She seems brighter when she comes back, though we all ignore the blotchiness of her face, like she’s just been crying. Her lashes are a little wet too, making them long and spiky like she’s a girl from a cartoon. She and Liam are smiling into each other's faces now, mumbling vague reassurances, giggling together as though what just occurred was so silly, and hasn’t caused any genuine hurt to either of them.
When he kisses her on the cheek she flinches slightly as though there is something objectionable or embarrassing about the way that he touches her, and in that moment his insecurity makes sense.
I think everyone feels bad for her then and wants for her to feel included because they start asking her questions about school which she answers enthusiastically, making sure to look very interested and engaged in what everyone is saying. It occurs to me that she’s a nice person, that she’s making an effort with others and being polite, and perhaps my initial judgement of her formality was unfair. I think I should try harder to be a nice person too, but then I wonder if it’s even in my nature to be that way. I’ve sort of already embraced being a bastard and allowed it to define me.
“Tell everyone what you want to do in college,” Shane encourages, and Evie fiddles with the ends of her plaits. “Oh, well, art, I think.”
“You make art?” I say.
Immediately her face reddens. It must be a side effect of her kind of complexion.
“Yeah, I suppose I’m okay at it.”
“Everyone says she’s great at it.” Liam says proudly, as though we are discussing his accomplishments and not Evie’s. “I haven’t seen her drawings yet, but the girls were raving about her. She draws in her sketchbook every day.”
“That’s cool.” I speak pointedly to her and not him, “What do you draw?”
“Just whatever I see. Landscapes, people, sometimes still life, like stuff that’s lying around in the mobile home. I really like doing it, because when I’m drawing I don’t have to think about anything else.”
I smile. Somehow it’s comforting to hear her talking about art in a way that’s wholly familiar to me, as a meditation, a form of escapism.
“Jude is an artist too.” Jen says. “Ye have something in common.”
“Yeah, I’m studying art in college next year. I already have my place in the Berlin Academy of Fine Arts to do a degree.”
“Oh, so you’re studying abroad?”
“Yeah, it’s going to be good. Four years in Germany, I can’t wait. I’m actually leaving at the end of the summer,” which is… about seven weeks. My palms prickle and become damp with sweat but I keep smiling. It’s fine. Everything will just fall into place as long as I don't get stressed.
Claire interrupts our conversation with her return, and kneels whispering urgent sounding things to Evie. I don’t hear anything but the delightful phrase “throwing up everywhere” and wonder with utter dread what exactly constitutes everywhere. On the couch? The rug? Up the walls? Well, at least it’ll be motivation to clean the house for once. Still, I’m struck by how much I fucking hate Kelly Healy in that moment, and consider suggesting that Jen clean up her vomit as penance for inviting her in the first place.
“I can get my dad to come and collect us,” Liam is saying as he and Evie are getting up to help.
“Is everything okay?” says Jen, and Evie smiles tightly, “Yeah, just Kelly’s sick, so we’re going to have to take her home and look after her and stuff.”
“You don’t have to go, Evie, you can stay here with us if you want.”
She shakes her head, “No, I do. I want to go with them,” she turns to leave, but Jen quickly catches her wrist, “Hey, you should come to Dublin with us this weekend.”
“Huh?”
“Jude and I are going to an exhibition, and you might really like it.”
Usually I’d be pissed off that she’s changing our plans without consulting me first, but it seems like a good idea to me, actually. Maybe it’d be nice to go to an exhibition with someone who enjoys art, and not just Jen who walks around pointing at things and saying I could do that if I was bothered.
“No pressure at all,” I assure her, “but yeah, if you want to, you’re welcome. We’ll mostly be hanging out in the city for the day anyway so whatever you feel like doing.”
Jen pats her hand and gives her a meaningful look, “I’m just saying, it might be nice to get away for an afternoon.”
Evie grins. It’s the happiest I’ve seen her look all night, “I’d love to.”
Beginning // Prev // Next
Corresponding LG Chapter
41 notes
·
View notes
Could I please also pick trick? 🥺🙏🎃
You're a star for doing this, thank you! 💙
Hello darling, here's a nice little M-rated fic for you! D/s elements and alcohol mentioned.
Irresistible
“There, good boy.” Harry watched as the words ran through Draco, a highly visible path: from his flushing cheeks, to his sudden gulp, the hand previously tapping the armrest suddenly gone still.
“Begging pardon,” he said, not quite a question. Harry peered at him from the edge of his nose.
“All right,” with a smile. “I think I might like it even better if you begged.”
Draco’s rosy cheeks went flame-red. “P-Potter!” he inched closer on his seat, tongue darting out to wet his lips, a tiny, unintentional movement. Harry wanted to take his face in both hands, leave him panting and messy and barely coherent and yeah, why not, begging too: Harry, who dreamed of this moment for far too long, sat still. Played with the ice cube on his tongue. Waited.
“You’re a terrible tease,” Draco eventually said with a slightly hysterical wave. He’d left his robes on the desk, sitting there in his tight shirt, in those crisp trousers Harry particularly liked, that he knew, god damn him, made his thighs look fucking edible. Harry wondered if that’s what their students see when they look up at him: someone outrageously, destructively handsome. Someone so clearly Harry’s and who needed to be told that, repeatedly, for days and days on end and maybe for always.
With a sigh he put the whiskey aside. Far more intoxicating, the look in Draco’s eyes. “I’ll never tease you,” he said, as gently as the rasp in his voice allowed, “Not unless you absolutely begged me to.”
The way Draco’s throat tightened on a swallow—sublime. “Potter,” he murmured, a little pleadingly. Harry took pity, then took his chin.
“Don’t worry, darling. You’ll be good for me, yes? And I’ll make sure you’re well and truly satisfied.”
Draco looked down, suddenly shy and unbearably sweet. “I—I want—” Harry waited patiently. When nothing more came:
“Yes, sweetheart? Tell me. What do you want?”
“Hmm?” in all fairness, the way Harry’s thumb kept tracing Draco’s bottom lip might have been slightly distracting. “Potter, I—”
It was mostly an accident, that the thumb slipped past those pink lips and now rested on Draco’s tongue. The gasp, and then the aborted moan, and Draco’s jaw going all slack—also not intentional, and liquid fire in his blood.
“Don’t worry,” Harry made himself say, and lightly pet right behind Draco’s ear, “we’ll go very slowly. We’ll only do what you—”
“Fuck you, Potter,” Draco mumbled, only half-forming the words and then, with his eyes closed, sucked Harry’s brains out through his thumb.
“What?”
It went out with a slick pop. “Stop horsing around,” Draco panted, tilting his head to level Harry the most scorching look, “and make me beg already.”
“Oh,” Harry managed, then, “oh, right,” laughing with a combination of relief and affection, so potent it nearly threw him off the chair. “My good boy,” with emphasis he hoped wasn’t detectable on the first word, but Draco shook his head and fell to his knees on the rug.
“Yours,” he said, and crawled right between Harry’s thighs, “Come on, you bastard, just—”
Harry did the only possible thing: took his face with both hands and kissed him, kissed him, kissed him. With every intention of leaving him panting and messy and barely coherent, making him his.
72 notes
·
View notes