#but also it meant i was expecting a load of money into my account today and i got like. half what i expected

[hella1975]

not arguing that gels do not lack the many pros of acrylics but like they are more expensive than normal paint cause they last much longer. you probably already know this but like. just in case you like literally think you paid for paint. gel is a little more elite. but still not acrylics. sorry for the series of events :(

i do know that they last longer! my nail tech was trying to reassure me and she was like 'these ones can last up to 3 weeks!!!!' and i was like girl i dont even want them for 3 DAYS 😭 pure shambles

[reeesea]

Something Sweet: Part One

~the sweetest drink on the menu~

one ~ two ~ three ~ four ~ five ~ six ~ seven ~ eight ~ nine

pairing: just minsung, han jisung/lee minho

warnings: mild language (like barely)

words: 3.5k (2k too many ngl)

summary: Minho is working his usual shift at Seoul's most expensive high end restaurant, when a trio of new-comers arrive and by the end of Minho’s tedious night he’s plus one additional phone number.

a/n: To be honest this is the first thing I’ve ever written and actually posted. SO please accept this minsung one-shot that just came out of wanting more waiter Minho in my life. anyway if you read it and like it let me know, and maybe ill write more of it. In my head it has at least a few more chapters of non-plot where the other boys show up <3

---------------------

It had only been an hour since the dinner rush started and Minho was already counting the minutes until he could collect his tips and go home. Sure, he could think of countless more exhausting jobs compared to being a waiter at Menu 98 (an upscale restaurant in a part of town he most definitely did not live in), but today just hit different. He never had to do much more than just put on his Customer Server Smile ™, not mess up the orders, pour the wine without spilling, and recommend the highest priced appetizer if asked. Pretty simple stuff. Nothing too draining, but still the exhaustion set in, probably due to spending 2 more hours in the dance studio than he should’ve the previous day. 

His feet were paying for those additional long hours trying to perfect choreo by making each minute of his shift more painful than the last. Even so, working at the ever popular restaurant paid for the daily discomfort that Minho may have felt from his blistered feet. The restaurant was a well known hot spot for anyone with enough money to casually spend the equivalent of three of Minho's paychecks on a meal. CEOs and their business partners along with idols and some lesser known celebrities made up most of their usual clientele on a casual Friday night like this one. The customers always came in waves on Friday evenings, parties of usually 4 or more coming in to celebrate some successful business venture that took place during the week. Great for Minho really, because that meant usually more wine, more appetizers, larger meals, and larger checks, which means bigger tips. His bank account really needed these Fridays especially if he was gong to keep saving up to finally pursue his dream. 

A new party of six was just assigned to Minho’s section. Trademarked smile: on, Feet: still aching, Hours until close: at least another three. It looked like tonight it was going to be a long ass night. 

An hour or so passed before Minho was able to get some form of rest from being out on the floor. Minho leaned his body weight against the wall near the back of the dining room, appreciating the brief calm before the night crowd started to roll in. Thoughts of the dance he was trying to choreograph flashed through his head. He hoped that the movements he’d chosen would be able to convey the emotions of the song he had in mind. The thought of asking Hyunjin to watch his performance briefly popped in his head, but before he could consider it further the hostess was calling his name. 

“Minho! There's a new table for you in section three.” Minho moved from his comfortable position against the wall and went through his checklist; Apron? Flattened. Backup pens? Check. Hair gently moved out of his face to perfectly frame it? Check. Lastly, Polite customer service smile? Obviously. 

The three boys at the table were definitely new customers to the restaurant. Minho observed that the three of them appeared to be blissfully unaware of the de facto business casual to fully formal dress code that the other patrons in the restaurant followed. The Trio seemed to sport the street style that you would see in the popular clubs not only a block away. Two of them clothed in almost all black outfits while the third wore a bright pink colored hoodie under his jean jacket. 

“Hyung, I still can’t believe we did it! The crowd was huge, I mean after going on stage I don't even remember anything. I might have blacked out. Holy shit did I actually black out….” Pink hoodie seemed pretty animated about whatever the reason was for their meal out. Maybe a little too animated, as other tables glazed bitterly toward the source of their evening’s disruption.   

Before approaching he considered the possibility that these boys being idols was likely, but Minho still found it odd for multiple reasons. He didn't recognize them at all as idols, which he was usually pretty good at keeping up with, and when idols did casually come in it was more likely to be on a weekday for an early dinner and not a late Friday night after the dinner rush. Nonetheless, with his perfect waiter image on, he walks over to the table never showing his curiosity.

“Good evening gentlemen, My name is Minho, and I’ll be serving you tonight. Is there anything I can get you to drink before your starters?” His script rolled politely off his tongue like it had the whole night. All complete with a slight smile and arms perfectly placed behind him, as carefully and as naturally as a doll whose been posed in the same position for the past six hours.

The wide set, somewhat brooding boy has already decided after glancing at the drink menu, “yeah I'll order a bottle of the house red for the table,” glancing up at Minho from beneath his black cap. Minho swiftly wrote down the order, and moved his glance over to the next boy at the table.

“Hyung, you're the only one of us who chooses to drink wine voluntarily,” Pink hoodie spoke up, seemingly upset about the prospect of drinking bitter fruit water. 

“Jisung, you're just saying that because you can't handle anything that you can actually taste the alcohol in. I'll drink whatever Bin gets,” the handsome curly haired blonde mentions, glancing at the soft hoodied boy next to him with a look that reminds Minho of a disappointed father. Minho actively fights off the smirk that is wanting to form on his lips.

“WHAT that's not true, THAT ONE TIME I drank an entire bottle of-”

“Fine, fine just stop yelling. You’re gonna get us kicked out before we even get to eat” Mr. Black cap glances up at Minho again, but with a more apologetic look. “Add on an order of the fruitiest and sweetest drink you serve still with alcohol in it, for the small squirrel boy.” That last part came with a smirk from the dark haired speaker and a glare from from the ‘squirrel boy’ to his left. 

Minho had trouble keeping the smirk from forming this time. And maybe his perfect image faltered for a second, but he was quick to recover, and confirmed their orders with a straight face and a promise to return with water as he left to give them time to select from the menu. 

---

“Great now our waiter thinks I'm a whiny baby who looks like a squirrel. Wow, thanks Changbin-hyung.” Jisung grumbles and pinches his cheeks that cursed him with the rodent nickname. 

“Good, at least he won’t be fooled into thinking you're anything but the truth” 

“Yah! WHa-”

“Hey settle down you guys, lets try not to get kicked out please. Binnie recommended the food here, and I would very much like to eat it before we are politely asked to leave” 

Jisung grumbles something inaudible at Chan’s request, and Changbin can't help but respond with a smirk at getting to see the younger be told off.

“Also we're supposed to be celebrating selling out our show so lets do that, yeah? First show 3racha single handedly sold out! WE did that!” 

All three of them get proud smiles after that, and the bickering is left forgotten as the three recount the night, even though they had lived it together

“Not gonna lie, I think our Binnie stole the show tonight. You were on fire tonight man.” Chan said proudly, receiving a thankful smile from the younger boy, who had become shy and bashful at the praise.

“Though, Chan-hyung your rap was so charismatic tonight, you almost made that girl in front faint when you winked at her, the whole audience fucking lost it” Jisung had switched from literally yelling to just a whisper shout for emphasis.

“Hahaha, yeah I can't even believe that happened. Man, today’s energy was just different.” The smile on Chan’s face was blinding, as usual. “Hopefully we can get to play even bigger venues soon. I could get used to this...” Chan mused, seemingly already focused on the future plans of 3racha. 

“Yeah, those paydays would be real nice right about now.”

“Bin-hyung, what are you talking about, you’re literally loaded. Plus since you got that producing job, we can actually pay the rent on the apartment you parents let us stay in '' Jisungs pretty thankful for all the support Changbins parents had given them, while the three of them worked toward their collective dream to make and perform music. But he thinks they all can agree that finally being able to use their own money to live instead of just relying on handouts and the kindness of friends or family to help keep them from becoming starved or homeless, is a new kind of satisfying that Jisung hadn’t considered before. Just look at them now, at one of the nicest (and most expensive) restaurants in Seoul, fighting over drinks and having a meal that would hopefully be the first of many celebrations for their groups accomplishments. The trio could all agree that the financial stress has been one of their greatest worries, and that beginning to escape it has been all kinds of relieving. 

Before any of the boys could respond to Jisung’s comment, Minho had returned with three glasses of water, three glasses for wine, and a bottle of wine all balanced perfectly on a tray perched on the palm of his hand. Jisung had to admit it was impressive how he had managed to balance all of the glassware and liquids without losing balance, and while moving with more grace and agility than he would expect from your average waiter. 

Before Jisung had even returned from his thoughts, three glasses of water and the expertly poured wine glasses, all set delicately without a single drop spilled, were identically placed in front of each of them. Graceful may have been an understatement. 

“Have you decided what you would like to have tonight, gentlemen?” Their waiter Minho said, all with a gentle expression on his face. 

No, the answer was no, but before Jisung could respond, Changbin had already ordered the pricey steak to go with his wine. Soon after, Chan ordered the surf and turf dish that had a stupidly complicated name that Jisung couldn’t pronounce. Jisung hadn’t even remembered them even looking at the menu, or maybe it was just him who had yet to even glanced at it. Details. 

“Uhhhhh…” Jisung searched hopelessly over the menu and then at his friends, who stared blankly back at him, then back to the menu again. This was a regular occurrence when the three decided to go out and eat, when they weren’t holding themselves in their apartment for weeks at a time. Still, Jisung always ended up hopelessly unprepared to successfully order without awkward pauses and at least three consecutive strings of ‘hmm’s and ‘uhhh’s. And so,

“Hmmmmm…. I think.. Uhh…. maybe…” nothing was popping out at him, and Jisung was pretty sure at this point that he had forgotten how to read. “Ya know what, surprise me,” he decided this was the best response he could come up with.  

“Surprise you?” Minho looked just as confused as Jisung felt.

“Yeah, is that an option? If not, I'm this close to just closing my eyes and pointing.” He says while dramatically closing his eyes and waving his finger over the menu. Once again Jisung was hopeless.

He hears a soft chuckle and opens his eyes just in time to catch their waiter’s lips curl in a sweet smile that makes his eyes turn into crescents. It lasts barely a second, before his face returns to his neutral customer service expression. But Jisung decides he really likes that smile, and a part of him is sad to see it retreat so soon. 

“Well in that case, I can do the blind pointing for you, but I personally recommend the seasonally prepared local beef served on house baked brioche, that comes with garlic and parsley potato wedges. Does that sound alright?” Jisung felt he had said it faster and with more details just to confuse him. 

Jisung stares at him blankly in response, and he's pretty sure four whole seconds pass in silence before the Pretty Waiter ™ follows up, an ever so slight smirk on his lips, “it's pretty much a really good local burger with homemade fries, I think it would be something you would enjoy.” 

Jisung grins at that, “Oh! Yeah that does sound good...Thank you! I will have that.” For some reason he really likes the idea that their waiter chose something off the menu that was specially meant for him. Not that he wouldn't like all the nicer and fancier dishes they serve here with small plates with dry ice fog, but a part of him was more content in getting a dinner that didn't require him to question whether or not something on his plate was even edible. And the happy curiosity definitely had nothing to do with the way their waiter’s eyes sparkled when he talked or the barely-there smirk that Jisung just caught sight of. 

“Alright then, I’ll put in these orders. Oh! And then I'll be right back with your speciality fruit drink,” He says that last part with a slightly more upbeat tone, resulting in another smirk to appear on Changbin’s face and a groan from a slightly embarrassed Jisung.

---

Minho surprised himself. 

On any given day of work at Menu 98, he deathly avoids having to do anything more than the regular polite small talk. But for some reason, tonight he couldn’t stop himself from playing along with the antics of the cute boy at his table. The three boys were entertaining, and maybe he could blame the exhaustion and the numb pain in his heels, but the comical distraction was welcomed by Minho. He didn't even realize just how much he had been looking for a distraction from the long shift until it was staring right at him with big shiny eyes and a cute round face. Minho hurried back to enter in their orders, including his suggestion for the squirrel looking boy.

Minho wasn’t going to deny that the flustered boy at the table was cute, he was pretty aware how attractive all three the boys were when he took their orders. He had thought they were idols originally, so in Minho’s mind it made sense. Still, the waiter still felt something about the three was too unique to be categorized as just idols or trainees. As much as it may have piqued his curiosity though, Minho still got paid for his service not for his interests in customers, so he brushed it off almost as soon as it appeared. 

The rest of the evening, Minho tended to all four of his assigned tables with his usual perfect server act and minimal small talk. When it came to the three somewhat boisterous customers in the corner table, Minho may or may not have allowed himself to subtly laugh at their arguments and antics. The dynamic of the three boys was slowly becoming the highlight of his late night shift. Each of their personalities greatly contrasted and amplified the other, making way for animated and comical exchanges and arguments between them. 

When Minho had returned with a Strawberry daiquiri for the boy in pink, a chorus of giggles could be heard from the other two boys, while the other happily accepted the drink in substitute for the untouched glass of wine in front of him. Upon drinking it, the cute boy's eyes somehow widened further and shined more than Minho thought was possible. He flashed his heart-shaped smile as he thanked Minho for the drink. 

Minho nodded in return, and internally decided that Heart-shaped smiles were his new favorite. 

---

Jisung had been hyper since the show, and the energy was now focused on a new mission to see the pretty smile of their waiter again. Granted, he didn't have to try that much harder to gain the attention of the pretty waiter, being the loud and excitable person naturally he was. Every small grin that Jisung was able to pull out from under the other boy’s infuriatingly polite facade, was a major win in his book. 

Chan, Changbin, and Jisung celebrated further by enjoying the food, which was all phenomenal, and discussing their next gig the coming week. The best way to celebrate one performance is to look towards the next, or someother random bullshit Changbin had said after a couple more glasses of wine.

Overall the night was a celebration of all of the dedication and hours they had put into their music, as well as their grind to perform and grow a somewhat sizable following. They were all high on the potential of finally getting to realize their dreams and reach their goals as a group, something none of them actually thought they would get to do together. The overwhelming happiness of the night easily made it one of Jisung's new favorite memories. 

As the boys were finishing off their third--or forth--drink (Jisung definitely had another one of the strawberry drinks Minho had brought him), after dinner and figuring out their checks, Jisung felt a surge of boldness. Mostly due to having a few drinks in his system, and the slight infatuation he had with the pretty waiter's smile, Jisung decided ‘whats the worst thing that could happen? Rejection? lmao’ and wrote down his name and number on his receipt in hopes that Minho would actually read it, or maybe even contact him. Maybe. 

It was a shot in the dark, but Jisung had been feeling a little high on life, and felt like he couldn’t leave without at least shooting his shot. Jisung and the other members of 3racha got up to leave, and Jisung searched out the waiter. He  wasn’t able to see him in the mostly empty dining room now, but a hopeful part of him felt that he would see him again, leaving the restaurant with his arms around his members already bickering about who would get to shower first after their long night. 

“I'm just saying, Chan-hyung I know for a fact that you’re not even going to make it to the front door before passing out, so I call dibs. And Jisung, I’m older than you so I get veto power over your rights and decisions as your hyung.” 

Jisung was about to grumble in response but something about how Changbin’s smile was so carefree left him feeling like he deserved this victory. Changbin was definitely a little tipsy, but seeing his hyung so happy after such a rough week made Jisung glad to do anything to keep that smile there.

“Fine, fine hyung but you have to help me carry Chan-hyung up stairs when he inevitable falls asleep on me in the cab” 

“I don't know what youre talking about,” Chan replies, already yawning, while climbing into the cab.

---

Minho was picking up the receipts from his tables when one of them caught his eye.

Hey, I’m Han Jisung ^~^ (the cute one in the pink hoodie!)

Thanks for your suggestions, best waiter ever!!!

I think your smile is beautiful, Maybe I’ll get to see it again sometime?

555-XXX-XXXX

Minho couldn't help but smile to himself. He’d been hit on occasionally by customers and has been given countless numbers, which usually don't make it much farther than the trash, but something about the innocence of the note and cuteness of the boy made him actually consider keeping it.

He scoffed to himself after a second of considering it. As cute as the boy was, and as sweet as the note was, Minho didn’t have time or energy to have another added person in his life. No matter romantically or platonically, new relationships were on his ‘things to stay away from if you ever wanna make it into the dance academy’ list. He already barely ever saw his roommates, and if they weren't all in the same dance troupe, they probably wouldn't talk much. All of their time was spent working and practicing, and he and his roommates only had enough energy and free time to spend a meal or two together on the weekends. There just wasn’t any more time for anything extra, no matter how nice the idea may sound. 

He was about to give the little message the same treatment as the others as he cleaned up for the night, but a part of him couldn't bring himself to throw it away, and discreetly pocketed it instead out of instinct. Out of sight and out of mind as far as Minho was concerned.

-----

thank you if you read this far <3

one ~ two ~ three ~ four ~ five ~ six ~ seven ~ eight ~ nine

[yikeswtfmate]

Strange Times || Ch. 1

main masterlist // Strange Times Series Masterlist // next part

Summary: Mickey Pearson sends Raymond to fetch his sister from the airport. He’s never met this woman, but he soon finds out she likes to play with her food first.

Pairing: Raymond (Charlie Hunnam - The Gentlemen, 2020) x Reader

Warnings: swearing; sexual themes; mentions of violence

A/N: Here it is my lovelies, the fic i’ve been telling you about with Charlie Hunnam’s character whom i fell in love with (it’s the beard....and the glasses....and the hair....and the suits......and the whole righthand to a drug lord thing maybe?). I’m still unsure about posting it here because it’s a different type of Reader that i’m used to write (maybe i’ll just switch her to an OC) and it’s not Bonky. So please let me know what you think and whether i should post the next parts as well (it’s already 5k long) but if you don’t like it, this is a “felt cute might delete later” type of situation so no harm no foul. And for those of you who haven’t seen the movie yet, slight spoliers ahead!

The office is quiet, save for the scratching of a pen on paper and the ticking of a clock that is starting to irritate Raymond to no end. He’s been meaning to either throw it out or switch it with the one that is in the living room, but he knows how his boss would not appreciate the disposal of a five thousand pound clock plated in gold. Raymond personally thinks it’s tacky, but it’s Mickey’s house after all, and he should be concentrating on sorting out the logistics for that shipment that’s supposed to go out to Italy anyway. He turns back to his laptop, intent on fulfilling his responsibilities for the day, when Mickey stops writing behind him and clears his throat, demanding his attention.

“Raymond, I need you to go to the airport tomorrow.”

Ray stands up from his chair at the desk and moves to the table in the middle of the receiving room. He’s learned all of Mickey’s tells during the ten years he’s been his righthand man, and when he stops sorting out his agenda to pour himself a cup of tea, Ray knows he needs to stand to attention.

“Any reason in particular?”

“I need you to pick up my sister and bring her to the estate.”

“Your sister?” Ray is utterly confused, mainly for the fact that this would be the very first time he’ll be meeting this woman.

He was aware that Mickey had a sister back in the States, but even though he knows every aspect of Mickey’s life inside and out, this elusive woman is his boss’ best kept secret. He’s unsure whether it’s just brotherly protectiveness, pure paranoia at the prospect of their enemies finding out there’s still another weak link next to Rosalind, or it’s simply the fact that Mickey doesn’t want to talk about his family back home.

He’s heard she’s been studying for a degree in business at Wharton, but he doesn’t know what to expect, for all the odd comments Mickey and Rosalind make about her when they think he’s not listening. One thing he’s completely certain of, however, is how much Mickey looks after her, considering the sizeable amounts of money that are going into her bank account every month.

Mickey raises an eyebrow over his teacup. “I don’t see why you’re acting as if you didn’t know I have a goddamn sister, Ray.”

Raymond shrugs, deciding that it’s best if he won’t tick off his boss at the moment. He’s been on edge ever since the whole debacle with Matthew Berger and Fletcher went down. Mickey’s decided to hold off his retirement plans until someone comes along with a better offer (preferably none of Lord George’s minions though), so he hasn’t only been stressed about maintaining the value of the goods, but also pissed off that he couldn’t just drink whiskey unperturbed all day in a countryside manor.

“I’ve sent you all the details you need. Don’t be late, I don’t want her left unsupervised for too long.”

Raymond nods, eager to go back to his laptop. It’s time for homework, and there’s nothing he love more than information.

“And Ray?” He turns back to Mickey, but the man’s just looking out the window, a thoughtful expression on his face. “Be careful.”

“Of course, boss. I’ll treat her like a princess.”

“It’s not her I’m worried about, you moron.” He says with a frown. “I meant you. She likes to play with her food first.”

*

The private jet should be a surprise, but when you’re in the line of business Raymond is in, he’s practically seen it all. The charcoal trench coat he’s wearing today is flapping in the whirl of wind so it’s a good thing he foregone the machine gun in favour of an inconspicuous handgun. He’s almost certain nothing would come up on their way from Heathrow to Oxfordshire, but he made sure David fully stocked the car before they left, just in case.

He’s waiting patiently in front of the car, lighting a cigarette, while he watches the airport’s employees fuss around the plane. The airstair is released and Ray stands up from leaning against the car. The smoke that he exhales blind him for a second, but he still needs to blink three more times to assure himself he’s not fucking hallucinating when a woman that he can only assume is Y/N Pearson steps off the plane. She drags a hand through her long curls, moving her head from side to side in what must only be slow motion. Her heels click on the pavement as she makes her way towards him, and Raymond smiles involuntarily.

“I see the money’s been treating you well, Raymond. Although I have to admit, I kind of miss the long hair.” She says before Ray can utter a word. She places a manicured finger under his chin, closing his mouth, kissing his cheek with a smack. “You don’t remember me, do you?” Her eyes are patient, as if exhausted after explaining a child the same exact thing for the past hour. “We’ve met fourteen years ago, when Mickey expanded the business to five farms. You were only an errand boy then, remember? Granted, I was only fourteen at that time, a gangly little thing with braces, of course you don’t remember me.”

Raymond’s mind flashes to a vague memory of a girl in a sequinted t-shirt, a choker that could only be worn with so much seriousness by a teenager, and boots with fur, mated in English mud. She blushed to the roots of her hair when he asked her if she knew by any chance where Mr Pearson was, having to deliver a parcel to him personally. She just pointed with a black fingernail towards her left and squeaked something unintelligible before ducking her head and running in the other direction.

“Ah, there he goes.” She sing-songs as she watches his eyes shift in recognition all over her, but there’s nothing left of her teenage self, having grown into her body, comfortable in her skin, confidence built up with precision and care, together with an appropriate, if rather extravagant fashion sense.

“I can’t believe how much you’ve grown.” He says, realising that he sounds like a cliché when she rolls her eyes.

“Right, that’s what happens in life, honey. Can we please go? We can exchange pleasantries in the car, this wind is ruining my hair.”

Raymond keeps the door open for her, nodding to David who just finished loading the trunk with her luggage and he hops in the backseat next to her.

“I hope we’re stopping for lunch on our way.” She warns. “I’m starving and I couldn’t eat anything since I woke up because of those stupid turbulences.”

“Mickey is expecting us to be there in an hour.” He responds cautiously.

“Mickey can go fuck himself. I want a pizza and I haven’t been to Zizzi in a long time, so you better take me there, Raymond, or I’ll just ask David to kindly move to the passenger seat.”

The man in question looks at Ray in the rear view mirror, awaiting instructions. Ray sighs and nods once again, now starting to realise why his boss felt the need to warn him in regard to his sister. He hopes he won’t have to deal with her for long after she’s safely delivered to Mickey, because for all her beauty, she’s starting to piss him off.

“Oh, don’t look so glum.” She chides, after a few minutes of him plainly ignoring her. “I’m good company, I promise. I’m just cranky because I’m hungry. I’m hangry, Ray. I just need you to feed me.” She flutters her eyelashes, and she rests her hand on his thigh, purposefully ticking him off.

Ray shifts in his seat, trying to put as much distance between them, to which she just scoffs and rolls her eyes. This woman is dangerous, and for all his sinful thoughts that have been going through his mind ever since he laid eyes on her, Ray has to remind himself that this is his boss’ little sister, little as in eleven years younger for fuck’s sake. He’s positively sure that if he even lays a finger on her, his balls would be cut off and fed to the hunting dogs.

They finally stop after a short silent trip, and he helps Y/N into the fairy lit restaurant, leaving David posted in front of the car. He hopes there will be no more trouble like last time, having had his share of adventures for the goddamn decade.

Holding a chair for her, Ray waits for Y/N to take off her coat, and now he suddenly feels the need to swallow hard, as he rakes his eyes over her body. She’s wearing a leather skirt that is too tight to possibly be comfortable, but long enough to almost meet her knee high boots; her sweater is thick, appropriate for the cold January weather in the south of England, yet Raymond can’t help but wonder if her nipples are as perfect as her lips. Speaking of which, they curl up in a patient yet satisfied smile, a raised eyebrow that wants to show him she’s merely allowing him to inspect her so blatantly.

After she orders her pizza and Ray asks for a glass of water, clearly showing his disapproval for this unexpected stop. He can feel a nudge on his shin and she smiles at him in a way that he can only describe as charitable.

“You know, I’ve had the biggest crush on you back then.” She says and Ray chokes on his water. “It’s true. You were this tall rugged man with long hair that I wouldn’t have known what to do with then, but would definitely know how to handle now.” She smirks, while Ray raises an eyebrow, silently asking her to stop talking. Mainly because his imagination is starting to go haywire. “The beard suits you. But I kept thinking about licking your jaw all the way here so it’s a shame really that I can’t now. Those were some long 8 hours, Ray, I had to occupy myself somehow.”

“Y/N, you should really stop talking.” Ray would give himself a pat on the back for all the restraint he’s showing at the moment. There’s nothing he would like more than to shove her in one of the bathroom stalls and have his way with her, and by the look in her eyes, she knows exactly what he’s thinking so she’s relentless.

“Why? Afraid Mickey would disapprove? I thought you were a big boy, Ray, who doesn’t have to ask permission.”

“It’s not about permission, and we both know it. Your brother would literally kill me if…”

His words are cut short by the waiter who’s bringing Y/N her food and brazenly ogles her down. Ray can feel his hands involuntarily clench into fists, his jaw set at the man who would not just fucking go and keeps offering her pepper, sauce, or his fucking cock for that matter, because it’s so fucking obvious that’s what he’d actually want to say. Y/N just smiles sweetly, humouring his clumsy flirting, and Ray is more than certain that she’s starting to form a habit of doing things just to piss him off. When she touches the waiter’s forearm, he growls lowly, directing their attention to him. She feigns surprise, but he can read her amusement, while the waiter seems to decide whether to apologise or take his chances and go off. Ray knows that his glasses might put people at ease, making him look approachable, friendly, easy-going at first, but he’s perfected the frown and posture to go with it that puts people immediately in their places. Not to mention that spending over a decade in the business would shape anyone in a ruthless brute if need arises.

“My girlfriend here would like to enjoy her food now, thank you. She doesn’t need anything else, mate, you can go.”

The waiter finally scampers off, and Ray knows he’ll regret saying anything before he turns back to Y/N. She’s smirking like a bloody Cheshire cat if he’s ever seen anyone actually doing it, satisfied beyond belief.

“Don’t.” He warns when she opens her mouth to make a smartass remark, but she raises her hands in surrender and proceeds to eat.

Another battle of restraint and patience, as this woman eats as if she’s in a bloody porn movie, and who the fuck can eat pizza seductively anyway, for fuck’s sake. Raymond takes a deep breath, fishing his phone out of his coat pocket and calls his boss, doing his best to ignore the moans, the finger sucking and the swirling tongue in front of him.

“Hey, boss. Got Y/N from the airport, we’ll just be a bit late.”

“She wanted to eat, didn’t she?” Mickey asks and Ray can hear the exasperation in his voice. Apparently his boss is well aware of his sister’s antics, but it would’ve been better if Raymond were better prepared for the full force of what this woman can get out of him in a short half an hour.

“Tell him to suck a bag of tiny dicks, I don’t need his judgment.” Y/N says between licking a side of her finger and plucking an olive off her slice.

“We’re in Uxbridge, hopefully we’ll be there in an hour or so.” Raymond notifies, choosing to ignore her again.

“Fine. Just…make sure she stays out of trouble. It can stick to her like a fly to shit.” And with that Mickey disconnects the call.

Raymond sighs and puts his phone back. There is an uneasy feeling flowing through him, his instinct telling him to run away in the other direction, to avoid interacting with Y/N at all cost until her return to the States, but there’s another part of him, more primal, more carnal that is drawn to her. He hates it, mainly because there is no logical reasoning behind it, and he’s a very cerebral person, and he can’t figure her out for the life of him. Maybe it’s just the fact that she’s probably the first woman to act like that with him, as if she doesn’t care about the consequences, doesn’t give a toss whether he’ll bite or not. She likes to play with her food first, were Mickey’s words, which make so much more sense now.

Raymond can’t put his finger on it, and although he can have his pick of women anywhere he’d step foot in – he is very much aware of how handsome he is, thank you very much –  there is something about Y/N that demands to be unlocked. Or maybe it’s just that her tits look really great in that sweater and it’s the whole “forbidden fruit” bullshit. Regardless, Ray just wants to drop her off and go back to London where he can drown himself in work so he can forget about her. Or maybe have a night out, pick someone at a bar and pretend it’s her, because he’s absolutely certain by this point that it’s just the novelty of Y/N that lures him in, and definitely not those eyes full of mischief.

***

Taglist: I haven’t tagged anyone in this, as I’m unsure whether you want to read something that’s not Bucky related. Let me know if you do! Toodles!

[purplesurveys]

996

This is originally an ask game that’s making the rounds here on Tumblr, but in this blog of course I answer everything. Quarantine Ask Game; questions by ghostly-nblm What’s your go-to snack? I haven’t really have one throughout this lockdown. I just snack on whatever’s available in our pantry - usually we have potato chips, salted egg chips, nuts, etc. And then sometimes my dad will whip up something for us himself, like wicked Oreos, churros, corndogs, and chocolate chip cookies. What’s a movie you could watch over and over? I could probably watch The Proposal everyday for the rest of my life and I doubt you’ll hear a complaint out of me. It’s just so funny, so lighthearted, and the entire cast meshes very well together. Favorite show to binge? Again when it comes to comfort shows/movies, I pick the lighthearted ones because they get me to relax and laugh a lot. That said, my favorite show to binge would be Friends. I recently started binge-watching it again and it feels good to come back to it after several months of not seeing an episode. 5 songs that make you want to dance? Shut Up And Dance - Walk the Moon Cinnamon - Hayley Williams Don’t Start Now - Dua Lipa Caught in the Middle - Paramore 7/11 - Beyoncé So, basically, Top 40 shit because it’s that genre that produces the most dance-y songs anyway. Pls don’t judge lmaaaaaao I like other artists I swear

5 songs that make you feel less lonely? I don’t know if I’ve ever turned to music to feel less lonely...I never really seek out that particular feeling. If anything, I listen to certain songs because I feel alone and I would want it to stay that way for the meantime.

Favorite meal to cook yourself? I always blank out at these cooking questions because I don’t know how to make anything, soz. When I start earning my own money I swear I’ll start experimenting with ingredients in the kitchen. You heard it here first. Seriously guys, when I finally get a stable income and you notice me spending it on unnecessary shit, feel free to nag me and tell me to start cooking!!! How do you “treat yourself”? With food. Food has always been my reward to myself after a long week, a hard exam, a bloody presentation, and basically after getting through something I had been dreading for a long time.   Favorite thing to do when doing self care? Surveys. Who have you been talking to the most? My family, I guess. “The most” is really pushing it though; I don’t talk a lot these days and it’s been difficult for me to sustain a conversation and not drain my battery in the middle of it. One thing you really miss right now? The past. I normally don’t think about it, but if there’s something from the past that I do miss, I end up pining hard for it. If you could be self-isolated with anyone who would it be? Angela. We haven’t seen one another in seven months so we could definitely do with spending seven months together lmao. We miss the shit out of each other. Do you have any pets? Yes :) Small update on my dogs: so for the last four months Kimi has hated having Cooper around and snarls every time he senses he’s nearby. But, and we have no clue what changed, now he has started humping Cooper and wants to be near him all the time...ugh. Favorite video games? At the early early phase of the lockdown I played Mario Kart 8 on the Switch all day long. Then for some reason I stopped and I haven’t played since like April. I haven’t played other video games. Favorite podcasts? Ear Biscuits. Andi has also started their own podcast and it debuted like a week ago; it looks extremely promising, but I’m super behind since I’ve deleted all my socials. I’ll catch up once I’m in the right state of mind and am feeling better enough to come back on my accounts. Favorite YouTubers? The main channels I watch are Good Mythical Morning and The Try Guys. But throughout the quarantine sooooooo many local celebrities have started their own vlog channels and majority of them are super fun to watch. My faves would be Andi Manzano’s, Manny Pacquiao’s daughter Mary’s, and Bea Alonzo’s. Wake up time? These days I try to be out of bed by 8:30 so I can sufficiently prepare and clean up for work, but early on in the lockdown I liked staying up all night and then waking up at like 9 or 10 AM. Sleep time? Anywhere from 10 PM to 1 AM. If you could go anywhere right now where would it be? I’d be in Sagada, vacationing by myself and doing some hiking, spelunking, reflecting, and soul-searching. I wish I can go back there someday; I just reallllly need to be out of the house and out of the city for a while.

What’s a change you want to keep when self isolation is over? There is nothing I wish to keep from this quarantine. It turned my entire life around and I wish I had all the things I had before it instead. Have you learned something? Yeah. Some of them the hard way. Any new skills? I took up a course on marketing last month so that was a lot of fun. Hobby-wise, I’ve been thinking of getting into cross-stitching so I can’t wait to buy my own kit and start with that. I’m also learning a lot of new and super helpful skills at work, like coming up with PR tactics/executions, knowing what will work for a client and what wouldn’t, photo editing, etc. It’s been the best internship experience ever. What’s a hobby you’d like to start learning? ^ The latter. I’d also love to learn how to bake, and maybe? start a vlog because it’d be nice to have an outlet where I can express myself and do new things while sharing my experiences with other people. What’s something you’d like to get better at? I constantly want to improve at my job because perfectionism. What food do you wish you had right now? Coffee shop pastries. :( God I haven’t had one of those in a while; I miss them loads. Your go to quarantine outfit? I don’t have one but man, when I do go out I tend to overdress because I rarely get an opportunity or have a reason to drive out these days, so I allow myself to look cute and all dressed up even if I’m just meant to pick up food at my grandma’s or something. What have you done today? I’ve been taking this survey, taken a shower, cried for a half hour, played with Cooper, cradled Kimi like a baby, checked my emails, and taken a few sips of coffee. Any plans for tomorrow? Work work work. What’s on your “to watch” list? The second volume of Unsolved Mysteries is finally out on Netflix so I’m hoping I get around to watching a few episodes soon. Any musicians/bands you’ve discovered? Most recent one was Chase Atlantic but I discovered them like back in July. Since I’m not listening to a lot of music these days, I’m not expecting to find new bands or singers to get into any time soon. Post a selfie right now!! Eh. Post pictures of your pets! I don’t feel like raking through my photos this morning. Maybe some other time. When was the last time you drank water? Last night at dinner. When was the last time you ate? Last night. When was the last time you got up and stretched? I can’t remember when I last did that. I usually stretch in bed, though.

Favorite song right now? This has been asked on every damn survey recently. I’m sure you’ll find my answer within the first page of my blog. Favorite social media to scroll through? It used to be Twitter until the lockdown hit and everyone stopped going out and having interesting updates. Before I deactivated everything, I loved spending time on Facebook. What’s the last thing you ate? A slice of pizza. What’s the weather like where you are? It’s a little cloudy and cold. I’m expecting it to rain today. Have you been playing animal crossing? No, but I know so many people who have been. How are you feeling? 50% meh, 50% just going through the motions. Who’s the last person you texted? Ate Alyanna. We’re both going through rough patches at the moment so we were cheering one another up. I needed that positivity a lot this morning and I’m glad we had that interaction. What does your last text message say with no context? ”Waaaaaaaa cute” Post a meme that made you laugh recently:

Outdoor activity you’d like to do right now? Hiking, mountain climbing, camping. Anything that’ll help me get disconnected from the world for a few days, really. Something you’re looking forward to when quarantine is over? Doing all those ^, traveling, being able to actually go to a workplace (once I have one), seeing my friends, going to bars again. Someone you’d like to see when quarantine is over? Everybody, man. I don’t give a shit as to who it is. Any new games coming out you want to play? Not really. I’m just waiting on GTA 6 even though there’s been like 0 updates on that front. New shows you’ve discovered? I revisited The Crown, but that’s it. I haven’t discovered anything new. Most comfortable piece of clothing you have? I find all of them comfortable; that’s why I wear them at home haha.

[hollyand-writes]

Quarantine Q&A

I was tagged by the lovely @gremlinquisitor ❤️ Sorry it took me so long to get round to doing this!

Tagging: anyone who feels up to it -- like Erin said in her own post, take care of yourself first, and if you don’t feel like you can talk about this, then please don’t try to force it. ❤️

Are you staying home from work or school?

My husband and I have both been working from home since mid-March. I was already pretty much working from home before that anyway (been doing it for about a decade), so I was used to it and therefore don’t feel my life has changed dramatically. We’re really lucky that our jobs can be done 100% from home -- March and April were really busy months for both of us work-wise, so I think that helped us both cope and feel useful. 

In a weird way, lockdown didn’t/doesn’t upset or stress me out? I think it’s because I had a head start on worrying about the pandemic back in January: I have family in China/HK/SE Asia and I was really, really worried about them for a bit. I follow a few Chinese-language social media accounts of people based in China / East Asia and what was coming out of there was really, really bad -- sometimes worse than what was being reported in Western media -- and people over there were so angry and terrified for months before anyone in the West started worrying about it, I think. 

So, by the time the pandemic hit the UK and lockdown was announced, I think I was just relieved that finally there was something I could “do” about what was going on in the world, if that made sense??? I’d been reading these first-hand anonymous accounts “on the ground” in Chinese for two months by that point, so I felt like I kind of knew what to expect physically and emotionally. (My family and family-friends out there are all fine as far as I know, btw.)

If you’re staying home, who’s with you?

My husband. 9 weeks into lockdown and we’re still very much enjoying having each other around! He misses his colleagues, but he doesn’t miss his commute. We have the odd Zoom party and catch up with his family on FaceTime (it’s weird how it took a pandemic for us to think of video-calling them instead of phoning them), but yeah, he’s been great lockdown company and I love having him home! I don’t want him to go back to work LMAO! 

We work in the same room, but tend to be very good at focusing on our work during the work day, so we don’t really distract each other and give each other space when needed (mentally rather than physically, though; we live in a tiny flat with only like 3 rooms so it’s hard to give each other physical space). We play endless games of Civ6 against the other during breaks from work.

Are you a homebody?

Before 2020? No, not at all. But after lockdown started? I’ve been discovering the delights of just chilling at home with my husband, being busy and in-demand at work, writing, reading books, teaching myself Photoshop (working through an online course LMAO) and playing Civ. 

Also I’ve been really happy about all the money I’m saving from not going out and not buying anything apart from food and books LMAO! 

I’ve not really felt very talkative this year; and after lockdown started, that even extended to many of my real-life friends -- I’ve just felt happy staying at home and not talking to anyone except my husband, for some reason. (As an aside -- sorry to all of you on Tumblr and Discord for not chatting so much -- it’s not personal, it’s just whatever phase I’m going through, both IRL and online!) I’m not depressed or anything, I don’t think -- just happy doing my own thing for a bit.

An event that you were looking forward to that got cancelled.

The one that I was most gutted about was the Euro 2020 football tournament (soccer to you Americans of course) -- I had tickets to go to the final in July. But the organisers said they’ll hold the tournament next year and tickets will be valid, so I don’t feel so bad about it now. 

I miss the gym the most, I think. Everything else has kind of sorted itself out (even cancelled events), but the gym / working-out thing hasn’t. I started doing some home workouts with resistance bands at first, but I’ve fallen out of the habit of that somewhat -- it’s just not the same as having an actual barbell in your hands.

I was also meant to go on holiday to Greece with friends (12 of us) but that’s been cancelled. Funnily enough, when lockdown was announced in the UK I was secretly relieved, because I had a lot of social events lined up and my social life had been so busy up to that point that I was starting to get rather overwhelmed with it all. Turns out I’m an extrovert with a strong introvert streak.

What movies have you watched recently? What shows are you watching?

Hmmmm.... not really so much movies, I think. Aside from Frozen 2 (again). We’re currently working our way more through the 1994 BBC TV series of the classic novel Middlemarch (because I’ve been reading it), but we tend to play Civ, or read, or bake/cook, rather than watch TV.

What music are you listening to?

Gosh, loads, haha! The Frozen 2 soundtrack. Ibiza clubland tunes (to remind me of good times, LOL). Listened to old Eurovision tracks over the weekend (to get me in the spirit, even if Eurovision 2020 was cancelled). Attended virtual concerts that my friends in music bands have been holding. Pretty much everything you can imagine, whenever the mood strikes. Today I was listening to Suede’s Singles.

What are you reading?

Right now I’m reading “Middlemarch” by George Eliot; I’ve been getting through lots of books since February, both fiction and non-fiction.

That said, I’ve not really felt like reading fanfic much -- stopped reading Dragon Age fanfiction in December or January (and completely fell out of the fandom for a while, too) so I’m really behind on every longfic I was following. I’m only just starting to catch up on it all, in May, although I don’t see myself being in fandom/online that much. I’ll get to all your fics eventually! I’m just slow 😄

What are you doing for self-care?

Lots of things, and I think they’re helping because I’ve been coping OK so far (sorry this list is so long!): 

Staying offline -- especially off Tumblr and Discord and Twitter -- more often, which has really helped me get work done (sorry I’ve not been around much, though) and finally getting around to doing all those projects I didn’t have time to do / wasn’t home often enough to do is helping, especially when I can see progress being made 

Weekly therapy sessions -- started these last year when my brother got very seriously ill; the therapy sessions have now moved online via video-call rather than face-to-face and in-person, but I’m still keeping up with them through the pandemic. I haven’t felt like I need it, tbh, but I figured it couldn’t hurt to keep having therapy just in case...

Being grateful for how lucky I am -- I’m still alive and well for now, as are my loved ones, my husband and I are still in jobs / earning money, and things could be a lot worse; for example, at least I’m still able to go for walks in the park: my brother is officially a “vulnerable category” person who has to stay completely indoors and self-isolate for 12 weeks, even though he’s in remission; he can’t even go to the shops to get food

Working -- it’s been really nice sometimes to keep busy. The nature of my work means that unfortunately I can’t completely switch off from the news, so I tend to look at less of the bad and sad news and consume more the “how does the pandemic affect my specific specialism or field” news -- I find that limiting my news consumption is helping

Husband and I go for a walk in the park in the sunshine once a day (it’s been warm and sunny in London ever since lockdown started in March) for like 45 minutes a day. We have a really lovely park and I’ve taken lots of nice nature photos, and have discovered parts of the park and our neighbourhood that we didn’t know before, which has been very exciting 😁

We’ve been cooking and baking a lot more because we’re not commuting, and we’ve got time to cook ourselves nicer / healthier meals, and experimenting with baking puddings and cakes.

Taking multivitamins and fish oil every day, with boosters for Vitamin D3 and magnesium -- I actually think the latter has helped me sleep better and helped with motivation this year, but who knows LOL

FaceTime with husband’s family -- I actually think this lockdown has improved the quality of our relationships there, and they’ve been really happy to chat to us more often than usual

Just... not pushing myself on anything: usually I’m a really chatty and sociable person, but this year I’ve been far less chatty and just not felt so sociable, and just enjoyed being away from people to read and write or whatever. My one and only goal in 2020 is to survive it -- literally, given that there’s a pandemic on, LOL. Anything else is a bonus.

[thelioncourts]

title: beyond the pale author: marrieddorks fandom: captive prince pairing: damen/laurent word count: 22204

Laurent DeVere was off limits. There were no ifs, ands, or buts about it.

A lot of that — 43% — was because of Laurent himself. Despite only being nineteen years old, Laurent seemed to have long mastered the art of appearing as aloof and cold as humanly possible. Displays of emotion were limited to disdain and boredom, but even those were better to be on the receiving end of than the craftily cultivated blank stare he spent most of his time wearing as he wandered campus.

But Laurent was beautiful. There were no ifs, ands, or buts about that either. Though he tended to dress somewhat severely with high collars and covered wrists and ankles, his outfits were form fitting and it was quite a form that they fit. And while it would have been nice to see him in something not darker than the heart lying in his chest, the contrast of his muted clothing compared to the porcelain quality of his skin, the flaxen shine of his hair, and the unclouded blue of his eyes only garnered him more stares of longing and desire from classmates, professors, and passerbys alike.

So, while Laurent was dubbed as the cast-iron bitch of Arles University, he was also beautiful and that meant most of the student body wasn’t controlled enough to take the warning of his temperament to heart.

But Laurent DeVere was off limits and the reason that was obeyed — the other 57% of the reason — was because he was Auguste DeVere’s little brother and Auguste said so.

Auguste DeVere, unlike his brother, was loved and adored by all. Everyone wanted to be Auguste’s friend. And, in a way, everyone was Auguste’s friend. Auguste was the kind of guy that always had something nice to say about somebody else. He went out of his way to help those around him, whether it was the cliché of helping an old lady load her groceries into her car, insisting that his apartment was a space where anyone could come and crash if they needed it, or volunteering to tutor the undergrads that were struggling in their classes. There was no person better than Auguste, really.

But Auguste was fiercely protective of Laurent. That fact had been established long before Laurent got to Arles University. Since Auguste’s freshman year, he had talked nonstop of the love held for his little brother. With the loss of both their parents at such young ages, the two boys had grown up with nothing but one another. It had built an unbreakable and sacred bond, one untouched by anyone on the outside.

When Laurent had finally hit college age, Auguste had sat down his friend group calmly and respectfully. He had informed them that Laurent would be moving to campus, would be living in the other bedroom in Auguste’s home, and that Auguste wanted everyone in the room to continue to be part of his life but that meant Laurent would be part of theirs too; the brothers were a two-for-one deal after all. Of course, everyone had agreed vehemently. Then Auguste, just as calmly but with warning in his smile, had told them that Laurent was off limits romantically, sexually, and even emotionally. Off course, everyone had agreed again, this time with a lot of confusion to accompany their nods.

When they had finally met Laurent for the first time several weeks after Auguste’s preliminary meeting, they understood.

For that first year, everyone had obeyed diligently. They had needed to get a feel for Laurent’s personality anyway and upon discovering it and finding it less than amorous, leaving the beautiful and forbidden younger DeVere was an easy task to follow. Well, for all them but Lazar.

With summer come and gone far too fast, however, everyone was making their way back to campus. A few of them were starting their first year of grad school. Auguste was in his final already. And Laurent was a sophomore and even more beautiful than he had been the year before. It was now that things started to change. People noticed.

[Continue on AO3]

    1. Nik

The entire team was close. Practically blood-oath close. They were the equal of a fraternity, but without the out-of-pocket money for Greek life fees. Instead they paid for their bonds with their blood, sweat, and tears. It was well spent too. They were the division champions for the third year in a row as of last year. This year they were trying to make it a record four.

The first week on campus was spent mapping out schedules and routes, stocking up on food for their dorms, apartments, and houses, and catching up with all the guys like no time had passed at all. The first text, sent out in the obnoxious group text they had set up, said a simple “7 @ Kesus?” and had been followed by almost a dozen accounts of “Yes,” “Hell yeah!” and a few emojis that all signified the same, including the Ferris wheel emoji for unexplainable reasons.

Kesus was a pub downtown. It became their go-to spot when the convenience of its placement in comparison to their favorite drunken food run, a food truck located right on Barbin Avenue, managed to filter through their eventually sober minds. It was made even better by the fact that it had a table in the back large enough to seat their whole motley crew, even when a few extras managed to tag along.

As it was, by seven o’clock less than half of them were seated at their table, but that didn’t mean they were any less loud than normal. Rowdiness was in their nature.

“How do classes start next week already?” Orlant groaned.

“Time moves forward and tasks and events fall on a timeline, thus —”

“Shut up!” Orlant groaned again.

“But time is a construct.”

“This is why God abandoned us, you know,” Rochert pointed out.

“Okay, I’m leaving,” Jord chimed in.

“No!”

“Who are we missing?” Nik asked.

“Lazar, Pallas —”

“That’s no coincidence,” Damen snorted.

“Huet, Berenger, Auguste, and Alexon. I think that’s it though.”

“Huet won’t be here until Thursday.”

“Do you think Auguste is going to bring Laurent with him?”

“Let’s hope so.”

“Let’s hope not. If I wanted to deal with that level of bitchiness today, I would’ve watched some god-awful reality T.V. before coming here.”

“He’s not that bad,” Damen said, smiling.

“Neither is the common cold, but I still don’t want it hanging around me,” said Nik.

“At least he’s good to look at.”

“Yeah, but if Auguste catches us looking at him, we’re dead men walking.”

“If Auguste catches us looking at what?” came Lazar’s voice. Most of them had to turn to watch Lazar saunter in, eyes bright and hair mussed, with a pink-faced Pallas under his arm.

“At Laurent.”

“I don’t know how he expects us not to stare,” Lazar continued, pulling out a chair and tugging Pallas into it with him. “Has anyone else seen Laurent’s ass in the pants he wears? Magnificent.”

“It’d be hard to see his ass when I do my best to stay at least fifty yards away from him at all times,” Nik mumbled.

“God, just get a restraining order, it’d be more efficient for you.”

“Don’t think I haven’t looked into it,” said Nik all too seriously.

“And how are you planning on doing that?” Damen laughed.

“Simple. Get a temporary protection order, get everything filed within the court, and, eventually, convince the judge to grant me a permanent restraining order.”

“What evidence are you going to show?” Lazar asked with a grin. “How he makes your cock involuntarily hard?”

Nik flushed, though whether it was from the truth or the implication no one could be quite certain.

“Yeah, I don’t think things will work out in your favor if you try to get a restraining order on him that way,” Jord said.

“Who’s getting a restraining order on who?” came Auguste’s question.

“What is with you all and sneaking up on everyone at the wrong time?”

“Nik,” Damen emphasized, “doesn’t want a restraining order on anyone.”

“I want it against your brother. Oh, hi, Laurent,” Nik said, this time with an accompanied eye roll.

Sure enough, Laurent was standing at Auguste’s side, posture relaxed and almost bored, his right hand tucked in one of the back pockets of his dark pants. If it was possible, Laurent had gotten more beautiful over the summer spent away from Arles University. Everyone noticed. They let Lazar speak it for them, however, which was a grave mistake on their part.

“Laurent,” Lazar practically growled in greeting. “My lap is able to fit two beauties if you’d care to join.” He patted at his left thigh, the one Pallas wasn’t currently putting most of his body weight on and waggled his eyebrows all too suggestively.

“As wonderful as that sounds,” Laurent started, his voice clear like a bell and doubly as sweet, “I fear that since you only think with that poor excuse that you call a dick, you definitely lack the capacity to pay proper attention to one person right in your vicinity, let alone two. I’d also like to avoid being entirely disappointed before the school year starts at the very least.” It was impossible to miss the judgmental flick of those pellucid blue eyes to Lazar’s jean-covered crotch.

Despite Laurent not being on the team and despite him being the youngest of the group altogether, it didn’t feel like he was tagging along. Sure, some of the guys liked to tease that Laurent was the equivalent of some of the guys’ clingy girlfriends, but it wasn’t true. Laurent had his own place with them, and he fell right back into it without any effort, taking a seat between Auguste and Jord for the remaining unruliness of the evening.

Sadly, the unruly night passed by too quickly as did the following days. Before anyone knew it, they were back in classes and clutching to whatever free time they could find.

For Damen and Nik, best friends long before the college years hit them, that meant finding at least one day a week to grab lunch together. It was a tradition they started their very first semester. Being in different majors, they didn’t see much of each other throughout the week and this was a guaranteed way to spend a good hour together not quietly sitting across from each other in the library or partying with the rest of the boys.

One semester they had been lucky enough to have time for three days of meeting up for lunch.

This semester they were only able to squeeze in one day. Thus, every Tuesday at eleven-thirty it was impossible to miss the two guys trying to shoulder by each other through the doorway of Belloy’s Bagels, the bagel deli that made the biggest and best bagel sandwiches within fifty miles of Arles.

“I’m just saying,” Nik started as they made their way to the window seats, hands warmed by the tin foil hiding their sandwiches, “that I’ve only been in this class for a single day, but I’m inclined to believe that this professor is going to spend more time mentally fucking over half of the first row than teaching at all.”

“Maybe it’s for the best. You said that this class was going to be a waste of a semester anyway,” Damen pointed out to him. The window seat was one of the draws to Belloy’s Bagels. They were thinking long term, after all, and come October they were going to need some give from the incoming cold. But for now, in the hot air of August, this also gave them plenty of sunlight to bask in.

“That’s true, but that doesn’t mean that I want to deal with that kind of incompetence for fifteen weeks.”

Their mouths were already full but that didn’t stop them from getting to talking as they always did, falling into it like it was the most natural thing because it was, and the first half hour went by way too fast for either of their liking.

Damen opened his mouth to voice such a feeling, but it was then that a flash of blond caught his eye. Laurent DeVere walked by the front of Belloy’s Bagels, two books under one arm and a messenger bag slung over the other. He didn’t seem to see Damen and Nik, or if he did, he didn’t acknowledge them which wouldn’t be surprising, and he was there and gone in seconds. The last of him that remained was the shine of his hair in the sunlight as it caught in Damen’s sight.

Damen was staring after him.

“Please don’t.”

Damen turned to Nik.

“What?”

“Well, to start, you have bean sprouts hanging out of your mouth. But what’s worse is that you stared after Laurent like we’ve seen Lazar do.”

“Lazar leers. I wanted to make sure it was him, that’s all,” Damen said.

Nik hummed thoughtfully. “Yes, I do suppose you had to lean out of your seat and press your face against the window to make sure it was. Perfectly understandable.”

“Cut it out, Nik!” Damen was laughing. “You’re being dramatic. As per usual. He’s our friend.”

“Maybe you consider him a friend.”

But the next week was one in the same. Their food was long devoured, the tin foil that once held their sandwiches balled up into shiny spheres, and Laurent walked by right at noon. There was a pair of headphones peeking out from his hair this time.

“You stared again.”

“I didn’t!”

“You did. What’s with that?”

Damen waited a beat, then two. Then he exhaled loudly, head falling forward. “Come on, Nik. Auguste is going to graduate at the end of this year. He won’t have anyone but us. Least we could do is keep an eye on him.”

“I knew the second that blond-haired-blue-eyed snake was brought here that you were doomed,” Nik moaned.

“I told you that’s not what this is about!”

“But you are attracted to him.” It wasn’t a question. They both knew that.

“I’m not going to do anything about it.”

The next week, however, Damen still stared with the kind of quiet longing that wasn’t so quiet when he didn’t have to be aware of Auguste’s eyes on him. Or even Laurent’s.

The week after that Nik was talking, telling Damen a story about his law and society course, when he noticed Damen was zoned out, brown eyes all too focused on the world outside as though he was waiting for something.

“...and then a bear walked in wearing a hat and said, “Excuse me, gentlemen, but I can’t seem to find the bathroom anywhere.”

Damen nodded.

“Damen.” Nik snapped his fingers in front of Damen’s face three times and Damen came back to himself with the slightest shake of his head, eyes finding Nik’s in startled confusion.

“What?”

“Where are you?”

“I’m right here, I’m just —” Damen stopped suddenly, sentence still hanging in the air around them, and Nik rolled his eyes and opened his own mouth to ask what was wrong when Damen jumped out of his seat and ran to the front door of Belloy’s Bagels, one large hand pushing and holding the door open.

Nik watched as Laurent came walking by and didn’t give Damen the satisfaction of jumping at the sudden intrusion on his otherwise silent trek across campus. Nik watched as Damen did all the talking, hands moving a bit animatedly with his words. Nik watched as Laurent raised one delicate eyebrow before shaking his head and continuing.

Damen was back inside in seconds.

“What,” Nik began, and Damen wouldn’t meet his eyes, “was that?”

“I invited him in for lunch,” Damen told him honestly.

“Why would you do that?”

“Because it’s lunch time and he always looks so alone when he walks by here.” Nik kept staring and Damen could read the expression.

“Yes, I’m sure you’re being entirely selfless here.”

“Auguste wouldn’t want us to see him and not talk to him,” Damen argued.

“Auguste also wouldn’t want you pursuing Laurent either, but that want of his doesn’t seem to be stopping you from doing it anyway. And, besides, Laurent is grown. If he wants to hide away, that’s on him.”

“Asking someone to lunch is hardly pursuing them.”

Nik didn’t argue anymore, and he didn’t have to. The next week was like clockwork and Damen once again ran to the door and asked Laurent inside. This time Laurent at least said something. His blue eyes fell toward the direction he was walking in and then flicked to Nik before he said something along the lines of, “I have class in a few minutes,” before he was off again.

The next week, Nik was shocked to walk in to Belloy’s Bagels and see that Damen wasn’t already seated, but had his lunch, Nik’s lunch, and a latte from the cafe next door with him.

“What’s this?” Nik asked as he pulled out his chair and slid in. The sandwich was still steaming hot, indicating Damen hadn’t been there all too long.

“Thought I’d surprise you,” Damen said. He was smiling and had his hands on his drink. Like all the weeks before, they started talking, and after a while Nik asked around a mouthful of food about the latte.

“Since when do you drink lattes from Chastillon?”

“I’ve never tried it, but since it’s right there,” Damen jutted a thumb in the general direction behind them, “I thought I’d stop in and see what was going on.”

Nik wiped his hands with a napkin. “Then why haven’t you drank any of it?” Grabbing the cup quickly, Nik was able to garner from the steam still rising from the cup what flavor it was. “Could it be because it’s a vanilla cinnamon latte and I’ve never known you to order that in your life?”

Damen didn’t answer. He didn’t have to either. A flash of blond walked by and Damen was out of his seat, the latte precariously sloshing up the sides of the cup a bit as he ran out the door. Nik heard him call out Laurent’s name and had first row seats to watch Laurent turn around and look at the drink as though it could bite him. Damen was talking animatedly again, and Laurent finally gave a curt nod after Damen stopped. With elegance not befitting the situation, Laurent crossed the distance between them and reached for the latte, cradling the warmth of it to his chest. Nik saw him say thank you and turn without another word or look.

The next week played out the same, except Nik did his very best to ignore the latte on Damen’s left. When he paused their conversation to run outside and give it to Laurent, Nik continued to act like nothing happened. It was easier, especially when it happened again the next week.

They were now halfway through the fall semester, over seven weeks in, and Nik prayed that next semester he and Damen would choose a lunch spot Laurent didn’t wander anywhere near. He was praying for such a thing as Damen handed Laurent the latte in his hands when Laurent didn’t immediately walk away. Damen had retreated inside, but Laurent was following.

“You can’t keep doing this,” Laurent told Damen just as Damen was grabbing his seat again.

“Doing what?”

“Don’t be daft. These things are at least four dollars now.”

“There’s a perfectly good reason to buy them. It’s starting to get chilly outside,” Damen said as though that made everything fine.

Laurent said nothing. Instead he stood there with an unreadable expression, chin high and hair wind mussed. His messenger bag strap was twisted below his shoulder.

“What are you usually doing around eleven?” Damen asked, filling the silence.

“Waiting until it’s time to go to class.”

“You could meet me at Chastillon. I’ll even let you buy your own latte if you’d like.”

Nik knew not to be surprised the next week, but he still was when he was just feet away from Chastillon and saw Damen and Laurent through the window. They were sitting across from one another at a table by the far wall. Laurent had his laptop and a series of books spread out in front of him and Damen had a notebook and a pen. Damen looked up at Laurent once. Twice. Three times.

The next week Nik watched as Laurent did the same.

    2. Jord

The relationship Jord shared with the DeVere brothers was odd. Okay, odd was perhaps not the right word; the relationship Jord shared with Laurent DeVere was odd. The relationship he shared with Auguste was simple and easy. It was a friendship full of mutual respect and camaraderie.

Jord had known Auguste since their freshman year of school. Despite having the money to afford a place of his own, Auguste spent his first two years in the dorms and threw himself into the roommate pool. Jord and him were randomly assigned and Jord silently thanked the fates for it because Auguste really was a great friend.

Because of Jord’s past with Auguste he also was the only one of the group to have known Laurent just as long.

It was impossible to forget meeting Laurent. When Jord had, Laurent had only been fourteen years old. Even then he was smart as a whip and twice as pretty as anyone else. One year Jord even spent part of the holidays with both DeVeres. His avoidance of his own family made him susceptible to Auguste’s suggestion he come back home to The Manor with him where Laurent’s judgmental gaze waited.

Though their start was a rocky one – to keep a long story short, Laurent left Jord lying in the dirt right outside the stables – years of keeping Auguste’s friendship had cemented Jord’s relationship with Laurent.

As the years progressed, Jord came to a frightening realization that he felt protective of Laurent. He wasn’t at the level Auguste was, and he never would be, but it was impossible to not feel protective after witnessing the comments thrown Laurent’s way as he aged.

Despite the odd and brother-esque relationship Jord shared with Laurent, there was no other person he would rather have in his class this year.

Jord was TA’ing for a Roman military history course this semester. Dr. Paschal was Jord’s advisor, mentor, and favorite professor at Arles University. He’d been in the doctor’s class his freshman year and it was his guidance and passion that allowed Jord to conclude what he wanted to major in.

When Laurent had walked in on the first day a few weeks ago, he had looked at Jord with that cool stare of his and said nothing as he elegantly sat down at the end of the first row, just in front of Jord’s own desk.

Jord had been nervous. Dr. Paschal was a no-nonsense kind of guy. And while Laurent wasn’t the kind to disrupt the class for attention or for the simple purpose of being disruptive, Laurent was the kind to tell the professor they were wrong and, should the professor try to argue, eviscerate them with words alone.

By the third day, Laurent was Dr. Paschal favorite student by far. The doctor tried not to show it during class, but in private with Jord he sang countless praises of the intelligence Laurent showcased with every question, comment, and argument he made.

After several weeks, Jord lessened in his tension and, instead, joined the doctor in his amusement and even pride at Laurent’s analytical nature taking the front seat of most lectures.

“He’s a handful,” Dr. Paschal laughed one day, handing Jord some lesson plans for the following week.

Though he should have, Jord never considered that Laurent was watching. Laurent was always watching though and after class one day he had let Jord know that fact.

“If you keep laughing every time I prove someone wrong you may be accused of playing favorites.”

The cool-toned observation had startled Jord who had still been at his own desk, gathering up the four-week essays all the students in the class had written and turned in.

“I don’t think it’s me who needs to be worried about that kind of accusation. Just the doctor.”

Laurent’s lips had upturned, so slightly, and Jord still couldn’t tell you how it happened or why, but he had suddenly found them both on their way to the library in a comfortable silence.

Ever since that day, Jord and Laurent had gone to the library after their shared class. It made sense, Jord had told himself after the third time; Laurent spent most of his free time in the library anyway and going right after class was the only guaranteed way Jord would get his TA’ing duties out of the way on time.

Their studying was done in silence. Jord had learned quickly that Laurent was not to be talked to, messed with, or anything of the sort while he was studying. By the time they would grab a table (always on the fourth floor) and spread their papers, laptops, and notebooks out, Laurent would have his headphones in and his eyes on the tasks in front of him.

It went on like that for several weeks, a routine created in quiet comfortability. On occasion, Auguste even joined them, bringing along five-inch-thick textbooks that Laurent glared at when they took up too much of his own space on the table.

Though their sessions were quiet, Jord came to appreciate not only the productivity of the almost two-hours-long spent studying, but also the way they shifted his relationship with the youngest DeVere. Auguste had long lamented Laurent’s introversion. It wasn’t that Auguste had any problems with his little brother being quiet, bookish, standoffish, and even albeit shy, but he did have problems with the fact that those factors often meant one thing: that Laurent’s friend group was limited. While Jord recognized that these hours spent with Laurent would never lead to a best-friends-forever kind of situation, it did give him hope that Laurent would allow Jord to be part of his life after Auguste graduated this coming spring.

Midterms came and went and Jord and Laurent’s study sessions seemed to drag on longer than normal. Laurent, ever the perfectionist, wouldn’t leave until every line even semi-related to whatever he was working on at the time had been read, reviewed, noted, and read once more. Jord, dealing with his own personal midterms as well as his grading for Dr. Paschal’s class, was drowning in a flood of mediocre to superb sophomore papers all relating to the social reforms that shifted Rome from its republic to its time of the mid-Roman empire, couldn’t seem to catch up at all.

A particularly tense Roman military class went by in a blur the week after midterms. The doctor wasn’t happy with several of the students’ assignments and Jord found himself on the receiving end of several dirty looks from those who knew he himself did a large chunk of the grading. Jord blamed the tension on how he missed the approaching figure throwing a bout of shade on the library door.

“Let me grab that for you guys,” a deep and warm voice said from behind and to the right. Both Jord, and appearingly Laurent, had been too in their own heads that they had missed Damen of all people joining them on the front steps of the library.

“Damen,” Jord started with a smile, moving to the side so Damen could pull open the first door, “what are you doing here right now?”

Damen was a hard to miss kind of guy with his height, muscles, and large personality and heart to match, and Jord mentally sped through the last several weeks in his head, trying to place if he’d seen Damen here. It wasn’t that it was an unexpected thought for Damen to be at the library, but the group was close enough that if even one person was present somewhere, it would be odd to miss another.

“I’ve got a group project for my physiology class,” Damen made a face. “I usually go to the gym around this time, but it was the best time for everyone else to meet. I can always do the gym later.”

Jord hummed in agreement, only to remember Laurent was beside him. Quiet as always, Laurent seemed unfazed at running into Damen here. Instead he was looking at the door handle still in Damen’s hand before commenting in a monotonic voice, “Are we going to stand here and blockade everyone inside or are we actually going to walk through the doors? I’d hate for you to be late.” He said the last part while pointedly moving his eyes up to Damen’s face, but Damen only smiled. There was a dimple indented in his left cheek.

With an ever-so-slight flourish, Damen pulled the door wide open and Jord followed Laurent’s determined footsteps, pausing to tell Damen a quick thanks.

The fourth floor was relatively empty, a fairly usual sight at one o’clock on a Thursday, and by the time Jord caught up with Laurent he was already spreading out two notebooks, a textbook, and his laptop. Before long they were both taking up most of the table with all their things and studying like normal. It was hard to keep focused, however, when a group – large and loud – came up the staircase and onto the fourth floor, assumingly looking for some tables. The vibration of plasticky wood across thin library carpeting a few minutes later indicated they had found those tables.

When Jord looked up from his own laptop, he immediately was met with seeing Damen again. He was with the other five people that had wandered up the stairs and he waved at both Jord and Laurent upon seeing them again. Jord waved back and sighed in silent relief when the group got much quieter upon settling down.

The six had pushed three tables together and fished a thick packet of papers out of each of their bags. For a while, the only sounds were the hushed whispers of one of them reading over, what Jord could only assume were, the requirements for their project and the familiar sound of papers being flipped and turned as they continued along.

It was only after a few minutes of that that Jord realized there was another familiar sound missing. Looking up curiously, Jord found that Laurent wasn’t touching his laptop as per usual. Instead he was staring unblinkingly at the page of notes lying on the table in front of him. His face was too close and, upon watching him for a moment, Jord realized that was so he could look over to his left without being too obvious.

Unsure of what to do or what was going on, Jord forced his gaze back into his own papers and soon found himself caught in the rhythm of it all. By the time Jord looked up again, Laurent seemed back to his normal self. The keys of his keyboard sunk down with the fast pace of his fingers and the pages of his book turned with purpose.

It wasn’t until the next week that Jord managed to put two and two together.

Damen met them at the front door again, holding it open with another flourish and a smile, and Laurent seemed to pay no mind to it until Damen was settled in with his group. Confused by Laurent’s distractedness, Jord did his best to keep working diligently. He succeeded for some time, but when he felt Laurent jolt beside him, he found his desire to understand what the hell was going on takeover.

It didn’t take a genius to realize the only thing that could have caused Laurent to jolt was Damen’s laugh. It was a loud laugh, one that came from the chest and lit up Damen’s whole face, and it wasn’t library quiet. But it wasn’t that the sound scared him, Jord knew that much, because they had endured much louder in the university library. Staring at the blond, Jord found him not hiding how he looked to his left now. Following his line of vision, Jord watched as Damen talked animatedly to the woman next to him. She must have been the cause of his laughter and Jord was captivated by her long dark hair. It curled at the ends.

It was the woman’s turn to laugh this time and her laugh was quieter than Damen’s own. It did get louder when Damen playfully plucked the stack of papers out of her hand and held them high above his head, an area far too high for her to reach. Jord knew Laurent heard her too as she loudly whispered, “Damen, stop! Give it back!” before putting her right hand on Damen’s left shoulder so she could try to get some leverage.

It made sense. Laurent had a crush.

For a few minutes, Jord couldn’t put a finger on why this all bothered him. Laurent had a crush, so what? But then it dawned on him in one exact moment, the terrifying way in which this could all go alarmingly wrong and it panicked Jord so much that he almost reached for his phone so he could tell someone about it all and get them on his side.

There’s too much fragility here, he thought with his eyes still on Laurent. Damen was a great guy, he was, but he was also a bit of a heartbreaker. And he had an affinity for blonds. Meanwhile Laurent had never been interested in anyone and, with another grim thought, Jord played with the notion of Laurent’s feelings becoming known. There were several things that could happen and none of them were good.

Jord grabbed his pen, tilted his notebook, and made a quick list.

If Laurent’s feelings were ever known:

    1. Damen would think with his dick and not his head and Laurent would be another blond at Arles University left alone after a few fun nights. It would strain, at the very least, Auguste’s relationship with all of them.

    2. Damen would think with his head and not his dick and Laurent’s first (known to Jord) crush would be unrequited and would leave him heartbroken. It would strain, at the very least, Auguste’s relationship with all of them.

    3. Damen would think with his dick and not his head, but try for an actual relationship with Laurent, only for one of them to do something that would lead to a – probably – messy breakup soon. It would strain, at the very least, Auguste’s relationship with all of them.

    4. Damen would think with his dick and not his head, but try for an actual relationship with Laurent, only for Damen to graduate and move on with his life plans, ultimately leading to a breakup because of the different points they would both be at in their lives. It would strain, at the very least, Auguste’s relationship with all of them.

Jord lamented as he looked down at his messy scrawl. This wasn’t good.

The next week played out much the same. Neither Jord nor Laurent seemed to get much work done. Laurent kept looking to his left, expression unreadable, as Damen worked and joked around with his project partners. Jord kept looking up at Laurent, wishing he had a superpower where he could change people’s thoughts. While he looked at Laurent, he tried his best to look on the bright side of things. Damen was a great guy and would never go out of his way to intentionally hurt Laurent. And Laurent was smart and practical and wouldn’t be petty should Damen, rightfully, turn him down.

Laurent was so quiet that there was a chance that no one outside of Jord would ever know anyway. Jord found himself asking within his own head, When was the last time Laurent shared his feelings with the group? The answer was an obvious “never.”

Jord also found his shoulders easing with the knowledge of how dense Damen could be. For a guy that hooked up as often as Damen did and had an endless line of people interested in him, Damen oftentimes missed that people were into him. Jord thought of Jokaste – or as the group fondly referred to her, Lady Macbeth – and how she had to walk up to Damen and declare “We should fuck” before he got the message.

There was hope.

The following Thursday went by about the same, only Jord thought he could feel Laurent’s heart beating all the way from his own seat. Damen, as always, was focused most of the time, only getting distracted when everyone else needed a break from thinking. Recognizing Laurent’s look meant he could recognize the look the girl with the beautiful dark hair was giving Damen as well.

The next week went by a bit different. For one, Damen was chattier, and he even went on to join Jord and Laurent as they made their way to the fourth floor of the library. Jord noted how good Laurent was at controlling himself. He looked unbothered by Damen’s presence, as though he could be doing any mundane task and would be more entertained, and Damen merely talked amicably to the both of them like he didn’t notice.

When they went their separate ways, Damen to his group and Jord and Laurent to their two tables, Jord awaited the settling that occurred before Laurent felt unwatched enough. But Damen’s group didn’t settle this time. They were rowdy, reminiscent of the way they were the first day they came to work on the project, and Jord quickly found out why; he could hear them talking, could hear one of the other guts say “Let’s look over everything one more time and call it.”

Soon (far too soon for an entire readthrough of the project) there was a too loud shriek of happiness from the beautiful dark-haired girl and Damen was clapping everyone on the shoulder. Goodbyes and “See you all on Wednesday!” and “Dress like you’re not hungover for once, Hendric!” were exchanged. Jord switched his view from the group to Laurent, in front of him as usual.

Laurent was outwardly engaged in whatever was on his laptop screen. He had the eraser-end of his pencil pressed against his mouth and one of his feet was tapping ever-so-quietly under the table. Jord had to hand it to him, Laurent could act out almost anything convincingly. He could act almost anything so that he didn’t look nervous or anticipatory as Damen walked over to them after giving one last wave to the project group.

“Hey,” Damen started, his voice much quieter than that of what he had left and Jord looked up only to realize Damen wasn’t addressing him. “We’re finally done with that awful project, but I’ve gotten used to coming to the library around this time. I was wondering if I could join you for the rest of the semester?” He looked earnest with his genuine smile and his bag swinging at his feet.

“I thought you went to the gym around this time,” Laurent simply said, no question or heat behind his words.

“I’ve actually been getting up early so I can work out before any of my classes.”

“Prioritizing studying and your health above your sleep? I’m shocked.”

“It’s a new semester, new me,” Damen laughed. “Well, sort of. A new half of a semester, a new me. So, what do you say?”

Laurent said nothing but went to busying his hands with moving around his laptop and notebooks. Damen didn’t repeat himself. Instead he turned to Jord and Jord shrugged. He wasn’t about to get involved in this now that they’d ignored him anyway.

“Oh, do sit down. I was merely making room for all your giantness to have a place.”

Damen’s grin was brilliant, and he pulled out the free chair to Laurent’s right and Jord’s left.

“If you’d like, I can bring you one of those lattes you love,” Damen said. Laurent hummed.

“We have a perfectly fine school café here on the second floor. I’ll have you fetch Jord and I something from there sometime.”

“I’m fetching now, am I?”

“Why else would I agree to you being here?”

Once the ribbing had gotten out of their systems, things got quiet. The next week, Damen beat the both of them there and had their table all ready. It was now that Jord realized, when Damen wasn’t working on a project he spent as much time, if not more, as Laurent when it came to staring at the other. Sometimes Jord would glance up only to find Damen completely enthralled in Laurent’s studious face. Sometimes Jord would glance up only to find Laurent scanning from the top of Damen’s head to the tips of his fingers. Jord felt intrusive.

Gently pulling his notebook out of his bag, Jord flipped to the page where had made his “If Laurent’s feelings were ever known” list. Some of the pencil had smudged from being jostled around while Jord walked about, but it was still plenty readable. Eyes down for the first time that day, Jord found himself adding to the list and laughing at himself for how stupid he was for making the list in the first place.

    5. Damen and Laurent would both think with their dicks and not their heads but would ultimately beat the odds stacked up against them. Auguste would be happy Laurent was happy.

    3. Jokaste

Even though she was a head-turning beauty, Jokaste wasn’t exactly the most popular person. There was a list of things that could be blamed for such a fact, and whilst Jokaste herself would list other peoples’ intimidation of a woman making her way in this world with no attention given to what others thought, the main reason was simply because she wasn’t kind.

Her pregnancy hadn’t changed that. Kastor had made a joke once that maybe she would lighten up a little when the baby decided to play with her hormones. She was six months into the ordeal now and not a thing was different. People still went out of their way to stay clear of her bad side, and her bad side still made appearances as often as she saw fit to keep things on track.

Though there was no softness about her, there was something the pregnancy had changed. She would never admit such a thing, of course, as it would be too vulnerable to say out loud, but as the baby kicked and shifted within her, she found herself wanting more and more to raise this child in a family.

It was obviously hormones putting a nasty toll on her body and mind, but it didn’t make it feel any less real. And the realness of it always hit her in the dead of night as Kastor slept soundly beside her.

There were some nights that her mind wandered to the time she was able to be part of something. The boys had been just that – boys. But they had been kind and funny and had gone out of their way for her more times than she could count. Sure, Nik only came to change her tire and Berenger only gave her his umbrella on a rainy Wednesday and Alexon only gave her his notes from their once-shared philosophy class for a day she had missed because she was Damen’s girlfriend and Damen’s girlfriend alone, but it had been something.

Inevitably, with a hand on her stomach and her head next to Kastor’s, her mind would wander to Damen and she would force it to cease its thinking immediately. But sometimes her wandering won, and she thought of him anyway.

There were a lot of things to think about when it came to Damen. Jokaste most often found herself thinking of the weight of his arm around her shoulder or the warmth of his laugh. Lately, the latter made her think of him laughing with his child – their child – and she would make herself face Kastor’s sleeping form and accept her decision to have his child instead.

It didn’t make it any easier.

The realistic part of her knew that even if this child was Damen’s (and it wasn’t, that had been made certain by Kastor), her relationship with Damen was unsalvageable. Fucking someone’s brother behind their back made trust impossible to rebuild. And even if Damen and his big heart wanted to give her another chance, she had witnessed the way Nik and Auguste and the rest of that group looked at her now. They were like bodyguards of Damen’s heart-covered sleeves.

The few times she had ran into any of them since The Incident had been brief, nothing but passings-by from people living in the same city. There was one time she had seen Nik in town and momentarily wondered if he had snipped the brakes in her car. Other than that, her run-ins with them were cold-shouldered and uneventful...until tonight, anyway.

She was grocery shopping. It was a mundane but necessary task, and Jokaste preferred to do it late into the evening. There were less people, less screaming children, and it gave her more time away from Kastor’s watchful eyes. She hadn’t been in the store long when she heard them. They were loud as ever and one indecipherable screech, from Orlant or Lazar, surely, almost made her drop the mango she was inspecting.

“Listen up,” came Auguste’s unmistakable leader voice, “we don’t have all night. Mostly because I have class at eight tomorrow morning. New Year’s is in three days. Our best way to do this is to assign sections and split up.”

“Sir, yes, sir!” That was Lazar.

“Orlant, Rochert, and Huet are in charge of chips and the like. Nik, Berenger, and Alexon are in charge of mixers. Jord, Pallas, and Lazar are with me to get the alcohol. Damen, you can go grab some ice and meet up with Nik, Berenger, and Alexon after. All clear?”

“What about me?”

“Laurent, you can go wherever you want. But you have to be out of here before we buy everything.”

There was a lot of laughing and Jokaste could imagine the elbows being shoved in rib cages at this exact moment.

“It’s because he’s a baby,” someone cooed.

“He’s going to get our drinks confiscated,” someone else teased.

“You’re all laughing, but he could kill you and make it look like an accident,” Auguste said all too seriously. “So, are we all clear?”

“Crystal, captain,” Orlant said, joining in on Lazar’s fun.

The shuffling of their feet as they split up was too loud in the otherwise quiet store. By the time Jokaste made it into her first aisle, they were long gone to their designated areas. As she wove in and out of the aisles, she caught glimpses of some of them. She saw the back of Orlant’s head across the way as she walked by the breads. She barely missed on running into Nik as she went to grab her juice. It wasn’t until she was almost done shopping, finishing up in the frozen foods’ aisle, that she first heard him.

It wasn’t just his voice, but the way he was speaking. There was a fondness to his tone, a softness in his approach, and when he laughed at something that was said back to him it was that laugh. Jokaste knew what that laugh was, what it meant. Finding herself in a moment of weakness, she peered around the corner.

There stood Damen and next to him a lithe blond. Jokaste almost laughed. They were in front of the ice creams and frozen juice concentrates and they were pressed shoulder to shoulder as though the aisle was swarmed with more people than just them.

“Okay, but consider,” Damen started. The blond didn’t seem to want to consider, however. He was talking too quietly, too lowly, for Jokaste to hear from where she stood, but he was making good of the argument he was voicing.

“I guess, but what about afterward?” Damen asked, but he was already decided to do whatever the blond wanted. Jokaste could see it in the way he was angled, nearly drowning the blond in his presence alone.

“Fine!” Damen was laughing that laugh again. “Since you clearly know what’s best, you get it all, Laurent.”

Laurent. Jokaste knew the name and not from the brief conversation she accidentally eavesdropped on when they all first arrived. It had been the only name she couldn’t put a face to, the only name that was new. But there was still something about the name that lit a memory in her mind.

Laurent threw open one of the freezer doors before nearly crawling in to grab at things. Instead of juggling it all, he shoved them all in Damen’s awaiting arms. He moved to the next freezer door and pulled another three things out of there as well. By the time he was done, Damen’s arms were loaded with items, and Laurent was shivering ever so slightly.

“I would offer you my jacket, but my hands are a little full,” Damen told Laurent and he was all too serious about the jacket.

They had moved close enough for Jokaste to hear Laurent say, “I appreciate the offer, but I refuse to walk around smelling like Axe body spray.”

Damen scoffed, shifting the grocery load precariously stacked in his hold.

“This is Creed, Laurent. Pierce Brosnan wears it.”

“Is that supposed to mean something to me?”

“He was James Bond!”

“And?”

“James. Bond. I feel like this isn’t something I should have to repeat.”

“If I say that I think that’s really, truly something spectacular, will you refrain from doing a James Bond impression?”

“No, because I know you’ll be lying.”

“What will it cost for you to not do a James Bond impression then?” Laurent deadpanned.

They continued to playfully bicker back and forth and Jokaste nearly couldn’t stomach it. Knowing they were going to see her sooner or later, she turned the corner with the intent of getting it over with. They didn’t notice her at first and it was only when she was facing them fully that she saw how close they were standing now. It wasn’t just shoulder to shoulder; it might as well have been chest to chest.

Damen, expectedly, noticed her first. She felt her heart go off its rhythm once. His eyes fell to her stomach and she had to turn away. She looked at Laurent instead.

He was a head-turning beauty also. His hair was white-blond, and it complimented the pellucid blue of his eyes and the flawless expanse of his skin. His lips, drawn tighter at her interruption, were full and a contrasting warmth in his otherwise cool-toned appearance. He had piano fingers, long boned and elegant, and they went along so well with the hold of his spine and the elegance of his frame. Yes, he was exactly Damen’s type, even moreso than she was.

“Hi, Jokaste,” Damen greeted her after the pause in conversation. Jokaste turned back to him.

“Hello, Damen,” she started. “I must say, this is one of the last places I would expect to run into you.”

“Likewise,” he agreed. “Is Kastor’s child keeping you up?”

She couldn’t help but let her eyes look down at her own protruding stomach and her right hand soon followed. The baby shifted.

“I suppose you could say that.” Her eyes turned to Laurent who was watching her with an unreadable expression. “Oh, Damen, do introduce me. We’re being quite rude to your,” she drew it out, “friend.”

“Right, of course. Jokaste this is Laurent DeVere.”

“Laurent DeVere? As in the little brother Auguste DeVere used to rave so much about?”

“He still raves as much,” Damen confirmed, and his eyes were on Laurent.

“Yes, I fear my brother has no self-control when it comes to even my smallest accomplishments.” The blond’s voice was like honey, soothing in the cold of winter and so smooth that viciousness would sound almost complimentary. He was dangerous for Damen, that she was certain of.

“Well, I’ve heard of many of them and they didn’t seem that small then and certainly not now.” Jokaste’s own voice couldn’t quite match.

Damen was still looking at Laurent and Jokaste realized what that look in Laurent’s eyes was. It wasn’t a surprise he would know about the past she shared with Damen and, upon further inspection, he very much could imagine strangling her. She almost giggled at how very Nik the look was.

Sighing too loudly, she put both of her hands back on the handle of her cart. Jokaste knew a lost cause when it was right in front of her and whatever was once there between her and Damen was long lost. It took her pushing the cart a few inches for Damen’s gaze to leave Laurent and come back to her.

“Your arms are going to freeze off if you don't take that armful to the registers soon. And your brother will be calling me soon if I don’t get home.” She took another deep breath before saying her most risky thing yet. “You should call him sometime, Damen. He does miss you.”

Once, such a suggestion would have been impossible. She hadn’t ever said it to him and, as far as she could assume, no one close to Damen would have made the same suggestion. She and Kastor were as good as dead in all their eyes. And it was easy to guess how Damen three years ago would have reacted. His anger at Kastor’s betrayal had been palpable then, physical in the way it took over him.

“I probably should,” Damen agreed now with ease. “Drive home safe.”

“You as well. It was nice meeting you, Laurent. Goodbye, Damen.”

With a bit more force, she kept on walking. She passed directly by them on Laurent’s right and when she got to the end of the aisle, she took one last look over her shoulder. Where once Damen would have stared after her with longing, he now didn’t look back, his eyes preoccupied with the one by his side.

It was almost bittersweet and as she turned into her final aisle for the night, she found herself hoping Laurent was less like her than he appeared.

    4. Lazar

The DeVere house was the unofficial-official meeting spot for the group. Auguste had made it clear from the day he moved to campus that his house was intended for anyone and everyone. It was a safe space if you needed a place to crash or needed a meal that wasn’t ramen, and that’s why it also became the unofficial-official party house. Lazar couldn’t count on both hands the number of times he had woken up from a drunken stupor at some odd place in Auguste’s house.

When Laurent had been about to start college and move in with his brother, many in the group quietly wondered if the DeVere house would stay the same. They hadn’t met Laurent at that point yet, but they had heard enough from Auguste to deduce that Laurent wasn’t quite the people person Auguste was. But when Laurent finally did move in nothing changed. If Laurent wanted privacy he simply went to his bedroom, but otherwise he was out and about the house with all the others that made their way in and out the DeVere front door.

The parties had continued too. Last night’s New Year’s party was no exception. After their grocery run three days earlier, putting things together had been easy and by seven o’clock yesterday, the thirty-first of December, the house had been packed with the usual suspects.

Music had blared from a handful of speakers and the kitchen counters had been cleared to make way for all the pizza boxes and drinks alike. The television in the living room had Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve playing, but no one had given it much attention until the last minute of the year. Instead they had all made themselves busy by talking and laughing the rest of the year away.

When Lazar finally woke up, it was at least ten in the morning on the first day of the new year. His eyes didn’t open at first, too tired and hungover and all-around disoriented from the night, and he started to feel around to get an idea at where he was. It was always a fun game for Lazar on these types of mornings. Once he had felt around and proceeded to fall down the stairs that led to the front porch. Another time he had woken up only to immediately hit his head on a pipe and he swore then and there that he would never fall asleep underneath the kitchen sink again. Today was less dramatic than either of those events. With one hand he grabbed at, what he found to be, a dresser. Groaning as he forced himself to sit up, he opened his eyes and immediately squinted at the doomful shine of the sun. A blurry look around the room confirmed several things. The first was that this was Auguste’s bedroom and Auguste was quite present, passed out soundly on his own bed with his right arm thrown over his face. The second was that the reason Lazar couldn’t feel his leg was because Pallas had made it his pillow at some point during the evening. The third thing was that his other hand was stuck underneath the dresser, somehow having slotted its way in a too tight space.

It took longer than he’d ever admit to free his arm and he almost knocked over the entire dresser while he did it. Nevertheless, he gingerly – he was a gentleman after all – moved Pallas’ sleeping head to one of Auguste’s discarded sweatshirts and hoisted himself off the ground. Everything around him swam and his hand found its way back to the dresser, this time to the top of it, to balance himself.

“Oh, god,” he groaned, and he pressed his lips tightly together to stop himself from vomiting.

Finding his way to the bathroom reminded him of that stupid game where you put your head on a baseball bat or pole of some sort and spin round and round and round until you can’t move in a straight line. The hallway was an ocean and Lazar was a mere sailor trying to survive a dreadful trip. Orlant and Rochert were already gone to the waves, leaning against one another on the left side of the hallway, a picture frame precariously hanging loose above them.

Being in the bathroom made Lazar feel better. He threw up once, twice, and then found the coordination to relieve himself. Jord was passed out in the bathtub. When Lazar flushed the toilet, Jord jerked in his sleep but was otherwise unaffected. Lazar’s hands went for his pocket, looking for his phone, and came back empty.

“Do you know how funny it would be to turn the shower on right now?” he asked Jord as though Jord could hear him. Before that kind of fun, however, he needed coffee or water or bacon covered in all its grease. Or all that.

His journey to the kitchen was much better. Getting some of the alcohol sitting stagnant in his stomach cleared his head and he was able to laugh at Nik who was sleeping upside down in a recliner. Wanting his phone even more now, he was practically running to the kitchen when he heard two voices.

They were far too sober sounding. In fact, they were talking at normal speaking levels which meant, to hungover people, they were screaming. Lazar smelled coffee too.

“Question, do you actually like the taste of coffee or do you just like having a drink you can put four cups of sugar in if you like?”

It was Damen talking, his voice warm and bright and not at all hungover sounding.

“I like coffee just fine, but why not sweeten it up? It’s no different than people eating cinnamon rolls doused in a pound of icing for breakfast.”

Laurent?

Never the posterchild for self-control, Lazar peeked around the corner. Laurent was sitting on the turn of the countertop. A steaming cup of coffee was held between both his hands and his legs were swaying back and forth ever so slightly. Damen was leaning against the counter, back pressed to it and arms crossed over his bare chest.

“Besides,” Laurent continued, “if my morning vice is putting more sugar than you deem necessary in a cup of coffee, than yours is walking around here with no decency.”

“No decency?”

“Did you forget your shirt? Did it magically fall off sometime last night? It’s absolutely freezing outside. One might think you’re trying to show off.” Laurent took a long drink.

“How dare you imply such a thing?” Damen grinned and he made an obvious flex of his muscles, his arms bulging and his abs defining even more than usual.

Lazar would have fallen out of his seat if he was sitting in one. Damen was flirting – no, scratch that – Damen and Laurent were flirting with one another.

“I never sleep with a shirt on. I’m hot-blooded. I’d kill over if I slept with that many clothes on.” Damen had moved closer as he spoke and now his left arm was tight against the outside of one of Laurent’s swaying legs.

“So, you often wake up in strange houses and decide not to put your shirt on before wandering, I take it?”

“It’s your house so it’s hardly strange. Are you really that put out about my lack of shirt?”

“Put out isn’t the term I’d use,” Laurent said.

“Flustered then?”

“You’re walking a thin line, Damen.”

The line appeared thinner, Lazar thought, as Damen invaded what space was left and settled between Laurent’s legs. His hands weighted him on either side of Laurent’s waist and Laurent didn’t even put his coffee down. It was quiet for a moment, nothing but eye contact, and Lazar couldn’t be certain with as far away as he was, but he swore Laurent’s eyes flicked down to Damen’s mouth.

“My brother will be up soon. Hungover or not, he’s nothing but punctual.”

Even leaning and even with Laurent sitting on the countertop, Damen was almost at equal height with him. It made Lazar’s stomach hot. Of course, that reminded him how nauseous he was from last night.

Yawning louder than any human ever needed to and purposefully hit the wall as he stretched. Damen jumped back like he’d been shot.

“Is that coffee I smell?” Lazar asked all too innocently.

“It is, but I’m afraid there’s none for you. I made a pourover,” Laurent told him. He looked unfazed by Lazar’s interruption and merely acknowledged Lazar with a hint of amusement at his disheveled state.

“You’re saying words that I don’t understand. Is there coffee, yes or no?”

“Not at the moment, but I can get some on. Auguste will want some when he gets up anyway.”

“You want any, Damen?” Lazar asked. Damen lifted a coffee cup from the other end of the counter and tilted it.

“Pourover.”

“Both of you keep saying that word like I know what it means.”

“It’s a brewing method, Lazar.”

Laurent got off the counter more elegantly than anyone had any right to and grabbed at the coffee pot, filling it up with water and filling the basket with grounds. Sitting in one of the kitchen chairs with his feet on the table, Lazar had a perfect view of Laurent at work and had to give a silent round of kudos to Damen; the guy might get murdered by Auguste by the end of the year, but it would be way worth it if Laurent’s ass was anything to go by.

The smell of coffee permeated the whole house almost immediately after and it’s like it was an alarm. They could all three hear Auguste’s feet hit the floor, could hear him almost trip over Pallas still lying somewhere at the foot of his bed, and could hear him grumble at other sleeping bodies he walked by. Entering the kitchen, Auguste was a sight for sore eyes. His sandy blond hair was all on the right side of his head only, the left side being completely plastered to his face, and his eyes were bloodshot.

“You’ve looked better,” Laurent commented without missing a beat.

Auguste grunted, swiping none-too-gently at his eyes, before he managed to garble out “Coffee. Ibuprofen.”

Not even bothering to hide his eye roll, Laurent went about fetching both things. The coffee was kept black and the four small white pills were a miniscule weight in his hands as he carried everything and a glass of water over to Auguste.

Pretty soon after that, all the others seemed to follow suit and Laurent, Damen, and Lazar found themselves passing out pills like they were candy and brewing their third pot of coffee for the morning. The kitchen was overflowing with hungover boys. Nik, silent in his pain, had shuffled in and immediately pulled out one of the three stools at the breakfast bar. He was joined by the now-walking duo of Orlant and Rochert. Berenger and his boy toy (Lazar still wasn’t certain what that situation was) pulled out two of the chairs next to Auguste and Lazar himself. Pallas copied Laurent and hopped up on the counter at the other end right next to the refrigerator. Lazar briefly got lost in the idea of copying Damen and slithering his way between those muscular thighs.

Shaking himself out of that too-good daydream led to Lazar searching out the two that had put it there in the first place. Laurent had resumed his position on the countertop, legs still swaying. Damen was over at the breakfast bar with a gentle hand on Nik’s back. Everyone else was too miserable to notice how Laurent’s eyes never wavered from staring at Damen across his way. Lazar couldn’t tell if he was staring at Damen’s face, at the cut of his arms, or the expanse of bare skin left on display, but all were certainly tempting. Everyone else was too miserable to notice how Damen’s gaze fell on Laurent the moment Nik quit giving him much mind. They were all too miserable to notice his none-too-subtle head-nod in the direction of the front door.

Pulling a Lazar, Laurent fake yawned as he once again hopped off the counter more elegantly than he had any right to. The stretch of his arms lifted his shirt at the expense of exposing his hipbones.

“If I don’t get moving now, I fear I’m going to go back to sleep and waste my entire day.” The reasoning was good enough and no one truly cared anyway, not with how close they all were to collectively throwing up.

That’s why they didn’t notice, or seem suspicious of, Damen doing the exact same thing almost word-for-word not five minutes later. Within the next half hour, the front door opened and closed only one time and Lazar found himself hoping they were smart enough to at least travel separately on Laurent’s way home.

    5. Nicaise

When Auguste was thirteen years old, he had volunteered in an after-school program called Big Brothers for a Big Future. The program placed eighth graders with fourth graders in need of some guidance. After school, the eighth grade Big Brothers would head over to the elementary building alongside their teacher and they would do a range of activities with their fourth-grade companion. Most of the time that activity was academically focused. But sometimes it was something fun, like heading down to the ice cream shop on the corner or playing a few rounds of kickball on the otherwise-empty playground. The program was a benefit to all parties involved. The fourth graders got the attention and role models they needed, and the eighth graders got to leave feeling accomplished.

When Auguste had first signed up, Laurent had been eight and he had cried the day Auguste told him.

With pleading eyes, Auguste had followed the sounds of Laurent’s sobs all the way up to the boy’s white bright bedroom with chapter books scattered all over the floor. It had taken a while for Laurent’s crying to subside to coherent sentences. When it finally had he had broken Auguste’s heart.

“But you’re my big brother!” the then eight-year-old Laurent said, the words muffled by the wet pillow under his face. It had taken a few more minutes for Auguste to coax Laurent to sit up, but when he had he made certain the first thing he had done was hug him.

“Laurent, I’m always going to be your big brother,” he had begun explaining to the eight-year-old. “But don’t you think other little kids should get to see what it’s like having a big brother too? Some kids don’t have any brothers or even any sisters.”

It hadn’t taken much more explaining for Laurent to understand. From day one he had been bright and the drop of his shoulders when Auguste had told him other kids didn’t get to have what he had had been all the sympathy Auguste needed to see to know Laurent had gotten it.

Over the years, Auguste had stayed with Big Brothers for a Big Future. He had always been great at connecting to younger kids, something he attributed to being such a large part of Laurent’s life, and connecting to these kids had not only been second nature but had been rewarding in ways he had never imagined.

Then there was Nicaise.

Nicaise wasn’t a Big Brothers for a Big Future kid, though he might as well have been given his past. Instead, Nicaise was closer to the DeVere’s than anyone else...well, by blood anyway. To explain it simply, Nicaise was Hennike’s cousin’s child.

Depending on the family and depending on the relevance of distance, these types of cousins may or may not be close family members. But in the instance of Auguste and Laurent, Nicaise was their closest family member and had been for the last decade. After all, when there are only three of you left living, it’s hard to be picky.

Despite everything though – the lack of remaining family, how good Auguste had always been with kids, Nicaise’s short relationship with his now-dead mother – Auguste never managed to get through to Nicaise.

Auguste blamed himself for most of it. Laurent had told him repeatedly over the years that it wasn’t his fault. But Auguste would read off his failures as though he had them on a bulleted list somewhere: how he didn’t take action after Nicaise’s mother died, how he didn’t fight for Nicaise when Nicaise ended up in the system, how he didn’t seek Nicaise out for a long time afterward, etc. And every time there was a perfectly justifiable reason to every “failure” and Laurent would read off his own list:

“Perhaps you didn’t take action after Nicaise’s mother died because you were fifteen years old, Auguste. And perhaps you didn’t fight for Nicaise when Nicaise ended up in the system because you were, again, fifteen years old and by the time you were old enough to fight, you were fighting for me as we had just lost our own parents and uncle was pleading with the courts to take me home with him. And perhaps you didn’t seek Nicaise out for some time afterward because you could worry about yourself and your own future for once in your life.”

No matter how logical everything Laurent always said was, it didn’t soothe Auguste’s heart in any way. The only thing that did was that, out of all the people in the world, Nicaise did seem to seek out a (somewhat convoluted) kind of approval from was Laurent himself.

The two had an odd relationship. If somebody were to ask what each thought about the other, Laurent would no doubt shrug as though he couldn’t care less about the boy and Nicaise would probably spit on the ground to showcase his distaste. But sometimes they held hands as they walked, acting as though Nicaise didn’t try to sabotage Laurent’s entire day in some diabolical way. And sometimes Laurent read Nicaise to sleep out of children’s books Auguste and Laurent’s own mother had read to both.

Now that Nicaise was a little older and a teenaged hellion, he had more freedom to go about as he pleased. The thought terrified Auguste and, frankly, Laurent wasn’t all too thrilled with it either. But his freedom allowed him to spend his spring breaks at Arles University with his dear cousins.

“I feel like we should be putting baby gates up or something,” Auguste lamented while Laurent made up his own futon as a makeshift bed.

“I’m just guessing, but I think he can climb over those now,” Laurent said. He was finishing tucking the corners of the comforter around the edges.

“He tell you about what he wants to do while he’s here?”

“Not really.” Laurent placed the last bit of decoration on the bed, a hand embroidered pillow Nicaise made in his home-ec class that was full of flowers and a lovingly stitched scrawl that said, “Fuck You.” “He called last week and said something along the lines of ‘Since I’m not allowed out of the country for legal purposes and I refuse to stay in this god-fucking-awful place a second longer than I have to, you should go ahead and get a bed ready for me. And not on that fucking excuse of a thing you call a futon.’ So honestly everything is all set as far as I’m concerned.”

About half an hour later there was a knock on the front door that made Auguste jump. Rolling his eyes, though whether it was at the door or Auguste’s jumpiness Auguste wasn’t quite sure, Laurent opened the door wide, revealing an already-disgruntled Nicaise.

Nicaise was a pretty thing, just on the cusp of leaving boyhood and entering that fun stage between boyhood and manhood. He had a mess of auburn curls atop his head that always seemed to look artfully tousled and his blue eyes were almost an exact match to Laurent’s, bright and clear and the color of the sea in the iciest places.

“You were supposed to call when you got to town,” Laurent told him, not bothering with a hello. Nicaise shouldered his way inside.

“What’s the fucking point of calling when I’m in town if I’m already here?” He dropped his bags with a resounding thud right in front of the door and kicked off his shoes like he belonged.

“How was your trip?” Auguste tried.

“Just peachy. I adore taking busses that stop every three minutes along the way and are full of passengers consisting of screaming babies and creepy old men. It’s truly my favorite thing.”

The first two days Nicaise spent with the DeVere brothers were uneventful, to say the least. Laurent woke Nicaise up at seven sharp every morning (“He needs to not wreck his entire schedule while he’s here. It will take him weeks to function normally again.”) and Nicaise, like a drowned tiger, growled and groaned at Laurent any time Laurent took a breath even a little louder than the last. After mostly sleeping, rifling through Auguste and Laurent’s belongings as though they were his own, and eating them out of Poptarts, waffles, and bags of chocolate chips, Nicaise felt as though he was sufficiently caught up on sleep and sweets and was ready to explore.

“Am I ever allowed to leave this dump, or am I being held prisoner until I am inevitably sent off to where I came from?” he asked after running and jumping on Laurent’s bed.

“I suppose that depends on you. You’re not seven, plan something and I’ll see if I can make it happen.”

“Oh, you’re impossible. I don’t know what’s here, so I don’t know how to plan anything. Take me exploring. I can work from there.”

Auguste, off in his classes for the moment, wasn’t privy to watch the two moan and groan as they got ready. Laurent didn’t find Nicaise’s first outfit appropriate and Nicaise thought Laurent looked like a Mennonite in his high necklines and wrist-covering shirts. It was going to rain so Laurent tossed a pair of closed-toed shoes for Nicaise to wear, but Nicaise found them ugly and tossed them right back. After a good twenty minutes of that they were both finally dressed and out the door. Other than Laurent’s black umbrella in hand and blond hair partially tucked out of his jacket collar, he and Nicaise could have been brothers.

“Where’s your car?” Nicaise asked after they walked to the end of the street.

“You wanted to explore so we’re exploring. You can’t explore in a car, Nicaise.”

“Fuck off. I’m not walking miles in this.”

“Then we can turn around.”

The rain wasn’t even bad. The raindrops that were falling were large and sparse in between, and the saturated sidewalks had hardly any puddles in their cracks and crevices. Laurent’s black boots still looked immaculate and, sure, they had only walked fifty yards or so, but it was enough to make Nicaise grunt and keep walking.

They walked a few blocks, bypassing some larger puddles and the few wandering students that were braving the rainy day, before they came across their first stop, Chastillon. It was March, and still chilly, and the inside of the coffee shop smelled of cinnamon, espresso, and raspberry danishes.

“Hi, Laurent!” the barista behind the counter said cheerily. His hair was sandy like Auguste’s, but he was tiny in stature and width and his smile was almost childlike in its purity. Laurent gave a nod in the barista’s direction.

“Isander,” Laurent greeted back with familiarity.

“Do you want your usual?”

“That would be wonderful. Can you also get me one of those disgusting large caramel blended things with all the whipped cream on top?”

“Sure thing,” Isander giggled. “You know you don’t have to pay.”

Laurent sighed, but it was accompanied with a small smile of fond exasperation. “Yes, I know.”

Isander got busy on the drinks, pressing and pulling espresso through the portafilters and putting vanilla and cinnamon in a medium hot cup and what seemed like a half pound of caramel in a blender, and Nicaise was done looking around so he turned to Laurent instead.

“Why don’t you have to pay?” Laurent’s eyes flicked down toward him. “Are you sleeping with the owner?”

“Don’t tell Auguste,” Laurent hummed.

“I’m serious.”

“So am I.” The screech of the milk being steamed rang out before it quickly died into a muffled bubbling sound and Laurent continued. “I have what you could call a tab here. Only as I’m not the one picking it up, I can’t answer how much I owe.”

“Is he your boyfriend?” Nicaise asked, indicating at Isander.

“No.” Laurent’s smile was real this time though.

“But you do have a boyfriend then.”

“I didn’t say that.”

Isander waved them off as they exited back outside. It was raining a little harder and Nicaise had to huddle closer to Laurent under the umbrella to avoid his jacket from being soaked.

“Where are we going now?” Nicaise asked. By the next block his drink was halfway consumed, and Laurent was sipping at his.

“I thought we could do something educational. Perhaps stop by the historical library downtown. We could even read all the plaques on the buildings and learn their stories.”

“I can’t tell if you have a stick up your ass or if you’re fucking with me,” Nicaise grumbled loudly, earning a share of dirty looks from older passerbys.

“I’m always fucking with you. If you haven’t picked up on that yet, I fear for the other obvious things in life you’ve missed.”

It was a ways away, but their next stop was a small shopping district located in Arles. There was a strip mall further down the road, but Laurent and the others preferred the convenience and experience of staying in town. It was also nice to support local business owners as often as possible.

First was a shop called Treasure Chest. Treasure Chest was true to its name and had an array of items all created by local people. Some pieces were hanging art, some clothing items, and others were knick-knacks and creations that could change on a whim. Nicaise kept going back to a ring made of kyanite. Laurent made certain to place it on the counter to buy before they left. The next stop was a bookshop, unsurprisingly one of Laurent’s favorite places in town. The bookshop owner also recognized the blond and smiled cheerily at him. Nicaise didn’t know what to make of Laurent’s seemingly wanted presence by people. Nicaise perused the shelves silently behind Laurent until he got tired of doing so and voiced such a thing. Ignoring him, Laurent continued to look, eyes scanning high and low, until he plucked a red sleeved book from one of the bottom shelves. When he went to pay, Nicaise threw down a handful of bookmarks and pens.

“For school,” he said with an eye roll.

Their next several stops were all clothing stores. Laurent picked himself out a scarf from a post-winter sale at the haberdashery on Main and suggested that the closer they got to the next school year approaching Nicaise should come visit and get fitted for a suit. “It’s never a bad idea to have one nice suit in your closet,” Laurent pointed out. A tiny boutique next to it was geared for the younger crowd and Nicaise had an armful of shirts, jackets, and colorful socks that Laurent bought without even needing asked. Across the street was a shoe store where Laurent already had an order on hold that he picked up, telling Nicaise how the winter weather destroyed his favorite pair of brown-laced boots.

Though they had nowhere to be, they made a hurried few drop-ins at small shops as they made their way to the most important part of the day, a stop for food.

“You’re going to let me order for you at Mellos,” Laurent told Nicaise. The crinkle of their shopping bags matched in rhythm with the steps of Laurent’s boots.

“Why would I do that?”

“Because I know what you would like best.”

As it was only a Wednesday, Mellos wasn’t too packed at all. Laurent and Nicaise were seated right away at a little table by the window and Nicaise browsed the menu, pretending disdain. After a moment, he tossed the menu with a flick of his wrist.

“Something wrong?” Laurent asked, not looking up from his own menu.

“Well as you’re ordering for me, I don’t see the point in wasting my time looking,” Nicaise said. The waiter brought out coffee and water for the both of them and Nicaise made certain to bark a request for a raspberry lemonade instead.

“You need to ask nicely,” Laurent told him after the waiter walked away.

“Eat me,” Nicaise spat.

“You’re not better than him or any other person, Nicaise. Even if you don’t want to be kind, be polite.”

“Are we here to improve on my lacking personality traits?”

“I thought we were getting lunch,” Laurent said. He finally put his menu down and looked straight at Nicaise.

“Stop looking at me,” Nicaise said after a moment. Laurent smiled a bit but didn’t look away. The waiter was back and dropped off Nicaise’s raspberry lemonade. “Thank you.” Laurent’s smile quirked at the corners a bit more.

“Now that you’ve seen some of the town, is there anything you’d like to do before you go back to school?” Laurent asked him.

“There’s not much here. I don’t know how you and Auguste stand it here, it’s very boring.” Nicaise was slumped now, arms crossed over his chest.

Laurent made a noise of understanding and adjusted the placement of his silverware on the table. “I suppose it is boring here for a fourteen-year-old. When you’re here at school, it becomes much more important to find these places for life’s simple pleasures. Like a place to find a good book or a hole in the wall with warm food.”

“Auguste says it’s important to make good friends,” Nicaise said.

“I suppose that’s true as well. Auguste is very good at making friends. He has so many that he met through the university.”

“You don’t have many friends, do you?” Nicaise asked. Laurent looked more closely at him and, for once, could see this wasn’t an attempt at maliciousness. There was an innocence in Nicaise’s curiosity here, something he didn’t often show since hitting double-digits.

“No, I don’t.” With a delicate hand, Laurent gently mixed the sugar and cream into his coffee. “I’ve never been very good at making friends. If it wasn’t for Auguste’s love of me, I often wonder if I would have any here. I’m sure it’s no secret that all of my friends are Auguste’s own. They’ve taken me in.”

“Like a stray cat.”

“That’s a good analogy for it.”

The waiter came by once more and this time Laurent placed their orders. For himself he ordered lemon mascarpone crepes with a bowl of fresh fruit salad. And for Nicaise he ordered Mellos’ specialty, a banana foster French toast bake.

“So, you don’t have any friends of your own then?” Nicaise asked, clearly still interested.

“Not really,” Laurent said honestly. “Everyone I talk to knew Auguste first.”

“What about the barista at the coffee shop we went to today? He seemed to like you. Or the boy at the bookstore?”

“The boy at the bookstore is simply used to seeing me. I’m in there quite often, unsurprisingly I’m sure. As for the coffee shop, I believe Erasmus looks forward to me coming in solely because of my usual coffee shop companion. You should see how red his face gets.”

“He does seem like the type to fall all over Auguste,” Nicaise said.

“Surprisingly, Auguste doesn’t have much effect on the poor boy. I thought he would as well, but Erasmus is usually preoccupied with watching one of Auguste’s friends instead,” Laurent explained. If Nicaise would have been a dog, his ears would have perked up noticeably.

“Do you often go to the coffee shop with one of Auguste’s friends? Or is Auguste usually with you?”

“It depends, I suppose,” Laurent answered flippantly.

“Maybe I’ll ask Auguste what his favorite drink at that shop is. The caramel drink you got me was fine, but maybe I’d like what he gets instead. It was called Chastillon, yes?” Nicaise asked, pulling his phone out from his back pocket. Laurent’s stare was full of warning.

“Auguste doesn’t attend Chastillon with me often, actually,” Laurent said. His voice was clear as crystal.

“Interesting.”

“I’m not quite sure what is interesting about it. But by all means, I can fish around and get other recommendations for drinks at Chastillon if you’d like.”

“We’ll see how your food taste compares to my own first,” Nicaise said, calculating.

Laurent and Nicaise must have inherited the same sweet tooth gene from their mothers’ side, which was something Laurent had been betting on anyway. Both of their plates came out dripping in syrups and berry compotes and both were eaten clean within twenty minutes. They didn’t get much talking done with their faces full, but Nicaise was quick to speak when he was done.

“I suppose that was...” he trailed off, right hand over his too-full stomach.

“Adequate?”

Nicaise hummed in agreement and wiped a dreg of syrup from his face. His hands were childlike-sticky, and he glared at the spring of unread notifications on his phone.

“I’m going to go wash my hands,” Nicaise said, pushing back from the table.

“Perfect. I’m going to run out the door and leave you with the bill,” Laurent said. He was already pulling his wallet out and rifling through his cash.

After paying and strolling out the door, Laurent repeated his most asked question once more.

“Alright, if you don’t have any places you want to go right now, I say we head back home. We can wait until Auguste gets back and go to the movies tonight,” Laurent suggested as they waited to cross the street.

Nicaise didn’t say anything at first, fine with whatever Laurent wanted to do next, but as they continued walking a bright pink and yellow sign caught Nicaise’s eye and he subconsciously slowed down. He could see inside and there wasn’t a line present to hold him back from immediate gratification.

“We could go there first,” he said, trying for a casual thumb-jab in the direction of the still-holding-his-eyesight pink and yellow sign.

“An ice cream shop?” Laurent asked, eyebrow raised. “Didn’t you get enough sugar at lunch?”

“I’m fourteen. There’s no such thing as too much sugar,” Nicaise said matter-of-fact.

“Fine, but the moment you start bouncing off the wall I’m handing you over to Auguste.”

The cold temperature of the ice cream shop hit them in a wave the moment they opened the door and the cute bell above rang out. They were greeted kindly by a young woman in a white hat and Nicaise immediately beelined to the counter so he could look up at the wide menu.

“Look,” Nicaise started, tugging on Laurent’s sleeve. “They have eight different kinds of strawberry ice cream.”

“There are over twenty different kinds of toppings you can get on them all, too.”

“Hello,” Nicaise said to the girl at the front. “On a scale of one to ten, how good is the strawberry cheesecake ice cream?”

Laurent was having too good a time watching Nicaise interact passionately about ice cream that he didn’t pay any mind to the bell above the door jingling. Instead he stepped up and made his own order and moved down to the register to pay.

“Actually, can you add a scoop of sea salt and honey ice cream to that order? I’ll get it.”

Nicaise wouldn’t have thought much of the voice, wouldn’t have noticed the man was adding something to his and Laurent’s order, but Laurent’s head actually whipped to the side in surprise and that was enough to turn Nicaise’s attention from the smooth push and scoop of the strawberry cheesecake ice cream into the cone.

When Nicaise turned around, he was met with the biggest man he’d ever seen this up close. The man had waves of dark brown hair that were slightly damp, no doubt from the earlier rain, two bulging biceps that were threatening to tear the thin material of his t-shirt, a wide and bright smile that only didn’t show when he was speaking with his warm voice, and a pair of kind brown eyes that hadn’t left Laurent’s face. It wasn’t odd for men to look at Laurent like that. It wasn’t even odd for men to look at Nicaise like that. But there was a softness in the gaze that Nicaise didn’t know how to read and the way Laurent’s ears matched the pink of the strawberry ice cream at the counter was even more unexpected.

“Did he get the affogato?” the man asked Nicaise. “He really likes those, but sometimes he’ll go for a chocolate heart attack, a disgusting display of chocolate ice cream, hot fudge, chocolate chips, and crushed Oreos.”

“Here’s your affogato!” the girl behind the counter said with a big smile, answering the man’s question. Laurent took it from her gently, ears still pink. The man handed the girl a twenty and when she handed him his almost seven dollars in change, he stuffed it all in the tip jar.

“Damen,” Laurent started, reaching for his own wallet, “let me at least pay for mine and Nicaise’s. And give you back money for the tip.” The man – Damen – made a face and took his own ice cream from the girl.

“I’ve got it.”

Laurent sighed and started out the door. Nicaise watched with interest as Damen followed and held the door open for Nicaise to exit out of first. The rain had long let up and the few tables outside of the ice cream shop were under an awning that had kept it all dry.

“Damen, this is Nicaise. He’s my cousin. Nicaise, this is Damen. He’s one of Auguste’s friends.”

“One of Auguste’s friends!” Damen exclaimed. His free hand went to his chest in mock-shock. “That hurts, Laurent. It hurts right here.”

“Oh, do stop,” Laurent said. It was as close to begging as Nicaise had ever heard from him

“Are you Laurent’s coffee shop companion as well as his ice cream shop companion then?” Nicaise asked. Damen turned to him. Nicaise’s stomach flipped a little.

“Coffee shop companion? Yes, I suppose that’s a fitting title,” Damen laughed. Laurent huffed. “That’s actually how I convinced him to get the affogato for the first time. He had been in an exam that day, so he didn’t get his morning coffee.”

“He’s dreadful without his coffee in the morning,” Nicaise commented.

“So, you know why it was so important to get him a sufficient amount of caffeine then?”

“I am not unbearable without coffee,” Lauren defended himself.

“But he still wanted something sweet,” Damen continued. He nodded once at Nicaise’s own ice cream cone, three scoops of strawberry cheesecake ice cream starting to drip down the sides, all of it covered in crushed graham crackers and chocolate drizzle. “It seems to run in the family. The affogato seemed to cover both of those wants, but I fear it’s made him an espresso monster instead.”

“Will you two stop talking about me as though I’m not here?” Laurent asked, but his almost smile was hidden behind his spoon.

“How are you?” Damen asked as he immediately gave in to Laurent’s request. His voice was low in his chest, smooth like the honey dripping down his own ice cream cone.

“I’m fine. I’ve been busy watching this one,” Laurent said.

“I don’t need babysat,” Nicaise protested.

“How are you?” Laurent asked back, ignoring Nicaise.

“I’m fine. Just had lunch with Nik. I’ve got my comparative history midterm in about thirty minutes.”

“Comparative history...is that the course with the professor who wears flip flops with his suit?”

Damen laughed.

“It is. He said there’s a surprise question at the end that isn’t not having to act out a speech given by a historical figure. So,” Damen said, eyebrows raised as though it was now dawning on him how terrible this midterm could be, “keep me in your thoughts so I survive the day.”

“I doubt me thinking about your poor life choices to be a history teacher will help ease your pain,” Laurent pointed out.

“Maybe not, but at least I know you’ll be thinking of me.”

Laurent said nothing, but the flush from his ears had conveniently moved to his face and that expression Nicaise was confused about earlier made a lot of sense. The intense shared eye contact was making him uncomfortable now though. He coughed once to regain their attention. It was granted.

“How long are you visiting your cousins, Nicaise?” Damen asked him.

“I’m leaving on Saturday.”

“Maybe we’ll run into one another again then,” Damen said.

“I have a feeling we will,” Nicaise told him. Damen grinned.

“Well, until then,” he trailed. “I’m off for what will be one of my weirder tests. Bye, Nicaise. It was wonderful to meet more of the DeVere family.”

“I suppose I’ll see you tomorrow?” Laurent asked, trying to sound indifferent and almost succeeding.

“I suppose you will. Goodbye, Laurent.”

“Bye. Until tomorrow.”

Damen had been smiling since the second Nicaise first turned around and saw him, but his smile at this moment rivaled the shine of the sun.

“Until tomorrow.”

With his ice cream still in hand, Damen turned and started back toward the university buildings. His bag was hitting at the back of his thigh as he walked and Nicaise and Laurent both watched as he waved to a few people he clearly knew down the road. Nicaise stopped watching Damen and instead watched Laurent once more. His eyes didn’t leave Damen until Damen disappeared behind a building further away. It seemed only then that he noticed Nicaise’s stare.

“What?”

“I thought you didn’t have a boyfriend.”

Laurent stood up and walked over to the trashcan near the entrance to the ice cream shop and dumped his empty cup into it. Silent, he grabbed the bags he had gathered along their trip and had sat on the table. Nicaise followed, still licking at his ice cream cone.

“I never said that either.”

    +1. Auguste

Auguste wasn’t a crier. None of the DeVere family were criers. Auguste could count the number of times he had seen both of his parents cry on one hand. Auguste could count the number of times he and Laurent had cried on his other, unused hand. It was a shock, then, that Auguste found himself tearing up on his graduation day.

Yes, graduation day had arrived in an unexpected fashion. It snuck up on everyone, eating up all their time and patience with long nights stuck in their books, and suddenly it was here. For most of them, it meant being one year closer to completing the seemingly impossible task of graduating. For Auguste and Jord, it meant moving on from Arles University and into the world around them.

Some people are fearful of what lies ahead after graduation. But Auguste wasn’t afraid of the path he’d made for himself. Seven years of hard work had made him confident in his field and he had a wonderful opportunity lined up for himself. His future was bright and clear.

But his future was also sending him off to Alier, a whole five hours from Arles. Most shakingly, a whole five hours from Laurent.

Five hours may not seem like an eternity of time, but it did put limitations on how often Auguste could come visit and how often Laurent could come visit him. The thought made his chest ache. Given their past and their lack of family to rely on, the two brothers had been inseparable as long as they could remember. Now Auguste was doing the separating and a small part of him worried that Laurent would never forgive him.

“Are you going to walk across stage like a normal human being, or are you going to do something inevitably embarrassing, like trying to backflip and falling on your face?”

Laurent had gone to fetch a proper tie for Auguste’s suit and Auguste turned and tried to wipe at his eyes before he was found out.

“I’m more worried about Lazar or someone trying to humiliate Jord and I by screaming an awful amount or doing that thing they did at the final match of the year,” Auguste confessed.

“You mean when Lazar moaned every time you scored?”

“Yeah, that thing.”

The conversation had Auguste thinking he was in the clear, but he should have known better. The moment he turned, Laurent saw. Auguste watched as his always-with-a-plan baby brother took an uncharacteristic pause to assess the situation and he watched as Laurent’s face dropped in confusion and, what almost appeared to be, fear.

“What’s wrong, Auguste?” he asked. His voice was quiet, unsure, and Auguste smiled true and wide to ease that away the best he could.

“Nothing.” He took a few steps forward and took the tie – blue – from Laurent’s hands. He looped it once around his neck and let it lie there undone and with another gentle movement, he pulled Laurent in close for a hug.

It took a moment for Laurent to catch up, but when he did his arms wrapped around Auguste with a strong grip. It was quiet except for their shared breathing and Auguste was taken back to the first time he held Laurent. That early spring morning twenty years ago was so vivid in Auguste’s mind. He had felt so big then, at the wonderful age of six, and Laurent had been handed to him to hold, one of his tiny little hands wrapped around Auguste’s own. And Auguste knew at that moment he would do anything to keep his little brother safe.

“I feel as though I’m abandoning you,” he admitted. Laurent pulled back, eyes searching, and then he smiled brilliantly.

“How on earth are you abandoning me?” Laurent sounded genuinely taken aback, and a bit amused, and Auguste took another step, this one backwards, to let them both breathe.

“I don’t know,” Auguste started. He began attempting to tie his tie, crossing the two ends and looping one of them around the other. “We’re all we’ve got, you know? We’re all we’ve ever had. I fought so hard to keep you from uncle after we lost mom and dad. I watched you work so hard on your own to be the best person you can be. And suddenly I’m leaving for Alier. I’m leaving you here on your own.”

The tears were starting to come back and Auguste was frustrated at their reappearance. He wiped his hand at them again and laughed at the ridiculousness of it all.

“Look at me crying and worrying as though I don’t know you’re not capable of taking care of yourself.”

“I am,” Laurent said. “But that’s only because of you.”

“You would have been more than fine on your own. You’re the strongest person I know, Laurent.” The tie was still hanging limp against Auguste’s dress shirt. Laurent stepped forward once more, reaching for the ends of the tie and beginning to loop it in a perfect Kelvin knot.

“That’s still because of you. And it is also because of you that I am going to be perfectly fine here. You’ve paid off this house so I have a place to live while I continue my education here. You’ve done nothing but encourage my career pursuits and ensured I was on the best path to see to those here at Arles.” Turning, Laurent plucked Auguste’s matching suit jacket from where it was resting on the chair. The tie was impeccably tied. “Don’t repeat this, either, but you’ve also introduced me to some pretty wonderful people.”

Auguste looked at him, eyebrows raised, as he shrugged into the jacket. Laurent smoothed down the lapels himself and rolled his eyes when he caught Auguste staring.

“Oh, don’t act surprised. You’ve befriended some nice people here. While I trust my own capabilities, I also believe that if something were to happen, I could go to any of them and they would help me,” Laurent said.

“They are all pretty great,” Auguste agreed with a wide smile. It was amazing how his shoulders had untensed with Laurent’s honesty and he found himself smiling even wider. If he smiled anymore his cheeks were going to ache. “So, you like my friends? You’ve never said that.”

“Don’t act like you didn’t know that already,” Laurent said. He walked over to the mirror and smoothed out his own clothes. “I wouldn’t be around them all the time if I didn’t somewhat enjoy their presence.”

“It’s still good to hear it.”

The graduation ceremony went by in perfect form. And perfect form meant it went the way everyone expected. It was long, speeches were given that put people to sleep, and the line of graduates was so extensive that people could hardly keep their focus for when their graduate was finally crossing the stage. That didn’t stop Lazar from doing what he’d said he’d do and, sure enough, when both Auguste and Jord crossed that stage, Lazar had the cowbell ready to clang as loudly as possible.

“You look very smart with your diploma,” Laurent said in greeting as Auguste and Jord managed to stumble out of the wild crowd of graduates and their families blocking at the convocation entrances following the ceremony.

“And you look far too pleased at Lazar’s antics,” Auguste laughed. He accepted the barrage of hugs from the entire group and continued to laugh as Jord was pulled from where he was a step behind Auguste and crushed by them all as well.

“Well it wasn’t all that funny until you tried to wave off the sound and that poor group of girls thought you were waving at them and they all swooned.”

“I thought I brought a well-needed amount of life to graduation,” Lazar defended, not sounding at all chastised.

“You brought a not-needed amount of obnoxiousness,” Nik said.

“You keep saying stuff like that, Nik, but before we graduate, we’re going to end up in bed together in a drunken tumble. We both know it.”

Nik made a face, and everyone elbowed at him suggestively. No one commented on the fact that Lazar’s arm hadn’t left from around Pallas’ shoulders for the last several months. Lazar would always be Lazar after all.

“Speaking of drunken stumbling and tumbling,” Auguste said, shaking his hair from its greased down look from underneath his grad cap, “let’s go back to my place and party one last time.”

As it was an expected thing, Auguste had long had the house prepared for a large party. The others had added their own personal touches to make it feel like a true graduation party. Laurent had ordered a graduation cake from Fortaine, a bakery on Main, with both Auguste and Jord’s names on it. Alexon was a bartender and could get alcohol at wholesale prices, so he had the kitchen counters well stocked and in need of a ton of mixers. Damen and Nik had provided those mixers along with food from a friend who wanted to try his hand at providing catering. Berenger, unintentionally, provided entertainment with his boy toy, Ancel, who still had everyone scratching their heads. Lazar had only provided his graduation gift to Auguste and Jord, a crude hand drawn picture of the three of them in bed, cuddling, that they had to share as it was such a masterpiece Lazar couldn’t have been expected to recreate greatness. And everyone else provided more and more guests to fill up the house with laughter and party-appropriate ruckus.

“I can’t believe this is our last party,” Orlant lamented. Though there were a good thirty other people in the house, the group was sitting together in the living room, drinks in their hands.

“It won’t be the last,” Auguste assured him. He was sitting on the arm of the couch, legs outstretched, and Laurent was sitting on the floor beside him, pressed between him and Damen. Lazar, boldly, had his head on Laurent’s own outstretched thigh and Damen took it as a prime opportunity to make Lazar’s stomach his footrest. Nik, on Damen’s other side on the couch, kept “accidently” swinging his feet and kicking Lazar in the crotch.

“But it won’t be the same,” Pallas agreed with Orlant. He was lying between Lazar’s legs, hand swatting playfully at Berenger’s untied shoelaces.

“Maybe not,” said Auguste, “but you’ll all still be here harassing Laurent and Laurent will put up with it. You can’t rule out that Jord and I won’t make visits here either.”

“Don’t give them permission to harass me,” Laurent said.

They fell into inane conversation. When Rochert and Huet got drunk, they tended to make up songs, and they made at least three in twenty minutes. By the third one they had at least half of everybody else singing along, off pitch and out of rhythm.

“Don’t yell at me for being cheesy, but the friendships I’ve made with all of you is what is making this place so hard to leave.”

Though there was music blaring and people walking all around them, it was impossible to not spend a moment quietly reminiscing. It got to them all though and a moment later a few of them were standing, dusting off their pants, clearing their throats, and it was Jord who said, “God, I need more alcohol. You all keep singing “Kumbaya” though.”

There were chuckles and affirmative agreements and the group all got up and wandered into the kitchen. All except Auguste and Laurent. From his place still in front of the couch, Laurent tilted his head back to look up at Auguste.

“You should try to enjoy yourself,” he told Auguste over the roar of the music.

“I am enjoying myself,” Auguste said, smiling softly. “But it’s a bit bittersweet at the moment.”

“Well then you’re clearly not drinking enough.” Laurent pulled himself up to stand and then extended his hands to help Auguste up. “Go have fun. Drink like you’re a freshman again and don’t focus on the bitter part.”

“And what are you going to do?” Auguste asked, shaking at the melting ice cubes in his glass to unstick them from one another.

“Supervise,” Laurent commented drily. As if cued, a crash of glass sounded out, making both Auguste and Laurent whip their heads toward the back porch. “It seems very needed right now.”

Hugging Laurent briefly with one arm around his shoulders, Auguste muttered a quick “Thank you,” and set forth into the cacophony of sound and the flood of people all in the kitchen. With smiles and exclamations of congratulations, Auguste was swarmed with love from acquaintances and casual friends who admired him as much as everybody else. He poured himself another drink, this one a bit stiffer, and fell into a pleasant conversation with Kyrina. After a few minutes he began to wonder if tonight would end as a lot of his and Kyrina’s past nights did, with them tumbling into bed after a different kind of pleasant conversation.

Eventually he got sidetracked into a different kind of conversation with Hendric. They were both going to Alier and exchanged phone numbers in hopes of having at least one familiar face. Hendric was in the middle of telling Auguste about the firm he was starting at when Ancel decided it was an opportune time to give Berenger a lap dance. All fifty-something people in the house wolf-whistled and hollered as Berenger’s normally stoic face went as red as Ancel’s waving hair.

Auguste was pouring himself his third drink when the subject of Berenger and Ancel came up from the welcome source of Kyrina and her hand on Auguste’s arm then down to his thigh made him smile.

“Laurent told me to celebrate tonight like I was a freshman again.” He covered her hand with his own, reveling in the softness of the back of her palm under his own rougher one.

“I remember when you were a freshman,” Kyrina commented lowly. “Do you remember finals week that spring?”

“You mean when you had me wear your panties to my introduction into poetry final?” Auguste asked back even lower.

“They were my prettiest blue pair. Matched your eyes,” she practically purred, hand cupping his chin.

“Coincidentally,” Auguste started, “I did make sure that my tie and boxers both matched my eyes today.”

“Boxers? How scandalous, Auguste.”

“Did you do anything as scandalous, Ky?” Auguste asked.

“Today or just in general?” Kyrina asked back.

“Oh, I know what you’ve done in general,” Auguste laughed. “But how about today?”

Kyrina put a finger to her mouth in a mock thinking pose, scrunching her eyebrows up for fun too, and Auguste wanted to kiss her.

“My underwear matches my lipstick,” she told him, smile bright. “I know it lacks creativity, but it was the best I could do on such a short notice.”

The room seemed too hot suddenly and Auguste found that the bottom of his glass was empty again. Forcing himself to pull back, to think, he maneuvered to the counter where all the mixers were long drained. He refilled his glass with ice and topped it over with cheap bourbon. Kyrina was behind him, fingers dancing over his shoulder blades.

“We still have time to make up something more fun, if you’d like.”

Auguste took a deep drink and it felt warm going down. “I very much would like that.”

“Then I tell you what,” she said, fingers still dancing. “I’m going to head upstairs to your room and you’re going to wait fifteen minutes before you follow me.”

“And then what?” Auguste turned, smile teasing. Kyrina’s lips grazed his jaw in answer and she did her own turn, winking at him as she sauntered up the staircase. The clock on the oven read 1:04. With a happy sigh and another long drink of his bourbon, Auguste began his countdown to 1:19.

It was only then that he noticed how empty the house had become. Somewhere between Kyrina and Hendric and Ancel and Berenger and Kyrina once more, the party had died down significantly to a small trickle of people consisting of his friends.

Nik and Alexon were muttering to one another in the living room, sitting across from each other in the chairs they had scooted across the floor. Huet was using Nik’s calf as a pillow and Auguste swore he could see Huet drooling from all the way across the room. On the couch was the cuddliest pile Auguste had ever seen in his life; Orlant, Rochert, Lazar, and Pallas were squished onto the worn gray cushions, each pillowed on various body parts of the other. It was sentimentality that kept Auguste at the threshold, watching his friends sleep and ramble drunkenly. They’re all so odd, he mused.

Berenger was nowhere in sight and Auguste took that as a good sign, for him and for the soon-to-be veterinarian. There was no doubt he was off with his redhead somewhere and Auguste felt a welcome flush of relief that he didn’t have to see them going at it...again...like they had during their St. Patrick’s Day party...in Auguste’s bedroom.

He knew Jord had left some hours ago with one of his own old flames. As Auguste slowly stepped about the house, he almost laughed out loud to himself at his and Jord’s luck. His laughter was only subdued by the too-sober hope that this would let Jord get over Aimeric.

The clock on the wall said 1:11. Anticipation rolled pleasantly in his gut. He set about looking for Laurent. It wasn’t in the need to overshare or posture that Auguste gave Laurent warning before he hooked up with a girl. It was more because of the time Laurent had visited over the holidays, years before he was set to start at Arles, and Auguste had hooked up with a girl one night. That following morning had been quiet, and Auguste hadn’t given it any thought after he walked the girl out to her car. But when Laurent had said calmly, over the rim of his coffee cup, “I never wanted to know that your voice range covers four separate octaves when you come,” Auguste had sworn then and there he would always give Laurent proper warning before hooking up in the bedroom next door.

“Little brother,” Auguste sing-songed, side stepping a pile of shoes. “Laurent! I know you’re not drunk because there are too many not broken things left in the house.”

He wasn’t in the living room, Auguste knew, and he couldn’t have been in the kitchen because Auguste had just been there. It took a moment for Auguste to get his bearings about him, but when he did, he started his sweep of the house. The laundry room was empty, as was the study. The lights were on in the bathroom, but the only evidence of a person in there was in the soap bubbles still sitting on the sink drain.

“Laurent, if you’re up in your room already...I’m sorry in advance,” Auguste called out loudly. It was 1:16. He was about to drag himself up the stairs, knowing full and well it would take him three minutes in his current state, when a flash of gold from outside the front door caught his eye.

Squinting, Auguste walked over and peered out the glass of the door. The gold must have been the watch on Damen’s wrist because it was still glinting softly in the dim lighting from the porch. It matched the glint coming from Laurent’s hair. It took Auguste a moment to process what he was seeing out there.

Laurent was talking away. It wasn’t the type of talking he did when he was giving someone the correct answer or eviscerating them with words alone. Auguste had seen that enough times to recognize it for what it was. No, Laurent was talking away, hands moving with some of his words and eyes swimming with exposed emotion. Auguste had seen that enough times to recognize it for what it was as well, but he couldn’t recall in that moment if he had ever seen Laurent speak that way to anyone other than himself.

Damen was listening raptly, eyes never straying from Laurent’s face. Damen’s always open emotions, these ones of concern and something Auguste couldn’t place yet, were worn out on his sleeve. He seemed utterly captivated in whatever Laurent was talking about.

Auguste watched as Laurent sighed. His shoulders heaved then dropped and his head fell forward, hair covering everything that had been so exposed. He must have said something else from underneath his curtain of hair because Auguste saw Damen smile. It was such a fond smile and it made Auguste’s eyebrows furrow together. Damen’s hand, the one free of his watch, moved forward suddenly and, with his smile still in place, he brushed that curtain of hair from the right side of Laurent’s face. His touch looked soft as he tucked the hair behind Laurent’s ear.

If Auguste had been totally sober, he probably would have raised his eyebrows in his shock. But as he was about three-quarters drunk, he physically took a step backward in the entryway, almost knocking over the table he and Laurent always threw their keys on.

His brain was so busy trying to process what he was seeing that he almost missed the way Laurent leaned into the touch, his cheek squishing adorably against Damen’s palm. Damen must have said something then because Laurent’s face was once again exposed, and his smile was a mirror of Damen’s own. His head came back up and he retucked a few stray strands behind his ear again. He said something else and looked directly at Damen, eyes dancing.

Auguste hadn’t given much thought to the way Laurent would kiss. It didn’t seem particularly important or brotherly to think about such a thing. But in those moments that he had contemplated Laurent in relationships, he didn’t expect Laurent to initiate a kiss. So, when he did, hands fisting in the front of Damen’s white tee to haul him forward, Auguste did, in fact, stumble backward and knock over the table. It was enough to garner the attention of a mostly sober Nik and Alexon. Lazar, always in tune to things with drama surrounding them, snuffled as he awoke. He excavated himself from his cuddly pile of bodies to run to the door as well.

“Oh, for god’s sake,” Nik mumbled as soon as he helped Auguste off the ground. If Auguste wouldn’t have just knocked the table over, Lazar would have done so in his own play of shock.

“Is he a dead man? Absolutely. Does it look worth it? Ab-so-lute-ly,” he whistled.

Auguste’s mouth was gaping. It seemed like an eternity, though in actuality it was one minute, that the two stayed pressed together. In his head, Auguste knew he should stop; stop watching, stop the others from watching, or stop both things, but he couldn’t quite comprehend what he was seeing.

Laurent must have sensed the audience. Auguste watched as he gently, softly, pulled back, lingering for only a moment. Then his eyes opened and found the door. He didn’t turn red like Auguste thought he would, but his jaw clenched. It seemed to take Damen a second longer to gather his wits, but when he turned around, he was the one flushing red instead.

There were about twenty seconds of awkward staring between Damen and Laurent and everyone else. Then Laurent leaned forward again, this time to tell Damen something, and he stood. Auguste couldn’t not watch the way their fingertips slid apart with such reluctance.

“Not a word,” Laurent said as soon as the door opened. Damen was behind him, hand that was just holding Laurent’s own rubbing sheepishly at the back of his neck.

There was a lot going on at that exact moment. Nik was glaring daggers and it wasn’t obvious if Damen was avoiding eye contact with him or Auguste the hardest. Lazar was beginning to sing “Damen and Laurent, sitting in a tree, K-I” and was silenced by Alexon slapping a hand over his mouth. Auguste was apparently still open-mouthed like a fish.

“Come on.” Laurent was talking to him. And he was following Laurent up the stairs.

Climbing the stairs felt like doing a trail run. He could feel his quads straining and heart racing, but whether the latter was because of the stair climb, his current blood-alcohol level, or his brain repeating the phrase “What the fuck?” over and over again, he couldn’t be certain.

“Is something the matter?”

Kyrina was standing in Auguste’s bedroom doorway with a sheet wrapped around her and nothing more. Auguste wanted to slap himself for forgetting her. He was grateful Laurent was still sober.

“Auguste will join you momentarily,” he told her calmly, and he ushered Auguste into his bedroom. He shut the door.

“Laurent –”

“No, you are going to let me speak before you say anything,” Laurent said, demanded. “I love you, Auguste. You know that I do. There is no one on this planet that I seek the approval of more. I am aware of the sacrifices you’ve made for me ever since we lost mom and dad. And I hope I’m, at the very least, on the right path to making you proud. But you had no right intervening in my personal relationships before I even got the chance to make them.”

Auguste was sitting on Laurent’s bed. It was meticulously made, as Laurent made it every morning, and the comforter was soft underneath Auguste’s hands. He scratched at the textured surface.

“I understand the protectiveness. Given my past, it was, and is, welcome. But if you trusted these people as your friends than it should have been a welcome thought that I would, perhaps,” Laurent paused, “engage in consensual relations with one of them. If they were your friends, you should have trusted them to treat me with kindness as they have treated you. And I should have said something earlier than now, I know that. But I am saying it now and I need you to take it to heart.”

It was a sobering conversation. Auguste took in the way Laurent was pacing, walking from his bookshelf to the edge of his desk. His copy of The Emerald Peacock was lying face down on the floor, opened to about halfway through. Auguste’s eyebrows furrowed together again, this time at the genuine worry Laurent was radiating, and he sank back further onto the mattress.

“Laurent,” Auguste tried.

“No, I need you to understand.”

“I do.” Auguste was standing now, and the room wasn’t spinning. His hands were on Laurent’s shoulders so Laurent had no choice but to look at him. “You really like him, don’t you?”

It wasn’t a question. It was enough, however, to make Laurent flush bright. Auguste smiled brilliantly. Laurent’s eyes, downcast, flicked down to avoid that smile. But when they came back up, they were accompanied by an almost reluctant head nod.

“Don’t make it a thing,” he begged.

“I’m not,” Auguste lied.

“You definitely are. I can already see the evil thoughts swirling in your brain,” Laurent said.

“Am I allowed to ask questions?”

“No.” Laurent stepped back, sighing, and Auguste followed him as he walked out the door. Kyrina was still standing in Auguste’s doorway.

“When did it start? How did it start? Have you been sneaking around like illicit lovers in the night? I never knew you were that romantic, Laurent.”

“Oh, fuck off. Go join Kyrina,” Laurent said, but he was laughing beautifully. He started down the staircase and Auguste held a finger up to Kyrina, indicating he’d be with her in a minute.

All those awake were back in the kitchen. Lazar was sitting in one of the kitchen chairs, feet up on the table, and Alexon was in another chair, his feet also on the table and kicking at Lazar’s, trying to shove them off. Damen and Nik were leaning against the countertop and stopped talking abruptly when Laurent and Auguste entered.

“Friends,” Auguste began, doing his best not to laugh when Laurent pulled out another of the chairs and slumped in it, “thank you for a great graduation party. I could ramble about my gratefulness for you all being there for me during these years, but that would take too long and we’re all far too tired to deal with that tonight. I’m off to bed with a beautiful girl I’m probably going to disappoint when I fall asleep immediately. I’m letting you all know that I want breakfast at Toutaine’s tomorrow, so you better have your asses up at a decent time.”

He rubbed his knuckles hard against Laurent’s head, reminiscent of how they roughhoused when they were children, and started back for the staircase after a few bids of goodnight from the others.

“Damen?” Auguste had one foot on the first step, and he could see Damen’s eyes leave Laurent and find him. “We’re talking before breakfast.”

“Auguste!”

Morning came too quickly for everyone’s liking. Auguste woke up bleary-eyed and with a sleeping Kyrina drooling against his shoulder. Maneuvering out of bed without waking her was more difficult than it should have been, but he managed. Looking at her, he laughed quietly at his luck and hoped that they could make up for last night’s loss at another point in time. He couldn’t hear anything going on downstairs and Laurent’s bedroom door was still closed. It wouldn’t hurt to make a pot of coffee while he rounded up the group, he thought.

The stairs were a whole different kind of daunting this morning. Instead of spinning underneath his feet they felt like riding the rock of the ocean’s waves which could be comforting when he wasn’t nauseous. The smell of brewing coffee calmed the nausea down some.

Damen was leaning against the same countertop he had been leaning against last night. The coffee pot was three-quarters of the way full and steaming. There were two cups next to Damen. One was almost empty, but the other one full.

“For you,” Damen told him, handing him the almost full cup. “With a splash of cream.”

“Thanks.”

The coffee was a welcome warmth and the two spent a few moments in silence. Auguste noted that it was a comfortable kind of silence.

“I always laugh when I go get coffee with Laurent,” Auguste started. “I typically end up ordering first and I get a coffee with some room for cream. Those poor, overworked baristas always look thrilled. Then Laurent goes up and orders his honey-cinnamon-vanilla or whatever with oat milk and three shots of espresso and you see their shoulders drop.”

Damen smiled.

“Yeah, you can almost guarantee that Laurent will order the most complicated thing anywhere you go.”

They both took a drink of their coffee and fell back into silence. There were a lot of things Auguste wanted to say, but his mouth didn’t want to move, it wanted to keep drinking his coffee. Luckily for Auguste, Damen wanted to talk instead.

“I can’t apologize,” Damen said. His free arm was crossed over his chest and Auguste could see the muscle in his forearm twitch. “A part of me knows I should, but I can’t.”

“Why should you apologize?” Auguste asked genuinely.

“Because you asked us all to do one thing and I couldn’t do that for you. I went behind your back in pursuing Laurent.” Damen took a deep breath. “I don’t feel like it’s necessary for me to make you promises. All the promises I need to make, all the ones I’ve already made, need to be to Laurent.”

Auguste brought his coffee cup up to hide his smile.

“But I need you to have some faith in me,” Damen pleaded.

“Damen, if anyone should apologize, it’s me,” Auguste said. “Moreso to Laurent than anyone else, but to you as well.”

Damen swallowed once, the sound audible with the click of his throat, and he shifted his shoulders as though he was preparing for a blow.

“Laurent’s always been the smartest one out of all of us. And last night he gave me a well-deserved lecture about controlling parts of his life before he ever got the chance to live first.

You see, I’ve felt such a need to protect Laurent my whole life. And, overall, I feel like I’ve done a good job at balancing protection with encouragement to live. But then I think about the things I’ve done – guilting him into coming here to Arles because I conveniently bought a house for the two of us to live in and controlling his love life before he ever got a chance to start a relationship – and I realize how unfair I’ve been. Then, not only was I unfair, I missed out on watching,” Auguste gestured with his hands at Damen and then vaguely at the ceiling, “this.”

“Given Laurent’s past, and your own, I can’t blame you for doing the things you’ve done,” Damen said quietly.

“Still…”

The coffee cup in his hand was almost empty. Somehow, even with the talking, he had drained the whole thing. Auguste pushed off from where he was leaning and placed the cup in the sink. He was right by Damen then.

“Take care of him next year,” Auguste said with as much sincerity in his voice as he could muster. “I know he can take care of himself, but I feel immensely comforted knowing you’ll be here for him.”

“I will be,” Damen made one promise to Auguste. “You know I will be.”

“Am I interrupting?”

Laurent was standing at the bottom of the stairs, hair sleep-mussed and shirt rumpled. Auguste was close enough to see Damen’s eyes soften with his smile. He cleared his throat and stepped back, a step closer to the living room.

“Not at all. I’m off to wake up the troupe. Let’s say be ready to leave in half an hour?” Auguste asked. Laurent raised an eyebrow and his eyes flicked between Auguste and Damen once.

“Sure. I’ll give Jord and Berenger a call. But I’m telling Berenger to leave his entertainment at home.”

Thirty minutes turned into forty-five minutes. Over half of them looked worse for wear and it took two cars and some illegal seating arrangements to get everyone in two cars. Toutaine’s seating was fairly open when they arrived, and they were immediately seated at a long party table.

“What a surprise you order a mimosa,” Laurent said to Ancel after drinks were ordered.

“If I have to deal with you all morning, I’ll need six just to get through the day,” Ancel snapped back.

The table was cramped. Everyone was bumping elbows with everyone around them and there wasn’t enough room for all the food and drinks ordered. They were so loud, too. Auguste was more than aware of the looks some of the other customers were throwing them and he couldn’t bring himself to care.

There was so much laughter. Auguste’s cheeks hurt from smiling and he knew everyone else’s had to be hurting too. When Huet threw a whole handful of grapes at Pallas, the bittersweet knowledge that he was going to miss this hit him hard.

“Are you feeling what I’m feeling?” Jord asked him over the noise.

“I think so,” Auguste said.

Across the table, Laurent was leaning into Damen ever so slightly. They also were talking over the noise, but Auguste couldn’t make out what they were saying. Instead he watched them for a moment, trying to see what he had missed this year. He watched Laurent take a drink of his coffee and he watched Damen kiss the taste of it away.

He watched as Laurent smiled. He looked free.

Auguste had a strong feeling next year at Arles University would be Laurent’s best.

[kennaxbelle]

Lunch and boys || McRose

tagging: @kennaxbelle & @maddiemccarthy

location: Madison’s office

time frame: June 17th, Afternoon

about: Lunch and boys...specifically @puckrmn

warnings: nada

McKenna had been having an interesting few days to say the least and last night was no different. After having a somewhat lazy morning, she packed up a few things and made her way over to the shop to see Madison. She had bought them chocolate ice cream and then pressed her lips together in thought as she tried to figure out what to get them for lunch. Shrugging, she made her way over to the office and walked in with her bag of ice cream that she’d put in a cold bag and smiled over at Madison. “Hey, sunshine. How’re you this morning?” She asked, leaning her head over to the side and then walking on into the office to place her bags down and looked back over to her best friend.

When Madison had suggested the two of them hang out and potentially cry into a pint of ice cream, it had been meant to be for Kenna’s benefit. She wanted to help her friend through the mental process of letting go of a physical representation of her old relationship. But now? Now she was probably going to let it be a little give and a little take, her own mind reeling from a rollercoaster of interacting with Puck. She looked up from her stack of invoices when Kenna walked in a smiled. “Hey you. I’m doing okay. How’s the day off treating you?” she asked, moving to set her work aside and focus on her friend. “What’s for lunch?”

Smiling whenever Madison spoke, she sat down and grabbed her bag from the ground beside her. “Well, I figured that we could have ice cream cause who doesn’t love that but I also got us some sushi because who doesn’t love that?” She asked while pulling it out of her bag. She had picked up a few things, trying to make sure she had everything that they would need. “So, sushi. Sauces. All that. I didn’t know what sauce you’d want so I got a little of everything,” she admitted as she finished placing it out for them. Handing her something to eat with, she leaned back and took a bite. “It’s been good. I went to see Max and Drew - well they came to me, so that was fun but besides that, nothing. Relaxing. You look like you have quite the business to run today, huh?”

“Spoiled,” she noted, along with a thank you as she took her portion of the meal sat before her. Being the nurturer was something Madison knew she had in common with Kenna, and it was nice to be at the receiving end of it all. “Oh see pupper visits are the best kind there is,” she agreed, “but I’m glad you get the time to relax. You definitely deserve it.” She took a moment to eat a few bites of her food and shrugged. “Just keeping up with the books. Wednesdays are usually slow so I hole up in here and do paperwork, let everyone else manage the floor. Makes taking breaks all the easier too,” she said with a chuckle. “So how are you feeling since we talked yesterday about the house and everything?”

“Yes, well,” she laughed and took a few bites of her food while listening to her. “I love whenever they come to visit. We got into a pattern whenever we didn’t really see each other so it’s been nice to actually be around them both,” she agreed, “thank you though. All I ever do is work anymore and I feel like I’m gonna pull my hair out.” Laughing at her, she leaned down to grab her water and took a drink. It was that moment that her question hit her sort of hard and she ran her tongue over her bottom lip in thought. “I mean. It’s a good thing and I know that. I guess just letting it goes feels a little weird to me, you know? That’s a big part of me but I’m thankful for a closed chapter where he can move forward and so can I,” she spoke softly and then looked over at her. “How’s it going for you though?”

“Making those big bucks though, right?” Madison teased, knowing full well that a loaded schedule didn’t always mean a loaded bank account. She listened intently to Kenna talking about what she was gong through. It was never easy closing a chapter even when it was what you wanted. “I think getting rid of that physical representation of what you guys had will be good for you both. Even if it’s hard now,” she suggested and then shrugged at her question. “It’s good, mostly. I’m about to shake your roommate, but otherwise. You know. Gabe is adjusting to the new room. I’m getting more rest. All good things.” She took a drink of her water, washing down a bit of food and shrugged. “Life as normal, you know?”

Rolling her eyes at her comment, she chuckled to herself while looking at her. "Eh. Doesn't feel like I'm loaded. I have money, but y'know. Bills. Life. All that," she shrugged. Nodding her head, she knew that she was right and that she needed to let it be. It would be better for her in the long run and even Aiden. "You're right. I have to go see him soon because I need to sign over everything to him since it's in both of our names and stuff. I also kinda wanna talk to him about some stuff anyways." Once she was talking about Puck, she raised her eyebrows and with a tilt of her head, blue eyes were locked on her. "Oh? Why are we shaking Puck? What's wrong?" She asked, taking another bite, noting that she would go back to the other things later but she wanted to make sure that everything was okay with her two favorite people.

“Bills and all that just ruin all the fun, right?” Madison said, chuckling. She knew well enough herself how hard it was to get ahead and stay there. She chewed over a piece of sushi as Kenna spoke about Aiden, not jealous of that struggle in the least. Separations were hard enough when there wasn’t any legal nonsense to worry about. “What do you have to talk about?” she asked, using a tone that made it clear she didn’t have to have that conversation if she didn’t want to. Madison couldn’t help but roll her eyes as she started in about Puck. “I feel like I need to make note that at this point he and I have not had sex. Which is fine, but relevant. But we keep having these really good... dates? for lack of a better word. I know we’re not dating, but you guys' party and then me staying the night. And then we went out Saturday while Ben had Gabe and we’re like... holding hands and kissing on the beach and it very much feels like a date. And then he came over after Gabe went to bed and we had, you know, not sex. And it’s good, fine with it. But then Monday and yesterday," she paused and sighed, taking a drink of her water before she continued. "So Monday he's having a bad day, like capital B, bad day. And for all the flirting and nonsense we do, we've also had like real conversations in the past about Ben, about his dad. So he texts me, like... tiptoes into what's making his day suck and I try to talk to him about that, I try to distract him from that, but he's just shutting me down regardless, which, okay. He's having a bad day, no biggie. We say goodnight. I text him in the morning asking how he was feeling. He's still clearly in a mood, so I don't press, but I door-dashed him tacos 'cause he says he's stuck at work all night. And somehow me sending him food pissed him off?? Like, he texted me and told me stop acting like his girlfriend." She leaned back in her seat, pushed away the food and shaking her head of the whole mess. "It's like, if it were just sex between us, it would be fine. But we're not having sex, which arguably makes what we are doing have more emotion tied into because it's coupled with us just like hanging out and talking about our lives and stuff. And I'm not trying to be his girlfriend, but I don't know what he wants from me."

Mckenna listened to her best friend speak and she shrugged her shoulders a little. "Well, I'm on the house so we have to sign it over to he can put it up to be sold but besides that, nothing. I'm good with how we're doing things now." Whenever she started to talk about Puck, she put her food to the side and pressed her lips together in thought as she knew that there was probably a lot that was confusing about all of that but then to be real, everything about Puck wasn't always simple whenever it came to emotions because he didn't do them. Looking around for a moment, she gave her a nod and then she started to speak finally after she was finished talking. "Well, first off, it sounds like you two have been the cutest with your dates but the whole thing afterwards with the trouble of him being angry, I'm not sure I understand where that came from. Because if you two were so good, unless he would be the one to run away from a good thing. I know that there's been a rough day in there but I'm not sure about anything else going on. Have you thought about just asking what he wants from you?" She asked, looking over at her and she smiled a little over at her. "Do you like him? Like to the point of wanting to find out more about this? Or is this just that you're friends and that's that?" she asked, then crossed her legs in front of her while she started to think to herself, head leaning to the side. "Because any time that something comes up that could be complicated or something with emotions, he doesn't really care for that - and I think we all know that. I think that Micah is that way, too. I really think that he's getting the emotional part though, and it's hard. Because for whatever reason, I have this feeling that he might - judging by the cute moments you two have had - he has those feelings, too." She finished, leaning back and looking at her. "How do you feel?"

Madison pursed her lips in thought at what Kenna was asking. They weren't questions she hadn't had herself, but she'd also never expected an answer from herself either. "It just kind of feels like the closer we get to having sex the more he shuts me out. And I dunno, maybe I'm reading into the whole thing too much. It was just a bad day, after all, right?" she sighed and shook her head. Taking a long breath, she mulled over her next statement. She'd never put this out in the open before, deflecting every time it came up. "I like him," she admitted, "I'd date him. I'd be his girlfriend. But that's not what Puck does and wanting that or pursuing that is just opening myself for disappointment. So we'll be friends," Madison said, putting her hands up to wave off Puck's steadfast avoidance of the word, "and we can fuck and it'll be fine. But like... if it's gonna be that we can be friends or we can fuck. Then I'll take sex off the table. The sex we're not even having." She took a breath and leaned against the desk. "Boys are dumb."

Listening to her, Kenna tilted her head to the side and sat up a little more to lean on the desk in front of her. The blue eyed girl scanned over her best friend for a moment to take in what she was doing right in that moment before leaning up a little to grab onto her hands while a smile played over her lips. "You know it's okay to like someone and admit hat though I get what you mean. Puck is hard to like whenever he 'doesn't do' love and that just makes it even more complicated, huh?" She asked, squeezing gently onto her hands. "I think that maybe a serious conversation should happen before you actually have sex and I only say that because if you've put off having sex this long and he is pushing you away - I think there's more than anyone knows there." She admitted before pulling her hands back to prop herself up on one hand. "I dunno, I could be wrong but it's just what I think. You two are my favorite people in the world because my siblings, obviously and I just don't want anything bad to happen." Pressing her lips together, she nodded over at her. "They do suck though. So much. They also like to leave you confused but that's neither here nor there."

Madison could only sigh as she listened to Kenna. There was truth in it, and maybe that was the worst part. Communication was key, but at the same time, communication had never been her and Puck's strong suit. Instead they beat around the bush, deflected, and talking in a sort of code that only ever resulted in more questions. "Maybe you're right," she finally admitted, "but I still don't know about Puck and feelings, you know?" She squeezed at Kenna's hands and then let her head drop to the table with a quiet groan. "Definitely left confused. Maybe we should just bail on them and you and me run away together," she joked, lifting her head to catch the other girl's eyes with a smirk.

Whenever she spoke, she gave a soft laugh at the idea of Puck and feelings and then she rolled her eyes. "He doesn't do those. That's a huge no-no, but you never know. He could be different with you. You never know. I suppose it's something to find out whenever you're ready," she admitted and then looked over at her as she caught her eye, making her smile back over at her. "I mean, you totally give me amazing orgasms and we're kinda awesome together. Why not?" She teased, then sighed to herself, "my lunch is almost up, and it sucks. We should hang out one day this week again, if you wanna."

"Isn't that the dream? To be a guy's exception?" Madison recounted wistfully, then chuckled. Would it be nice? Sure. But there was no use putting stock in that idea. "Orrr... I can ignore it all and hope it goes away. Or just, like stays the same minus the him shutting me out part," she reasoned. She laughed at Kenna's reasoning and nodded in agreement. "Isn't that all we need?" Madison echoed the sigh and nodded. "Literally any time. Come over and hang with me and Gabe or something."

"Yeah, but I don't really ever think about that stuff anymore," she shrugged, smiling over at her as she went on to speak about ignoring it. "You two are impossible but whatever your code stuff is then you should just go ahead and keep doing what makes you happy. I love you both, so I'm here for whatever you choose to do," she stated. "Basically." Standing up, she ran her fingers through her hair and then picked up her garbage and left overs, pointing to the ice cream. "Eat it. It's super good, like always," she laughed, leaning over to kiss her cheek gently. "I will though. We'll text about it."

"Oh come on, just because Aiden wasn't it, doesn't mean there's not an exception out there for you," Madison teased, but relented on not dwelling on it. There was definitely a time after a breakup that happily ever after wasn't at the forefront of your mind. "I'm happy," she insisted. "Maybe a little confused, but happy." She hugged Kenna in return, taking a breath and letting go out of the stress of the situation with it. "I'll see you soon, babe."

[cryoculus]

Any scenario with iwaizumi and tsukishima with their s/o please?

So I consulted an RP Generator for this one and here’s what the RNG gods told me to write ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ side note: they dont necessarily “love” the reader character tho. they kinda just feel strongly about em.

Iwaizumi

He had to reread the encrypted text message a few more times before the gravity of the situation finally settled in his chest. 

Iwaizumi Hajime was known to be a surefire assassin that spared no one on the hit lists given to him. Not only did he get the job done, but he was also meticulous with his work. He made sure that the kills he’d secured would never be traced back to him or his clientele and that’s why he’s so popular in the market.

But this job in particular has him reeling into the depths of his conscience. It had been sent to him in the middle of the night as he was polishing his company-issued sniper rifle. The familiar chime of a notification from the almost jurassic cellphone given to him solely for the purpose of business transactions didn’t come to him as a surprise anymore. 

Usually, the jobs piled up right after he’s completed one for the night. He’s given the choice to refuse any job he didn’t see fit to execute, but this particular client was someone his boss specifically told him never to say no to.

[01:58 AM]

(Surname) (Name). Today. 3 AM.

These particular text messages were straight to the point. All his clients had to tell him were the name of the person he needed to dispose of and the date they wanted the job to be done. Iwaizumi had standard prices for his work and he expected the client to load the money into his bank account right after he confirmed the transaction, which he was having trouble deciding on right now.

He fidgeted with his thumbs as he attempted to compose a reply. But the longer he hesitated, the more his emotions began to betray his reason.

(Surname) (Name). Iwaizumi never thought he’d be seeing that name in particular written in the pixelated font of an encryption message. It wasn’t the first time he was tasked to take down someone he’s familiar with; not at all. But he never felt such a strong desire to turn a job down before. 

The career of a hitman wasn’t a pleasant one and Iwaizumi knew better than anyone that he had enemies everywhere. There had even been a time when he was left staggering in an alley, clutching a bleeding gash in his stomach where one of those yakuza folk slashed him with a sword. A damn sword. 

But just before he could succumb to the darkness that threatened to swallow him whole in a dingy crevice where no one would mourn him, you descended from the heavens and became his saving grace.

His memories of you were brief but clear. Soft hands tending to the worst of his injuries, the sharp incense in the room, the tender words that were nearly enough to nurse him back to health – how could he kill the woman that once saved him from death’s awaiting arms, knowing that he was your enemy.

[02:07 AM]

That’s the prodigious doctor under the wing of the yakuza. If that person is gone, they won’t have any means of getting back on their feet to bare their fangs at us any longer.

Iwaizumi usually replied to job requests within a minute. If it took longer, that only meant he was either hesitating or uninterested. Given that this was a client he absolutely cannot refuse, he’s sure the person who sent the message knew that he needed a little push to agree to take it.

He didn’t want to. He already knew who you were and what you did, but he still didn’t want his hands to be sullied with your blood.

“I think killing off the capo was necessary,” you sighed as you replaced the bandages around his stomach. “He was making wonky decisions all over and he just expects me to do damage control when he sends our men into those turf wars. I’d thank you, but that would be mean.”

“Mean?” Iwaizumi chuckled. You, a doctor of the yakuza, would describe thanking him for killing your leader ‘mean’? He expected you to just pummel a rusty knife into his stomach instead of actually healing him. Yet, to his surprise, you did the latter. 

Your touch was as light as a feather while you patched him up. The feeling of your fingers grazing the bare skin of his torso was stirring something inexplicable in his chest, but before he could dwell on it, you broke the silence.

“You must be wondering why I’m helping the man who assassinated the capo, aren’t you?” Your lips stretched into a smile, patting down the bandages evenly. 

“I am,” Iwaizumi agreed.

You sighed as you stared out of the window of your apartment. “Doctors are supposed to tend to anyone that needs medical attention, regardless of their affiliations. The capo has been giving me shit for that principle for a long time, saying that my talents were the yakuza’s property.” You gritted your teeth. “I didn’t like that.”

Iwaizumi sat in saturated silence, olive eyes observing you as you sat down on your bed with him. You shook your head. 

“Sorry. I was just rambling,” you apologized. “I’ll be heading out in a while. Lock up when you leave, will you, assassin-san?”

Your whimsical behavior knew no bounds, did they? Iwaizumi nodded. “Can I at least get the name of my savior?”

“(Surname) (Name). You better remember it.”

With a bated breath, Iwaizumi made up his mind, typing in a hasty reply to confirm the job. You were nothing but a stepping stone to him; an unfortunate soul that showed kindness to the wrong man. You should have killed him before he could kill you.

But even with his convictions aligned, Iwaizumi’s fingers still trembled when he pulled the trigger to put a bullet through your skull as you soundly slept in the same apartment where you plucked him from death. 

When he swooped into your apartment, something died in his chest along with your passing as he checked your pulse. Your blood coated the crisp white sheets and he swears that he can still see the sight of your peaceful corpse when he closed his eyes. 

This was the fate of an assassin with the blood of dozens in his hands and, frankly, he was used to it.

Tsukishima

“Kei?” 

The sound of you calling his name startled Tsukishima from his bubble of thought. What had you been telling his ear off about before he spaced out again? 

You huffed, puffing your cheeks. “Kei, I am going to tell on you! You’ve been really out of it lately.”

He mumbled a half-hearted apology before letting you prattle on about the latest fashion trends that caught your interest. Tsukishima didn’t care, but he had to seem interested since he was your bodyguard. 

The only child of the Yamato family that owned an entire chain of weaponry businesses across Japan was, for lack of a better word, spoiled. Not only did your parents grant all of your wishes to compensate for their constant absence, but they had to hire someone like him to keep your safety secured. The most pressing detail was that, you were about his age already, yet you still had the mentality of a thirteen year-old. 

You were annoying, it was an inexcusable fact. Tsukishima had a low tolerance for people he deemed vexing, but the pact between his family and yours was set in stone before either of you were even born. The Tsukishimas were in debt to the Yamatos and his service was payment for the favor they made ages ago. So even if you grated at his nerves every five minutes, he’s learned to cultivate a lengthy patience for your childlike behavior. He had to.

But childish you may be, he took his job seriously. Your safety was the highest priority for him, even if it led to the demise of other people. That’s exactly what happened when one of the Yamato family’s rivals in the industry thought it would be amusing to blackmail him.

“Listen, punk,” the burly man that infiltrated the Yamato manor rasped, holding a gun against his temple, “we’ve got your pretty little family under hostage back in Miyagi. If you don’t do as we say, they’re at the end of the line.”

Tsukishima narrowed his eyes at him. “Why am I supposed to believe you?”

He chuckled before gesturing at one of his comrades, who produced a cellphone from his pocket. When he unlocked it, displayed on the screen was a live feed from a camera in a place he wasn’t familiar with. In the room, he could clearly see the blindfolded and restrained figures of his mother and older brother. 

“What do you want?” he conceded, but remained calm. All he needed to do was minimize the casualties. His eyes flicker over to you, who’s also being held at gun-point. But unlike him, you were red-eyed and sniffling, fearing for your life as if Tsukishima couldn’t do anything to save you. 

The man taking him hostage put the gun in his hands. Tsukishima frowned. What did he want him to—

“Shoot the girl.”

His blood froze in his veins. Your shriek was deafening when the man’s intentions was put on the table, thrashing about in the arms of the other criminal holding you in place. He growled a threat in your ear, which effectively shuts you up. But even in your silence, Tsukishima could see the desperation in your glistening eyes.

Please don’t kill me.

A dry chuckle resonated in his chest and the man by his side cast him a bizarre look. But before he could dish out any more threats in Tsukishima’s ear, the blond immediately aimed the gun’s muzzle against the man’s chest and pulled the trigger without another thought. 

He let out a choked up gasp, blood spurting from his mouth, before crumpling to the ground. The other two men yell in surprise and before the man hostaging you could put an end to your life, Tsukishima fired another bullet straight into his skull. You yelped but before you could fall under the weight of the man he just killed, Tsukishima ran to you to support your weight on his back.

“K-Kei,” you whimpered. “They’re going to hurt them. They’re going to hurt them because of me.”

His family. This was the first time you showed any concern about anyone else besides yourself and this bothered him more than it should. 

“Boss! Kill ‘em! Kill ‘em dead!” The man holding the cellphone that showed him what situation Akiteru and his mother were in barked into a walkie talkie. “The young Tsukishima brat is a—”  

You screamed at the sound of another gunshot being fired. The last of the culprits slumps onto the floor in a bloody puddle. You were trembling on his back now and with a sigh, he tossed the gun aside to bring you to safety.

As he brought you to your room, he laid you down on your duvet so he could make some calls about what happened in the manor. But just before he could leave, you clutched the sleeves of his suit. 

“Don’t leave me,” you sobbed. “I-I promise I’ll make mom and dad get those guys for doing this to you, but please…”

The sight of you crying was routine for him. You cried at least once a day because of menial things and Tsukishima has since developed immunity to your emotions. But the sincerity in your voice to assure retribution for the men who threatened his family surprised him. 

With a shaky breath, he nodded and lied with you on your bed. For once, you weren’t chattering about the trivial matters that you involved yourself with. You soaked up in the deafening silence with him, not daring to shatter the temporary peace.

Deep in his thoughts, Tsukishima could only think about the last time he spoke with his brother.

“When you get back, we’re going to play lots of volleyball again, okay?” He grinned like an idiot back then and Tsukishima called him as such. Akiteru called him mean and said when he came home in six months’ time, he was going to get a beating.

Did he…have anything to come back to now?

“Kei?”

He turned his amber-eyed gaze to you, still sniffling but less puffy-eyed. 

“Thank you.” You managed a pursed smile.

You didn’t need to thank him. You never thanked him. But admittedly, the gratitude was nice to hear.

[rocketpowerreg]

winter’s coming, soon after summer → rc cola

TAGGING → @rocketpowerreg​ @nicoladerocha​ TIME → Saturday, 9/7 Mid-afternoon LOCATION → Reagan’s floral shop NOTES → The one where Nicola and Reggie try to be civil with each other only for Nicola to accidentally reveal to Reggie that her closeted ex from North Carolina was a homophobic, cheating bully  AUTHOR’S NOTES → Remember when Nicola yelled at Reggie last summer? This is worse and she wasn’t even trying to hurt Reggie this time 

REGGIE CLIFFTON

"Mom, I'm good. Really. Promise-- don't worry about me." Reggie muttered into her phone, walking the streets of New York City with a skateboard under arm rather than under her feet, "Yeah, yeah, I know you still will, but don't. Love you, too." And with that, the call ended. While Reggie had had a rough couple of days in her head, she had thought going out and wandering the streets would help. It hadn’t , so the conversation had been a welcome distraction as Reggie aimlessly wandered sidewalk to sidewalk. Though now that she was off the phone, she was taking in the surroundings and recognizing she was by Raegan's flower shop. Rather than just go home she decided it was better to find another distraction. Her first instinct was to go to the shop and see if Rae needed an extra set of hands. But then she remembered the cook book they had talked about Raegan mentioned her shop sold and figured now was as good a time as any to thumb through it. Cooking had become a bigger escape for Reggie as of late. While she couldn't get herself past the mental blockade to get herself to be as physically active as before, at least her culinary skills were getting honed in on. With the anniversary of her injury recently passing, Reg was trying to have her mind be focused on doing something nice for her old soccer team rather than think about the day that completely ended her soccer career. That also had to be a good sign... right? 

"Hey, anybody home? Paying customer coming in, so if you're fucking in the back it's time to come out." Reggie announced, expecting to see the usual suspect of Raegan behind the counter, and potentially Matt coming from under it.

NICOLA DE ROCHA

While working in Reagan’s flower shop wasn’t exactly the job Nicola envisioned herself having post grad, she was so incredibly thankful for it.  April offered her a spot behind the counter at ACup, but Nicola didn’t dare tell her even the espresso machine looked intimidating.  Sure, she wasn’t exactly built for customer service, but she really shone when she was free to arrange the flowers.  What could she say?  Aesthetics were her thing.

As soon as she heard another voice never the shop, Nicola dropped her phone, as if she wasn’t just scrolling through Instagram and made herself look busy.  Her brows knit together as it was Reggie who entered the shop instead of Reagan, “Ew, don’t be vile, Cliffton... the rumored ‘brothel’ is the next block over,” Nicola teased as she occupied herself cutting ribbon like she was supposed to be doing in the first place.

“What are you doing he— “What brings you in today?”  She asked giving herself a major pat on the back for those seamless customer service skills.

REGGIE CLIFFTON

The moment there was a note for Reggie to be less... well, herself, she knew she wasn't running into the redhead she was thinking would be there. Instead, it was the brunette with a bite and a constant thorn in her side Nicola De Rocha. While unexpected, the amused smirk on her face showed it wasn't unwelcomed to see her. Especially in a rubber apron and with dirt potentially under her nails. It was satisfying, albeit, strange, "Nice save, De Rocha," Reggie teased, approaching the counter and turning on her heel to rest her back against it, "if I hadn't grown up knowing what neighborhood you lived in, I might have just figure this was your first job, not your first time living upon the working class." While Reggie didn't know all the details of what happened, she had come by Raegan's shop enough to of known the financial situation of Nicola had changed. Reggie wasn't the type to judge things like that, especially because in truth, she thought pretty fondly of Nicola. They came from different parts of the same state, and had been background players in each other's and Spencer's lives. Having that relationship change into something more of its own entity was also welcomed by Reggie. Her attention scanned over the shop, taking in all the various flowers, gardening supplies, and products that were currently on sale.

"I wanted to check out this cook book Raegan said she had in stock. It looks like things have gotten a little rearranged since the last time I was here," her head turned and eyes landed on Nicola with a knowing smiling, "I'm gonna take a wild guess you had a hand in making that happen, didn't you? When you can't change outfits as much, you might as well change shop." Laying it on thick was practically Regina's specialty, but she liked to think the both of them had thick enough skin and a complicated enough history that all the teasing was assumed to be from a good place. Usually.

NICOLA DE ROCHA

Nicola served an exaggerated eye roll as Reggie spoke next, but chose not to reply.  Maybe this was some sort of karmic revenge on Nicola.  She was known for making biting remarks concerning the neighborhood Reggie grew up in back In North Carolina after all.  Even before Nicola’s financial situation changed her eyes were peeled open to her born privilege.  It wasn’t lost on her that even now as she needed to work for a paycheck at a day job, her parents would bail her out it it really came down to it.  Being cut off started a point of contention between Nicola and Emilio de Rocha, and Nicola wanted to prove she didn’t need Daddy’s credit cards to make it in New York.

“Yes, I did have a hand in this, in fact I did it just to annoy you,” Nicola teased as she made her way from behind the counter.  As much as she wanted to leave Reggie to find the item herself, she figured she might as well make herself useful.  While potentially earn back some karmic points from all the times she made digs at Reggie’s expense.

“I believe you’ll find what you’re looking for in the newly reorganized kitchen goods section,” she offered doing her best Vanna White impression as she showed off the section of books.

REGGIE CLIFFTON

There was no denying that Nicola had a personality to her. Even when she was having to adjust to a world she used to look down on people for being part of, Reggie couldn't help but notice she kept her sharp wit and graceful elegance as if nothing changed at all. It was impressive as hell, but mostly, it was entertaining to lay witness to, "Oh ho ho, how fancy this place has become," Reggie pointed out playful exaggeration, pushing off the counter to make her way towards the designated section and bowing her head in polite thanks as she neared Nicola, "I'd say I'd like to buy a vowel, or maybe a book, but Lane seems to insist on having a 'people don't actually pay for things' policy." Reggie joked, knowing there was a a glimmer of truth to the statement. 

 Her eyes darted to the shelf, skimming cover to cover until they landed on the book in question. Or the one she assumed it was-- there would at least be some recipe she could use most likely, "It must be weird working for someone who's loaded. And someone like Raegan-- she's kind of like the nice version of the people from Wilmington. Which it makes sense that people like her weren't actually in it. The place might’ve been too bearable that way." Reggie glanced up and winked at Nicola. Sure, she did mostly mean the statement, but it wasn't meant to be a dig at the girl herself. In the past it might have been, but not anymore. Somehow, Reggie was sure she knew what she meant now that Nicola's horizons had broadened beyond that of their county lines and parents bank accounts.

NICOLA DE ROCHA

Not even Nicola could pretend like she could take any credit for Reagan’s shop being as elegant as it was.  She was simply given the creative space to make adjustments if it suited the aesthetic.  The changes could potentially catch fresh eyes and draw in new customers, maybe those business classes would be a total waste after all!  “I have noticed she runs her business like a Salvation Army, but it’s kind of sweet,” Nicola shrugged before adjusting one of the nearby bouquets.  “I mean it’s a terrible business model, but something tells me Reagan isn’t in this for the money.” 

 Nicola wanted to take offense to the comment made about the people from her hometown, but Reggie was kind of right.  Most of the people back in Wilmington were at best snobs and she chose not to think about what they were like at their worst.  “I want to argue with you but I’m constantly reminded that Spencer’s parents are Wilmington’s exception not the rule.  You should see what my old social circle is up to,” she added with an eye roll, this one surprisingly not in Reggie’s direction.  “They are all collectively turning into the worst kind of people."

REGGIE CLIFFTON

Grabbing the book off the shelf, Reggie let her focus be on thumbing through the pages of the recipes inside. If she was actually cooking, holding a conversation wouldn't be something she would want to continue. However, she was having a pleasant conversation with Nicola and that warranted to be enjoyed. The two didn't have a lot in common, and not in the cute way like Nicola and Spencer had. It was in a way where if they managed to not just stand awkwardly around each other, that was a feat. Maybe the two of them had changed in NYC more than it seemed. At least now they could poke fun at the people from back home together. 

 "Sorry, did you just say your old social circle? 'cause damn, they must really be some pieces of work if you're not even wanting to call them 'friends.'" Reggie playfully pointed out, looking back up at Nicola as she shifted her weight to lean on the display case, "But I believe it. No offense on anything, but I always hated whenever I went to your guy's school. You could just feel the judgement in the hallways. I don't know how you or Porter dealt with it daily."

NICOLA DE ROCHA

“They were hardly friends when I was in high school,” Nicola offered with a shrug.  Of course that realization had only come with the luxury of time, back then she was loyal to all they represented— being popular and more importantly being accepted.  They accepted her but that was because she stifled the parts of herself they wouldn’t have.  Nicola’s eyes darted to the book in Reggie’s hands at the mention of Spencer, considering she was the one who had to deal with the brunt of it all.  “None taken.  Considering I actively contributed to the culture… I really have no room to take offense.” 

 A thought occurred to Nicola as she remembered the atrocious group photo that had just popped up in her Facebook memories this morning.  Nicola pulled her phone out of the apron pocket, “Want to see a photo?  A throwback Thursday as the youths say,” she chuckled as she held up her phone.  “Bonus points if you can point out my beard."

REGGIE CLIFFTON

While Reggie was having no trouble scanning through the recipes and listening to Nicola, truthfully, Reggie had zoned out near the end. It wasn't Nicola's fault, or even Reggie's, it was just habit from having to learn drown Matt out since they had become roommates. So for a few seconds, Nicola's phone didn't get Reggie's attention and just remained suspended near her face. It was the few seconds of silence that made Reggie glance back up from the pages she was analyzing to be faced with a picture. One she had never seen before, but it had more than one familiar face.

"Jesus, what the fu-" Reggie started, her surprise quickly getting replaced with undivided attention. She stood straight up, hand reaching out to steady Nicola's phone and get a complete look of the photo. Her brow knitted together, eyes zeroed in on one face and one face only. A girl with dark hair, deep green eyes, and a smile Reggie knew all to well. Yet she could not even begin to understand what her ex-girlfriend was doing in a picture with Nicola DeRocha. Or any of what she called her social circle. Reggie desperately needed to know more, "Who is that? The chick between you and that guy? What's her deal?" Reggie had to stop herself from asking 'why is she there' as that was one she wasn't sure she would get, or want, an answer to .

NICOLA DE ROCHA

Honestly Nicola thought she was being playful and self deprecating by showing Reggie this photo.  It was the closest she’d ever had to an awkward phase, “Reggie, I have braces in this photo and I”m desperately hanging off a boy’s shoulder… this is prime roast material!”  Nicola’s eyes glanced back to the photo, and out of all eight teenagers posed, she couldn’t for the life of her understand why she’d focus in on Jinny Edwards of all people.

Foremost Nicola answered Reggie’s question with an eyeball, but maybe enough time had passed since high school where Nicola could find the humor in this situation.  “Jenna Edwards.  I don’t know what she’s up to these days because she blocked me everywhere, but at least she gave me an excuse to break up with my beard by making out with him a bunch junior year.  Still a total bitch move though, ya know?"

REGGIE CLIFFTON

Jenna Edwards 

 So it was was her. 

She blocked me everywhere 

Her Jinny had done that too. It absolutely was her. 

... making out with him a bunch junior year 

No. No. It couldn't of been her. 

Reggie felt a lump in her throat and looked at Nicola with eyes a little too dark to fully express how lost she felt hearing these things. Reggie and Jenna had been together for months by the time she transferred schools. Going to different schools didn't matter, her being in the closet didn't matter, her parents barely liking Reggie even as a friend didn't matter. It had made things harder, but they had never broken up before college. Not until after Reggie’s accident and certainly well after junior year of fucking high school. To say Reggie's mind was racing was putting it lightly, and it wasn’t helping her throat was closing up. It was getting hard to speak-- to say anything.

 "She... what?" Bewildered, that was her tone. She was at a loss, "He cheated on you with her? That's not... you're kidding right? You sure you're talking about the chick with the freckles?" On one hand, Reggie was pretty composed for someone who was feeling sick to her stomach. On another, it probably just seemed like she was surprised someone cheated on Nicola. Two things could be true, but she was much more focused on getting the truth on who Nicola knew Jinny Edwards to be and who Reggie had been perhaps too blind to see all along. 

NICOLA DE ROCHA

“I know, right?”  Fell a little too quickly from Nicola’s lips when Reggie seemed to be in disbelief that Nicola got cheated on.  At least that’s what it sounded like to her ears, and while she deemed Reggie’s doubt warranted… it wasn’t like Nicola had been a faithful girlfriend either, but least she had the good sense to trade up!  Nicola zoomed in on the photo, so it was cropped upon her ex and the girl in question, “Don’t let the freckles fool you, she was an obnoxious bully,” Nicola recalled with a shake of her head.  It wasn’t like the rest of her friends were much better, but as snobby as they were they never tore Nicola down.  At least now directly to her face.  “She called me d*ke-cola once— to moderate laughter, when I left a party early to hang out with Spencer.  I refuse to believe she clocked me by the way!  She was just being a bitch."

REGGIE CLIFFTON

A misunderstanding was all Reggie was hoping for at this point, but the moment Nicola had the picture zeroed in on Jinny there was no possible way this was. Nicola was a woman of many things, being this cruel wasn't one of them-- it was clear she had no idea who Jinny really was.  Or more like she didn't know Jinny's role in Reggie's life.  That part didn't surprise Reggie considering all the lengths she had gone through to keep them a secret. Hanging out in public was almost always met with a No, her going to Reggie's soccer games happened only before Jinny transferred, meeting any of her new friends from her new school was completely out of the question since Jinny said she "didn't have any," and the possibility of being together to the world wouldn't be allowed until they were in college-- far, far away from North Carolina. During the course of their relationship it had become frustrating keeping up with the rules, but Regina loved her. Jinny loved Reggie. And the world had told Reggie for years that love made everything worth it in the end... 

 It was now making sense why the couple winded up where they did. 

Throughout all the years since their break up, Regina had lamented herself for becoming a spiteful, awful person after her accident, especially to Jinny. For years Regina had seen Jinny as someone good in the world she had completely broke the heart and soul of from their constant fights near the end. She had never considered Jinny to be someone keeping secrets from her... especially ones of her bullying others with homophobia. The lips Regina had kissed and loved had also went around the school hallways saying slurs as jokes. It was sickening. It was infuriating. And god it was heartbreaking.

"I- uh, yeah. Sure. Maybe." was all Reggie managed to get out to Nicola after far too long of a silence. It was hardly answer but it was all she had after staring far too long at the photo again. Though, to be fair, Reggie wasn't exactly feeling the most present at the moment due to how much of her past just got shattered. She was beginning to feel herself questioning everything and it was getting to be heavy- too heavy. Reggie was starting to feel the weight of Nicola's words and the past actions of Jinny crushing her bit by bit. She felt like she was going to faint, or that the ground would swallow her up. For a moment, Reggie wished it would, because she couldn't stay where she was any longer. She needed to leave. She needed to stop looking at this picture. She needed to do fucking something. 

"Look, I... I gotta go, De Rocha, I can't fucking be here anymore," Reggie quickly tossed out, shoving the phone back towards Nicola as she could no longer keep looking at the picture. She didn't mean to have such a bite to her words, but currently Reggie's emotions were a little on the edge. Yet she didn't want Nicola to ask questions either, "I just... I feel sick or something so I'm... I'm gonna go. Thanks. I-I mean, sorry-- whatever. Fuck it. Who cares?" She muttered, looking for her skateboard so she could leave. The tone of Reggie's voice ranged all over: sincere, to unsure, to seemingly pissed. She could have explained herself better, but Reggie was in no place to. All she wanted was to get the hell out of Reagan's flower shop. She had no plans besides that. Given the entirety of what she thought to be true of her past was now in shambles, thinking beyond the current moment was impossible. Much like how her finding a way to get past this felt.

[neijayah]

Seoul, day 1 - Arrival

So to make this journey possible, I had to save up most of my years vacation days plus apply for educational vacation at my company, which was thankfully approved. A lot of preparation had to be made. Not just communication with the company that organized this educational travel, but also making sure my cats are cared for. But I admit, they're like my children. 😅😇

As I would be staying for about a month, I had to pack quite a bit, as I didn't know, where exactly I would be staying until 2 weeks before arriving, and if the residence has a laundry or not. Thankfully the hotel I'm staying at, has both a washing machine and a dryer, though in the cellar, for every resident to use. So it meant I could at least keep clothing limited.

EF offers to arrange flights from Germany to Korea. Unfortunately, only from two airports in Germany, and non of them near my parents. So it would have meant either traveling by plane, train or rental car to these airports, or organizing the flights myself. The advantage was, that I could decide which flight company I would take and how long stay-overs would be. Taking into account, that most flights - at least in Europe - nowadays are delayed, I didn't want to risk getting stuck somewhere due to the incompetence of others.

I decided for Turkish Airways. Though the German-Turkish relationship is a bit strained right now, Turkish Airways has a good reputation and statistics in crashes. This shouldn't be your concern, but I just watched "Mayday - Air Desaster" way to often. 😅 I could have taken a connection flight with a stay over for 1,5 h. But, as I wasn't sure, if the plane would start on time and how big/complicated the Istanbul airport is, I decided for a 6 h stay-over. Enough time for delays and finding your gate and even eat something valuable.

Only negative point using Turkish Airways and therefore having to use Istanbul as transfer airport is, I have to say, the security check in Turkey. It was hasty and not really thorough. In today's time, not the best decision.

Both flights were eventless. It bit shaky from time to time, that eating your meals and drinking was a bit challenging. My seating neighbor even spilled her water over me. Thankfully, it wasn't the red wine she also had ordered. Unfortunately, Turkish Airways didn't offer any food from the destination country. Usually, flight companies offer two menus, one of the company's origin country and one for the destination. Same for the entertainment. Though I was lucky to even listen to BTS' latest Japanese album.

Immigration in Korea is pretty easy, like most things in Korea. Thanks to Korean technology, when your passport was scanned, they tell you to put your fingers on the scanner in your own language. On the plane they hand out the registration cards for immigration and for "importing goods" if you have packed anything, that isn't allowed in Korea. You don't need to fill these out on the plane right away. There are several points on the way to the immigration desks to fill them out, or get new ones. Pens are provided at these desks as well. Everything worked pretty fine, until I took my suitcase from the treadmill. My lock has been opened and not properly closed again. So I was running around with a extra bag for the commute, that I actually wanted to store in that suit case. Not so nice for a 1h 45 min. travel with some changing and trying to find your hotel. The latter one being the bigger problem. I will come to this problem and how to solve it a bit later.

Before I arrived in Korea I had to think about how to stay in contact with my home country, family and friends. If it was wiser to get a second SIM card or just make sure that I have cheap internet connection. I decided for the internet connection. I don't take phone calls when I'm home. Sure as hell, won't do it in Korea. Several Korean telecommunication companies offer so called Wifi eggs, a mobil internet router. Perfect for shorter vacations. If you're staying longer, like for a few months, and love to talk with home, a second SIM card might be smarter. The SIM card can be obtained at the airport directly. Sources say, it's cheaper there, than in Seoul itself. So inform yourself, where to get everything. SK Telecom offers rented mobil phones, SIM cards and Wifi eggs. Ordering/renting can be done online beforehand, either on their website or on distributors like trazy.com. The pick-up was very easy as well and the prices reasonable. KT Telecom offers the same service. It can also be ordered and found on the trazy website. SK and KT Telecom both have Wifi router in every metro train, as far as I know. So if you buy/rent a SIM or even mobile phone, you're save with these two companies.

EF offers their students to take a taxi with the help of an EF employee. But as I was fine with traveling with public transportation, I chose to take the metro. Pretty easy progress, if you know where you have to go to. Taking public transportation tickets are a necessity. When staying more than a few days, the T-Money card is the best choice. Offering diverse pictures on the front, they all work the same. At the clerks desk at any convenient store (like CS), where you buy the card, you can load it right away with an amount of your choice. 20,000 Won (approx. $20) is a good start. If you don't use all of it, it stays on the card for several years. I used my one about 4 years ago. Nothing got lost.

If you're just staying for a day or two, there a special tourist T-Money cards, with benefits for sightseeing entrances. I had one at my first travel, but it didn't work for the N Seoul Tower. So you might have to be prepared, that it isn't always excepted.

You have several options getting into the city: either taxi, bus, by express train or underground. Train takes less time, but might take you further into the city than needed and may cost more. The underground/metro takes longer, as it is an all-stop train, but you can get off, when needed. Be careful with taxis, as you better have the address written down, preferably in Korean or speak clear Korean without an accent. They might take you to the other side of town, to where you actually wanted to be. And you might get stuck in traffic like every car. The bus is a good option as well, depending on your time of arrival and how strong your stomach is. Be aware, that rush hour times here are around 5 to 8 p.m. You don't want to get stuck in traffic there. Don't know about the early rush hour times. Though, in some areas of town, buses have their own lane. With these airport busses you'll have to name your exit station, so the bus driver can insert the right charge into the T-Money card reader. Baggage is stored in special compartments at the busses belly. You'll get a receipt for your luggage, so you get the right one out at your arrival. If you choose the metro, follow the signs stating "all-stop".

Commuting with the underground is pretty easy, as everything is signed out. Even if you are actually on the right track, before you even step into the metro. Just know the next station for your direction. But it's wiser to know beforehand which bigger metro station is on that track, as most of the times, while changing from one line to another, they only show bigger transfer stations, that might connect you to another line. So better you have a plan at hand to look after which stop are on your direction.

After getting your T-Money card and have it charged with your money, just follow the signs with trains stated. It takes a bit of walking but nothing compared to finding the right bus or getting the taxi driver to understand clearly where you want to go. Before getting to the tracks you will have to scan your T-Money card to get in. Always be sure to scan them again, when leaving the train station (and bus) and sometimes even when changing the trains. This way the right amount of money will be discounted.

You will find that there are glass fronts all along the train track at the station. A way to prevent suicides or like in Germany getting pushed onto the tracks by some stranger.

Something you should prepare in advance as well, is to figure out, where exactly you have to leave your train station. Not just the right station but also the right exit. There are usually around 6 to 8 exits and more, which can be quite far away from each other as whole shopping areas are located at those stations. Your hotel or bigger sightseeing attractions will usually tell you which exit is the best to leave the station. And by the way, you actually don't need to speak/read Korean when visiting Seoul. Almost everyone speaks at least a little bit of English, more so the younger generations. And every street, metro or other signs are written in Latin/Roman writings. Just smaller shops go with Korean writing. But some necessary words are easy to learn beforehand.

It took me quite long, though to find my hotel. It was a little hidden in a side road. And Google Maps isn't really helpful, as you cannot just give in the address. Naver or Kakao Maps might give you better options and fresher cards. Both also help you taking the right train.

The hotel I'm staying at offers breakfast for an extra charge, which is pretty good. But I decided to get the food for myself. You find most stuff, somewhere around. Still have to find a decent supermarket, though, that isn't into luxury. But basic food, snacks and ready made food can be bought in nearly all convenient stores. And you usually find like 3 and more right around the next corner. And the choice in Ramyeon is beyond expectation.

I stayed at the Urban Place, a nice hotel with good equipments. There are other possibilities to stay, which are usually not more than a few square meters with a toilet/shower cabin, if at all. So if you don't want to spend a huge amount of money, don't expect luxury in all four corners. My room is equipped with a small fridge (really small), a small cooking area with the minimum of kitchen equipment. Shower and toilet are separated and TV and Wifi are included. TV also offers a few British programs and Arirang, a Korean TV station in English.

This was probably more than enough information on arriving and what to do, to get around.

[niall-is-my-dream]

The Bucket List - Chapter Twenty

Niall's POV

Definitely going to have to marry her you thought as you walked in the front door of your house in L.A. 

Annie was standing in the kitchen wearing a little pair of denim shorts and a white vest top. Her long legs were tanned from the vacations you'd had and she had a beautiful glow about her. She had put some music on and was singing and dancing away whilst prepping some dinner.

"Hey Horan, you checking me out?!" She asked when she noticed you standing in the kitchen doorway.

"Hard not to." You said walking over to her. "You're beautiful babe, can't keep my eyes or my hands off you." You ran your hands across her bum lifting her up and placing her on the kitchen work top. "Missed you today." You whispered as you kissed her just behind her ear.

"Mmmm missed you to." She moaned. 

Oh that beautiful moan that she did.

You gripped her hips and moved yourself further towards her, she then wrapped her legs around your waist trapping you there.

Your mouth found hers and you kissed her holding her tight in a passionate embrace. You felt her hands run up into your hair and she pulled it slightly showing you exactly how hard she wanted to be kissed. You were getting hard already, she had such an effect you. 

She pulled away from the kiss resting her forehead on yours. "Making some Jamie Oliver chicken pasta thing for dinner, that ok?" She said trying to get her breathe back.

"You're too good to me." You replied.

"I know!" She laughed. "Go take your sexy arse upstairs and get changed."

"Ooohhh bossy to!" You sniggered as you released her from your grip and walked towards the staircase. She hopped down from the work top and carried on cooking. 

You loved her being here, loved coming home from work to find her cooking or tidying up or just lying by the pool. The news of Willie and Katie getting engaged made you realise you wanted that with Annie, not yet, but in the future definitely. Getting engaged after 3 months was too soon, you were thinking about asking her to move in together though. 

You poured her some wine as she dished up the dinner, grabbing yourself a beer to. The food looked amazing, Annie was a great cook. "So, how did the interviews go today?" She asked as you sat down at the table together. You'd done a few interviews for a couple of radio shows today and then had a meeting to finalise some other work.

"Good, talked about you a bit actually."

"You did?" She asked looking nervous.

"Yeah, well we've been pictured together a few times and Ryan Seacrest wasn't going to let me get away without finding out who you were!" You said laughing.

"What did you say then?"

"That you are amazing in bed!" You replied laughing as she opened her mouth in shock and gave your arm a slap. "Ow!"

"Ha! Ha!" 

"No, I just said that we'd starting seeing other a few months ago and that I was very happy and that a you were an amazing girl."

She smiled at you and bit her lip, she always did that when you complimented her and she didn't know how to reply. You moved your legs under the table to entwine them with hers and smiled back.

The dinner was delicious and you both finished the lot before sitting back in your chairs. "I'm stuffed!" She said sipping her wine. "Although I may have room for dessert later!" She said with a wink.

"Ha! Dirty girl!" He replied laughing. "Come on lets get tidied up."

To be fair she hadn't made much of a mess whilst she cooked, she was a little bit of a tidy freak like you and couldn't bare the disorganization whilst cooking. You loaded the dishwasher as she washed down the work tops, you set the machine to start and made your way up to the fridge to get another drink.

"You nervous about tomorrow?" You asked.

"What about meeting your friends?"

You nodded.

"A bit. I hope they like me."

"I'm sure they will Petal, come on lets chill out for a bit in the living room."

You both walked into the living room and got comfy. You stuck on the golf highlights and Annie got her kindle out to read. Life with her was so good. She had slotted into yours so easily it was scary. She didn't always need conversation and were happy to sit in silence after you'd had a long day. Her hand always resting on your knee for comfort. 

You definitely needed to marry her some day.

You laid naked in each others arms that night just staring at each other. "I love you Annie Hammond. I want to wake up with you everyday...... Do you think you'd consider living together.......permanently?" You whispered.

"I think so, we practically do now anyway." She whispered back smiling "I love you Niall." Then she kissed you with such love, your heart skipped a beat.

Your friends arrived at 12 the next day. You were having a bbq and it was an opportunity for your L.A. friends to meet Annie. You were a bit nervous to be honest. Annie was so laid back. Her Mams definition of her being the most Irish English girl out there was true. She didn't take any shit and you knew she'd probably get on well with almost everyone but there was one person you knew would ruffle her feathers, Courtney.

Courtney was someone you knew through another friend and whilst you enjoyed her company you only saw her often as she was also good friends with your assistant Tara. She was outspoken and you hoped she'd like Annie but she was normally defensive for no reason.

The bbq was going well, you'd popped into the kitchen to grab some more ice when you heard Annie's raised voice.

"Excuse me?" She said. "Did you actually just imply that I'm with Niall for his money and fame? The girl who's only famous for having famous friends?"

Shit! What the fuck had Courtney said.

Courtney remained quiet, I don't think she had expected Annie to react like that.

"For your information I don't particularly like being followed around the supermarket or being slated on social media for being Niall's girlfriend. And in regards to money I have £95 million sitting in my account. I don't need his money I can look after myself thank you."

Courtney mouth was wide open, you could see her mulling this over in her head, wondering what to say next. 

Jeez £95 million! You knew she was rich, but fuck that's a lot of money. Courtney was quick with a comeback though.

"Oh I bet your parents are really proud of you!" She quipped.

"I wouldn't know they're dead, but thanks for bringing it up." Annie replied sharply.

"Fucking hell Courtney!" Justin said.

She looked at Justin and then at Annie.

"I'm sorry." She blurted out.

"You should be, there's no need to be so bitchy, Jesus feckin christ!"

You laughed from your hiding spot, Annie sounded so much like her Mam when she said that last bit.

"Are you always like this to people you've just met?" Annie asked her. You loved how blunt she was.

"Unfortunately she is a bit uptight sometimes aren't you Courtney?" You said as you came out the patio doors.

"Just, don't want you to get messed around that's all." She said looking at her empty plate.

"I'm a big boy Courtney I can look after myself but thanks." You replied.

The rest of the afternoon passed without another bad word between Courtney and Annie. You could see Courtney was being ridiculously nice to her now. She'd apologised again about her parents and had listened as Annie told her about them and about Mary and Bob being her surrogate parents.

Justin had taken you to one side in the kitchen to tell you he thought Annie was awesome for standing up for herself with Courtney. He'd started to relay the conversation to you before you confessed you'd been listening.

Everyone had loved her and as you snuggled up to her that night in bed you felt complete contentment.

You flew back to England two days later arriving late at night. Going straight to Annie's apartment felt natural. You'd chatted about living together some more and were going to discuss it with Willie and Katie in the next few days.

After getting over the jetlag which as usual was a killer you'd arranged to catch up with Willie and Katie for dinner at Annie's. You'd ordered Chinese and were just getting the table laid when they arrived. Annie opened the door to them and you greeted them as they came into the kitchen. 

The Chinese arrived less than ten minutes later and you all sat down to eat at the table. Annie was pouring the drinks when you spoke.

"So Annie and I been talking about stuff and we have decided to live together." You said. 

"Guys that's great" Katie said "I'm so pleased for you, I feel like Cilla Black! My match making skills are on fire!"

Everyone was laughing.

"So, we know its quite soon as we've only been together a few months but we practically live together any way whilst I'm in London so we thought we'd just go for it."

"It's going to be a bit of a trial to see how it goes but with Niall being away on tour soon he probably would stay here when he's home any way."

"So, we are going to live here at Annie's." You said looking over her and smiling.  "We know you both want to live together now you're engaged, so were wondering if Katie wanted to move into ours." 

"Obviously its up to you both, you might want to live somewhere you've chosen together."  Annie said.

You finished by saying "Think about it and talk it over and let us know".

Willie and Katie decided to move in together at your apartment. Katie stayed there alot already and you were pleased as it meant they were literally just a few floors away from you. Willie had started talking rent with you and you told him that he could live there rent free but to just pay the monthly maintenance charge and bills. You said you'd draw up a sort of contract for him if he wanted to make it official.

Moving your stuff into Annie's a few days later was pretty easy and she was happy for you to just put your stuff wherever you wanted. You settled into a routine easily over the next two weeks, going off to rehearsal and then heading home to Annie.

It was perfect but you knew it would all change when you went on tour.

The End.......

Just Kidding!

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[aurelliocheek]

IDFA deprecation is Facebook’s Sword of Damocles

The impending privacy changes coming to the iOS 14 through the deprecation of the IDFA disproportionately harm companies that have built deep user profiles for the purposes of ad targeting. Facebook, having built extremely sophisticated, precise targeting infrastructure, will perhaps suffer more than any other mobile advertising platform as a result of IDFA deprecation: all of its optimization mechanisms are built atop user-centric profiles that rely on in-app events being tagged with device identifiers. Without being able to attribute in-app events to a particular device, and thus a Facebook account, Facebook’s advanced, hyper-precise ad serving machinery is weakened.

The Sword of Damocles is meant to represent the unpredictable, potentially existential risks faced by those in power: Damocles hung a sword above his throne with a mere strand of horse’s hair. Facebook’s hyper-precise ad targeting is its power — it is the advantage it has over all other advertising platforms (apart from Google UAC). And IDFA deprecation is Facebook’s Sword of Damocles: a risk it always faced for becoming too skilled at targeting ads at users via aggregated behavioral profiles.

Facebook has grown its advertising revenue considerably since 2017, when it introduced the event-optimized App Event Optimization (AEO) and Value Optimization (VO) campaign strategies: all of that revenue growth is attributable to Facebook’s ability to calculate the probability of a specific user clicking on an ad, installing an app, and ultimately, making one or more purchases. With iOS 14, Facebook’s ability to do that is diminished: it can know which users click ads, but it can’t tie in-app events to individual user profiles, at least not in real time and in a reliable way. The changes introduced in iOS 14 were always a possibility, and the more money that Facebook made with its ability to target ads to users with stunning precision, the more likely these changes were to be enforced.

In understanding just how important these event-optimized campaign strategies have been for Facebook, it’s helpful to go back to 2017, when they had only just been rolled out. In Facebook’s App Event Optimization tool showcases the power of its data in Q1 earnings, published in May 2017, a little less than a year after AEO had been introduced, I wrote:

Facebook’s AEO product is another example of the advertising giant utilizing its massive data set on users as a competitive advantage that is almost structurally unbeatable. Other networks can optimize around in-app events, and some do, but they don’t have the first-party engagement data or the deterministic profile data that Facebook does to cluster players together based on propensity to spend. Absent those data sets, AEO is hard to do: since very few people spend money in apps, a lot of data is needed in order to build robust proxy signals for spending. Facebook has that data and almost no one else does.

ARPU in Facebook’s most important market (North America) increased 9.75% and 9.81% quarter over quarter in Q2, when AEO was introduced, and Q3 of 2016, versus 4.85% and 6.43% worldwide. Yet the quarter-over-quarter increase for North America was roughly equivalent to that of worldwide from Q1 2016 to Q2 2016, before AEO was launched.

It’s important to keep in mind that the introduction of the AEO campaign strategy was a means of improving per-user monetization in high-ARPU geographies for Facebook: AEO is designed to focus a campaign’s reach on users that are likely to complete some event, meaning costs of installs increase, but the value of each acquired user increases enough to create viable unit economics. In other words: AEO campaigns are designed to be, relative to campaigns that simply optimize for installs, low volume and high ARPU.

It bears pointing out that there are really only three ways for Facebook to increase its revenue: to scale its user base, to increase ad load, or to increase the value of its ad inventory. In North America, Facebook only increased DAU by 35% between Q4 2016 and Q4 2019 while its (global) revenue more than doubled from 2016 to 2019. And while ad load has certainly increased in that period, Facebook’s CFO noted in 2016 that ad load would reach a natural limit across its core portfolio of apps at some point in the near-term future. It seems likely that the source of Facebook’s revenue growth from 2016 until today was its ability to increase the value of its inventory through event-optimized campaigns like AEO — which, as the diagram above points out, are heavily dependent on user profiling.

The primary beneficiaries of AEO and VO campaigns, and generally Facebook’s increased capacity for precision ad targeting, have been smaller advertisers and SMBs: they were given access to the types of sophisticated targeting machinery that would have been wholly inaccessible to them otherwise. The point I made when Google subsumed all of its mobile app advertising inventory into the UAC product was that, while the lack of transparency of UAC might have irritated larger advertisers, the product gave small companies the ability to advertise by leveraging Google’s incredible advertising tools. These event-optimized, algorithmic targeting tools not only drove ARPU increases but they created opportunities for efficient advertising for smaller companies who otherwise wouldn’t be able to spend money on performance marketing at all.

It’s no coincidence that the DTC category emerged during this period of time: through their algorithmic ad targeting tools, Facebook and Google created it. With the deprecation of the IDFA and device targeting more broadly, all of the advertising opportunity that was produced with the introduction of these tools disintegrates.

Some caveats. It should be noted that IDFA deprecation only impacts app advertising campaigns, not web advertising. Although Facebook revealed that 94% of its 2019 advertising revenue was generated on mobile, the company doesn’t break that out between mobile web advertising (eg. a user clicks on an ad and is taken to a website) and mobile app advertising (eg. a user clicks on an ad and is taken to an app store). It’s also worth mentioning that, as of now, only the iOS device identifier has been deprecated (and even then, only effectively deprecated: some percentage of users will elect to opt into ad tracking, and their IDFAs will be exposed to Facebook), and the GAID on Android devices is still accessible to all apps for ad tracking.

But my best guess is that 80% of Facebook’s mobile advertising revenue is driven by app advertising, and I believe that Google will deprecate the GAID within six months. So the changes introduced in iOS 14 represent real, immediate problems to Facebook’s revenue growth. With IDFA deprecation, the strand of hair dangling the Sword of Damocles above the throne has snapped. Facebook might expect to see its revenue decrease by some meaningful percentage: just a few days before WWDC 2020, Facebook published a white paper in which it revealed that ad personalization accounts for 50% of CPM prices on Facebook’s Audience Network (the aggregated inventory across 3rd-party apps for which it manages ad targeting and serving). The conclusions in the article are withering:

It seems nearly impossible that advertisers won’t face deteriorating economics on Facebook in the short term as IDFA deprecation materially impairs Facebook’s ability to precisely target users. Over the long term, I believe that Facebook will find a path to its current level of ad serving efficiency without needing advertising identifiers. But the content of its own white paper underscores very clearly how important personalization is for ad targeting, and IDFA deprecation damages Facebook’s ability to deliver that kind of personalization.

Photo by Ricardo Cruz on Unsplash

IDFA deprecation is Facebook’s Sword of Damocles published first on https://leolarsonblog.tumblr.com/

[vsplusonline]

Small biz, big trouble: Covid-19 disruption might prove fatal for many of India’s MSME units

New Post has been published on https://apzweb.com/small-biz-big-trouble-covid-19-disruption-might-prove-fatal-for-many-of-indias-msme-units/

Small biz, big trouble: Covid-19 disruption might prove fatal for many of India’s MSME units

In the afternoon of April 23, Thursday, more than 100 small businessmen around Mumbai and Thane met through a conference call over the online conferencing software Zoom, to discuss the reopening of businesses after the lockdown. There was a quick consensus in the meeting that went on for nearly two hours — no one is ready to restart immediately. The supply chains for raw material simply do not exist at this point, even though some units have permissions to operate and others are expecting it in early May.

The meeting, organised by the Mumbai-based IMC Chamber of Commerce and Industry, had businessmen seeing May-end as a plausible date for reopening. But there was another, more startling, consensus emerging at the meeting organised to discuss a reopening playbook — at least 25-30% of the businesses would not survive the crisis created by the Covid-19 pandemic.

ET Magazine spoke to a dozen businessmen from across India — owners of businesses that fit into the category of micro, small and medium enterprises (MSME) — and found that this feeling of staring at an abyss was pervasive. The biggest worry is, of course, a liquidity crunch, followed by a disrupted supply chain and labour availability. The sector employs almost 12 crore people, making a large number of the country’s households dependent on the 63 million MSME units. It also accounts for a third of India’s manufacturing output and 45% of exports.

Many units have paid their workers wages for March in full and are prepared for April payments. While there are no revenues now, there is a government mandate to keep paying salaries and wages. There are other bills like electricity and water that also have to be paid. But without revenues or substantial government support, there is no way they can carry on in May and beyond. “Wages and salaries are the biggest issue, and everyone is sweeping it under the carpet,” says Ashish Vaid, president of the IMC that is also a federation of 170 industry associations from western India.

Labour Lost Vaid, himself a realtor with annual sales of Rs 200 crore, says all MSMEs should be eligible for bank loans equivalent to three months wages at repo rates. Multiple industry associations, including the Confederation of Indian Industry, have petitioned the government for a bailout package for the MSME sector (essentially all businesses with capital investments up to a maximum of Rs 10 crore).

Apart from loans to cover wages, there are othercommon requests like suspension of contributions to employee’s provident fund and Employee State Insurance Corporation (ESIC) for six months. Some demand that there should be a clawback of GST that has already been paid. Easier access to bank loans, especially at low rates, with help from the state and central governments, is another common theme, as is a moratorium on repayments for six months and a 25% increase in working capital loans. Seeking more loans and a simultaneous moratorium on repayments are also a sign of underlying desperation in the sector.

Take first-generation entrepreneur Raja Shanmugam of Tiruppur. His 31-year-old knitted T-shirts manufacturing unit Warsaw International employs 650-800 workers. At least 150 workers are currently lodged in the company’s hostels at Tiruppur. It is a labour-intensive industry and the annual wages bill is almost 30% of sales. Payment from his Indian as well as European buyers stopped in March, and Shanmugam has not been able to ship completed orders either. He wants the government to use ESIC money to take care of the workers’ wages from April onwards.

DK Aggarwal, president of PHD Chamber of Commerce and Industry, an association of MSME organisations across states, says restarting units won’t be easy because of the liquidity crunch that the sector is facing. “Cash flow has stopped.

After paying April salaries, all MSMEs will be hand-to mouth.

Plus, there will be no demand, and workers would have also left for their villages.”

Reopening plants in May could lead to revenue flows restarting. But things won’t be so smooth. While there is general consensus that businesses should pay their workers through the lockdown, there are several restrictions on the use of the same workforce once a factory reopens.

Strict rules for social distancing while reopening are not viable for manufacturing units, especially MSME units that have small premises. Nayan Patel, a former president of IMC, explained that his own business, which makes motion control devices, needs a 150-member shift, with multiple processes, that cannot operate with fewer people.

The layout and configuration of machinery and workstations are such that it cannot be done. Many from across the country echo Patel’s view. For Jaipur-based switchgear maker Anil Saboo, the biggest worry is labour shortage, as many employees have left for their states in eastern India.

“There are 15 men living inside my factory today, but the moment the lockdown is lifted, they want to leave for home,” Saboo says.

Gurgaon-based Dev Goel, who runs a package substations and switchboard plant from Manesar, sees a big worry in maintaining social distance inside the factory while labourers work as welders, or lift large items. There was a fear of police action and FIRs being registered against factory owners if these norms were not followed and negligence led to Covid-19 infections in workers. The central government clarified last week that no businessperson will be arrested for workers getting infected with Covid-19 after reopening. However, restrictions have created impediments. Goel said almost 95% of the members of the Manesar Industries Welfare Association have decided to wait and watch and not rush into reopening their plants, in spite of having permission to restart.

Or, take the case of Chetanbhai Makwana, who runs a medicated soap manufacturing unit at Gheekanta, Ahmedabad. Makwana had started his soap unit as an essential service, with 20% staff, but had to shut it down on Friday as only one worker turned up for work.

Broken Chains Apart from cash crunches and labour dislocation, there are serious supply chain and regulatory issues that have affected the MSME sector.

For instance, permissions to restart operations do not come easily, even if you are deemed as an essential service. Amit Seksaria, managing director of RRL Steels Group in Kolkata, says he received a letter from Coal India on April 8, asking him to restart operations. His unit makes ground engaging tools for coal mining and hence is deemed to be an essential service linked to the power sector. However, his application for restarting, filed with the state government, is yet to elicit a reply. While one of his units is in a Covid-19 hotspot, the other one is in a rural area. Seksaria also exports to the Netherlands and Spain and export consignments have been loaded on containers at his factory near Kolkata for orders from these countries. “I am receiving urgent missives from my European buyers but I am not able to send these containers to the Haldia port, which I am told is operating,” Seksaria says.

An injection-moulding unit owner in Daman said he is in a similar predicament, as he manufactures packaging material for the pharmaceuticals industry, but his application for restarting his unit has been stuck at the collector’s office, while some of the larger plants have got permission. Unwilling to be quoted, he says that as a buyer of polypropylene from very large petrochemical companies and a supplier of bottle caps to big pharmaceutical companies, his cash flow is usually squeezed as he has to buy with cash and supply on credit. The crisis has aggravated his problem.

In large parts of Uttar Pradesh, while there is no ban, the non-vegetarian food chain has virtually shut down. Eggs, though, are selling. Mukul Tandon, president of the Merchant’s Chamber of Uttar Pradesh, owns a poultry business, with 75,000 eggs per day. “The retail channels have collapsed and we do not know how to sell the eggs. The industry as a whole in the state produces almost 6 lakh eggs per day. While costs are Rs 3.75 per egg, I am forced to sell them at Rs 2-2.5,” Tandon told ET Magazine.

Nitin Gadkari’s interview by Prerna Katiyar Various MSME chambers have sought relief measures. Is the government thinking of a package for MSMEs? To mitigate the impact on MSME sector, the RBI (Reserve Bank of India) has announced a set of relief measures on March 27. A second set of measures was announced on April 17. These measures were primarily meant to maintain adequate liquidity in the system, facilitate and incentivise bank credit flows, ease financial stress and enable the normal functioning of the sector.

The road ahead is not easy. As a nation, we need to fight this together. Industry associations have highlighted their demands in my interactions. Some suggestions require total government support, while others require policy changes and facilitation. We can’t be guided only by the response of other countries. Our economy has its own unique features and hence its own requirements for a return to normalcy. I can assure you that PM Modiji is fully aware of the situation and under his leadership we will be able to chalk a way forward for supporting MSMEs in the best possible way.

Is there any plan to help MSME units with wage payment if lockdown continues beyond May 3? The government on March 26 announced a Rs 1.7 lakh crore relief package under the Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Yojana (PMGKY) for the poor to help them fight the battle against the coronavirus pandemic. As part of the said package, the Centre proposes to pay the EPF (Employees’ Provident Fund) contribution for next three months of certain categories of employees.

Our objective is to get the best impact of government support not only for MSMEs but also for the poor. There has to be a balance and the result should be the highest impact of government support on society.

The threat of an FIR in case a new infection is detected at a factory has scared many MSME owners. Would you like to reassure them? Social distancing is a reality. The Home Ministry has issued several orders and guidelines, which provide the framework for economic activity to resume, respecting norms of social distancing and personal hygiene. Industrial units and business establishments need to reinvent their workspaces to comply with the guidelines for their own safety as well as the safety of the workers. The Home Ministry has also clarified that the lockdown guidelines should not be misused to harass the management of manufacturing and commercial establishments. That should help in addressing any fears. We are proactively dealing with such issues.

Once business is disrupted, it is difficult for smaller players to recoup and restart. Seksaria says that unless there is an opportunity to start production in May, businesses will start crumbling. Goel of Manesar adds, the lockdown may be followed by lockouts.

Not every MSME business owner is pessimistic.

Bhopal-based entrepreneur Kunal Giani says his motto of constantly focusing on cash flows and staying debt free has held him in good stead today. Giani started his business in rebonded foam, a raw material for mattresses, in 2011, straight out of college. Giani’s father, a banker, had taken voluntary retirement in 2006 to start the business. Bad luck struck and he died in an accident before he could start.

Young Kunal completed his engineering education and took on the mantle.

No one was ready to lend to a young man selling mattress foam on a bike. The company is a debt-free operation today.

With sales of Rs 110-135 crore and two plants, one in Bhopal and another in Uttar Pradesh’s Secunderabad, Giani says he is in a good position to pay salaries for April. The raw material stock, chemicals imported from Southeast Asia, can also last a few months. The lockdown has, of course, impacted his plans to start a new factory in Colombo to supply the south Indian markets. It has also affected the launch of a new product, a mattress that comes in a box, priced at Rs 1,000.

Giani’s firm Sarva Foam Industries is an exception.

But he, too, wants to borrow today and is seeking easier access to credit. However, most small businesses in India are not built like that, points out Nayan Patel. “MSME businesses are usually a month-to-month operation, with little reserves for the future. A disruption like this might just mean restarting everything,” Patel says.

Therefore, a lot of hope is now pinned on moves by the government of India and state governments. Various MSME bodies have even sought income-tax sops. Many MSMEs operate as sole proprietorship firms or partnerships, and are not eligible for the lower corporate tax rates, announced by the finance minister in mid-2019. The US has announced a $484 billion stimulus package for small businesses. The MSME entrepreneurs are hoping that Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman will draw some inspiration from it and announce a package for Indian small businesses too. After all, her first package of Rs 1.7 lakh crore also drew inspiration from US action. Others, knowing the Indian government has little leeway, have set their eyes on social security funds like the EPF or the ESIC. For a large and critically important sector that generates a large number of jobs and supplies components for nearly every product that we use, no easy solutions are in sight.

In a Fix Over Accommodation by Prerna Katiyar It is 6 am when a bus pulls into Bhangel in Noida. A handful of employees of Medico Electrodes International Limited form a queue to board the vehicle provided by their employer. But first, an attender checks if they are wearing masks properly and sprays sanitisers on their hands. The bus is filled from the back — one in each seat, every other row. Except for the occasional ringing of mobile phones, the ride to office is eerily silent.

Medico, which makes disposable ECG electrodes, picks up its workers from multiple locations in a 3-4 km radius around its factory in Noida special economic zone (SEZ). It takes adequate precautions. “The buses are disinfected after every trip,” says company’s CMD Amit Mehra. “So is the factory after every shift.”

Before they enter the factory, workers also go through a thermal screening and hand washing-sanitising routine. They also get fresh masks are head caps.

In the shop floor, they work on alternate machines to ensure social distancing.

Employees maintain social distancing on the work floor

Medico, classified as an essential service unit, has been working at 50% staff capacity with 300 workers across three shifts since the lockdown. CMD Mehra has been busier than ever, juggling between video-conferencing with staff working from home and domestic and foreign clients. He visits the production floor regularly to check social distancing and other sanitation arrangements. “We give free ration to all workers every fortnight, provided additional Rs 3 lakh Covid-19 insurance cover and are providing transportation services,” he says. Regular counselling is also provided to help workers.

But Mehra, who managed to run his operations through the severe lockdown, faces a serious problem as the government partly opens economic activities.

An order issued on April 22 by the deputy commissioner of the district industries centre, Gautam Buddh Nagar, to provide accommodation to workers within or nearby factory has put him in a bind. “We have three days to comply with the order or shut shop. How can we make such arrangements for 250 people so fast? Besides, will the families of our 60-odd women workers allow them to stay at factories? We are a healthcare unit. Do we shut down now?” says Mehra.

As such, the operations at Medico had slowed due to social distancing. During lunchtime, only one worker is allowed to sit in a table. So it takes almost three hours for the entire team to finish their meals and return to work after a round of sanitisation.

Medico employees undergo a temperature check before boarding the company buses

The situation is almost same at the 13 essential sector units among the 250 factories operational at Noida SEZ now. As the morning shift comes to an end at Medico, workers toss the used head caps and masks in a bin, wash and sanitise their hands and wear fresh face covers. Soon they line up a metre apart to board the buses for a ride back home. All in a day’s work now.

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[coreymichaelsmithson]

The Gecko

I dance when I paint.

I don’t mean this to sound like some kind of barfy New-Age metaphor; rest assured that I haven’t yet become the “I wear floral caftans and practice yoga and drink kale smoothies and shop at Whole Foods and the whole universe dances through me, rama-lama-ding-dong” version of myself. I mean to say that I dance in the actual sense of moving rhythmically as I wield my brush. There are good practical reasons for doing this … sometimes it’s important to rehearse a tricky stroke before committing it to canvas, so I trace in the air what I intend to do, and prepare myself in advance for the actual execution. Some strokes are so complex in their trajectory, twisting and turning on themselves like the coils of the small intestine, that I need to make a few practice tries first. I have to use my whole arm, from shoulder to fingertip, and on really long strokes, dozens of other muscle groups come into play. Add some music, a soupçon of dramatic flair, and voilà! Dancing. But there is another, weirder aspect to what I do with my body when I paint. When my painting is going well, when I’m really “in the zone”, it feels like I am physically manipulating the forces within the composition. And by “forces” I mean actual dynamic forces … like torque, shear, tension, compression, lift, drag, gravity. These can all be represented in two dimensions, but I like to diagram them out in four. So I’ll make a range of expressive motions, which may seem to any observer like the gestures of a conductor, or a sculptor, or a magician. I may push, pull, draw out, spin, wave, smudge, swirl, scrape, all without touching the canvas. This may go on for several minutes, until I’m satisfied that I know what needs to happen. Then, and only then, I’ll make my move.

Lately, all this dancing has drawn the attention of local wildlife.

The place where I’m staying, on the northeast coast of Florida, is surrounded by water: ponds, marshes, rivers, and estuaries. Herons and egrets flap overhead, and falcons perch on the live oaks. Snakes make an occasional appearance. Because of all the swampy green space nearby, the yard is overrun with skinks, anoles, whiptails, and geckos. Our studio space has four large picture windows, and a pair of sliding glass doors. Each window has a mesh screen. Sometimes, the smallest lizards will cling to these screens and just hang out for a while. They’re probably doing this to enjoy the ventilation and to scope out the yard … but it’s a cute, endearing behavior, and it makes me strangely happy to see them.

As I was working on a particularly challenging painting, dancing out my curlicues and whatnot, this one gecko scurried up the mesh of the nearest window, and parked himself right in the middle of my view. He kept turning his head this way and that, eyeballing my progress from various awkward angles. After a few minutes of this, he climbed down the screen, crossed a few inches of patio, and zipped back up to the top of a nearby lawn chair, which allowed him to see more directly into the window. I’m guessing it was my dancing that caught his eye. Maybe he couldn’t tell if I was a threat, a large predator lumbering about on the other side of the window. Maybe he thought I was a particularly gawky crane. But, at the time, it seemed like he was interested in watching what I was doing, for he stayed in place a long time, tilting his head back and forth to look at either me or my canvas.

This may sound absurd, but I must tell you why the interest of this gecko filled me with such profound sense of validation. But in order to do so, I’ll have to plunge into a very dark place for a while, so that I may impart some important contextual information. Bear in mind that I am saying this all quite matter-of-factly, while calmly sipping my tea, without a lot of handwringing or lip-quivering or Sturm und Drang, so please don’t panic as you read. What follows is not meant to worry you, nor am I merely bemoaning my bad fortune … rather, I wish to paint this oddly joyful experience in a fuller, more revealing light. So bear with me for a moment, through a few paragraphs of heavy weather, and I promise that we’ll eventually find our way to a happy ending, the kind you’ve come to expect from my stories.

The fact is, I’m in trouble. Real trouble.

My bank account is now five hundred dollars in the red, with more automatic bill deductions coming in every week. My phone’s been shut off for non-payment. Pamela’s WA tabs have expired, so I can’t legally drive her … as a result, her battery’s gone dead, and she’s had unused fuel sitting in her lines for three months, which may lead to further complications. My laptop and smartphone are beginning to show signs of wear and tear, and I can’t afford to replace either. The big picture gets worse the more I look at it. I have over $160,000 in student loan debt, $9,000 in New York State tax debt, and somewhere around $50,000 in IRS debt. My bank account is likely to be seized again any day now. Because I haven’t been able to make even the bare minimum on previously established payment plans, and because I don’t have much freelance income, I have no means of negotiating for further relief. Every former address has piles of unopened mail from debt collectors. Bankruptcy will not dissolve either my scholastic or tax liabilities. Furthermore, because of my loan defaults, I cannot access my college transcripts to apply for teaching positions or degree-dependent jobs. And I’m too old and weird to be an attractive candidate for most of those appointments anyway. I have no health insurance, and can’t afford even sliding scale care to address my three broken teeth, lifelong asthma, and untreated severe depression. Free clinics cannot help with the severity of my dental and mental issues.

In short, things may seem a little bleak at present, down here in the Sunshine State. But as I said, there is a silver lining to all this … so hang tight, and in a little while I’ll lift us back up into the land of dancing and portent reptiles.

Now, I’m sure that some of you are already rolling your eyes and saying, “Well, you made your bed … quit whining and get a real job.” This seems to be the go-to response when artists don’t perform well in a capitalist society, and many people have already said as much, directly to me or among themselves. The thing is, my résumé is already full of “real jobs”: sanitation, construction, moving, disaster services, dishwashing, deliveries, landscaping, corporate video editing, darkroom printing, customer service, telemarketing, proofreading, design, teaching, consulting. I’ve worked in a car factory, a soup factory, a vineyard, a children’s hospital, a bookstore, a college library, a marketing agency, an art supply store, two publishers, five photo labs, and serviced more industries than I can even remember. I’ve designed menus and logos and show posters, I’ve bartended and filled dumpsters and hauled furniture and maintained spreadsheets. I’ve scrubbed soot off of ruined antiques, painted stripes on wastebaskets, taken dictation from lawyers, torn down drywall, pulled weeds, yanked nails, bottled whiskey, loaded ceramic tile, and demolished office cubicles. I even once helped raise a circus tent. I’ve kissed plenty of asses, both in the literal and figurative senses, for ridiculously low sums of money. I’ve done plenty of the icky stuff that nobody wants to do.

But my work ethic, skill, and earnestness simply aren’t paying off ... yet.

This is not an unusual predicament for people like me, though. The kind of jobs that folks expect me to have, based on my education and capabilities, won’t even grant me an interview, no matter how carefully I tailor my cover letter and CV, no matter how much positive energy and enthusiasm and hope I muster for the application. I’ve been completely and conscientiously sober for nearly seven years now, but even that level of commitment and self-care hasn’t done anything to change my financial situation, which has reached an all-time nadir. I’ve learned that “rock bottom” is an illusion … at the bottom of the well you’ll sometimes find not bedrock but quicksand and bobbing turds.

The inevitable question to ask, of course, is whether or not I am bringing all of this on myself. I’m sure some of you insist that I have this masochistic / self-destructive narrative that I’m adhering to, some kind of badly warped Van Gogh complex. You may feel that I remain impoverished only because of my own stubbornness, self-pity, delusions of grandeur, sloth, or outright stupidity. Some of you probably feel that I keep failing because I never apply myself properly, that I just don’t try hard enough, that I should love myself more, that all I need is a good full-time job with health insurance. You may have already thrown up your hands in frustration. I don’t begrudge you your opinion or your irritation … but to all of these things, I can only say, “I’m doing my best with what I’ve got.”

Throughout my career, I’ve been very forthright about my struggle with living … not because I am fishing for sympathy or solutions, but because I’ve come to believe that sharing such challenges openly is an essential part of my purpose as an artist. I am describing my state of crisis not to alarm you, or even to cry for help, but simply to reveal the full dimensions of my situation. I also hope that by explaining my fears and doubts I may help you to alleviate some anxiety of your own … for there is no relief quite like that of fellowship. As some of closest friends know, I have been on the precipice for my entire adulthood, and have come close many times to losing my grip altogether. Many of you can relate. Despite these troubles, though, I’ve clung stubbornly to existence, even when my fingertips are slipping on the beveled edge, just so that I could occasionally arrive at a moment like the one I had today with the gecko … moments when my life’s work seems to reveal its actual shape, when I can feel the ongoing dance of the world move through my fingers, when I am reminded that the long meandering road itself is the whole point. All those shitty jobs and sleepless nights were a vital part of the composition. They all brought me here, collectively, to this one instant, when I was dancing with a brush in my hand and a lizard was watching me from the window, a moment when everything changed.

Art is the alchemy that transforms any hardship into gold.

I hope you’ll come to understand what I mean when I say, right now, that it feels like as if I’ve inadvertently engineered my entire life just so that my passion might catch the eye of a wandering gecko.

I keep working because there is more work to be done. I keep fighting to live because I believe that I have an important message to deliver, and that I cannot rest until it is safely received. I don’t yet know what this message is, or where it comes from, or why it has been placed in my clumsy hands … but I feel burdened with the responsibility of lasting long enough to relay it. Judy Garland once told me the secret of immortality, and now a gecko is telling me the secret of artistic success.

So I am here to tell you about a gecko who was watching me paint.

I am here to tell you about a gecko who is now forever splayed on the window mesh of my mind, a gecko who stares at me with a mixture of curiosity and confusion as I struggle to keep my brush moving, as I desperately dance away from the reality of ruin, as I choose one more day of making art over surrendering to doom. I am here to tell you that this gecko is looking sideways at my canvas, with his googly roving eye, and he seems quite pleased with my output. I am here to tell you that this gecko has become my biggest fan; if I achieve nothing else in my career I’ve at least entertained one living creature with my artistry.

I am here to tell you that the gecko is delivering a message through me to you … on behalf of all the artists who have ever lived and died in total obscurity, all the forgotten and abandoned and hopeless creators who valued experiences more than fiscal solvency, those who saw many of the world’s most wonderful riches despite having no money or fame or toothpaste. My friend the gecko is saying to us, you and I, that it’s all been worth it. Every flawed and stupid choice we’ve made has been the right one, as long as each of us keeps trying our best to write a compelling poem with our life story. The gecko is telling us, you and me both, that everything’s going to be okay. He says that no effort is wasted, that no bravery goes completely unnoticed, that no talent is ever squandered if it has brought comfort or amusement or a moment of beauty to others. He says that we won’t be remembered for our poverty, but we will be remembered for our grace under duress. The gecko is assuring us that no sincere artist is a failure. The gecko believes in you and me, just as I believe in you and me. In fact, the gecko just whispered to me now that you’re the richest person he’s ever seen, and that your dance moves are awesome. The gecko told me to tell you to keep dancing, no matter what, for as long as you can, and to never give up on your gifts, which are plentiful and splendid and rare. He says he admires your brilliance, and your stamina, and your coordination. He says that he can see the whole world dancing in your hands.

[berthastover]

30+ Best Email Campaigns and Why We Loved Them

Thousands of marketers around the globe share the same mission – they want to send the best email marketing campaigns.

  While there are many ways to measure your email campaign’s success, what your subscribers think of your messages and how they make them feel is crucial.

That’s why, in this article, we chose to not focus on raw numbers. We publish these in our email marketing report, regularly.

Instead, we decided to look at the visual aspects of marketing emails sent by brands and companies from various industries.

To find inspiring marketing email examples, we decided to dig into our own email inboxes and reach out to other fellow online marketers.

If you’re one of them, big thanks for the contribution and sharing your thoughts – it meant a world to us!

  What you’re about to see, other than the best email campaigns, is that there certainly is some truth behind the saying, beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

But before you start exploring the examples we’ve gathered for you, here’s an article, that’ll help you start sending email campaigns like these in no time: Email marketing best practices for 2019

  30+ best email campaigns

  Below, we’ve included 30+ email campaign examples along with additional information on:

who sent them,

what the email campaign is about,

and why they’re so good.

  Feel free to save this article for later as we’ll be expanding this list to include some newer examples of marketing emails that stole our hearts.

  1. The New York Times

    What:

Weekly recipe recommendation from their NYT Cooking subscription.

  Why:

I read this email without fail, every week. And I rarely make any of the recipes featured in the roundups. Why? The photographs are beautiful, and the long-form copy expertly written by Sam Sifton, the Food Editor at The New York Times, is informative, conversational, and personal. He shares anecdotes from his life, news as it may relate to one of the recipes featured, and cooking advice – every week.

I love the idea of how two supposed “dead and dying mediums” – newspapers and emails – are coming together to deliver something totally modern, shareable, and sustainable.

  Abby Hehemann, Product Marketing Manager at GetResponse

  2. Patagonia

    What:

This is the first email you receive after signing up to their emailing list.

  Why:

An email onboarding sequence should set expectations. This email does that really well. For starters, you have the information about free shipping at the top, which is more or less an indication of how much money Patagonia would like you to be spending in the shop. 

The email headline is inviting. They then tell readers what kind of content they send, although they don’t mention frequency. Just as importantly, you have the refund policy at the bottom. It’s setting expectations for customers, which is crucial for an ecommerce store.

The only thing I’d change in the copy is the ‘our mission’ section. Most people support the idea of saving the planet, so this statement without context means nothing to the reader. It’s a missed opportunity. The intro email is a perfect time to talk about what makes the company different. Just a sentence or two with a link to the site, maybe even a button underneath, would have done the trick.

  Nico Prins, Founder at Launch Space

  3. MVMT

    What:

This is an email campaign asking the MVMT customers to submit their video content and celebrate the brand’s anniversary together.

  Why:

I’m a big fan of MVMT and this is just another wonderful email campaign example from many that they send.

The message starts off well, with an intriguing subject line: “That one time we went viral…”

They got my attention right away and made me click. I wanted to know why they went viral, and I really hoped it wasn’t just a clever way of showing that their prices dropped.

I wasn’t disappointed.

What I saw was a newsletter that contained an animated video that showed numerous exciting pictures and a short message explaining how they’ve asked their fans to celebrate their brand’s anniversary together.

The animated GIF along with the message led to an exciting movie showing how the brand’s followers live their lives on their own terms.

The film combining their customers’ footage, stunning pictures, and exciting music gave me goosebumps!

At the time of writing this, this video has over 22,000 views, 1,000 likes, and almost 500 comments on YouTube – talk about engagement, huh?

In fact, it’s that kind of user generated content that made me buy one of their watches a couple of years back.

  4. Charm Offensive

    What:

It’s a welcome email received after signing up to win a free lifetime premium subscription to the copywriting course.

  Why:

Just give it a read! When was the last time that you received an email with an evil laugh in the subject line? It’s original, it’s witty and you remember it because you’ve never had an email like this before. I’ve entered a competition where I need to compete against others, and the copy encourages me to do that, rather than shy away from it. It jokingly reminds me of what’s up for grabs if I win. Then, there’s a gentle reminder to join the Facebook group and get even more involved that I already am.

  Phil Forbes, Marketer at Packhelp

  5. Statwing (acquired by Qualtrics)

    What:

Cold email to sell a partnership.

  Why:

I receive loads of cold emails, and I delete most of them immediately. But I actually replied to this one, because it contains everything a great cold email should have:

External proof: Y Combinator funded and other trusted companies who are partners already

Clear benefit, including a number: “users tell us they analyze survey data ~5x faster…”

Personalization beyond my first name: he actually looked at Survey Anyplace’s reporting capabilities and even links to them in the email

Clear ask for the next step (phone call)

The tone and format of the email is very casual, just like it was sent by someone I already know.

  Stefan Debois, Founder & CEO at Survey Anyplace

  7. Casper

    What:

This is an email campaign example sent on the Daylight Saving Time.

  Why:

One thing I value in email campaigns is their creativity.

Blowout sales or flash campaigns don’t impress anymore. They’re too common. And usually sent by the same brands, over and over again.

This campaign, however, was different. It was meant for Daylight Savings Time, a day nobody ever celebrates. In fact, all you usually do is sleep in.

And that’s exactly what the brand suggests, that you sleep in, but on a mattress you can buy from them, of course.

The overall email design, subject line (“That extra hour, though.”), animated GIF, short copy, and a clear CTA – everything fits perfectly.

The only thing I’d change is the discount value. If you follow Casper’s emails, you’ll see that their discounts are always 10%.

I get the strategy, but you become blind to these kinds of discounts, if you keep seeing them.

  7. American Express

    What:

Email promoting live chat to get help with your Amex account.

Subject line: Got a question? Get an answer through Chat

  Why:

The campaign is a win-win.

While many banks seem to try and deflect customers from contacting them, Amex is doing the exact opposite. Actively promoting and reminding their members about live chat. Inviting customers to ask them questions. It makes you feel good to be a member.

In one email they have been helpful and given a gentle reminder as to the benefit of Amex membership.

Brands that don’t have a continuous stream of new products and offers can find it hard to have something interesting to say. Amex found a good way to solve this.

The design gets down quickly to what it’s all about with the headline and a clear benefit of live chat – “Get a quick answer”.

The sample chat window gives context visually, so you get the message even with a skim read.

The final part of the win-win is that live chat is probably better for Amex too. The cost of support by live chat is likely lower than the cost of phone support.

A campaign beneficial for both the brand and the customer.

  Tim Watson, Zettasphere

  8. Mixmax

    What:

User onboarding emails with tips in the form of GIFs.

  Why:

I was a new user of Mixmax and didn’t know all their functionalities.

Every three days they sent me tips how to use their software better.

This way, I didn’t get overwhelmed by their software and I adopted the product very easily. The emails also expanded my knowledge on how to write great emails.  

Now, I use the same tactic at Userpilot.

  Aazar Ali Shad, Head of Growth at Userpilot.com

  9. Smart Blogger

    What:

This was a teaser email sent to lure subscribers into reading a case study, which served as top-of-the-funnel content to a paid course.

  Why:

Here’s why this email is compelling.

Firstly, it leverages the power of social proof in the subject line and opening line.

Who wouldn’t want to check out a post that got over 1 million visitors?

Secondly, it uses the hard-to-resist emotional trigger of ‘free’.

Finally, it goes straight to the point, something people appreciate in a crazy-busy world.

  Qhubekani Nyathi, Long-form Content Strategist at Wholesome Commerce

  11. Mejuri

    What:

This is a B2C flash sale email for Black Friday last year, giving newsletter subscribers exclusive, early access to their once-a-year sale.

  Why:

First off, we all know how crowded our inbox gets around Black Friday.

Mejuri chose to keep their email simple and to the point, which I think we can all appreciate.

The email also stresses the exclusivity of this invite. The words “only sale all year” in the subject line, plus “private” and “secret” are powerful motivators – backed up by the fact that this invite is only going to newsletter subscribers.  

The limited time frame (only until midnight today) and the idea of scarcity (Mejuri is notorious for running out of popular pieces) drive home the need to act now. 

I’d been following their social media channels and newsletter for a few weeks. This was the trigger I needed to finally buy from them.

  Bronwyn Kienapple, Content Marketer at Venngage

  12. Product Hunt

    What:

A daily digest of featured products from Product Hunt.

Subject line: This is stomach-turningly good. Yikes.

  Why:

The subject line totally hooked me. Anytime I see “Yikes” in my inbox, I open. And the content didn’t disappoint once I opened. The conversational tone and description of the featured product made for an enjoyable read.

Their description of the product and inclusion of (creeped out) comments from the post then convinced me to click out to the listing on their site, and then finally to the actual product itself. It was a perfect combination of a well-chosen featured product, enticing subject line, and easy-to-read copy.

  Abby Hehemann, Product Marketing Manager at GetResponse

  13. Proof

    What:

This is a follow-up email sent to registrants for a Webinar that didn’t show up for the live event. Our Webinar covered the 5 growth strategies that we learned during our time in Y Combinator in 2018.

  Why:

This email works well for us because it’s being sent to an audience that has already opted in to a webinar. We know they are high-intent to watch this content — as they’ve already taken time out of their day to submit their information into a lead form.

At the same time, we know how busy day to day work can be for marketers and entrepreneurs. Rather than excluding them from getting the Webinar’s content because they didn’t show up live — we record our live presentation and follow up with an email offering them a second chance to view.

In the email body, we provide several links to our content and we reiterate the topic of the training multiple times. We also make it a point to leverage the names of bigger tech companies (Airbnb, Dropbox, Gusto) to add credibility to our presentation.

Finally, we generate the FOMO by saying “trust me, you don’t want to miss this” as our final signoff.

  Ben Johnson, Content Strategist, Proof

  13. Growth Hackers

    What:

Email campaign referring to real time events – the Oscars.

  Why:

This is an interesting example.

And it’s not only because it’s using an animated GIF. It’s about what that GIF and the copy surrounding it tell us.

This email campaign talks about the Oscars, which may not be so unusual during the week when the 91st Academy Awards is taking place.

The interesting thing is the angle Growth Hackers took in this email. They’re not talking about the movies or music that were recognized. Instead, they’re talking about the true “winner” of the Academy Awards night – diversity.

As you can read in their article, which also provides an explanation to their GIF, the 91st Academy Awards broke the record of Female and African-American Awardees.

With this in mind, they decided to dedicate that email to diversity, too – and prepared a selection of only the best content that celebrates this important topic.

For someone who cares about these values and has actually not followed the Oscar night, this email was very inspiring and educational.

Something you don’t often see in your inbox.

    14. Rothy’s

    What:

This is a promotional email sent to people who have opted into Rothy’s marketing but have yet to purchase.

  Why:

There are at least three reasons this email stands out.

First, it’s not just animated with a video at the top, the body of the GIF taps into people’s default responses to SMS or direct messages: namely, we can’t resist the temptation to read them.

Second, it uses real names, authentic conversational elements, and even images (e.g., the cat) that look and feel as though you’re eavesdropping (or, eavesreading) someone else’s texts.

Third, it subtly leverages one of the most powerful persuasive tools: social proof.

I know all this is true because I didn’t get this email.

Instead, my lovely wife forwarded it to me and immediately texted me afterward: “I just fwd you an email from Rothy’s. I’ve never seen one like this before.”

She’s a just-turned-30, urban, socially conscious kind of lady who loves cats. Talk about nailing your target demographic. (And yes, later that day she and I ordered her first pair.)

  Aaron Orendorff, Founder and Content Strategist, iconiContent

  15. Capterra

    What:

A regular newsletter but aimed at warming up “sleepy” followers.

  Why:

First of all, its catchy subject line: personalized and intriguing. I couldn’t help opening it to find out WHY I’m the best. What have I done to become the best, given that I’m not an active user of Capterra?

Second, the structure: short, clear, following the “one mail – one CTA” rule and focusing on the value I’d get. It didn’t take me long to understand it wasn’t spam and what it was all about.

And third and the most interesting part is the motive they’ve used to send this offer: National Compliment Day. As a rule, marketers ignore such itsy-bitsy holidays, concentrating on big five (Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, St. Valentine’s, and Easter); but appealing to such tiny but cute calendar days could bring benefits. Content ideas for newsletters, as a minimum.

  Lesley Vos, Content Strategist at Bid4Papers

  If you like this idea, be sure to check out our Holiday Calendar Infographic and see more tiny calendar days that can inspire great campaigns  :).

  16. UpLead

    What:

Cold email to interview influencers.

  Why:

Personalization: The email is highly personalized

Relevant: It mentions a recent interview they did on a podcast

Gives Value: It gives value by mentioning the audience size (20,000)

Strokes ego: It strokes their ego a bit (“successful leaders like yourself”)

Quick: Interview is a simple Google Docs interview, with no need to schedule time on calendar

One Simple CTA: Every email should have one easy to reply to ending CTA (Success! – He replied with “Sounds cool – I’m in!)

  Will Cannon, Founder & CEO at UpLead

  17. Zest

    What:

Confirmation Email sent after you’ve submitted content to Zest.

  Why:

Fun and engaging: The email is different and completely set the tone of the brand

Relevant: It mentions the recently published article

Quick: The email is straight to the point and spot-on. Yet, it confirms that my suggestion has been considered, and I love that.

One Simple CTA: Although I’m waiting for them to come back, it suggests me to add more and empower the community

  Baptiste Debever, Co-Founder & Head of Growth at Feedier

  18. Hello Bar

    What:

The email offers some free tips on how to collect more emails to grow your email list of subscribers.

  Why:

The email was very powerful, because it hits a nerve with the challenges we’re faced with when trying growing an email subscribers list. It offers actionable tips to implement right away. By giving a small insight and not giving away the farm, and by using a strong call to action, they made me curious to reserve a spot for the training to learn more tips.

  Paul Granger, Content Marketer at Website Promoter

  19. Simyo

    What:

Triggered email from a former phone company (Spanish company) after requesting to migrate a telephone number to a new one.

  Why:

When you decide to change your phone service, you expect:

1) getting bombarded with offers, promises and gifts;

2) red-tape hell.  

The very catchy subject line (adapted from a popular song, probably only relevant to my generation) + the friendly and informal tone of voice ease those fears.

The reassuring content, thanking me for their business and stating that they won’t harass / try to overcharge me made me wonder whether I took the right call (and whether it will be so easy to shift again next time).

Angel Lorente Paramo, Former Global Head of Emarketing at Qatar Airways

  20. Cards Against Humanity

    What:

Cards Against Humanity Black Friday campaign

  Why:

This is an “oldie but goodie” email campaign example.

Being a fan of Cards Against Humanity I expect nothing less than exceptionally sarcastic, cynical, or at least unusual communication.

What’s more unusual than an ecommerce brand saying that they’re shutting down their online store for Black Friday?

They even ask you to donate money for absolutely no good reason (through a CTA button that’s totally against the email design best practices).

The follow up to this campaign was fun, too. It turned out that they received a total of $71,145 for absolutely nothing. And they even listed what kind of fun things they decided to spend that money on.

You can read more about this campaign on their website.

Ever since, I eagerly wait for their Black Friday emails and I’m never disappointed.

    21. Native

    What: Post-purchase customer review email

  Why:

I received this product satisfaction email a few days after ordering a pair of boots from Native Shoes.

Although this type of emails should be an industry standard, few ecommerce sites actually do it, and even fewer do it this in a good way.

 This email checks all the most important details:

Highly visible company logo

Customer’s name personalization

The name and image of the product that was purchased

Ability to write the review directly in the email itself. This is much easier than to navigate over to the site.

Detailed review options: stars, text area and sizing fit. Note that the 5-star option is pre-selected.

Large call-to-action button at the end

A touch of humor to make things more lighthearted

From my point of view, this is a great way to collect reviews for ecommerce stores. Maybe the only thing that’s missing in this email, is an incentive. Customers would be much more likely to write up reviews if they were offered a discount on their next purchase or something similar.

  Radu Vrabie, Full-Stack Digital Marketer

  22. Revolut

    What

Black Friday email campaign promo offer

  Why:

Every element of this email campaign says it’s something exclusive:

The dark theme of the email with very contrasting white fonts.

The rose gold card rotating in the GIF.

The eye-catching pink call to action button.

And finally, the copy, which says they normally don’t jump on the Black Friday bandwagon, but over 9,000 requests from their users isn’t something Revolut can ignore.

The email is super simple and very clear – the main benefits are emphasized in a bulleted list, and then the monetary value is restated just above the CTA button.

It’s completely different to their regular newsletters and automated emails.

As their customer, I knew straight away that this offer is special and worth checking out.

  Marcin Struzik, Video Manager at GetResponse

  23. Booking

    What:

Converting users who searched for accommodation in a specific city and didn’t book.

  Why:

This email marketing campaign is a good example for any company operating online.

I’ve received this email because I’ve given consent for receiving marketing content and because, one day, I was casually checking out places to stay in Berlin on Booking.com.

I was browsing with no clear intent of buying, but after being reminded of traveling, the thought of it doesn’t go away.

Other than that, this email campaign is a good example of personalization: I could see my name on the banner, and they didn’t spoil it with Dear [Name], which sometimes looks bad when lots of other companies do it.

Besides, the dates I was interested in were already filled in, which also shortens the possible purchase process.

Although some people might find it creepy – Booking is explicitly mentioning they’re tracking users’ activities online.

  Margo Burkivska, B2B Marketing Specialist at GetResponse

  24. MeUndies

    What:

Promotional email introducing a new line of products.

  Why:

This email’s so playful.

Underwear is something that people usually hide and don’t want to talk about.

To promote it, you can either be shy about it – hey, I don’t want to disturb you, but in case you’re looking for panties… that’s what we do – or be loud and proud about the products you’re offering.

MeUndies does the latter. With this beautifully animated email, they’re showing how colorful and playful their products are.

This email says – whether you decide to go on a sushi date with a friend, or fly solo, you can have fun with their products.

I love it.

  25. Care/of

    What:

Email campaign introducing a new product

  Why:

This is a great example of a simple yet informative email promo.

I appreciate the combination of beautiful design and great copy.

After the short introduction, you learn a bit of basic information about the mushroom trio that helps boost the immune system.

Next segment tells you where it’s grown and why it matters.

Then there’s the last segment inviting subscribers to take the quiz to help them with choosing the right product for their needs.

And there’s just one clear call to action – I love these kind of emails.

  Irek Klimczak, Content Marketing Expert at GetResponse

  26. American Giant

    What:

Email campaign inviting subscribers to the retail store

  Why:

This email informs about the New York pop-up. It’s a great idea to use email marketing to invite subscribers to your brick-and-mortar location.  

Let potential customers know that you’re around and that they can come by and try on your products.

Make the most of both the online and offline experience.

That’s the way to do it.

  Irek Klimczak, Content Marketing Expert at GetResponse

  27. Trello

    What:

Email explaining the ways you can use Trello

Subject line: A free personal habit tracker for you

  Why:

I love Trello’s emails because they’re so useful, and provide real-life examples of using the solution.

After receiving this email I ended up creating two new Trello boards, so I guess the email reached its goal.

What’s so good about it?

A clear CTA to a detailed blog post with useful product screenshots and use cases.

Brand-consistent and fun graphics that match the look of the product.

Fun copywriting in line with the brand.

Addresses user persona – Trello is used mainly for project management, and procrastination is a common challenge faced when handling projects.

  Marta Kusinska, Email Marketing Manager at GetResponse

  28. Aaron Krall

    What:

Email announcing a special offer: convert email contacts into customers

Subject line: If you’re under $10 MRR…

  Why:

This is a surprising email that landed in my inbox, and I think it’s worth noting.

With a great intro, including some personal details of the sender, this email gives you an impression of coming from a friend.

So the main aim is building trust, also by using some numbers and social proof in the body of an email.

After all, you’re to trust Aaron with your money and need to believe that he’s a suitable person to help your Saas business grow.

And get curious enough to ask about his special offer.

  Marta Kusinska, Email Marketing Manager at GetResponse

  29. Carnival Cruise Line

    What:

Promotional email campaign

  Why:

The email by Carnival Cruise Line is a sheer delight for the subscribers, with its creative presentation. They have followed all the email marketing best practices and created a visually impressive design that is sure to kindle wanderlust in the subscriber’s mind. 

The subject line: Deposits are taking a dive. (See what they find down there!) along with the preheader text: Get reduced deposits starting from $50 per person for sailings through December 2020 are interesting enough to capture the attention of the subscribers and make them open the email.

The header image and text are crafted in such a way that the recipients are compelled to scroll through the entire email.

Finally, when they reach the bottom of the email, the sea floor with beautiful fishes usher them in. (Animation couldn’t have been used better.)  

The email ends with a clear CTA “Search All Cruises”.

All in all, it sets a great example of how travel industry emails should be. Inspired already?

  Kevin George, Head of Marketing at Email Monks

  30. Phrasee

    What: Email sharing the latest content from Phrasee blog and other places on the Internet .

Subject line: Is it hot in this inbox, or is it just you?

  Why:

I always look forward to Phrasee’s content emails. I love their tone of voice and love how – as a B2B tech company with a really serious product used by huge brands – they stand out from other brands in the space just by the way the speak to their audience. Because, hey, marketers just wanna have fun, too! Couple that with gifs and a very specific type of humor – and it’s a perfect Thursday read.

They’re also great at what a lot of emails keep missing – which is creating meaningful preheaders that go together with the subject lines. I always feel like the subject line + preheader duo is so underrated (and too many companies don’t ever go beyond “Read this email online” in their preheader), while it can be a great open rate booster.

Plus, I find it awkwardly satisfying to find a pickup line in my inbox sent by a brand I actually like!

  Karolina Kurcwald, Chief Wordsmith at GetResponse

  31. Litmus

    What:

Email invite to a conference.

  Why:

This one is a no brainer.

What’s the best way to get people to get excited about your email design conference?

Show them an amazing email invite that’s using coding tricks you haven’t experienced before.

And that’s exactly what Litmus does with their email invitations.

One time, they added animated videos in the message background. The next year they’ve added a live Twitter feed showing peoples’ reactions to their campaign.

This email is among the best ones I’ve ever seen being deployed on a larger scale.

  Feeling inspired?

If you’ve scrolled down this far, that means you saw over 30 great marketing email examples.

You’ve probably noticed some interesting:

maSome of them had great copy, others were all about the design, and then there were those that were just entertaining.

In other words, there’s no one way to make a great email marketing campaign.

It pays off to follow the best practices, but without talking to your audience and checking your analytics reports, you won’t know for sure if a campaign was successful.

  So, what’s the next step you’ll take?

  My recommendation is that you start designing your email campaigns, A/B test them, and keep optimizing them to achieve the best possible results.

And if you didn’t know that yet, GetResponse can help you with all of that.

    Related posts

Email Marketing Best Practices for 2019

30+ Automated Emails You Should Be Sending Today

The post 30+ Best Email Campaigns and Why We Loved Them appeared first on GetResponse Blog - Online Marketing Tips.

[star-maiden-fufu]

1-37 for the LL ask~ :p

8)

Welp this is goin under cut for bein fuckin massive then lol

cept the first 3, ill keep them above the read more

1. Maki for u’s, You and Mari for Aqours (Yoshiko used to be one of my Aqours best girls, but she’s slipped a lil, mostly due to lack of appearances in SIF =_=)

2. I really like Yuu Aizawa, the sleepy stargazer. Her cards are really cute too ;3;

3. Nobody in PDP really sticks out for me right now, while I do still like them. If i had to choose tho, either Ai or Rina, just for both of them bein interesting

4. Only been playing since about October I think. More around the latter half of October just cos I vaguely recall not finishing the daily login calendar before it started fresh for November. But hey, I’ve stuck in longer w/ this than i have most things lol, maybe ill be able to make it to a year played!

5. Only on EN, though I have 2 accounts; my main, which was actually given to me by a friend who didn’t use it anymore, so I technically started from something that already had some progress to it, and my side account, which is more for casual playing

6. As of right now and what songs are available on EN, I’ve cleared nearly every song available. I’ll admit ive gotten a little lazy with my Easy and Normal songs since I mainly play Expert now, but with the current limited time goal to full combo 75 times, im goin back to my Easy and Normal songs and I’m clearing them to also fulfil that goal. 

Masters tho, lol I don’t touch those. Maybe a couple, but I dont count (not that I can anyway since they leave rotation after a while lol)

7. Admittedly, mostly Hard songs, just cos they still feel kinda fun but cos they’re slightly easier than Expert songs (obvs) they feel a little less stressful to play. :’D Some stand outs include Zurui yo Magnetic Today, Strawberry Trapper and Kimeta yo Hand in Hand.

(Which as a lil bit of bonus trivia, are all also songs I struggle w/ on EX :’D)

And a few Dailies as well (still on Hard) like Kohaku Biyori and Otome Shiki Renai Juku

8. Currently on my main i have the Aqours 3rd year badge (I think I equipped it as a good luck thing when I was scouting for V-day Mari) and my background is the UTX cafeteria to fit v-day Mari, who’s also my partner :’D

My side account, I just have the BiBi badge and I’m using the recent Aqours boat background

9. Shit :’’)

nah but seriously, I am Smile cursed like fuck (yet mostly w/ SSRs, haven’t gotten a Smile UR yet aside from Fruits Eli who came with my account), but my Pure luck w/ u’s is terrible. My Cool luck is alright tho, given that I’ve got a few SSRs and two of the 3 Cool URs I have are scorers :’D

My side account is much more Cool cursed tho, and once again, my Pure team seems to be suffering rip

Eternally anti-Pure cursed no matter the account

10. I have one example that I can list for the next point on this list, so I’ll list the other story I have;

I was scouting for Christmas You back when she came to EN, and the first scout I did (with a 10+1 ticket) crashed my game 8′’) so I didnt get to see the box open

So i booted my game up, kinda panicking in case I lost the scout after saving that ticket (that i’d bought w/ actual money). Went to the scouting screen first; red ticket option wasn’t available. Went to my member list and ordered by newest.

And You’s Initial UR was just sitting in my inventory 8′’D

(I’m still kinda salty I didn’t get Christmas You, but I still got a UR of her so… eh? 8′D Hopefully her Cyber card comes home when I scout for it!)

11. Literally all the best scouting luck I have seems to go toward my side account, cos I have 2 URs on there, and they’re both idolised 8′D

Like I’ve told both these stories on here before but fuckit, I’ll tell em again briefly;

I once used the green ticket you get w/ a new account just to scout and get a goal done w/ plus get another ticket; out comes Devil Nico

Later I had enough blue coupons to do a blue coupon scout; its a UR envelope, and its Devil Nico again 8′D

and now recently, I did two scouts for Animal Yoshiko; got her in both scouts, and she’s idolised as well.

12. Okay, so obvs anyone would say getting a single SR or SSR pull, and I’ve had those before, but I might as well talk about a scout i did on my main, back when Job Kanan was on EN

Ive got some 10+1 tickets and Im saving them to scout for both Angel Mari and Cyber You, but i decided to use one for the Job set, cos I could get another one when the start of the month packs came out

It was a single SSR

and it was Initial Mari

whom I already have, and idolised as well 8′D not even any rate up cards

the only plus side was that it meant a skill up for her and an SS seal for me

13. Completely caught up on my main lol

Side account, I’m up to ch16

14. Aside from scouting goals, cos I know there’s a point for that specifically, I’m mainly focusing on trying to improve playing Expert songs :’D and get Full Combos

15. Pretty much any You UR just cos I love her so much ;3; But specifically, her Christmas UR

As for Maki, I don’t care if its a super old card and that it might not be as good anymore, I really want her November/Cooking UR ;3;

And Mari…I already have her Valentines UR, which I love :’D But I’d also like her Angel UR ;3;

16. You’s Valentines SSR *3* People joked when it first came out that it looks like Maki’s Cooking UR, but tbh, i both don’t care, but I’m also amused considering I love that card as well :’D

Also just every You card in general :)

I’d say every Mari card, but I’m ridiculously Mari blessed so I’m honestly expecting to get them lol

17. Maki’s Cafe Maid SR ;3; That was the first card I’d idolised myself, and she looks so gorgeous. This one card is part of the reason why the Cafe Maid set is my favourite.

Also, Mari’s Halloween SR~

And I’m gonna leave it at those two cos they stand out most, cos otherwise I’d be here forever talking about every card I love :’D Also keeping it just to SRs for the same reason lol

18. I’ve tiered in every event since the YouMaru Token Event. Cos You at the time was the tier reward :’D

a few events I got kinda lazy and only hit T3, but otherwise, I’ve tiered for every one 

(Well, I got a little too lazy during New Year Nozomi’s event, so I didn’t actually get her ;3; not even her points card. Doesn’t help that it was my first score match, and I’ve hated them since)

19. =_______=

YohaRuby Token

I tried to get into T1 since I was so close, but i was also wary about spending loads of gems cos Christmas You was literally coming out as soon as the event was done and I was saving for her.

But I risked it

and didn’t make it =_=

I think it was the update to include the LP multiplier that made that event a lil more competitive

20. Either YouMaru for bein my first time tiering or YohaRuby since that’s the 1st time - and currently only - that I cleared all the points rewards :D

21. I’ve taken part in every event since I started playing SIF, so aside from the obvious answer of “Events that happened before I started” (Like the School Idol Diary events, or most of Maki’s events, she has some really pretty event cards ;3;), I’d say the event going on when I started, which was the DiaRuby Tanabata Score Match

Granted, when I started I didn’t know the game so I figured I’d take my time with it and take part in the next event, plus at the time I didn’t really know Aqours

Still feel a lil bad I didn’t try :’D

22. The recent YohaMari new years cards~ Told myself when the event came out on JP that I’d tier for it, and so I did :D

they’re both so pretty!

I also really like the DiaRiko ice skating cards, even if I didn’t properly take part in that event ;3; (I got T3 so I still got a copy of Dia)

And finally, partially just cos OTP, I’m fond of the Helper ChikaYou cards :3

And I’m gonna leave that list there for now, cos I actually like a few others, but this entire thing is already long enough 8′D

23. Probably Token events, cos they feel a little more chill?

I also quite like Challenge Festivals; the lil chibis are nice :D

24. I have no clue. I’m seen other people say SIF could do a thing like what FE Heroes does with its gauntlets, and while I do think it’d be interesting, I also see how FEH’s gauntlets turn out, and I feel like a popularity contest would just turn into a mess in SIF given how “best girl” opinions get.

Not to mention there’s a possible risk of what happens in FEH as well; that some people might not actually back their favourite and instead back whoever’s doing the best.

25. Mari for Aqours, Nico for u’s :’D

Kanan’s a close 2nd for Aqours and I thiiiink Nozomi might be 2nd for u’s??

not nearly as much of You or Maki tho ;3;

26. I don’t have an awful lot of cards from one particular set, but from what I can count, its a tie between Aqours’ swimsuit set and Valentines set; 5 each

27. Mostly Aqours cos I love them so much, plus its a little easier to scout them since they come out after events while u’s come out during events, and any gems I have are goin toward the event or bein saved

As for girls, mostly You and Mari (tho like ive said, I’m seriously Mari blessed, so I almost expect her to come home lol), and if I do scout u’s, it’d probably be for Maki

28. I have a fair few now, and they’re all from login bonuses, aside from a handful which I got from the sticker shop

I’ve gotten all the login promos for EN since Cherry Pana

And I also got Christmas Maki when she was added to the sticker shop for a limited time :D

As for non-UR promos, I have nearly all the Angelic Angel promo Rs, plus Maki’s SoreBoku R (to match a figure I have of her :D)

29. Solos :’D

Genuinely tho, my gems mostly go toward events, since I tend to stick in at them. But I can still save (I saved for Christmas You after all)

Rn, i’m trying to save. I’m telling myself it’ll either be for Angel Mari or Cyber You, but if I don’t gem scout either of them, then I’ll basically keep saving till whenever for whatever

30. Either idolise SRs (since I tend to save my pink N stickers a lot more, tho im currently trying to save my silver S stickers) or buy SR skill level teachers from the shop for my cards

31. Probably half the full combos I’ve gotten, since i’d either been struggling to FC them for ages, or I wasn’t expecting to do it lol

32. Planning to do an additional scout for Valentines Mari (I already had her at that point, but I wanted to see if I could get a 2nd copy to idolise her), but I hadn’t paid attention to when rate up would be finished on the set, so by the time I sat down to maybe get ready to scout, rate up was done. :’’’(

33. Nowhere particularly weird? Maybe in the car once, cos I thought I’d be sitting for long enough to get through a song while mum was off doing something, so when she came back i was still playing.

And then she started driving, so I was playing while the car was going :’D

missed a lot of notes I did ;3;

actually, this was during the last event, and I was playing a match

I think i came last, I cant remember lol

34. I have no idea :’D i see so many others come up with interesting ideas for SIF sets, but I have no real ideas myself. Maybe a fantasy set? Princesses and knights and wizards?

35. (ooft, gonna have to think on this one :’D and look at a whole bunch of cards)

Honoka - Circus - I actually quite like the Circus set in general; the tutu-d leotards in the unidolised, and the details in the idolised, like the hats and the frills~Eli - Rock - I skipped mentioning this one under the event cards point since that bit was gettin busy as it was, But I can cheat and mention it here~Kotori - Pajama Party - So plush~ her little braid in the idolised looks so cute~ especially peaking out of her fluffy birb hoodUmi - Seven Lucky Gods - It looks so elegant and pretty ;3;Rin - lilywhite default - So this is a promo card that came w/ lilywhite’s final single (The other members had similar cards and the other singles had similar releases), so its never coming to EN unless KLab adds it to the sticker shop :’’) But I still really like this one, just for how dainty and elegant it is. It suits Rin~Maki - Cafe Maid - I could technically use this opportunity to pick another card of Maki’s that i really love but...bruh I can’t. Cafe Maid ;3;Nozomi - Fairy - the Fairy set in general is really pretty ;3; I love the little details and flowers, and I like that Nozomi’s ear is actually kinda pointed as well~Hanayo - Cherry - Another promo, but this one just looks so shiny and sparkly, and again, just the little details in this~Nico - Dancer - Another really elegant looking one. Bonus points for having Nico’s hair down, cos I really do think she looks nice like that~

36. (Aqours might be easier, just cos less cards lol)

Chika - Initial UR - She looks so happy, and honestly the lighting in both versions looks so nice!Riko - Ice Skating - Genuinely couldn’t think of one that I really liked :’D So I’m listing the event card againKanan - Yukata - I own this card, she was my first UR :D So I do have a bit of a soft spot for it. Helps that she looks so pretty in it~Dia - Job - I’ll admit,she looks gorgeous as fuck! damn beautiful card!You - all of them Animal - okay, i legit love all of You’s cards, and I was half tempted to say her Aquarium R cos my genuine reaction to idolising her for the first time was “She’s so pretty!”. But Animal You tho... ;3; Tho if I’m honest, I genuinely do love all of her cards!!Yoshiko - Animal - She’s a shit scorer, but damn her card looks amazing, particularly the idolised. I love the pastelle colours of her dress (and the other girls in the set) and I love her dynamic pose, and her hair and how its floating in the water~Hanamaru - Angel - She looks so cute w/ her sleepy expression in the unidolised, hugging that lil star pillow. Plus Angel just as a whole is a nice set.Mari - Circus - Another case like with You where I could easily say “all of them”, but something about her Circus card. I love the post of the unidolised with her doing the rope climbing, and then pink corset of her dress in the idolised~ And that lil puppet~~Ruby - Time Traveller - I quite like this set in general; Ruby’s outfit is so cute in both versions~

37. I have no fucking clue :’D As of right now on EN, i’d like some of the features that JP has since they’re just straight up practical (song sorter, easier practising and team management), but as for anything new, I don’t know.