he’d get dinner started before Appa got home. He felt like he could manage that while also playing with Max. He felt like he could kind of do anything right now, if he could retile a pool and pull a stubborn plant out of the dirt. The ache in his shoulders felt good.

Her pool was going to look so fucking good. He wondered if she’d remember him when she swam in it. He wondered if she still had that white bathing suit. That tile was going to have a great view…

Stephanie raised a bejeweled, manicured hand and easily waved at Grace over the heads of those in the restaurant. She was so tall, always the first one to be spotted in a crowd –a skill she had put to good use with some modeling in New York in her 20s, though she’d ultimately condemned the industry and moved into a completely different role: art lawyer.

A wave of greeting rolled around the pulled-together high tops as Grace slid onto the stool between Alicia and Stephanie, Ashley and Catherine already sliding drinks around to make room for whatever she ordered.

“She lives!” Ashley cheered.

“Girl, you had us worried,” Alicia scolded, waving with a tortilla chip. “Like you just disappear and we’re hearing about your divorce but– hey, don’t elbow me, she knows she’s divorced, we know now, no need to make it some big thing it’s not.” Alicia glared at Catherine, always the more subtle among them.

Catherine corrected, “Maybe we talk about something before we go right into it?”

“There’s nothing to go into,” Stephanie argued. “Tim’s a dick. Fucking good riddance. Welcome back.”

“Is there a club?” Grace asked as their voices continued to bubble and churn over each other in the busy restaurant. She wasn’t sure what club connected these women other than being 30-somethings. Stephanie lived life floating from one dalliance to another and loved it; Alicia hadn’t had anything serious in five years since she called it off with her fiance, but Victoria was married with a son, Ashley was engaged, and Catherine newly married, to a much older but allegedly wonderful man. Grace had only met him at the wedding –it was a bit of a fast thing– but he’d seemed nice.

“The club of not being hitched to a prick,” Alicia explained, then raised her hand to gesture for their waiter. Her thousand-watt smile no doubt bewitched him as it did everyone and he was with them in an instant, nodded as she gestured to Grace. “Our friend has arrived and would like a very strong drink.”

“Alicia,” Grace complained. She laughed and assured the waiter, “It doesn’t have to be any stronger than usual but an amaretto sour, please?”

“Coming right up, normal strength,” he told her. She could see why her friends had obviously immediately made buddies with him in that way sexy women and handsome waiters do. His teeth were shockingly white in his tan face, his blond hair streaked by the sun, the cut a little long like had been heartthrob popular when they were children in the 80s and 90s. He could have walked off the set of Saved By The Bell with that chiseled jaw. Was he a surfer? He looked like a surfer. She wondered if he knew JK.

“Don’t leave, we want to order appetizers too,” Victoria said, as if he’d started to run. He had not, too busy grinning at Stephanie’s flirty banter.

“Did you want to pick something out?” Ashley asked Grace, handing her the menu while Victoria rattled it off, Alicia adding and Stephanie subtracting from the things she said.

Grace waved it off with, “No, I’m just along for the ride.” She’d heard once that there was always a dominant one of a friend group, a sort of leader who drove the planning and the food ordering and such. Well in this friend group there were at least four of them and yes, the squabbles erupted sometimes, but it was beautifully upfront and direct. Her other social circles had the kind of conflict that was all all simmering resentment and gossipy whispers and passive aggressive snark at brunch. This group addressed disagreements –of which there were plenty– head on, sorted them, and moved along.

“Aren’t you going to write this down, Matt?”

Matt gave them a charming grin alongside the assurance, “Don’t need to, I remember every word you’ve said.” Then he rattled off their list of appetizers-as-entrees like a showman pulling off an audience participation trick. They acted duly impressed as he gathered the skinny menus and then turned his grin to Grace, “I’ll be right back with your normal strength amaretto sour.”

By the time Matt set the drink in front of Grace, her mind was already spinning from the onslaught of updates from these girls. They were women on the go, all of them, busy and bright and ambitious. Fear of their opinion was, secretly, one of the instigating factors in her pursuing her real estate license years ago. Too many brunches having to admit that her day consisted of pilates, social calls, and a dash of volunteer work. Not that they’d begrudged her –in fact they’d sighed about how lucky she was. But she could see the near-pity in their eyes at her having nothing of her own to compare to their director of marketing promotion, success with fundraising for the new start up, the completed surgical residency. They had all started out privileged, though not quite the status she came from, but for them it had only been a launching off point, not a totality. 

So Grace had given real estate a try, because she loved houses and interiors and homes, and it turned out, she’d loved it. She still loved it. She credited these women for keeping her grounded and stable –and realized in letting herself get wrapped up in their energetic, overly loud conversation just how much she had missed them. Why had she not spent time with them since her divorce?

“Ok so how did you figure out he was cheating on you?” Ashley suddenly asked, turning to Grace expectantly her mouth full of food.

“Oh.” Grace covered her mouth and chewed dramatically to look like she was rushing to answer. She was not.

“Oh don’t ask her that,” Alicia gasped. “That’s so rude!”

“Yeah don’t ask for the juicy details!” Catherine scolded. 

Victoria gave Grace a devilish grin and teased, “So are they? Juicy?”

“Ladies ladies,” Stephanie intervened. “This is a ruined marriage here. A betrayed woman. Our friend, not the latest season of Love Island.”

“All the more reason to care,” Ashley insisted. 

Grace did not think Stephanie and Catherine had defended her very strongly, but didn’t wish to be enigmatic about it either. Maybe listening to her friends curse Tim to hell and back would be cathartic.

“Can I have another one of these?” she asked Matt as he came by to check on them. Her friends took it as a sign and laughed and clapped while he just grinned and promised not to keep her waiting. He was obviously just flirting for his tip, but the wide eyes and raised brows as he departed were followed quickly by poorly stifled giggles.

“Well well, he didn’t say that to any of us,” Alicia snickered.

“He has been checking by our table a lot, right? More than his other tables,” Victoria mused, tapping her chin.

Grace rolled her eyes and scolded, “You’re all terrible. I am in the middle of a… rancid divorce.”

“Which you filed.”

“Which I filed,” she confirmed. “And which I will not speak about the details of because with my luck he’s got a private investigator following me for dirt he can use in court.”

“He wouldn’t,” Catherine gasped.

Stephanie guffawed, “Of course the piece of shit would.”

“It’s been longer than six months, right? Isn’t that how long it’s supposed to take?” Ashley asked. “I looked it up.”

“Six months and a day if it’s mutual and simple. Unfortunately…” Grace trailed off as Matt returned, fast indeed, and set the drink in front of her.

“Anything else I can get you ladies right now?”

“Ladies,” they groaned. “Might as well call us Ma’am! How old do you think we are?”

“Twenty-eight,” he said, his face leaving it unclear whether it was a joke.

Alicia snorted and flapped her hand at Catherine, joking, “You know he’s young if he thinks we want to be twenty-eight!”

“We are women in our thirties and you couldn’t pay me to go back,” Victoria agreed.

“Seriously, can you remember when it felt like we’d be dead at thirty?”

“Yeah but there is that thing that happens when you sleep funny…” Grace suggested, because Matt looked like he wasn’t sure what was going on and if he’d said the right thing or not. When her friends just stared, she continued, “You know, where apparently you slept wrong or sneezed wrong and now your neck is convinced you’re–”

“Batman!” Alicia and Stephanie cried together. That was not what Grace had been going to say, but she could understand what they meant when they both stiffened their necks and turned their whole bodies.

“Not me, thanks, it’s got me reaching for the–”

“Ibuprofen,” Catherine suggested, but Ashley corrected, “Percocet.”

“Oh Lordie,” Alicia giggled.

Grace grinned up at Matt, “I’m so sorry about my friends. I think we’re fine for now.”

“I agree,” he said, and winked, and sauntered off. 

Grace startled, not sure if he’d meant he agreed they were fine or agreed they were fine. The wink?

Stephanie had, of course, seen, and elbowed her, teasing, “Eh, eh? I think he likes you in particular.”

“He’s our waiter.”

“Seriously though, I ask you this… so what? We’re not talking about marrying the guy,” Alicia said.

Victoria nodded, then leaned in close and stage-whispered, “We’re talking about fucking.”

“Jesus, how many have you had?” Stephanie laughed. She playfully nudged Victoria’s drink away from her.

“I have a three year old, you know I can’t hold my vodka anymore,” Victoria laughed and slid it back.

Ashley motioned for everyone to wait while she chewed, wait while she swallowed, then safely said, “I hope you know you’re way too hot to sit around.”

“Yeah, take it from me,” Alicia agreed. “We’re not saying to rush anything. I get it, babe. I’ve been there. Don’t sit around wondering what the next thing is, just grab what you want and have a good time.”

Catherine passed a napkin to Victoria, who had just dragged her sleeve through her plate, and assured Grace, “You’ll know when you’re ready for something new.”

“I can’t imagine being ready for something new,” she admitted, because she was just a little tipsy and so were her friends, so it felt safe to have a moment of vulnerability in this trendy gastro-pub. “I mean the pool guy is the one who caught Tim and let me know… My husband! It was mortifying.”

“That’s right, he sucked.”

“Let it out, let it out.”

“No, that’s… that’s all I had to say,” she laughed, and sucked down the last of her drink. “It was unpleasant.”

“Unpleasant!” her friends repeated and giggled into each other’s shoulders. She rolled her eyes.

Stephanie patted her arm, sighing, “Grace, my dear old friend. I think Ashley and Victoria may be right. You’re so…”

“So what?” Grace pressed, eyebrow arching.

“So bottled up,” she tried.

“So careful,��� Catherine suggested.

“That’s what I’m saying,” Ashley sighed. “I’m a doctor so I say this with a medical degree backing: you need to get fucked good. You need to fuck someone good, just get all that anger out and like… cum your feelings and your frustration and your brains–”

“This is medical advice, hm?” Victoria asked, barely holding it together. She and Alicia caught each other’s gaze and lost it.

“It is! Grace is always so proper and polished and I just– aren’t you mad? You did everything right and that loser fucked you over.”

Grace nodded, feeling herself fade away. Sure, she was mad. Really mad. But as much as she was enjoying this time out and knowing her girls were in her corner, she didn’t have the same spirit that Alicia and Victoria and Ashley had to just rage about it. It felt… private. Painful. Shameful.

Also she didn’t know the first thing about finding someone to fuck.

“You deserve to get a little wild,” Alicia told her. “Not crazy, don’t do something you’re going to regret, but like…”

“Take the waiter home,” Ashley suggested, then pretended to be innocently watching the TV over the bar as Matt returned with another round of requested drinks. Grace knew she might regret this come tomorrow. The hangovers were another part of their 30s they ought to have warned Matt about. He didn’t look like he’d reached his yet, but probably not far off. Maybe twenty-eight, twenty-nine? Surely not younger than that… though it was possible JK was skewing her ability to guess ages because he had such a youthful face.

“Anything else I can get for you?” Matt asked her, and Grace had the horrifying fear she might have been staring. His blond hair was really beautiful. She’d never been with someone like that, surfer guy, sunkissed cheeks, hair that would drape around his face–

Oh good god.

“No,” she said quickly, and buried her face in her drink. “Last one. Cut me off after this.”

“If you say so,” he smiled and was gone again, laughing when Victoria and Ashley called something after him that Grace completely missed in her embarrassment.

Catherine managed to steer conversation away from fucking and over to a hospital workplace drama of Ashley’s that got them all as rabid as they’d been for details of her divorce. Grace was more than grateful for the break –which seemed intentional, judging by Catherine’s smile. Despite Grace’s misgivings about Catherine marrying a wealthy man in his early 50s when she herself was only thirty-six, she seemed happy and like things were going well for her. Maybe it wasn’t all older men who sucked, just her not-yet-ex husband in particular.

But a younger guy… could Grace really see herself taking someone like Matt home? She watched him glide between tables in his all-black uniform, crisp below the neck, a little wild above, his smile radiating sunbeams upon whoever he addressed. A younger guy would have no reason to pursue her though, not when he looked like that and could catch women his own age, easily. She wasn’t old or anything, and thought she looked her age in an attractive way, but still, what unique thing, what special draw did she really have that would lure someone in for a night of… that? She was wife material, not a brag-worthy catch, but she didn’t want to be anyone’s wife again for a long time. Probably never. 

God, she really couldn’t imagine going through marriage again. A wedding? What a nightmare.

She’d lost track of Matt, which meant he surprised her suddenly appearing at her shoulder.

“You look like you need something,” he said, and you could have heard a pin drop at the table.

“I… do not,” she told him.

“Are you sure?” He leaned in close and joked, “Look, I’ve got connections here. I can get you anything you want. Amaretto sour? Glass of sparkling water? One of those chocolate cakes with a strawberry on it which it’s not even supposed to come with, but I know a guy…” 

It wasn’t possible. Was he flirting with her?

Suddenly he laughed, “It’s me, I’m the guy. I can just put a strawberry on the cake. If you want one.”

“She wants the cake,” Alicia assured him.

“She definitely wants the cake,” Ashley agreed.

“Honestly I think we may all want the cake?” Victoria asked, looking around.

Grace could only nod as Matt went to get some unknown number of chocolate cakes. She actually didn’t want the cake. She couldn’t figure out if anyone was actually talking about cake because all she could understand in the moment was that a good looking man might be flirting with her out of everyone at the table. Had he overheard about her divorce? Worse, had her friends put him up to this before she arrived?

But their giggles seemed sincere as they kept wiggling their eyebrows at her and dug into chocolate cake.

“Why don’t we ever treat ourselves like this?” Ashley demanded. “We should always be getting the chocolate cake.”

“It’s better with the strawberries,” Catherine said.

Stephanie smirked at Grace and agreed, “Thanks for getting us the strawberries.”

“I didn’t do anything.”

“Just being hot,” Alicia assured her.

Grace was not sure what to make of this. She didn’t even want the cake but felt rude not to at least have a few bites. The strawberries were not in season and were a little sour. She downed it with water to stave off any headaches tomorrow, and waved Matt over for the tab. 

“We should go to Mexico or something,” Ashley sighed. “So we can actually stay out instead of work and significant others– shit, I mean, not that you have to–”

“Hey, I’m single too,” Alicia pointed out.

“Yeah but by choice, I just didn’t mean to–”

“Shut up, Ashley,” Victoria laughed. “Go back to slicing people open instead of talking.”

“Rude!” But she gave Grace an apologetic look that was more painful than the reference to significant others. She wasn’t bothered by that!

Cards rained down into the tray for Matt, and upon his return he made a playful show of calling names and passing the booklets out for them to sign.

In Grace’s booklet was an extra slip of paper, on which he had scrawled: I get off in twenty or I’m off Saturday if you feel like grabbing a drink (amaretto sour, normal). 31, if it matters. –Matt

Grace slapped the book closed, face instantly aflame. Seriously?! Couldn’t he lose his job doing something like that?? Not that she was going to file a complaint or anything because, well, in this particular situation she felt flattered, not bothered. 

Should she do it–

NO, of course she shouldn’t do it! She’d had enough drinks for one night, any more would be courting disaster. And coming back Saturday felt like such a thing, and she wasn’t ready for a thing, she wasn’t even actually divorced yet. And what if drinks led to something, hm? She hadn’t been with anyone but Tim in a decade. She’d made a fool of herself and her ego just couldn’t handle that right now, disappointing someone who looked like he might be the actual biological son of the ocean.

Not that she wouldn’t like to surrender herself into the experienced arms of someone who could really “fuck her brains out” –as Dr. Ashley ordered.

She was mortified by her own inability to do anything with this obviously dream-like scenario. She tucked the paper into her pocket, afraid it might fall out of the booklet and get noticed by one of her nosy friends. It felt rude not to say anything back but she didn’t know what to say, just tipped him very well and scurried out of the restaurant between her friends so she wouldn’t accidentally make eye contact.

Grace made sure her friends were all safely in cabs, caught her own, and was home, in-bed, unfucked by 10. 

“Shit.” Jungkook’s brow lowered as he flipped the keys around on the ring, confused by the lack of house key. He patted his pockets despite knowing that at no point had he removed the house key from his keychain and put it in his pocket. He checked the ring again, eye twitching with annoyance that it had not reappeared. The metal ring was a little loose, but loose enough for a key to fall off? One single key? Not the three mystery keys that he had no fucking clue what they went to but only his very useful housekey? Eomma and Appa’s key was still there, his car key, the garage key, an old gym locker key… no house key.

He resorted to knocking on the door and ringing the doorbell in case anyone was home. It was almost eight, someone ought to be home.

No answer.

A crack of thunder rattled the frame of the house and, like it was the sound of the sky breaking, torrential rain fell in a sheet so physically heavy Jungkook felt like he’d been hit by a wave. He scurried to his car and ducked inside, poking around between and beneath the seats to see if his key had fallen out there. He found two guitar picks, a pacifier of Max’s, someone’s melted lipstick, and three half-empty water bottles and made a note to vacuum out all the sand when he had a couple quarters, but no key. Maybe it was in his work truck… but he was wearing baggy sweatpants today with shallow pockets, the little metal fucker could have fallen out anywhere. 

Well, good thing they kept a spare key in the garage. He had to brave the rain again to dash from driveway to the garage, lifted the door just enough to duck under, then went for the lock box stuck to the underside of the tool table they did not own any actual tools for. The box was there but he had to try each of their birthdays because they all kept resetting the passcode. It unlocked on 1-2-3-1, hinting Taehyung had been the last one to open it, which meant he’d know who to murder because the spare key had not been replaced.

“Fucker,” Jungkook sighed. 

He returned to the front door and pounded again as another crack of thunder rattled the windows. Thunderstorms were unusual, it gave everything a sort of suspense-movie feel. He fished out his phone and tried calling Taehyung and Jimin but neither answered like the assholes they were. So Jungkook could either drive back to work and see if the key fell out in his truck or go hang out at Eomma and Appa’s until someone answered.

Another thought occurred to him. He’d been at Grace’s that morning, finishing up the final patches and protective coat over the tile before it would be time to fill it –meaning he was (sadly) just about done with the project. When it was time to go, he’d asked to use her bathroom because she had one just off the back patio, and then they’d spent a few minutes talking about how he would fill the pool soon, and then about some road construction going on nearby and whether that was annoying her because he was looking for any conversation to prolong his departure, and it was possible he’d spun his keys around his finger while they talked.

When one more round of banging on the door and calling Taehyung and Jimin and then Taehyung again didn’t get him anywhere, Jungkook jumped back into his car and set off for Grace’s house. The rain came down in sheets pushed sideways by the rain, making it hard to see, so he drove slowly. It made it an even longer drive, they lived in different parts of the city and there was traffic at this hour (haha, there was always traffic) and the traffic was slower because of the rain too except for the occasional shitbag flying down the road, two blocks at a time, as if they’d get there faster. More like kill someone on the way.

Eventually he got to her place and punched in the back gate code and pulled in. Her yard beyond the reach of the motion light looked like a shadowy lush forest in the downpour and it made him jealous. At his house the rain was annoying and he was worried the garage would flood again but here there was something refreshing about it, like the LA smog couldn’t reach. He knew he shouldn’t talk shit about the rain, in a month they’d be in another drought and longing for a storm like this. They didn’t happen often. But it was definitely going to flood his garage again and they needed to practice in there tomorrow! 

If he had a yard like this, he could enjoy it. Instead he just thought of missed surfing and angry oceans and leaky garages.

He ran from his car to the back door; for some reason it made him recall being a little boy attempting to dodge the raindrops, back before he became a surfer. Once you got hooked on surfing, you got used to “wet” and “dry” being states of mind.

She he had apparently not heard the gate open or his car on that crunchy-ass driveway. Instead she moved around the kitchen making dinner, washing dishes it looked like, mouth moving like she was singing or talking to someone, completely unaware he was about to knock on her backdoor. She didn’t look like she was dancing but she could just be really bad at it.

He felt only a brief flicker of guilt for interrupting her evening. He’d be quick. In and out and gone before she knew it. He knocked on the door. 

At first she didn’t react at all, so he knocked again harder. 

This time she spun around with a visual gasp, her hand shooting out to grab something in defense –a sudsy spatula which flung soap all across her counter, which Jungkook noticed only peripheral to the wide, terrified look on her face.

Oops.

He would have hoped that settled as soon as she saw it was just him, but the shift to her expression was only slight as she crept towards the door, as if he was actually just someone else in a JK costume.

“JK?” she verified when only panes of glass and a couple feet separated them.

“Hi,” he said. He gave her an awkward wave. He hadn’t expected to scare her. “Yeah, just me.”

“What are you doing here? It’s–” She broke off, glancing at her wrist but there was no watch there. Her voice was muffled through the door, which she hadn’t opened.

“I know, sorry,” he said. “I lost my keys.” Thunder cracked right as he said it, drowning him out.

“What?”

“I lost my keys!” he repeated, louder.

At this point she unlocked the door and opened it, spatula still in hand, and said again, “What? Please don’t be here to murder me.”

“What?” he repeated as thunder rattled the frame of the house and rain pummeled the patio behind him because he thought she’d just said something about murder.

She leaned further out the door and asked, “Why are you here so late?”

“Did I leave my keys here?”

“Your keys?”

“Did I drop my housekey when I used your bathroom today?”

“Oh. I– no!!” she shrieked so loud that Jungkook took a step back because yeouwch right in his fucking ear. It left him unprepared for her to suddenly lunge forward. Maybe she tripped. Either way, she collided bodily with him and they sprawled together to the ground, her fully on top of him and his ass taking the beating on those fancy patio stones.

“Foam!” she cried and tried to leap to her feet, only to knee Jungkook in the groin, almost a fatal blow. He managed to twist just enough, just in time, so she at least missed direct assault on his balls but it still left him shuddering.

“Fuck,” he groaned and grabbed her arms to lift her off him so he could take a moment. 

She stood and looked forlornly around the yard, spatula clutched in both her hands. The tree cover made things pitch black and her yard lights weren’t on so it was impossible to see anything through the torrential curtain now that the motion light had clicked off.

“What just happened?” he asked, dragging himself up, testing out his body to make sure her knee hadn’t just done permanent damage to his future as a father, should he care to. He couldn’t even enjoy the moment she’d been sprawled on top of him! 

“Sorry,” she said, distracted, like she didn’t really mean it. “You let my cat escape!”

“What?”

“I mean… sorry, it wasn’t your fault, I shouldn’t have opened the door but–”

“Why would your cat run out into a thunderstorm?”

“I don’t know! He’s… special.”

Jungkook joined her survey of the yard, half expecting a very regretful cat to come streaking back, but no such luck. Lightning lit up the yard but there was no sign of any cat.

“He’ll come back,” Jungkook assured her. And for good measure, called, “Here, kitty kitty!”

“He’s deaf, I can’t just leave him to roam the world! He’s an indoor cat! He doesn’t know anything about– shit,” she huffed. 

“Oh.” Now he felt like an asshole to have called for the cat but it’s not like he could have known! He’d never thought about the fact cats could even be deaf.

She seemed to only just notice the spatula in her hand. She tossed it back into the house, then turned and promptly ran into the rain –no umbrella, no jacket, no shoes. 

“Foam!” she called, only to break off with a curse, “Fuck, he can’t hear me…” as she disappeared behind some tall bushes towards the front of the house.

In a flash of lightning, Jungkook thought he saw a blur of motion in a very different part of the yard. 

He thought hunting for her cat in a thunderstorm was only going to end in failure but he’d seen people do dumber things over pets. He’d never had one, but maybe if he had a dog or something, he’d do the same thing.

Maybe not. It was really coming down out there. He saw the shadow of Grace jogging along the edge of the yard and couldn’t just let her search alone. At least he had to try since apparently she really cared about this cat of hers. 

Another clap of thunder this time preceded the shriek of an animal which for a brief moment he thought might be Grace. Just as quickly he realized it must be the cat because it didn’t sound like a noise classy Grace would make and it was from the wrong part of the yard. The yowl sounded terrified and Jungkook knew he had to help find this dumb little cat.

Jungkook took off in the direction it had come from, hand shielding his eyes from the rain as he tried to make sense of the moving shadows. At least her motion light activated and gave him some help but it was so fucking bright it left swirls dancing across his vision when he tried to see in the shadows again.

“Foam!” he called out of habit, then cursed. She had so much stuff in her yard –bushes and trees and plants and shit– and usually he thought it was cool but right now it made it hard to find a shivering wet beast. At least in the denser parts the rain was less of a slap against his face, but still it dripped from his hair and ran down his nose and chin, and he was used to being soaked from his time in the ocean but it was beginning to feel like he’d never be dry.

“Foam, where are you?” Grace called, a desperate edge to her voice. 

“I think he’s over here,” Jungkook shouted back. 

“Where? JK?”

But Jungkook couldn’t answer because he’d spotted the cat, miserable and shivering and panicked. The cat looked up at Jungkook with his spooky reflective eyes and something in his expression made clear he was about to take off again and Jungkook felt sure he would be even harder to find a second time.

So he did the only thing he could do. He grabbed the kitty by the scruff of the neck and dragged it, writhing and chirping into his arms. It was wet and hard to hold and shockingly strong though, so he felt like there was no choice but the next move: he shoved the cat under his shirt and held it there as he dashed towards the house.

Which the kitty, to be clear, did not like. He thrashed and tried to escape, first through the bottom, then through the top. He’d managed to get his head stuck in the pit of Jungkook’s sleeve just as Jungkook reached the back door of the house. He flung open and then shut the door behind him to try and wrench the cat out in the kitchen, only to realize he’d slammed it in Grace’s face and opened it for her again.

“You got him?!” she gasped, as if it wasn’t obvious from the weird clicky cries yodeling from Jungkook’s armpit as he tried to drag the cat out the bottom. The cat put up too much of a fight and now his stomach was starting to sting from the scratches so Jungkook just yanked his shirt up and let the cat drop –after a moment of simply hanging there, claws dug into his body.

“Oh my god!” 

Just as Grace reached forward, her cat vaulted off Jungkook with a final slash of his back claws and tore through the house, leaving a trail of spattered water in his wake.

“Shit,” Jungkook hissed, curling forward and looking down at his bare torso. His body shuddered at the sharp pain as it rolled up his torso and then down again. Thin bloody red lines cross-crossed all down his abs, heavier blood seeping out in a few places.

“Oh my god. Oh my god, I’m so sorry,” Grace gasped, hands reaching forward but stopping just shy of his body before she pulled back, only to almost reach again, like she couldn’t figure out what to do. “Um… uh…”

“Maybe a towel or something,” Jungkook mumbled as a hint.

“A towel!” she repeated and leapt into action only to slip and crash into the counter. The rain had pooled around their feet, turning the tiled kitchen into a death trap. Jungkook hissed at the red welts and shivered again as the air condition made pebbles of his skin and nipples. He lowered his shirt just a smidge, self conscious about his nipples. In the background a drawer slid open and slammed shut.

Grace abruptly pressed the towel against his torso and he yelped. 

“Oh…?” she said, eyes going wide. As if it hadn’t occurred to her a rough kitchen towel shoved against a torso full of raw scratches wouldn’t be comfortable. 

Gingerly he pulled it away and used it instead to wipe his face and hair off so it would stop running down his face, then squeezed his shirt out with it.

“I’m sorry, I don’t have anything for… do you need to go to the hospital?”

“It’s not that bad,” he assured her. He almost laughed but his smile seemed misplaced next to her worry. Sure, it hurt, and he was soaked, and he’d had a long day and just wanted to be home in bed and instead he was dripping water and blood on her rich person tile but it wasn’t like getting a little roughed up was new to him. Maybe it wasn’t usually cat nails scratching him but– well not that kind of cat–

“I have… hm… Oh! I can get you dry clothes and maybe… medicine? I’ll see what I have,” she said and spun away again. This time when she slipped on the tile, Jungkook reached out to steady her, hands clamping to her hips.

“Careful, you’ll bust your head open.”

Briefly her hands pressed over his and then simultaneously they both released.

“Uh.” She glanced over her shoulder at him for a moment. “I’ll get dry clothes for you.”

“Right,” he said as she shuffled away. “Wait, nothing that belonged to your ex husband.”

“I didn’t keep anything,” she called back, her voice quickly an echo across the house. He heard her heavy footsteps on the stairs and it made him pause. Damn, she really stomped on those. He wondered if she always pounded the stairs like that or if she was just really panicked right now.

Shit, the scratches really hurt. He hissed again and looked down. That damn cat, he’d been trying to help! He wanted to splash some soap and water on it but also didn’t want to extend the pool of water further through the kitchen. She was bringing him new clothes –whose, then?-- anyway and wouldn’t be back for a moment, so he tugged the shirt off and then his pants, letting them fall in a pile by the backdoor, then strode quickly to the bathroom. There he grimaced further at the full reflection of the scratches… yeah, he was going to tell his friends a chick scratched him up, no way did he want to let smuggling a wet angry cat under his shirt take the credit for this. He’d definitely need to wear a rashguard if he hit the waves or his board was going to tear those lines up bad.

He leaned over the sink as best he could to do a quick scrub down with the blue hand soap in a glass bottle by the faucet –after knocking it with slippery hands down into the bowl of the sink and freezing until he was sure it hadn’t shattered. It sure sounded like it had. The smell of “fresh” wafted up at him as he rinsed the suds off. Probably the soap was “clean linen” or “ocean breeze,” even though an ocean breeze smelled nothing like that.

“Oh. Uh… I mean… you’re just– here are some dry clothes you can borrow,” Grace said from the doorway and gently tossed a stack of fabric onto the closed lid of the toilet. “I’ll get my first aid kit while you…”

She shut the door without finishing her sentence. Jungkook looked back at the shut door, then smiled at his reflection in the mirror. Was she… flustered? He looked at more of his body than the cuts this time. His black boxer-briefs hugged his ass pretty good, and his abs were looking good today because he hadn’t had dinner yet because he was locked out of his fucking house. He lifted his eyebrow in the mirror, trying out a smolder just to cheer himself up, then lifted the clothes to see what she’d brought him.

The gray sweatpants were the softest material he had possibly ever touched and looked shockingly well sized. He couldn’t bring himself to put them on over wet boxers and so traded the bottoms, then shook out the t-shirt. Red with a graphic of Christmas lights zigzagging back and forth across the front, it read Santa Run 10k December 2024 Ho Ho HO.

“Hey, who decided to capitalize the third ‘ho’ like this?” he asked, leaving the bathroom once dressed. The shirt fit him comfortably and frankly he was going to have a really big morale decision about whether he remembered to bring these sweatpants back.

Ok he’d remember.

Probably.

Grace paused digging through a red zippered first aid kit, contents strewn across the counter. She had on dry clothes, her hair pulled back into a real mess at the back of her head, like she’d been in a hurry. It was the most disheveled he’d ever seen her.

She cracked a smile though and admitted, “I don’t know but I thought it was funny too so I kept the shirt.”

“You trying to tell me something?”

“What?! No! It was just the first thing I grabbed that I thought might fit you–”

“I’m joking. I think it’s funny too. The sweatpants are fucking awesome.”

“Yeah, Brendi, it’s a unisex brand so I thought they might fit– my friend does marketing for them so I– here, I found antibiotics. Let’s see?”

“I washed off already, it’s fine.”

“With hand soap?”

“Yeah. I smell nice now, huh?”

Again she smiled, looking slightly more herself with each grin, and assured him, “Yes, but you really need this and bandaids.”

“I’m not putting on bandaids,” he snorted.

“Hm… why not?”

“Because…” He trailed off, judging by her narrowed eyes that she was not going to agree with bandaids on your tummy look stupid. “None of them are that deep or anything.”

“Ok, let me see. Obviously if you wind up needing to buy any medicine or bandages bring me the receipts and I’ll reimburse you–”

“Eh,” he shrugged. Actually that was a really nice offer but obviously he wasn’t going to show up with a Walgreens receipt.

“Come on, at least let’s check that the bleeding has stopped.”

“If you wanted me to take my shirt off, all you had to do was–”

“That’s not–!” she gasped but he thought her surprise was way too funny. Even though he had no interest in letting her inspect the cuts, now he felt compelled to follow through, and so dragged the hem of the ho ho HO t-shirt up. Only then did he realize that now, in this moment, after all his attempts, she would be directly checking out his body, no distractions or interruptions.

She promptly dropped to her knees in front of him and Jungkook’s hands flew up to hover in the air, stunned by this development.

To his immense disappointment on all accounts, Grace merely methodically and without any apparent blush, surveyed the cuts across his stomach without seeming to even see his stomach. Try as he might, he could not really paint it as sexy for her to keep squeezing splurts of antibiotic onto her finger and then dabbing them against various sore points. That’s not to say he didn’t start to chub up because a beautiful woman was kneeling before him and touching all over his stomach! But thankfully her clinical, almost jabbing approach to medicine application kept it from reaching a noticeable state, even without the security of boxers. It was like she wanted as minimal contact with his body as possible. Grace was definitely no bedside nurse.

“I’m really sorry about this,” she said as she stood and screwed the lid back on the medicine tube. “And thank you for helping me find him.”

“Yeah no problem.” For a moment they just stood there before Jungkook realized she was holding the tube out to him. “I don’t want to take your medicine, I’m all good now.”

“Cat scratches can be painful and I don’t want you to risk getting an infection or anything.” She waved the medicine tube.

He wrapped his hand around hers and pressed it back in her direction, insisting, “You need it more than I do.”

“I’ll just buy more.”

“You live alone,” he insisted, not sure what that had to do with anything but looking for any argument not to take medicine away from her that he was never going to use anyway. “I’ve got some at home.”

“Why do I not believe you?” she asked, but did pull the tube back and tuck it away in the medicine bag. Jungkook had never seen someone with an actual full-blown first aid kit in their house, like the kind they had at the pool where he lifeguarded sometimes. 

“I wouldn’t lie,” he lied.

“Ok, if you say so…” 

But now he was offended and insisted, “Really, I would never lie to you.” Which made him feel a little bad because he was technically lying right now but actually probably Jimin had some, so see? Not a lie.

She stared at a moment which made it seem so serious, what he was saying. He meant it! Then her mouth twitched and she admitted, 

“We really got soaked, huh?”

“You need to teach your cat not to do something dumb like that.”

“Oh? How will I teach my cat something, exactly?”

“You can train cats,” he insisted. “Train him not to run out the door.”

“He’s never run out the door before.”

“He seemed pretty good at it,” Jungkook pointed out.

“Maybe he was trying to protect me from a guy randomly showing up at my back door at night?” she countered, and now crossed her arms and turned to face him. “You can’t do that, you know.”

“Do what?”

“Show up at the backdoor unexpectedly at night when a woman lives home alone! Or ever, really, for that matter.”

“I didn’t sneak up on you,” he defended. “I told you, I just wanted to know if I left my keys here.”

“Knocking at the backdoor of a house with a gate is sneaking,” she argued. “I have a front door. And a buzzer.”

Jungkook paused now and thought about this, just a little bit. He hadn’t considered before that the gate applied to him because she just let him come and go for work and had told him the code. 

“Ok, well… I didn’t think I had to buzz because you said I didn’t,” he admitted.

“It’s dark outside! You could have been a murderer.”

“Yeah and you were going to fight me off with this, huh?” he snorted, stooping to pick up the spatula that had lay in the middle of the floor for some time now. 

“It’s the first thing I grabbed.”

“At least keep a bat or a knife by the door or something,” he suggested and set the spatula in the sink.

“That’s why I have a gate!”

Another fair point, but he still pointed out, “Didn’t stop me.”

“Because I gave you the code.”

“Didn’t we talk about this? You need a dog instead of a cat,” he suggested. “A dog would come when you called and not scratch the shit out of my stomach.”

“You did put a frightened angry cat in your shirt,” she pointed out.

He couldn’t help but laugh, “Oh so now it’s my fault? He’s squirmy when he’s wet! It’s like trying to hold a snake. You sure he’s a cat?”

“Definitely a cat,” she assured him. “Speaking of which, I should go find him and dry him off…”

“Well don’t put him under your shirt.”

“Oddly, the thought never occurred to me.”

A moment passed before he realized she was waiting for him to recall, “Oh right. Uh… have you seen my key?” 

“I haven’t. Did you see it in the bathroom?”

He’d forgotten to look. They walked together there, passing close together through the door so that he could feel the warmth from her body for the briefest moment.

“No,” he sighed.

“There,” she corrected, and pointed to one single key in the middle of the mat in front of the sink.

“My key!”

“You really didn’t see it? Or step on it?” she clarified as he scooped it up and pressed it with relief to his forehead.

“No, how did you see that? You have vision like a hawk.”

“You don’t need to flatter me.”

“I’m trying to apologize for scaring you,” he said, which hadn’t occurred to him until just that moment because she was being casual about it, but now he did start to feel more bad about it, like maybe he shouldn’t just tease her about being scared by him. 

“There’s another way to do that.”

He choked. 

“Use your words,” she said quickly, looking stunned. Good, he was glad she’d noticed the double meaning of what she’d said. Look if she wanted a sexual apology he would be more than happy to– She cleared her throat.

“I’m sorry I scared you?” he tried and she nodded. “I do know how to apologize,” he quickly added. “I just didn’t think about it scaring you.”

“Don’t sneak in the backdoor of women’s houses, JK,” she said, her smile growing as she teased. “You deserve to go through the front door.”

“I… don’t really know what that means but thanks? And now I will take my key and go home so you can deal with your wet… cat.”

She gave a decisive nod, clearly not noting his verbal stumble, and added, “Do you want a bag for your wet clothes? Or I can just dry them.”

“Ok, thanks.” She probably had an expensive dryer and they would come out all soft and maybe he’d get another wooden hanger out of it. He line-dried his clothes as much as he could and sometimes they felt sort of crunchy, which wasn’t a big deal but he thought it would be nicer to get dry clothes back than slop a bundle of wet clothes home.

“Sorry again about your body,” she said. “I mean the scratches.”

“It’s fine, we’ll call it even,” he said, and held his fist out without thinking about it, because that was something he might say to his surfing buddies and they’d fist-bump and he’d done it out of habit.

Just before he dropped his hand, she tapped it with her own, her lips twitching with a suppressed smile.

“Goodnight, JK. Drive careful. Looks like the rain has stopped.”

“Oh yeah, look at that.” He hesitated. Not for a reason, or at least not a good one. It was nice being around her, that was all. 

His stomach itched so he scratched it, then flinched when his nails rubbed the shirt against his raw skin.

“Tell your cat I expect a better introduction next time,” he told her, then slid out the door without even a wave, because he got the feeling that had possibly been an odd thing to say. 

He felt keyed up heading to his car, wearing Grace’s clothes. Rain still dripped from the trees, loud on the top of his car as he started it up and paused for the gate to let him out. The streets were quiet and as clean looking as they ever were –definitely cleaner here than near his place. He had a long drive home still.

Ah, she kept her house too cold. She hadn’t put a bra on when she put on dry clothes. It wasn’t his fault he’d noticed, yeah? He’d had to look somewhere when she insisted on dabbing medicine all over his stomach while kneeling in front of him and then obviously looked away and done his damnedest not to notice again.

It all started to catch up to him now: Grace sprawled on top of him, the dash around the yard, how confused she’d looked at first about the cat scratches, the view of her from above, the–

On second thought, air conditioning was a great idea. He cranked it up and nudged the radio louder and thought about how Grace’s sweatpants were the softest fucking thing to have ever touched his dick. Very, very different than her knee. But hey… tonight was the most action his dick had seen in…

He cranked the radio louder. The air conditioner too, just to be safe.

Chapter Four | Masterlist | Chapter Six

[spinchip]

NEVER THE DARK

Chapter 16

Read on Ao3

Prologue - Chapter 1 - Chapter 2 - Chapter 3 - Chapter 4 - Chapter 5 - Chapter 6 - Chapter 7 - Chapter 8 - Chapter 9 - Chapter 10 - Chapter 11 - Chapter 12 - Chapter 13 - Chapter 14 - Chapter 15

warnings: head injury

HOW DOES IT END THIS WAY? ONE BITE INVITES ANOTHER.

Cyrus only black outs for a moment, maybe a few heartbeats- but when consciousness returns he wishes he’d stayed blissfully unaware of the pain lancing through his brain. The world loses its finer details and all he can focus on is the blood dripping down his temple and the way his brain feels too big for his head. He’s grateful for the blindfold, actually. He imagines the brightness of even the gentlest of lights would feed into the agony he’s feeling. He wills himself not to throw up.

His chair is straightened and the world spins and turns on its axis which makes the aforementioned not throwing up a whole lot harder. A warm hand probes at the wound on his head and finally, gratefully, he forces himself to pass out. For real this time.

The next time he wakes up, he’s not blindfolded anymore.

The first thing he registers is the floor to ceiling windows looking out on Ninjago city. It’s a great view, in the heart of the city and tall enough to look over almost every building surrounding it. Except Borg tower, which rises above the skyline in beautiful silhouette against the afternoon sun.

The next thing he notices is the man sitting in the lavish leather chair overlooking the cityscape before them. His captor. His head still hurts, will probably ache for days after this (if he survives,) and that does nothing to facilitate using his brain to figure out who exactly this man is. There’s a fancy silk handkerchief crumpled and covered in blood sitting on the dark oak desk he’s sitting at, and Cyrus can see ugly yellow bruising forming around his nose and eyes. It fills him with a viscous satisfaction even as his head throbs in memory of that headbutt. Worth it.

Cyrus wracked his brain- this office screams old money. He peeks around the room, trying to find something that might tip him off to who exactly had kidnapped him from his home and why. The room is luxury in overload, expensive not for quality but for status with overpriced furniture and art filling the room. The desk is specially carved solid wood, the plush rugs covering the floor thick and hand woven, modern lavish brown leather couches paired with a glass coffee table sitting in the middle of the room. The coffee table is stacked with Forbes magazines and history books in a flashy, ingenuine way. The bookshelves are decorated in a similar performative style. He’s trying to appear more worldly and elite and maybe it worked on others, but to Cyrus it screamed of insecurity- the room was so overtly ostentatious it became nothing but a superficial impersonation of sophistication.

All of that in conjunction with the designer pinstripe suit, the expensive drinks, the luxury watch purposefully shown off with a raised sleeve- all of it painting a picture of a man in the same tax bracket as Cyrus himself. His most distinctive trait is his long, curly red hair... which led Cyrus nowhere. Surely he’d have met this man before- as a charity banquet, a fancy gala, a high society party? He certainly knew Cyrus, and had a grudge against him at that.

Cyrus knew he wasn’t the kindest man in his youth… he could admit he was a bit of a self centered prick, but not so much that anyone would want him dead.

The few things that seem genuine in this soulless, shallow space is the bar cart filled with fancy liquors and two portraits along the back wall.

“My father and I.” That low, smooth voice makes Cyrus jump. The man at the front of the room has spun the chair around to face him, observing Cyrus’s gaze on the paintings behind him. He’s referencing the first of the pair, an older man with salt and peppered rusty red hair and a severe looking face, with a heavyset brow and dark eyes. There’s a boy in the picture with him, with slicked red hair and an equally sour expression. Even his father doesn’t ping anything on Cyrus’s radar. He tries to focus his head and pull up any possible memory he might have of this man- he can almost see him in his mind's eye, perfectly manicured nails and sleek hair and opulent jewelry introducing himself at a charity event-

Blue eyes that swam with obsession Cyrus mistook for intrigue.

“Who are you?” He asks, the man's perfectly white teeth reminding him of a shark's maw tasting the water for blood.

The facade of serenity melted off his face, irritation bleeding to fury at the question. Appalled and annoyed and so, so angry that Cyrus even had to ask. As if he should have known of the animosity between them despite cordial greetings and passing smiles in those nebulous memories when they did run into each other, “Do you know how old this company is?” He asks Cyrus sharply, who barely refrains from saying I don't even know what the hell we're talking about, “It’s existed for far longer than you were even a thought in your father's head. The Voss brand was a powerhouse before time had a name. It was respected- revered. We were above you all.”

Voss. Cyrus grabs that with both hands, desperate for any tidbit of information. He searches his mind-

Voss Enterprises. Cyrus remembers that name, back when he’d first brought Borg Tech to Ninjago City. His own company had ballooned out so quickly that any possible competitor was choked out before Cyrus really had to worry about them- Voss Enterprises being one of them. He’d surpassed them and stayed ahead. Their CEO was… Simon Voss- no, that was their old CEO. His son had taken it over. What was his name?

He nods to the other painting. It’s older, framed behind glass to protect it. It's on yellowed parchment and it’s not a full painting, mostly sketch lines with the occasional pop of color to contour or define certain areas. It shows an older woman with deep red hair pulled back with fancy pins and braids, “That is my grandmother, several times great. She built this company with her bare hands- after she lost her whole family. Akane Voss. Each generation after her grew our enterprise larger and larger. We were number one, always ahead of the competition.”

Those acidic blue eyes pin Cyrus with a jealous gaze, “Until you.” He grins, and it’s all teeth, “Borg. your family had money, sure, but you weren’t even a blip on our radar. You were nothing. I was everything- and then you came and took it all.” his voice trembled with rage and he shoots to his feet.

He waves his hand and a rudimentary android unfolds from a box near the door with an inquisitive beep, “Help our guest keep up.” He says shortly, striding towards the door. The bot trundles over on skinny legs and begins to push Cyrus’s wheelchair behind Voss.

“Is that what this is about? Jealousy?” Cyrus asks, disbelieving as he’s bundled onto an elevator.

“And then,” Voss ignores Cyrus with a chuckle and drags a hand down his face- he’s wearing a blue gauntlet. He’s wearing the blue gauntlet. Cyrus feels himself go pale. “Then you burned it all down. You and your ego led the Overlord home to roost and the city crumbled and I thought- surely, this is the end of Cyrus Borg. Your reputation would be tattered, your company would go belly up, and Voss Enterprise would swoop in where we rightfully belong to fill the gap.” He hisses as they ascend only one floor up to the roof.

He steps out onto the tarmac and whips around. His hair blows in the wind and when the sunlight catches his eyes, the blue seems to glow, “But you didn’t die. You stuck around like a parasite and Ninjago City welcomed you right back in. This isn’t about jealousy, Cyrus Borg. This is about what I deserve! This is about how you came along in all your arrogance and hubris and stole what was mine!” He storms up to Cyrus and tangles his hand in Cyrus's hair, wrenching his head back so he can lean in close. He pulls back punishingly hard, still sore about his bloody nose, “I have been in your shadow for far too long, Cyrus Borg." He mutters, the words cloying in the small space between them, "This city has fallen into sickness, infested with your technology and pushing everyone else out.”

Cyrus blinks wide eyed at Voss and tries to shake his head, incredulous, “What are you talking about? Borg Industries is not a monopoly! I pulled back- I understood my mistake after the destruction of the city, I learned my lesson. This is madness!”

Voss releases Cyrus’s hair and stands back to his full height, “We weren’t thorough enough the first time around, in the aftermath of the digital overlord. We didn’t cut you out at the root. There was too much Borg tech influence- so you grew back like a tumor and kept me from my place above it all.”

He turns around to face the city, the wind carrying his voice back to Cyrus crystal clear, “If I can’t have Ninjago City, no one can.” And Cyrus almost wants to laugh at the sheer banality of it all if it weren't so terrifying. He raises the the gauntlet he’s wearing and holds it out, pointed towards Ninjago city, “I’m going to raze it all to the ground- and in the ashes, after every ounce of Borg Tech is destroyed and the wound is finally clean, Voss Enterprise will swoop in and rebuild until you are nothing but a bad memory.”

“My name is Broden Voss.” He says calmly, turning to face Cyrus with his hand still outstretched towards the city. He smiles and there's a wild, triumphant edge to it, “Remember that Name, Cyrus Borg. It will go down in the history books as your successor... though I suppose that won't matter to you, since you won't survive to see it. Say goodbye to your empire. it's time for you to finally fall.”

Behind him, all across Ninjago city, hundreds of portals open.

[kelliealtogether]

Thank you for the tag, @tinyarmedtrex!

From the next chapter of This Is a Forgery:

“Welcome back, honey,” Lynch said as soon as Adam stepped over the threshold. He sat on the living room sofa, long legs stretched out so his bare feet rested on the coffee table, pants riding up just enough to expose the shapely bones of crossed ankles. Like the times Adam saw him before, Lynch wore dark jeans and a black v-neck shirt. The casualness of the outfit corresponded with his surroundings though. It could have been because the Bureau was footing the bill for the place, or because they were going to accuracy of setting, but everything in the apartment looked inexpensive but well-used, possibly secondhand. With the exception of a nice speaker on top of the entertainment center — which held a modest flat screen television — nothing fanciful existed in the apartment, but it couldn’t be called sterile. Standard issue white paint coated the walls, but everything other than the gray cloth couch was dark wood or leather — the coffee table, the two-person kitchen set tucked in a corner, the pair of armchairs flanking the sofa. In other words, it was nothing like Adam expected from Ronan Lynch. He thought there’d be more metal. A movie poster or two. Maybe something with cars. “Don’t call me that,” Adam told him as soon as the door shut behind him. “Do not call me that. Or babe. Or sweetheart. Whatever other name crosses your mind, I think it's best you keep it there.”  “Damn,” Ronan replied. “I really thought you’d go all-in on realism.”  “When was the last time you called someone honey?”  Lynch shrugged a shoulder, and after looking at Adam for a long moment, he dropped his feet to the floor and stood. “Been a while,” he said. “Are you going to stand by the door forever, or do you want a tour of your humble abode?”  A word other than humble would have been inaccurate. Only two doors led off the living room. One Adam could see was a bathroom from a glimpse of a sink and the mirror hanging above it. The other he had to assume was Lynch’s bedroom — through the partly open door, he could only see the side of a piece of furniture, but with the kitchen situated on the other side of a breakfast bar across the living room, Adam figured he assumed correctly.  Which meant as long as they lived in the apartment together, Adam would have no privacy. No space of his own.  Turning back to Lynch, Adam couldn’t stop himself from being curt when he said, “I don’t think I need a tour.” This was going to be awful. 

Tagging @werewolffeelings, @audikatia, and @singersargentboi if any of you are interested.

And have a bonus WIP of a different kind under the cut. 😌

[askthechronoverse]

Last Chapter •|||• Next Chapter

"This is QUNI Radio! It's 8:00 am and it's going to be a beautiful day here in the Unicapital!" A rich and slightly obnoxious voice cut through the darkness as a yellow hand reached out to silence it. A gray hand gently stopped the other as the voice started to talk about the weather forecast.

"Babe… just five more minutes." A gruff voice muttered as he tried once again to hit snooze. He purred as the other man kissed his neck.

"No. It's your turn to take Catherine to school." The man with the gray hand placed that hand on his partner's unshaven face. "You also have to be at work early, remember? Come on, Jay. You need to get up."

"Oh, fine. But only because I love you." RJ flipped around lazily to kiss his husband’s forehead before sluggishly getting out of bed and opening the curtains.

The morning sun quickly ate the darkness to reveal the large bedroom. A very unabashedly 90's feeling pop song started playing, having been announced prior as a re-released song off a lost album from the early days of Old Bricksburg played as Richard floated out of bed and began to make it look neat again. The room had a slanted ceiling, a fan at the center of the intersection of the two slants. It was decorated tastefully, the dark pink wood of the furniture matching the floor perfectly.

"Wonder how they got Lucy to agree to release that? She always hated that part of her life." RJ mostly said this to himself as he threw on a random shirt, vest, and pants he pulled from an older looking set of drawers before stretching with a loud yawn.

"You say that every single time this song plays on the radio and it always amazes me that it amazes you that someone so tough could have come from a pop band like this." Richard shook his head softly as he started to get dressed as well, his movements far more intentional and refined. "I suppose my question is more why she left the band in the first place."

"I may have to ask her when I see her next. She hates talkin' about her backstory, so I probably won't get anywhere." Tweed covered arms wrapped around RJ as another kiss landed on his neck. This caused a soft smile to stretch over the rough man's face.

"Unlike someone else I could name. Some of us have nothing to hide. Right, my beloved?" Richard chuckled, letting go of his husband to finally silence the alarm clock.

"I know, I know. It just… it helps to be open about where you came from. At least it did for me." He followed Richard with his eyes as he disappeared down the stairs to start breakfast.

It was the smell of bacon and slightly burnt toaster waffles that finally summoned RJ downstairs. He snatched a full coffee mug that proclaimed that the person who owned the mug was the world's best dad, though the word best was crossed out and replaced with the word okayest off of the bar that separated the kitchen from the living room. He headed for a door that was close to the back of the cabin that was covered in cute and glittery stickers of cartoon characters and baked goods with faces. RJ opened the door and the light that leaked out from behind him caused a swift movement of blankets being thrown over a child’s head.

"Five more minutes, Daddy. Pleeeeeeeease?" The child moaned as RJ slid into the room and pulled the blanket down to reveal the child's face. She looked up at him with watery eyes and a quivering lower lip.

"As your dad, I am immune to that look." RJ shook his head softly as he planted a kiss on her forehead. "Come on, kiddo. We gotta do stuff today." The girl moaned and slid out of bed. As she got ready, RJ left the room to help his husband finish prepping breakfast by setting the bar with mismatched utensils. He didn't turn when his husband addressed him.

"As a reminder: I have a meeting today to discuss the current status of Master Doom and the other Doom Lords with Queen Wa'nabi and her officials. I will be coming home late tonight, so you need to pick Catherine up from school and most likely put her to bed." Richard finished putting all of the food on plates and placed two of them on the bar. "We may end up talking about you as well, my love." He sighed sadly, brows furrowed as he picked at a strip of bacon.

RJ silently waved the concerns off with a flick of his hand as he sat at the bar to eat. “That… that all happened a long time ago." He practically muttered to himself.

"I'm worried that won't matter. Since Unitron took over interplanetary crimes, they've been going over older reports. There's a very good chance they might take you away from us for at the very least a trial if Queen Wa'nabi can't hold them back." The nervousness didn't abait. “I'm worried things will end poorly."

“Please do what ya gotta ta make sure it doesn't." The fear RJ was feeling was tangible until a mumbled good morning behind him made both men go silent.

"Good morning, Catherine." Richard's monotone was soft and calm as he slid a plate closer to the child. "Please eat as quickly as you can. You and your father are going to be late. Don't eat too fast, however. You'll get hungry sooner." He turned back to the kitchen and began to prepare Kit’s lunch.

"Thanks, Papa." Kit didn't seem to be enthusiastic as she ate a bite of black toast slowly. She suddenly turned to RJ and bounced a little on her stool. "So are we walking to school today, Daddy? Is that why we're up early?"

"Nah. I'm takin' ya in the truck. I got things ta do at the office, so I leave when you do." He frowned slightly at this daughter's readable disappointment. "Hey, guess what?"

"What?" She asked as she adjusted the sky blue horn headband on her head. RJ pushed the horn just in front of her heart shaped cowlick.

"It's only you an' me tonight." He saw the words light up Kit's eyes and let his smile turn to a grin.

"Awesome!" She jumped down from the stool and rushed to grab her glittery unicorn backpack, in which Richard had shoved a matching unicorn lunch box. Kit grabbed this bag and rushed off to her bedroom.

"That doesn't mean that you can skip your homework, Catherine. I do expect you to do your assignments before I return tomorrow morning." Richard didn't raise his voice higher than someone would in a loud room. When Kit nodded, he went back to eating his breakfast. He turned to RJ. "Please make sure she does her assignments. She has a project coming up for history class that needs to be finished and turned in by the end of the week." Richard kissed RJ's lips softly. "I know you will do that, right?"

"Yeah. Of course. What is she supposed to be doing?" RJ grabbed both Kit’s and his plate, putting them in the sink.

"It's just a basic family tree. I'm sure her friends are going to be a little jealous that she's somewhat related to Unikitty and Puppycorn." Richard leaned into RJ, who put an arm around him.

"I think most people know that, R. That won't be a shock." RJ let go of Rick to run his fingers through his salt and pepper hair. He watched Kit rush over to the counter, where she waited earnestly. "You set ta samba, kiddo?" She adjusted the strap on a beaten up brown canvas and leather messenger bag that was adorned with patches with both cute slogans and local attractions.

"Yeah!" Kit hugged Richard tightly. "Love you, Papa! Have a good day at work!" She ran toward the garage and RJ's truck. RJ gave his husband a long, soft kiss. Richard pulled away, the artificial light in the kitchen showing his age way more than he probably would have liked.

"Go. I know you're the boss but it's unbecoming of the commander of the Royal Chrononauts to be late for an all hands meeting." Richard brushed the back of his hand against RJ's cheek. "I'll see you tomorrow morning, my beloved. Remember that I will love you, forever and always."

"Richard, I love you too. You made me a better man than I could have ever been." One last kiss, then RJ joined Kit in his beat up red pick up truck.

"So, did you finish saying goodbye to Papa?" Kit giggled as RJ started the car. Her unicorn backpack was not in the cab, but her canvas bag was on her lap. "How many times did he kiss you?" A few hearts popped up over her head as she spoke, clearly enamored by how romantic it all was.

"Enough, Kitten. But at the same time, not enough." He chuckled deeply as he started to head into town after some minor protest from the vehicle’s engine.

It took a while for the forest to transition into the bustling city, but when it did it felt like it hit like an ocean wave in a storm. There wasn't too much in the way of vehicle traffic, but bicycles filled the roadways. Sure, the occasional car was seen parallel parked by the sidewalks and safely nestled in small parking areas, but it was a less common sight on the road. He drove until he reached a building that looked like it fell from somewhere outside of time. The architecture was old but the actual building looked like it had just been built. A banner with a happy cartoon almiraj in a bowtie cheerfully stated that the school hoped the students would have a good summer.

"Can't believe summer is almost here." RJ sighed softly, glancing at his child bouncing in her seat anxiously.

"I just want it to come already!" Kit moaned.

"Can't wait to get started on some fun?” RJ said while trying to suppress a yawn.

"I thought I was gonna work with you this year?" This was spoken with a flutter of her eyelashes.

"I was hoping you'd work with your father this year, if you wanted to go that route. Your father and I agree that what I do is a bit too dangerous for you right now. Time travel isn't something to play with and I don't want you to get hurt." He ruffled Kit's dark gray hair, then bellowed at the sound of a fist pounding hard on his truck door. The two humans turned to the driver's side window to see a being with bee wings whose eyes were covered by a dense cluster of leaves. The only feature that could be seen on their face with any sort of consistency was a hawk like beak that was currently turned up into a Jack O'Lantern like grin.

"Mornin', Mr. B." The chimera bowed as they rushed to the passenger side of the car to open the door for Kit. They helped the human down from the seat as her bag fell back into its place on her side.

"Ya gotta stop givin' me a fright, Bellamy." RJ shook his head as he got out of the truck. He passed his daughter her backpack, which he grabbed from the truck bed as he walked toward them.

"That just means ya aren't bein' vigilant enough, Mr. B. I thought dad taught ya better than that." Once Kit was given her backpack, Bellamy folded her arms. "You're free to go. Kit'll be safe with me, as always."

"I think your dad taught you too well. Kitten, have a good day at school, OK? Ya can walk with Bellamy after school and meet me at my office. I'll see you later." RJ got back into the truck and drove off as Kit waved goodbye.

"Alright, Kay. We've got today an' tomorrow left before we're free for the summer. You get Mr. B to agree to letcha work with him at his office?" Bellamy kept their arms folded as they turned towards the school.

"No. I think, if I'm doing anything like that, I'm going with Papa. Boring… boring Papa." Kit let out a deep breath that was full of disappointment. "I love Papa, but I don't get to do anything Dad does."

"I'm glad your parents said no, though. Boring is safe. Ya know, I can't be your bodyguard when you grow up if you don't grow up." Bellamy’s arms now down and swinging slightly. "Mr. B and Mama do all that experimental stuff.” They stuck their tongue out slightly. “I can defend myself from what they do because of my dad's training. I could ask Dad to train you some basic fighting tricks.”

"Dad has been trying to teach me his special punch and other stuff he thinks I should know. I haven't been able to do any of it that well, but he says he's happy I can't. I think he's hiding some disappointment with that." Kit adjusted her horn as the two walked towards the school. "I just don't want to disappoint him."

"Somethin' tells me ya can't disappoint Mr. B." The chimera swished their fluffy bee-like tail, causing a few people behind her to move back. "When are ya gonna shadow Queen Unikitty?"

"Papa may be having me do that when I get older. Everyone feels that that's gonna be a long time away. I mean, PC is actually next in line and we all just kinda expect Big Sis to be on the throne for a long time." Kit shrugged, her backpack strap falling off her shoulder.

"It's better to be prepared, though. Dad has an Armommageddeon bunker somewhere in the countryside in case something bad happens." Bellamy opened the front door and waited for Kit to go through before she continued speaking. "Bad things happen. I'd rather know the person I will be protecting in the future is ready to take the throne if we need her to, know what I mean?"

"I guess, Ami. I just don't wanna think about that. It's a really sad thought." Kit shuffled her way to her locker, grabbing the sparkle matter above her head that showed her distress.

"Ya already got the "no sad feelings" mentality down." Bellamy opened the locker next to Kit's and shoved her adventurer style bag in as best she could. The two friends walked to their respective classrooms to properly start the day.

The red truck pulled in front of a building with a large satellite on the roof and an emblem with Unikitty's head silhouette that had a clock behind it. The clock disappeared past where the horn was and protruded out on the right side of the head. RJ barely turned the car off and hopped out before he was rushed by a fox in a lab coat.

"RJ! I'm so ecstatic you aren't late for once!" The fox hopped around the human, her tail puffed up. "Please, come with me! I need to show you something!" A large dog with fluffy blue and cream fur bolted after, his tartan scarf fluttering in the wind.

"Yeah! Ya need to see this, RJ!" The dog looked pale, his ears back.

"Scarlett, PC, relax. It probably ain't that serious." As he said this, Puppycorn opened the front door for the two older members of the group to reveal the aftermath of a localized storm in the lobby of an office that, given the damage, looked like it had been abandoned long ago. RJ stood, still as a statue. The only movement he could make was to lift one thick eyebrow on his face, which was glazed over by confusion and anger.

[unicornondeck]

Izzy's Apartment (Modern AU)

His apartment is located directly above the bar, encompassing the entire upstairs space.  It gives him great access to his business and provides him with privacy. The floor plan is very open. He tries to keep the house very clean as he is a bit of a neat freak.

The living area is spacious and has a sofa across from the TV. There is a futon beside of it which is primarily used for overnight guests. The walls feature framed posters from past community theater productions he was in, favorite movies, and his favorite bands. Most of the furniture is of black wood.

Adjacent to the living area is a dining space with black and white wooden table and chairs which he uses sparingly. Most of the time it is covered with either paperwork or random stuff. It tends to pile up with his lifestyle. He hates it piling up though as he likes it clean. The area has numerous photographs taken by him that he thought were suitable for framing. The kitchen is very modern and well-equipped, with dark granite countertops.

The bedroom is cozy and inviting, he has little lights in the shape of stars that hang down from his black curtains. Big enough queen bed, each pillow was a different color and a soft duvet. TV on the wall. He has a record player nearby and a box of vinyl records on the floor. Lots of notebooks. Folders. There is a desk near the other window that has his desktop. Also, there is a lot of photography equipment in the floor.

There is a small balcony too. He likes to unwind and enjoy a cup of coffee in the morning or a glass of whiskey. Potted plants, string lights, and two chairs decorate this balcony.

[abookishdreamer]

Character Intro: Karmanor (Kingdom of Ichor)

Nicknames- Karm by his family & friends

Dad by his children

Age- 37 (immortal)

Location- Hearthwood neighborhood, New Olympus

Personality- He's very laid back and effortlessly charming without coming across as cocky. A true gentleman, the values of hospitality, kindness, & hard work is dear to his heart. He's single.

He has the standard abilities of a god. As the demi-god of the harvest his other powers/abilities include limited photokinesis, wheat generation/manipulation, being able to communicate with/shapeshift into farm animals, limited atmokinesis, and edafoskinesis (soil manipulation).

Karmanor is a single father to fraternal twins- his daughter Krysothemis (Kristy) & E.B (Eubouleus II) named after his grandfather. Other members of his family includes his father Eubouleus (god of the swine & ploughing), his stepmother Baubo (who everyone calls Barbie), his half sister Karme (demi-goddess of the harvest), and his niece Britomartis (goddess of mountains, hunting, & fishing nets).

He & his kids live in a large barn style house on a small 10 acre farm in the Hearthwood neighborhood of New Olympus. It's wide and spacious with gambrel roofs, wood siding, & wraparound porch. The flooring inside is cedarwood. A lot of the interior design was done by Barbie. The inside gives off a rustic charm with neutral shades of beige, cream, gray, pastel blue, and mint green, leather furniture, a stone fireplace in the livingroom, wood furniture, & stone finishes in the bathrooms. Various decorative animal horns and antlers are mounted on the walls.

Karmanor is unsure about his maternal parentage- whether his mother was a mortal or dryad. His normal was growing up with his father for the first few years before his half sister came along. It's said that Karmanor's mother died in childbirth.

He's an early riser, starting off the morning at his farm- collecting the laid chicken eggs, milking the cows, & cleaning out the horse stable before his kids are even up.

Karmanor doesn't like talking about the mother of his children, not even to his kids. Their mother was a beautiful dryad named Birdie. One look into her doe shaped hazel green eyes and he was done for! A short while after the twins was born, Karmanor noticed Birdie become emotionally distant to him & the babies. She rarely held, changed, or fed them. One night after the twins' 3rd birthday, with a backpack strapped to her back, Birdie came to him with a document relinquishing her parental rights- with a promise that she'd be back to visit them. Karmanor hasn't seen or heard from her since.

Most days he'll let the kids have cereal or a breakfast bar, but on the weekends, he likes making a HUGE spread for the three of them- buttermilk vanilla spice pancakes, scrambled eggs, bacon, sausage gravy, buttermilk biscuits, hash browns, and cheesy grits.

Karmanor is fluent in Minoan.

A go-to drink for him is iced tea. He also likes water, orange juice, bourbon punch, beer, lemonade, white wine, watermelon sangrias, & scotch on the rocks. A usual from The Roasted Bean is an olympian sized dark roast coffee (with plenty of sugar).

Being a father is his first and foremost important job to Karmanor. He's actively involved in their lives, teaching them how to cook & tend a farm. Even though his son hasn't gone through puberty yet, Karmanor has taught E.B how to shave and they both ride their horses on the farm or check out a baseball game. His horse's name is Dusty while his son's horse is called Buckeye.

His favorite frozen treat is butter pecan ice cream.

With Kristy, Karmanor and her will have a daddy/daughter date that will usually consist of tea at the Grand Eaglepoint Hotel followed by a trip to the Candycloud cotton candy shop before ending the day at the Pterýgio & Kýlisi bookstore. He knows he overcompensates with her due to her mother not being in her life. Karmanor comforted Kristy when she came crying to him, asking "Why doesn't she want us?"

At The Bread Box, he loves getting the barbeque pulled pork sandwich with a medium potato salad. He also likes the taco salad with extra sour cream and catalina dressing.

He didn't mind taking a backseat in the family business while Karme handled the reigns of The Swinery, the largest meat & cold cut producer in Olympius. All the free time Karmanor has is dedicated to his kids and other pursuits.

Karmanor & his kids often travel to Crete to see the rest of the family. He's not as close to Bri as he'd like, but they've been trying to spend more time together, often by going fishing.

In the pantheon his best friend is Pathos (god of emotion). Their friendship has deepened into a brotherhood, bonding over the fact that they're single fathers. Karmanor is the nonós to Pathos' son Storge. It's also an added bonus that their kids are great friends too! Sometimes Karmanor & the kids will spend time at Pathos' vacation house in Mykonos. They'll often catch sights of E.B playing with Storge in the backyard or Kristy doing some dance challenges with Philia (goddess of friendship) and Xenia (goddess of hospitality).

Before Birdie, Demeter (goddess of the harvest & agriculture) was the first women he'd been with. They had a casual on/off relationship before they mutually decided to end things romantically. They held on to their friendship and he's even friends with her former fiance Iasion.

Karmanor's also friends with Pherusa (goddess of substance & farm estates); she's Kristy's noná, Apólafsi (god of enjoyment), his sister's boyfriend Michalis (Mike), Záchari (god of confectionery), Agathodaemon (Daemon) (god of vineyards, grainfields, & luck), Triptomelus (god of farming), Priapus (god of fertility, vegetable gardens, livestock, sexuality, & masculinity), Trochilus (god of the mill wheel), Eunostos (goddess of the flour mill), Promylaia, Hestia (goddess of the hearth), Thilasmós (goddess of nursing), Kópros (god of manure & excrement), Pan (god of the wild, satyrs, shepherds, & rustic music), Livádi (goddess of meadows), Chiron (the immortal centaur), Eudaimonia (goddess of happiness), Kéfi (goddess of mirth), and Epimetheus (Titan god of afterthought). Karmanor was the official mentor to Deipneus (god of cooking & breadmaking).

Lately he's been getting into competitive bull riding. Karmanor's competed in a few competitions in Thebes & Crete- winning 1st place in a few! He's also a fan of the Olympic Derby. There are plans for he and Epimetheus to attend the hippocampus race portion next summer.

Karmanor's favorite dessets include peach cobbler, Barbie's buttermilk pie, his sister's peach bourbon upside-down bundt cake, his kids' hummingbird brownies, & his dad's kourabiedes.

He was once in a photoshoot for a special issue of Kytheria magazine focusing on the male deities of the pantheon. Karmanor's section was a photo of him in a wheat field wearing nothing but a cowboy hat and a pair of cowboy boots, a wheelbarrow expertly placed in front of his privates.

Karmanor often says that he's too busy to pursue a romantic relationship, but that's not true. He's conflicted about his growing feelings and attraction to Thilasmós. Karmanor doesn't want her to feel uncomfortable, jeopardize their friendship, or get hurt himself. Things shifted when they went line dancing at a bar in Naxos. He pretended to be her boyfriend to curb the advances of a drunk patron who was flirting with her.

There's a pair of jeweled cowboy boots and hat that Kéfi bought for him as a gift.

He has a wicked talent with the harmonica and acoustic guitar!

In his free time Karmanor enjoys spending time with his kids, cooking, bull riding, surfing, horseback riding, football (soccer), playing pool, archery, reading, basketball, hunting, gardening, and sunbathing.

Some of his favorite foods include his dad's pot roast with roasted potatoes, his sister's corn pudding, Barbie's spicy barbeque ribs, and chicken fried steak with rice & gravy.

"Don't judge each day by the harvest you reap but by the seeds you plant."

[black-white-and-red-all-over]

Serpentine (Natasha Romanoff x OC) - Chapter One

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SHIELD PERSONNEL C-019831690 RESTRICTED ACCESS: Director's Permission Required ———————————————————————— File Type: Mission Report (102) - Incident Report (67) - Witness' Statement (23) - Personal (56)

Load Personal.1b? Yes or No Transcript Available. Display? Yes or No

L O A D I N G . . .

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On a dreary night in Brooklyn, Director Nicholas Fury of S.H.I.E.L.D. walks with a stiffness in his step and a grimace on his face.

His dark coat catches the light mist that has settled on the sidewalk with every footfall, spinning it in clouds around his feet that exaggerate their militaristic gait. The director's gloved hands are shoved in stiff, leather pockets to avoid the light drizzle which leaves beads of water rolling down his shoulders. The man's eyes dart from left to right, analysing every movement however slight it would seem to the usual passerby.

Overall, his silhouette emanates an aura of danger that most on the street shy away from.

However, looking closely enough, nearly imperceptible anxiety reveals itself in the stiffness of his shoulders. It is only once Fury approaches the emerald green door of a white brownstone on Carroll Street that he lets his habitual grimace fall and — after one final scan ahead and behind — makes his way to the stoop.

He raises a hand to knock.

As expected, the door swings open before he can touch it to a dimly lit and noticeably empty entryway. The only indication of anybody home is a scratchy record of Guy Lombardo's "Give Me the Moon Over Brooklyn" playing jovially beyond his line of sight.

Although the director quickly glances past the threshold, he seems to anticipate that he doesn't find anyone there to greet him. Instead, it is only the slight creak of shifting weight on wood that alerts him to the presence of his host.

"Lovely to see you, Nick. Boots off and set by the door, coat on the rack. I'll start a pot," calls a dulcet, strangely accented voice from further inside the apartment.

Fury lightly scoffs, but steps through the door and shrugs off his coat anyway. He considers the gun holstered against his hip, wondering if he should leave it at the door or-

"Additionally, you can drop that paranoia of yours. It's giving me a headache," the voice calls once again, assuring him of the decision he should make. "Rest assured that no one with less than savoury intentions walks this street without me knowing about it."

The man rolls his eyes, all the while hanging his coat — holster and gloves, as well — as per her request and making a point of closing the door with a sleeve pulled over his bare left hand.

"I see you haven't looked into the term 'welcome wagon' like I asked," Fury calls back to the disembodied voice, his own touched with a hint of annoyance.

Without any sound this time to signify her nearness, a woman suddenly passes in front of him with a coffee filter in her hand and a smirk on her lips. Her alabaster complexion blends perfectly with short hair too white to be natural, so much so that he almost doesn't notice the equally pale ball python resting at her throat.

"Can't say I have, Nick. Now, I know removing your coat must've been quite distressing, but the boots need to go too. House rules."

Fury glares at her slightly, but nonetheless pulls off his boots. A triumphant edge to her smirk appears as he does, but it vanishes the moment he stands straight and theatrically gestures to his boots, which now sit neatly on a tray by the door.

"Thank you, kindly," the woman quips before turning swiftly into the area to the right of the doorway, gesturing for her guest to follow.

As he trails behind her, Fury isn't surprised to find that the house still reflects her severe appearance. Everything is in some shade of black, white or green, barring a few small accents of a brilliant amber, and every piece of furniture is either antique or meant to look that way. His host is certainly an old soul, though much more literally than most people realise.

Fury eventually settles onto a sofa next to the record player, which has moved on to another song. In the kitchen across from him, the woman begins to scoop coffee grounds into the filter with her left hand, the snake now curled around her right. Against the deep black of her attire and the cabinetry, she and the python seem to eerily glow in comparison to their surroundings.

"Now, milk? Or are we brooding and taking coffee black today?"

Fury sends a look to his host's back, which she holds calmly after gracefully pivoting to meet it. A short staring match later, her opponent relents begrudgingly.

"Milk."

His host's eyes brighten slightly as she turns to finish her task without another word.

In the meantime, the director continues to scan his surroundings. After a moment, his eyes come to rest on the small table in front of him, and something atop it prompts him to raise a brow curiously.

"So... you knew I was coming?"

The woman is confused by his meaning at first, but realises as she approaches the coffee maker that a fresh pot already sits inside of it. She looks perplexed for a moment, but nonetheless exchanges the filter in her hand for a mug. After pouring the still steaming drink, she makes her way to Fury only to notice that milk and sugar have already been laid out as well.

She sets down his coffee soundlessly and takes the seat adjacent from him with nothing more than a shrug.

"It would seem that someone did," she says lowly, a small smile masking the annoyance that lingers in her eyes.

Fury nods slightly. He seems to understand the meaning behind her cryptic statement, but nonetheless continues to eye her carefully.

"And yet, even with a warning, that blasted snake is still here."

The woman's amber eyes snap to his, issuing a challenge that she knows neither of them would like to lose.

"Oh, hush. Trygve is a perfectly respectable snake, and better company than you could ever be."

As if to prove a point, the python -- Trygve -- flicks her tongue and 'kisses' her owner's cheek.

Fury chuckles, crossing one leg over the other and draping an arm over the back of the couch. He's relaxed slightly, a feat not many people could hope to achieve while hosting the notoriously paranoid man. It's a strange look on him, for sure, but a welcome one all the same.

"If that thing is better company than I am, I want to hear it tell a joke. I suppose I could concede to slam poetry if it was really good," he jokes lightheartedly.

In response, the woman teasingly lets the snake glide between her hands and watches Nick's eyes follow it nervously. After a moment, she lets Trygve settle around her neck once again and her guest into his seat.

"Don't worry, Nick, I'm only teasing. Tryg could never compete with your sunny disposition, and while her slam poetry is quite good, I'm not sure her jokes are up to par." Fury's eyebrows raise the smallest bit, sensing something tricky in her compliment. Even so, he knows better than to interrupt. "However, you should still call her by her name. It's rude not to."

"I'm sure the snake is incredibly offended," Fury deadpans.

"Oh, she'll be inconsolable for days. Perhaps you should give her a fuzzy as a recompense?"

The man immediately cringes, but expertly hides it by leaning forward in his seat.

"I am not touching her, nor will I be touching anything that goes in her mouth."

"Too squeamish?" Fury looks mildly insulted, so she happily continues. "You've no problem with shooting a person, but deceased infant mice are too much for you to handle?"

The director puffs out his chest and sends her a challenging glare.

"I don't have to touch people to shoot them. That's how guns work." The woman across from him looks unconvinced and on the verge of laughter, which only gets him more worked up. "I also don't feed those people to snakes once they've kicked the bucket!"

"So it's the fact that it's dead?" she says with a marginally darker smirk than before. Her hand moves toward the hollow of her throat. "It doesn't have to be."

The director instantly points a warning finger at her.

"You are not-" he starts, but stops as he sees her smile widen mischievously. "What exactly are you trying to accomplish here?"

The trickster proudly raises her chin a touch.

"Absolutely nothing. Just wanted to see how long I could get you to talk about your fear of snakes — and rodents, apparently — before you noticed," she says arrogantly, relishing the look of disbelief that appears on Nick's features before he ultimately slips away from his usually calm and collected demeanour.

"Why are you so determined to mock me every time I come into your house? First it was my badge-"

"You weren't looking at the camera."

"-then it was the eyepatch-"

"Now, you can't blame me for that."

"-and now it's my thing about mice. Why I continue to-"

Neither says anything as the blonde proudly leans back in her seat. A pregnant silence ensues, neither party willing to concede, until Fury slowly leans forward to rest his elbows on his knees. His tormentor does the same, narrowing her eyes and fashioning her expression into one of mock seriousness.

"Alex, if you say anything about this, to anyone, and I will personally throw your ass out of the Helicarrier."

"Not to worry, director. My lips are sealed," she says cheekily.

Fury tries to decide if she's being truthful or not as she bounces back into her previous position, but his companion — Alex — pulls herself out of her seat before he can decide. She moves to a large terrarium against the wall and carefully sets Trygve inside of it before turning back to see Nick finishing off the last of his coffee. She holds out an expectant — albeit hesitant — hand, but he waves her off and gets up. Instead of letting his host handle the dishes, Fury moves toward the nearest sink and washes out the mug, purposefully using his sleeves to touch the faucet, and carefully sets it on a drying rack.

Alex approaches and rests a hip against the counter, her serious expression noticeably more genuine than before.

"Not that I don't enjoy your visits, but why are you here, Nick?" She asks, her mixed accent warping the words slightly.

The man sighs and crosses his arms heavily.

"Coulson called about a situation at PEGASUS — said that Selvig is having some issues with the Cube. I don't have much more than that, but I figured you'd want to be there when we take a look at it."

She nods, unsurprised by the news.

"I would. I trust Selvig with it, but... my being there would at least provide a safety net if something goes awry."

"My thoughts exactly," Fury affirms, but watches curiously as the woman whom he'd come to know as a friend goes the slightest bit rigid. He takes note of where his hands are and realises that he'd absentmindedly rested one on the counter.

When he removes it and wipes the spot with his sleeve, Alex relaxes a bit and begins moving toward the front door. Fury follows and begins to gather his things.

"Well then, consider my time off interrupted. Just know you'll have to answer to Natasha when she gets back," she remarks stiffly, although some humour slightly slips back into her voice.

Fury, having not considered those particular repercussions of pulling Alex from their little hideout, stops halfway into tying his boots.

"Will she be in a good mood?" he asks.

Alex chuckles in response.

"She's doing a reverse interrogation this time around, so you might get away with your life."

"Good to know." Fury pivots once they reach the foyer, once again stoically staring down into his hosts unnaturally amber eyes. "I'll give you 10 minutes. Car's outside when you're ready."

"I'll be there in 5."

With that, Nick quickly throws a mock salute her way. She returns it with a practised grin and watches him get into a black van. Only when he disappears behind the tinted windows does she shut the door and get to work.

The ghostly girl wastes no time taking several wipes from a container by the door and meticulously disinfecting the doorknob and coat rack, then retreating back into the sitting room to wipe down any and all of the things that her guest had touched. After giving the same ritualistic treatment to the kitchen in turn, she goes to Trygve's terrarium and checks the humidity gauge along with a chart which ensures she's been fed recently.

Once satisfied with the state of the two more pressing rooms, Alex takes a box of tea from the counter and ascends a staircase that hugs the wall of the entryway. Once on the landing, she glides into the bathroom to retrieve a small pouch, inside of which are more wipes, various disinfectants, and gloves. In addition to the pouch, she retrieves a bottle of pills and another case from the medicine cabinet.

With too many things balancing in her arms, Alex next enters her bedroom. After dropping her collection of items and some extra clothing into a leather suitcase, she slides a pair of black gloves onto her hands and makes her way back to the bottom floor. Once there, the woman pulls a small glass rectangle from her pocket which lights up and reveals itself as a high-tech cell phone.

Alex scrolls through her contacts until clicking on one labelled 'Itsy Bitsy', which is settled quite near to the top.

Today 9:54 PM

"Time off interrupted yet again. Heading out to PEGASUS. See you at base."

"O.K. I'll give the boss a pummeling for you when I get back :)"

"Try not to kill him, will you?"

"I make no promises. Be careful <3"

"You too, love. See you soon."

Read at 9:57 PM

A content smile appears on Alex's lips as she grabs a coat from the rack and shrugs it on. Just as she's next slipped on a pair of flats and reached for the doorknob, her eyes are drawn back to her record player. Regardless of the fact that it will stop on its own, Alex walks over to halt the track and slide the record into its case. Once more she almost moves toward the door, but stops abruptly with a conflicted look on her features — after a few moments of pondering, she turns back to her record collection.

It takes a few moments of shifting things around, but she finally pulls out a worn record of Nick DeFrancis' "Fly Me to the Moon" and carefully turns it over to reveal a small note on one edge of the casing.

Still waiting! Love, Howie.

Regardless of the cute nature of the note, not even a flicker of a smile appears on her face. Instead, Alex simply places the gift at the base of her briefcase before turning off the lights and exiting her apartment with haste.

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When Alex eventually spots his car, she looks inside to see a freshly wiped seat and an impatient Nicholas Fury. She slips in and sets the briefcase at her feet while Fury puts the car into gear.

"Thank you, Nick," she says quietly. 

He seems to notice the shift in her mood, but doesn't say anything about it.

"Well I've gotta keep you happy somehow, or you might make the Tesseract blow up on purpose."

"It'd take a bit more than not wiping down a seat."

"You gonna let me know where the line is?" he inquires while blatantly running a red light.

The woman looks over at him with a raised brow.

"Somewhere between running a red and kicking a puppy," she scolds.

Nick simply looks over at her with an innocent smile.

"I'll be sure to stay away from puppies, then. Can't let myself get tempted."

"That's awful."

"I wasn't the one who brought it up!"

Finally, a short laugh escapes Alex's lips as she shakes her head.

"I suppose we can call it a tie, then."

Fury seems to accept that answer, so he turns his attention back to driving. A comfortable silence blankets the air between them. Alex turns her head to look out the window and spots Stark Tower rising above the Manhattan skyline. She wonders for a moment whether the gaudiness of the building truly reflects the character of the man who inhabits it. From what she'w heard from Natasha, it certainly did.

Then again, she has more than enough reason to doubt that.

"So, how was time off treating you before I showed up?" Fury asks, breaking the silence and pulling Alex out of her wonderment.

She sighs somewhat defeatedly.

"It was alright. Very quiet, but I suppose that was the point. Anyhow, it's not getting any less irritable."

Fury grimaces a bit, but doesn't let his disappointment show too much.

"Have you found anything that calms it down?"

Alex thinks for a moment, but Nick can immediately tell that she isn't coming up with much.

"As of right now, very few things. Natasha's started teaching me ballet, and it seems to enjoy her company, so that's a step in the right direction. Other than that, though..." Nick gives her a look, which she returns. "Look, I'm managing it. Not particularly well, but I am. It's proving to be a bit difficult, as per usual."

Alex's eyes flare a brighter yellow for a moment and her attention goes elsewhere. Her eyes roll at nothing in particular.

Nick carefully averts his gaze and sighs heavily.

"What are the chances of you just... talking to it?"

"I do talk to it — I am talking to it — but I won't be giving it free rein until I know it isn't going to react like that every time it thinks I'm being threatened."

"From what you've told me, that's next to impossible," Nick responds carefully.

Alex lets her shoulders drop, discouraged.

"It's going to have to adjust. As much as I know it's only acting on its nature, it can't be lashing out at people that don't deserve it."

She looks guilty — afraid, even — as she says it, and Nick can't help but notice. He grips the steering wheel a bit tighter.

"Alex, I'm gonna be straight with you. I'd like you back in action as soon as possible, and being alone isn't going to make this situation any better."

The girl's eyes widen and her head cocks to one side, imagining all of the ways that the arrangement he's imagining could go wrong.

"As long as it's being this protective, I'm not sure I trust it around people," she says hesitantly.

Nick chuckles a bit.

"The people you spend time with aren't necessarily breakable. I'm sure they could handle a few days of readjusting."

Alex looks out the window once again, contemplating his words. She knows he's been right about most things of this nature in the past. However, there is an ever-worsening sensation in her gut that tells her this might be one of the rare occasions that he's wrong.

She takes a deep breath in and out before settling on a decision.

Don't think this means I'm not still mad at you.

"Fine. But if someone else gets hurt, it'll be on you."

"I trust you won't let that happen."

Unfortunately, Alex knows that his trust means very little to the voice in the back of her head, and it's not at all worried about breaking it.

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A/N: Hello everyone! Please remember to vote and comment if you are enjoying the story, as updates will heavily depend on interest. Welcome to Serpentine! (Note: This is reposted from my Wattpad account. Please do not repost without giving credit or replicate in any way.)

[frankmes]

5 simple solid oak dining table decoration and styling ideas

There wasn't much else in the dining room except tables and chairs. Sure, there might be a fun bar cart moment or cutlery display case, but we can probably all agree that the table is the star. Even if the solid oak dining table isn't the only surface area for your decorative items, it's probably the main gathering area and the first thing people notice when they walk into the room. Therefore, it is vital to decorate it carefully! Just like designing your coffee table, your dining table deserves extra attention. Next, find a dozen ideas and tricks, and then recreate your favorites. Garden statue Stonebird statues enliven this large solid oak dining table in a farmhouse designed by Hadas Dembo at Mise en Scene Design. Vintage French chandeliers (hanging where there used to be haysheds) create sophisticated tones, while durable furniture adds a sensibility. The tabletop itself is a marble shard from an old chocolate factory in Vermont. A jar full of freshly cut flowers is perfect for a formal and legendary cozy farmhouse restaurant. Statue of metal In the space designed by Shawn Henderson, a large rose-gold egg statue draws attention to the vintage Hans Wagner solid oak dining table. Picking up bronze candlesticks, pendants, and candlesticks, Henderson proves that mixing metal and wood (dark mahogany cabinets, decaying overhead beams, whitewashed oak floors, and mahogany screens) is a powerful way to deepen the soul of a room while sticking to simple tones. follicular A series of vases makes this classic solid oak dining table in Alexandra Kaehler's home feel fresh and vibrant. We like that the arrangement of flowers is all coordinated, and the height and shape of the vases are varied, both cohesive and varied. subminiature A figurine in a glass case is the unexpected centerpiece of this restaurant designed by Juan Carretero. This circa 1790 restaurant in the Catskill area of New York made us swoon. The ceiling is painted with a high gloss blush, which brings candlelight to the room and really enhances the gorgeous Art Deco carpet. The curvy, modern dining chair contrasts sharply with the gold-framed portrait. Declaration tablecloth "The Ball family wanted a home that was elegant but also functional and fun," designer Augusta Hoffman said in explaining the project. "They are always fun and ask for a comfortable space to host large parties. The solid oak dining table can accommodate 25 people." With or without guests, interesting tablecloths add vibrancy to the entire space and warm up the hard surface.

[mogulinterior]

Rustic Dark Wood Vintage Furniture

Mogul Interior, Florida carries a vast collection of antique armoires that are handcrafted with vintage warm hues, lovingly-refinished distressed wood – perfect for a peaceful, rustic atmosphere with a hint of classical style.

Each piece carries an ancient energy, steeped in its history of hand-carved artisan craftsmanship. This modern rustic coffee table is crafted from reclaimed Indian doors, bringing vintage character and classic charm to any living space.

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Turquoise antique rustic cabinet, Carved Indian Living Room Cabinet, Bathroom Storage Chest, teak Wood Hallway Accent Armoire

Vintage Ganesha Artistic Wall Decor, Interior Barn Door,

Antique Indian 4 Door Credenza, Boho Brutalist Midcentury Door Sideboard Cabinet, Rustic Farmhouse Dining Buffet, Bar Storage Chest

Natural Wood Carved Barn Door, Rustic Modern Sliding Doors, Custom, Bedroom Doors, Bathroom Sliders, Room Divider, Boho Resort Design

Made from vintage doors with burnished brass and rusted iron rivets, this unique piece features an array of rustic textures and colors, offering an authentic expression of timeless style. The armoire wardrobe in distressed woods, accent armoires and a medieval old door dining table are accented by vintage patinas that are hand rubbed into the aged woods.

We present a unique collection of vintage furniture, old door armoires, carved sideboards, living room credenzas, reclaimed wood dressers, arched bookshelves, old door tables, consoles and more. The rustic Indian furniture collection provides the perfect mix of vintage beauty and charm, featuring Jaipur Blue reclaimed wood sideboards, arched consoles, whitewashed tables, and statement armoires.

Distressed woods, subtle hues, and intricate detailing create a home with a laidback yet luxurious feel. Feel the energy of the bygone days and create a space with character and soul with this timeless collection

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[homeimprovementway]

What Color of Furniture Goes With Dark Wood Floors: 5 Perfect Options

Furniture in neutral colors or lighter shades complements dark wood floors. Dark wood floors can be paired with furniture in neutral colors or lighter shades to create a harmonious and balanced room design. Choosing furniture in colors such as beige, cream, white, or light gray can help create a contrast and enhance the beauty of dark wood floors. These neutral colors also provide a versatile backdrop for different decorative elements and allow you to easily change the look and feel of the room over time. Additionally, incorporating furniture with natural materials or textures, such as wicker or rattan, can further enhance the visual appeal of the space. By utilizing these color and material choices, you can create a stunning and cohesive look for your room with dark wood floors.

1. Neutral Colors

The color of furniture plays a significant role in the overall aesthetics of a room with dark wood floors. One of the safest choices that can complement dark wood floors is neutral colors. Neutral colors have a timeless appeal and can create a harmonious balance with the rich tones of the dark wood. In this section, we will explore two popular neutral colors that work exceptionally well with dark wood floors - beige and gray. 1.1 Beige Beige is a warm, versatile color that effortlessly complements dark wood floors. Its earthy undertones can enhance the natural beauty of the wood, creating a cozy and inviting atmosphere. When choosing beige furniture, consider the shade that best complements your dark wood floors. Lighter beige shades provide a subtle contrast, while deeper beige tones can add depth and richness to the room. Here are some ways you can incorporate beige furniture into your space: - Pair a beige sofa or armchair with dark wood coffee tables or side tables to create a sophisticated and balanced look. Add cushions or throws in contrasting colors to create visual interest. - Opt for beige dining chairs or bar stools to create a seamless flow between the dark wood floors and the dining area. This combination exudes elegance and creates a warm and welcoming ambience. - Incorporate beige accent pieces such as ottomans, rugs, or curtains to add texture and visual appeal to the room. These accessories can tie the furniture and the flooring together, creating a cohesive and well-designed space. 1.2 Gray Gray is another neutral color that pairs exceptionally well with dark wood floors. It offers a modern and sophisticated look, providing a perfect backdrop for various design styles. Gray furniture can create a contemporary vibe while still maintaining a sense of warmth and balance with the dark wood floors. Consider the following ideas for incorporating gray furniture into a room with dark wood floors: - Choose a gray sofa or sectional to anchor the seating area. Pair it with accent chairs in complementary tones, such as charcoal gray or lighter shades of gray, to create a cohesive and stylish look. - Opt for a gray dining table and chairs to create a sleek and chic dining space. Combine it with pops of color through accessories or table settings for added visual interest. - Incorporate gray storage units, such as shelving or dressers, to provide functional and stylish storage solutions that blend seamlessly with the dark wood floors. Remember, when selecting beige or gray furniture, it's essential to consider the overall color palette of the room. Coordinate the colors and textures to create a cohesive and visually pleasing space. By incorporating beige or gray furniture into a room with dark wood floors, you can achieve a balanced, elegant, and timeless aesthetic.

2. Bright And Bold Colors

When it comes to decorating a room with dark wood floors, bright and bold colors can create a stunning contrast. The richness and depth of the dark wood can be perfectly complemented by vibrant hues that make a bold statement. In this section, we will explore two bright and bold colors that go well with dark wood floors: white and red. 2.1 White White furniture is a classic choice when it comes to pairing with dark wood floors. The clean and crisp appearance of white creates a striking contrast against the deep tones of the flooring. Whether you opt for a white sofa, coffee table, or dining set, the combination of white furniture and dark wood floors can create a sophisticated and elegant look. With white furniture, you have the ability to play with different textures and materials. Consider a white leather sofa or a white lacquered coffee table to add a touch of modernity to your space. Alternatively, you can go for a more traditional look with a white wooden dining set. The beauty of white furniture is its versatility. It works well with any color scheme, allowing you to easily change the overall look of the room by simply switching out accessories such as pillows, curtains, and rugs. Additionally, white furniture helps to brighten up the room and make it feel more spacious, which is especially beneficial in rooms with limited natural light. 2.2 Red If you're looking to make a bold statement and add a pop of color to your space, red furniture can be the perfect choice. The warmth and vibrancy of red can create a dramatic contrast against the dark wood floors, turning your room into a showstopper. When incorporating red furniture, it's important to find the right balance. Too much red can overwhelm the space and make it feel too busy. Instead, consider using red as an accent color. A red accent chair or a statement red cabinet can instantly draw the eye and become the focal point of the room. Keep in mind that different shades of red can evoke different moods. Bold and vibrant shades like cherry red or crimson can add energy and excitement to the room, while deeper shades like burgundy or wine red can create a more luxurious and cozy atmosphere. To complete the look, consider adding accessories in complementary colors, such as neutral tones like beige or cream, or even metallic accents like gold or silver. These can help to balance out the strong presence of red and create a harmonious and visually appealing space. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tVCumefNuF4

3. Earthy Tones

When it comes to choosing a color scheme for your furniture to complement your dark wood floors, earthy tones can be a great option. These colors bring warmth and a natural feel to your space, creating a cozy and inviting atmosphere. Two earthy tones that work especially well with dark wood floors are olive green and rustic orange. 3.1 Olive Green Olive green is a versatile color that pairs beautifully with dark wood floors. This rich and earthy hue adds depth and sophistication to your space. Whether you opt for olive green furniture pieces or incorporate the color through accessories like throw pillows or curtains, it will create a stunning contrast against the dark wood. In addition to its aesthetic appeal, olive green also has a calming effect and can bring a touch of nature indoors. Create a harmonious space by pairing olive green furniture with beige or cream-colored walls, allowing the dark wood floors to be the focal point of the room. 3.2 Rustic Orange Rustic orange is another earthy tone that complements dark wood floors beautifully. This warm and welcoming color adds a touch of energy and liveliness to your space. Consider incorporating rustic orange through furniture pieces like chairs or sofas, or by using it in accent pieces such as artwork or decorative vases. To create a cohesive look, pair rustic orange furniture with neutral-colored walls like light gray or beige. This combination will allow the dark wood floors to stand out while adding visual interest and warmth to your space.

Frequently Asked Questions On What Color Of Furniture Goes With Dark Wood Floors

What Color Wood Furniture Goes Best With Dark Wood Floors? Light colored wood furniture complements dark wood floors beautifully, creating a striking contrast. Opt for shades like oak, maple, or birch to balance the richness of the dark floors and add a touch of lightness to your space. Should Furniture Be Darker Or Lighter Than Floor? Furniture should complement the floor by either being darker or lighter. There isn't a definitive rule; it depends on personal preference and the overall aesthetic you want to achieve. How Do You Brighten A Room With Dark Wood Floors? Brighten a room with dark wood floors by using light-colored furniture, rugs, and curtains to create contrast. Use mirrors to reflect natural light and choose light paint colors for the walls. Incorporate bright and colorful accessories to add pops of color and create an overall airy and inviting atmosphere. What Color Cabinets With Dark Wood Floors? Dark wood floors are versatile and can be paired with various cabinet colors. Light-colored cabinets like white or cream create a contrasting look, while dark cabinets like espresso or black offer a cohesive and dramatic appeal. Ultimately, it's a matter of personal taste and the desired aesthetic for your space.

Conclusion

To summarize, choosing the right furniture color to complement dark wood floors requires careful consideration. Opt for lighter or contrasting hues to create a striking visual contrast or choose warmer tones to create a seamless and cozy look. Ultimately, it's all about finding a balance that enhances the elegance and character of your dark wood floors. Experiment, take inspiration from design trends, and let your personal style guide you in making the perfect choice for your living space. Read the full article

[furniselanofficial]

The Art of Caring for Sheesham Wood Furniture: Maintenance Tips for Longevity

Welcome to Furniselan, where we take immense pride in providing you with exquisite Sheesham wood furniture that exudes timeless elegance and unmatched quality. As an expert in the field, I am thrilled to share essential maintenance tips that will help you preserve the natural beauty of your Sheesham wood furniture for years to come. Whether you’ve purchased a stunning Sheesham wood console table, a solid wood coffee table, a functional Sheesham TV unit, or a regal Sheesham wood queen bed, these care instructions will ensure that your cherished pieces stand the test of time.

Regular Dusting and Cleaning To keep your Sheesham wood furniture looking radiant, start by dusting it regularly using a soft, lint-free cloth. Dust particles can settle on the surface, and regular dusting prevents scratching during cleaning. For more thorough cleaning, dampen the cloth slightly with water and gently wipe the surfaces to remove any grime or stains. Avoid using harsh chemical cleaners or abrasive materials, as they may damage the wood’s natural finish.

Protective Measures To safeguard your Sheesham wood furniture from potential damage, consider using coasters, placemats, or tablecloths for protection against spills, heat, and scratches. Placing hot items directly on the surface can leave unsightly marks or discoloration, so taking preventative measures will help maintain the furniture’s pristine appearance.

Polish for Lustrous Shine

Periodic polishing is crucial for maintaining the lustrous shine of Buy Bar Chairs Online. Use a high-quality, non-silicone-based furniture polish or a specialized Sheesham wood polish to enhance the natural beauty of the wood. Apply the polish sparingly with a soft cloth, following the wood grain. Polishing not only adds a brilliant sheen but also nourishes the wood and protects it from environmental elements.

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Avoid Sunlight Exposure While Sheesham wood is highly durable, prolonged exposure to direct sunlight can cause fading and discoloration over time. Position your furniture away from windows or use curtains and blinds to filter sunlight during peak hours. This simple precaution will help preserve the rich, dark hues of Sheesham wood for years to come.

Humidity Control Sheesham wood, like all natural wood, is sensitive to changes in humidity levels. Extreme dryness or excessive moisture can lead to cracking or warping. Maintain a consistent indoor humidity level of around 40-45% to prevent such issues. Use humidifiers or dehumidifiers, especially during dry or humid seasons, to create an optimal environment for your precious furniture.

Periodic Waxing In addition to regular polishing, occasional waxing is an excellent way to protect the surface of your Sheesham Wood Dining Sets. Beeswax or Carnauba wax are ideal choices, as they provide a protective layer that repels moisture and prevents dust buildup. Apply the wax thinly using a soft cloth and buff it gently to achieve a beautiful, long-lasting finish.

Congratulations! You are now equipped with the knowledge and expertise to care for your Sheesham wood furniture with utmost love and attention. By following these simple maintenance tips, your Sheesham wood console table, solid wood coffee table, Sheesham TV unit, or Sheesham wood queen bed will continue to exude timeless beauty and elegance for generations to come. At Furniselan, we believe that proper care and maintenance are essential to make your furniture last a lifetime. So, go ahead and cherish the artistry of Sheesham wood by incorporating these maintenance practices into your furniture care routine. Happy furnishing!

Remember, if you have any specific concerns or questions, our dedicated customer support team is always here to assist you. Feel free to explore our extensive collection of Sheesham wood furniture and make the most of your Furniselan experience! Happy shopping!

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