#except assistant ofc | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

seung-mong · 1 year ago

Text

everyone adores you (i hate that i do too) - kim seungmin

includes: seungmin x reader, friends to enemies to strangers to friends to lovers?? (kinda academic rivals vibe) college au, soft dom! seungie, everyone knows they r in love except them, kinda slow burn? idk, fluff, angst, quick vanilla smut scene at the end, unprotected sex, possessive seungmin, creampie oopsie woopsie, felix is lowk seungmin's downfall lmao

a/n: the people have chosen, thank u for those who voted on the poll!! i know this is so ridiculously late but ive been in a writer's funk lately and ive just been so unmotivated #rant anyway i hope you guys like this one:') chan x hybrid felix x reader up next?? :00

wc: 12k YAPPING ofc my longest fic is of my husband #seungminlover #myMan

"there's nothing i can do for you, mr. kim. you failed to submit the third reflection essay. i have been considerate with your other late submissions..." the middle aged professor sighs, bringing a hand to his forehead and massaging his temples in frustration.

seungmin's hands wrap tighter around the strap of his bag, nylon almost burning against his palm due to the friction. "mr. park," he almost whines, leaning forward in his chair.

seungmin's desperate. he needs to pass this class, a prerequisite to all of his majors. he'll be damned if he takes his classes later than everyone else. "please, there must be something i can do. anything for extra credit. i really really need to pass this class." his voice slightly breaks, so close to tears. he can feel the red hot embarrassment that washes over him at the thought of having to explain why he cant enlist in the same classes as his friends.

he's never gonna hear the end of it when he tells his parents, always hard on his ass about biting off more than he can chew and he's always shrugged them off. how is everything so different now? in highschool he was juggling acads, being president of the student council, being in choir, dance, band, and the debate team. and now? four classes and a stupid glee club and hes falling behind.

his worst fear.

the older man swallows thickly, obviously uncomfortable at his student's sudden show of vulnerability. "mr. kim, i really want to help you. but im afraid there's no extra work i can give you to help you raise your grade.

seungmin shakes his head, slumping deep in his seat.

"normally i'd offer that you could check some papers and-"

"i'll do it!" seungmin yells, almost jumping out of his seat.

"but another student has already offered to be my teaching assistant for this term for extra credit as well.... unless you could convince them to split the workload... id consider raising your grade."

"sir, anything! who do i have to convince?" seungmin lets out a sigh of relief. and he thought all hope was lost.

"miss y/l/n. do you know her?"

fuck. all hope is lost.

you huff as you push open the heavy metal doors to your apartment building, canvas bag filled to the brim with papers you're supposed to check. the weight is heavy on your shoulder, strap digging uncomfortably into your skin. the sting lingers as you waddle over to your apartment locker, dropping the bag as you dig into your coat pocket for your keys.

"oh, y/n! im glad i caught you." you turn around to see a kind face smiling at you from the foot of the stairs, long blonde hair tied somewhat neatly to keep strands away from his neck. stubborn clumps of hair fall over his forehead, sticking to the skin in a thin sheen of sweat.

"hyunjin?" you squeal, leaving all your bags right there on the floor as you run towards your childhood friend. your arms wrap around his neck as he laughs, arms coming up to wrap around your waist. you nearly knock him off his feet from the force that you throw yourself at him, but he cant blame you. it has been way too long.

"but... what are you doing here? i thought you were still in paris?" you chuckle, breathless as you pull apart from him.

"non!," he teases, but his smile quickly shifts. "due to some, ah- unfortunate circumstances, i had to return home a little earlier than i had planned," he shrugs, grabbing your arm and hooking it with his.

"oh cut the bullshit, hwang." you laugh, pulling him towards your locker. "tell me what happened," you groan, bending down to pick up your bag. hyunjin, ever the gentleman, quickly reacts from beside you, taking it away from you before slinging it over his own shoulder. "tell me what really happened, hm? it's me." you huff, punching him lightly on the shoulder.

he smiles sadly at you, shaking his head. he knows he cant lie to you. "how about we catch up over a cup of coffee, huh? my, ive been looking all over campus for you and when we finally meet after three years you dont even invite me in?" he pouts at you.

you roll your eyes at his dramatics. nice to know he hasnt changed that about himself. dare you say paris has only fed his dramatic flare? "let's go have some coffee somewhere else then, my apartment's kinda messy right now. oh! have you told felix you're back? you guys are... okay now, right?" you're careful to watch his expression at the mention of his past lover.

"no, he doesnt know im home. it kinda defeats the whole purpose of the surprise, you know?" he retorts, watching you with a fond smile as you shove your phone and keys back into your pockets. "and yes. felix and i are alright, thank you for asking."

"well, i'm sure he'd love to see you again. i know where he's working. maybe we could drop by for some drinks?"

hyunjin hums thoughtfully at that, chuckling a bit once you push open the damned metal door. "i guess it wouldnt hurt to say hello? besides. we have been... talking again."

"oh is that so?" you feign disinterest, eyes trained on the leaves that crunch under your feet.

he hums once more, squinting when he looks up, the sun beaming against his face. how he's missed its' warmth. paris was often gloomy. "we discussed possibly trying again." he says calmly, sighing with content.

you falter, "that might be good. ive always known you guys still loved each other! besides, you guys were young and stupid."

"that we were." hyunjin laughs. "well how about you and... ah- he who must not be named?"

you tense a little at that, opting to play it off with a shrug. "havent seen him around much, actually."

"well that's odd. you three were the only ones from our highschool to pass SNU and you guys dont keep in touch?"

"well i dont keep in touch with people from highschool much." you bite back.

"well how about me and felix?" he challenges.

"yea. just you two."

"arent you two in the same major?"

"we have different schedules. never aligns."

"but yuna and lia said-"

"i just dont see seungmin much, alright? that's that!" you groan, shoving your hands into your pockets.

"oh my dear y/n, nothing has changed! have you tried to patch things up with him? after all we were, hm what did you say, ah- young and stupid?"

"well he certainly was." you mumble, and hyunjin bursts out laughing. he throws an arm over your shoulder, pulling you closer against his side. "god, i've missed you."

felix absolutely adores his job. he gets to help bake in the kitchens in the morning, and then he gets to make such fun little drinks while listening to music he chooses. he loves his coworkers, and his schedule is flexible, what with the manager knowing how most of his staff are all college students. the one thing he hates though? dealing with rude customers.

"i apologize, sir. our drinks are served in plastic cups as most of our customers dont finish their drink here, it's easier to take out in case you need to leave in a hurry." felix can feel the sweat start to form at his hairline, trickling slowly down his forehead as his cheeks twitch in a forced smile.

"well if i knew you served it in plastic cups, i never would have ordered!" the middle-aged man in front of him yells, eyebrows raised. students in the cafe have started to look over, trying hard to be discreet. some look annoyed, others clearly show how they feel sorry for felix.

felix tries his best to keep his smile, but he can feel anger and annoyance rise in him like hot water boiling deep in his gut.

"what the fuck is the difference??" he wants to scream, grab the stupid plastic cup from his stupid chubby fingers and throw it right in his stupid ugly face.

"im sorry sir, is there some kind of problem here?" a calm voice calls from behind the man, who turns around in surprise.

seungmin stands with his hands in his pockets, a small smile on his lips. he's dressed in nothing fancy, a university hoodie and some sweatpants. he's only supposed to catch up with felix as he busies himself around the cafe after all. his hair is tucked neatly in his cap, the perfect image of your average college student.

felix swears he's an angel sent from the heavens.

"this is none of your business, kid." the man snorts disgustingly, waving a chubby finger in seungmin's face.

"well, actually this is a public space and you're holding up the line. so yea, it kinda is my business. besides, you're on university grounds, i have every right to be here as a student." seungmin says coolly, taking a step towards the counter so he's able to somewhat position himself in between felix and this gross ugly man.

"listen, i'm a paying customer, so-"

"and the staff has the right to refuse service to anyone unless on the basis of race, religion, or ethnicity- isn't that right, felix?"

and its like suddenly felix has found his voice. he stands a little taller, leaning forward to get closer to the man's face. "that's right."

"and you're not refusing to serve this man because hes white or anything, right?" seungmin eggs him on, throwing the man a somewhat bored look.

"no. its because hes an asshole."

"hey-" the man steps forward, hands raised.

"well you heard him!" seungmin cuts the man off before he can continue, fully stepping in front of felix now. "if you dont leave within the next ten seconds, i'm calling security. they take peace and order on school grounds very seriously, you know?"

the man huffs, turning around and slamming the door behind him so hard that the little bell that jingles near the doorframe rattles wildly seconds after he's left.

"i dont know how you deal with assholes like that, felix. id probably lose my mind." seungmin sighs, throwing his friend a tight lipped smile.

"you kinda get used to it. but i've just been so tired this finals week that i dont even have the energy to stand up for myself anymore." felix shakes his head while he wipes the counter down.

seungmin nods understandingly, lunging for the man's untouched drink before felix can throw it. "this is paid, isn't it?"

"well, yes but-"

"alright, felix look. i have a problem." seungmin slides easily into one of the stools by the counter, taking a deep sip of the man's mystery drink.

felix nods in understanding, rearranging trays and cleaning up as much as he can.

"well actually, it's more of a favor? i dont know."

felix only hums, used to seungmin's rambling by now. seungmin's just like that, needs to talk to himself aloud a little before getting straight to the point.

"im actually screwed and there's no one else i can talk to because well, there's no more shame between us, yea? we've seen each other naked and ive seen you at your lowest low and youve been there for me and-"

"wow, this is pretty serious, huh?" felix jokes, pulling up a stool so he can sit in front of his friend.

"i think i'm gonna fail a class." seungmin spits out, holding his breath immediately after as he gauges his friend's reaction.

felix's smile slowly disappears. his mouth opens and closes like a fish as he tries to figure out what to say, in a state of total shock. this goes on for about five minutes before seungmin finally whines, head dropping to his hands.

"will you say something i can actually understand, felix?"

"i'm sorry i just- i dont understand. you're.... failing? you? kim seungmin? the kim seungmin?"

"wow you really know how to comfort a guy, huh?"

"i'm sorry!" felix jumps up to pull seungmin in for a half-hug, awkwardly wrapping his arms around seungmin's chest over the counter. "i just... how? why? what subject? are you sure?"

"yes, im sure. i missed a stupid submission. a major subject. look, thats not the worst part-"

"omigod you're dying. thats the only explanation-"

"no!" seungmin whines, pushing his friend off him. "the professor said he could give me extra credit-"

"but thats good news!"

"-if im able to convince... someone.... to split the task given to them with me."

"o...kay? just turn on your puppydog charm and you're good to go."

seungmin shakes his head, as if he's about to deliver such solemn news to felix that he has to pause for dramatic effect. felix rolls his eyes.

"it's... well the person is y/n."

felix stares at his friend with wide eyes, unblinking. then he tilts his head back and lets out the most obnoxious laugh, losing his breath as his neck turns a deep shade of red, the tint spreading across his cheeks all the way to the tips of his ears.

"you're joking! oh this is just too- oh, i cant breathe, ITS KARMA!" he suddenly yells, fighting for his life to breathe in as much air as possible, wiping the tears from his eyes.

seungmin winces, but deep down he knows this reaction is deserved.

his relationship with you is... a little complicated.

you met seungmin in your freshman year of highschool. you'd just moved to seoul, the New Girl. as batch rep, he was tasked with showing you around on your first day, teaching you the ropes and making you feel welcomed.

"well yea, thats basically it!" seungmin finishes, pace slowing down as he directs you to the bench just opposite the school clinic. "do you have any questions for me?" he asks with a slight tilt of his head.

your eyes stay trained on the floor, as they have been the past 30 minutes that this strange boy has toured you around the school. you shake your head. seungmin doesnt fully understand it yet, but somewhere deep down, he feels bad for you. you seem like the shy type, and he knows how hard it is to adjust and make new friends. god knows how he would have survived middle school if it weren't for his friends.

"hey, what do you say you come meet my friends tomorrow during lunch break?" he suddenly asks. for the first time since his homeroom teacher introduced you, you look up at him.

he's taken aback by how pretty your eyes are.

"oh, really?" you ask timidly, voice small.

"i- i mean yea! we're in the same homeroom anyway, right? plus i think it'll help you adjust a little better if you had people you could talk to and hang out with." seungmin shrugs.

"yea. i'd really like that. thank you, seungmin." your voice is so low its almost like you're mumbling.

before you know it, you're spending your lunch breaks laughing along with felix as he embarrasses all of seungmin's friends one by one, wincing away from changbin as he threatens to lunge across the table to shut the younger boy up, hyunjin clinging dramatically onto his boyfriend's side instead of defending him.

you're spending your weekends at seungmin's house as chan makes you all listen to his new demo, han turning red in the face when his verse comes on. you're walking to school with jeongin- arms full of convenience store goodies as you make fun of your grumpy old maths teacher, leeknow following quietly behind you both, scolding you when you get too close to the road.

before you know it, you've found yourself a group of friends who makes highschool just that much bearable.

seungmin's completely enamored by you, coming to learn that you're at the top of every class that you have (except the ones you have with him, of course). you're just as ambitious as he is, joining the debate team and the mock un club, quickly joining the officers despite being a new student.

he's somewhat threatened by you, though he'd never admit it to himself, or to anyone else for that matter. you score higher than him in statistics, and he cant help the ugly feeling that settles in his chest when you show your paper to him, a bright blue 100 circled at the top.

he tries not to let it get to him, changing his mindset into seeing it as a healthy competition, a way for him to challenge himself even more in to doing better than you. it feeds his competitive side, staying longer than you in the library, sleeping later than you, reading more books.

this one sided competition makes him feel conflicted. he's out for your blood, and yet you're the same sweet, shy girl he's always been close to. you spend most of your time with seungmin, studying with him at his house, sleeping over when you've realized its way past ten in the evening, sneaking out of his house for a quick convenience store run.

"min, i'm hungry! lets go down to the store." you'd whine, voice slightly muffled against his soft sheets, tucked nice and warm under his blankets.

"go home, you've finished all the food here." he'd tease, not even bothering to look away from his homework.

"cant. you'd miss me after an hour." you'd retort, reaching blindly behind you for a plushie to throw at the back of his head.

"suppose that's true. can't help but be used to your presence when you're here nearly every day," he'd feign annoyance, exhaling loudly through his nose.

you'd pout at him when he'd finally turn in his chair to look over at you, already so at home, snuggling even deeper into his bed.

you really do have such pretty eyes.

"fine. grab your coat." and he'd try hard to fight his smile at the sound of your delighted squeals.

you found a way to break through his walls, chip away at the cement and reduce it to a fine dust which you've blown away. but he stands unguarded all the same, not even bothering to put up a fight when you wrestle your way into his heart.

he'd like to keep you there, he thinks.

sometimes he'd lie to himself and say that he tried. by your senior year, he managed to ruin the one good thing in his life.

how stupid was he?

amazing, really. how he was able to throw away three years of friendship for fifteen minutes of fame.

"how could you do this to me?" you hiss, dropping your backpack onto the floor of seungmin's bedroom. his back is faced towards you, gently shutting his door before he leans his forehead on it. he takes a deep breath, gathering enough courage to face you.

"y/n, i-"

"you embarrassed me in front of everyone. you told them everything, things i told you in confidence because i fucking trusted you. how could you do this to me, seungmin? how could you fucking do this to me?" your tears are hot, angry against your cheeks as you pace around his room. your voice grows louder with every word, reaching a scream when you stand in front of him.

"i wasn't thinking, y/n. i-"

"and for what? to make me look bad?" you laugh hollowly, hands flying to your hair in disbelief. "to make me look like some poor, fucking loser who's so mentally unstable she can't possibly become president of student council? was that your angle?"

there's a lump in seungmin's throat and no matter how hard he swallows, it just wont go down. he opens his mouth to speak, to defend himself, but his mouth has gone dry and his tongue tastes like sand.

"what the fuck is wrong with you? i thought we were friends? i thought we were best friends, seungmin? how could you air out all my shit like that? for a couple of votes? do you know how pathetic you are? is that how bad you want to be president? you're willing to throw me under the bus to make yourself look good?" you can taste the salty tears pooling in your mouth, snot slowly dripping down and creating a sticky mess on your face.

but you're too angry to care.

your chest hurts, like someone's kicked you to the ground and continuously stomped right in between your ribcage in an attempt to squash your heart. your head hurts from dehydration, and your neck is starting to feel sticky from the sweat that's pooled at the collar of your uniform.

"was this your master plan? you found out i was running against you so you sucked up to me, kept me close so you could get all the dirt? you fucking traitor, i cant believe i actually trusted you." your throat has gone raw from all the yelling, can feel the way your voice starts to come out hoarse.

"y/n, please. i'm so sorry i dont know what i was thinking. i just... when they asked me why they should vote for me my mind blanked and i-" he tries to get everything out as fast as he can, terrified you'll cut him off and start yelling again. but he can't continue because, holy shit, even he doesn't know why the fuck he did what he did.

"and you what? made me look fucking stupid so you rambled on for fifteen minutes about how much of a horrible person i am. god, if thats what you thought of me you shouldve let me know, seungmin! i couldve walked out of your life if i made you that miserable." you're starting to heave, all the air in the room suddenly disappearing.

"no, dont say that y/n. you're the best thing about me, you're my best fr-"

seungmin feels dizzy when your palm lands on his right cheek.

you cant stop sobbing, hands clutching at your chest as you shake your head. "fuck you," you whisper.

seungmin is stunned, frozen in the middle of his room with his mouth slightly open. he says nothing, does nothing as he watches you bend down weakly to grab your bag, sobbing through the motions of slinging it over your shoulders.

but then the panic starts to kick in when you push past him, your fingers reaching for his doorknob. his instincts kick in and hes wrapping his hand around your wrist.

"please don't go, please let's talk about this." his voice cracks. when did he start crying?"

you pause, and for a moment seungmin can feel the weight on his shoulder lift, all hope is not lost.

"its good to know where your priorities lie, seungmin. now i know you'll do anything to get ahead. even if that means hurting me." you tried to sound strong, but your voice comes out broken, a whimper.

"dont speak to me ever again."

you pull your hand away from him.

the weight on his shoulders is suddenly crushing.

and when he gave his acceptance speech in front of the entire student body, he frantically searched for your face. his heart dropped when his eyes locked with yours. eyes that once looked at him with so much warmth, care, and love- stared soullessly back at him.

he knew he fucked up the best thing in his life.

by the time you reach felix's cafe, hyunjin's whining had started to get on your nerves.

"i didn't ask you to carry it," you remind him, reaching for the strap.

he turns his body away from you, clutching your tote tighter against his side. "as if i'd let you carry this!"

yes, he was a gentleman. but a dramatic ass one.

"id honestly rather carry my bag than have to listen to you whine about how heavy it is."

"but it is so heavy! what the fuck did you put in here, rocks?"

you only roll your eyes, pushing open the glass door to the establishment. the tiny bell above the doorframe rings, announcing your arrival to the blonde boy behind the counter.

"oh my god, its soobin." you whisper under your breath, elbowing hyunjin in the ribs. he only looks at you puzzled, an eyebrow raised.

"he's so cute, ohmygod." you roll your eyes, quickly checking your blurry reflection on the glass door.

"not my type," hyunjin shrugs. you ignore him, walking straight to the counter.

"oh, hey soob!" you greet him, quickly shushing hyunjin when he starts to mock your airy tone. "is felix here?" you smile sweetly, trying to tame your hair from the mess caused by the strong winds outside.

"oh yea, he's over there in the booth by the window. he's not alone though," he says, wiping down the counter after spilling a few shaves of ice.

"oh, who's he with?" you ask, already making your way down the counter.

"dunno, the dude looks kinda stressed, to be honest." he shrugs, turning away from you when the bell lets him know he's got another customer to serve.

he's with a guy? he's not on a date is he? no- he wouldve told you. besides, he wouldnt have led hyunjin on either.

hyunjin follows behind you as you make your way towards the booth, heaving dramatically as he swings your tote bag off his shoulders. he crouches behind you, snickering to himself as you both slowly walk to the table, strands of felix's hair peeking out from the opposite bench.

"surprise!" hyunjin jumps from behind you, smile swiftly morphing into a face of shock, his mouth forming a small 'o'.

"holy shit, hyune! what are you doing here?"

your heart drops to the pit of your stomach. that voice-

"s-seungmin, i didnt know you were with felix."

you freeze, jaw dropped as seungmin stands. he clearly hasn't seen you yet, back facing you as he pulls hyunjin in for a hug, squeezing him tightly.

"i thought you were in paris?" felix squeals, sliding out of the booth and joining the three for a big bear hug. he's the one who finally notices you a few feet away, his smile dropping.

"y/n." he breathes, eyes wide.

when seungmin turns around, its almost as if in its slow motion.

he looks almost exactly the same, his hair a little longer, shaggier. his eyes look more tired, little bags under his eyes give away the sleepless nights he's become familiar with. his cheeks slowly turn a light pink, dusting across his nose all the way to the tip of his ears. he's dressed the way you remember him, loose comfy clothes.

he looks good, you think. you shake the thought away.

"oh, y/n." seungmin's voice is small as he locks eyes with you.

fuck, your eyes.

his first time seeing you in three years and he hates how you manage to steal his breath away. you've changed your hair, cut it a little shorter and dyed it lighter. you've pierced your ears, little sunflower earrings peaking from beneath your hair. you look so much more mature, your style has definitely changed.

but your eyes, they shine just as bright as he remembers. good to know his memory hasnt failed him yet.

"i didn't know you were coming, y/n." felix shoots you an apologetic glance, lips pursed and eyes wide.

"but i always come visit you on thursdays." you say flatly.

"yea but-"

"awh look! it's been a while since we've all seen each other, huh?" hyunjin cuts in, trying desperately to ease the tension. seungmin stays standing still, gawking stupidly at you. you try your best to pretend like you cant feel his gaze.

"yea, some of us made that decision on purpose." you mutter under your breath, but you don't miss the way seungmin's eye twitch.

felix smiles, lacing his hand with hyunjin's. "it's really been too long," he whispers, as if only meant for his lover.

"i'd really love if we could all spend some time together." hyunjin's eyes find yours, wide and pleading. "please?"

you offer him a tight lipped smile.

its already so awkward, the way felix and hyunjin slide naturally into the booth, beginning to chatter away. it leaves you and seungmin standing, stubbornly avoiding eye contact.

"do you- do you want to sit near the window, or?" seungmin's voice is small, eyes glued to the floor.

you shrug.

he nods, climbing in anyway. you take a deep breath before you move, reluctantly climbing onto the booth after him. you leave a considerable amount of space between the two of you, and seungmin can't help but roll his eyes.

it's been nearly three years, he thinks. how are you still holding a grudge against him? he clears his throat, about to start some small talk, but something stops him. maybe its the way you deliberately angle your body away from him, or the way you pull your phone out to scroll aimlessly, almost as if you were anticipating his move.

"so, how was paris?" seungmin asks hyunjin instead, shifting his body away from you. fine, be like that. at least hes not immature enough to make things awkward on purpose.

"oh, it was so romantic!" hyunjin exclaims, throwing his arm over felix's shoulder and resting it on the back of their booth. "it was a little depressing, actually. being in such a beautiful place all alone."

"well yea, but it was worth it right? who wouldve thought your one true love was right here all along." you tease, wiggling your eyebrows up and down.

"yea so is yours!" hyunjin teases you back. you only stick your tongue out.

beside you, seungmin tenses. surely, hyunjin isnt implying that he could be your true love, could he? the thought makes chest ache, an odd yearning to move closer to you, to let his fingers "accidentally" brush against yours-

"oh, soobin!" felix giggles, catching on.

seungmin's always hated that guy. from the moment he met soobin thirty minutes ago, he knew something was off. you can't date soobin, he wouldnt know how to take care of you. with his stupid blonde hair, his stupid bunny smile, his stupidly large eyes.

he bets soobin doesnt even know what your favorite type of ramen is, what your go-to snacks are, what your favorite flavor of ice cream is. important things that a lover should know.

things he knows.

oh, where'd that thought come from?

"shut up, you guys!" you hiss, checking to see if soobin is within earshot. you frown at felix, swatting across the table at his chest.

"what do you mean? you guys would look so cute together." hyunjin argues, quickly turning to catch a glimpse of soobin. you hide your face in your hands, profusely shaking your head as you sink deeper into the booth.

seungmin cant help the feeling of jealousy that bubbles deep in his gut. hes half scared hes going to projectile vomit all over the table when you straighten yourself out, sneaking a peek at the blonde boy who busies himself with creating a customer's drink.

"im probably not his type." you mumble.

"you're not." seungmin's shocked at the word that's slipped, hand quickly coming up to cover his mouth in shock.

all eyes are on him, and he can see the way you look at him, with your empty eyes staring right at his face. he hates it when you look at him like that, misses the way your eyes used to shine just for him.

"actually you know what, im getting kinda tired, i think im gonna go home instead." you blurt out, already reaching for your bag.

hyunjin's hand finds yours on the table, and he squeezes gently. "really?"

you swiftly pull your hand away. "yes. really."

"you know what, it doesnt matter. i actually made a reservation for us lixie. wasn't planning on staying long anyways. just wanted to surprise you." hyunjin sings sweetly, brushing away a stand of hair that had fallen on felix's cheek.

"yea, i think i'm gonna head home too." seungmin clears his throat.

just then, the sound of thunder roars outside, clouds a dark grey as they hang low.

fuck. just when you decided not to bring an umbrella.

"yea, i think we better get going. dont wanna get caught in the rain." felix sighs, gathering his stuff and offering hyunjin his hand.

"dont you have spare umbrellas here, lix? maybe we could borrow them. you know, just in case." as if on cue, the rain starts to come down heavily, droplets splattering against the window.

"yea, but there's only two." felix mutters, quickly slipping behind the counter to grab two black umbrellas leaning against the wall. "hyunjin and i can share, and maybe you and y/n-"

"i'm fine." you say stubbornly, arms crossed in front of your chest.

you'd rather die than spend two seconds alone with kim seungmin.

"oh dont say that, you'll get drenched and catch a cold." hyunjin sighs, grabbing one of the umbrellas from felix's hand and offering it to you.

"i'd actually prefer that, thanks." you snap, swatting his hand away.

hyunjin opens his mouth to berate you, but seungmin quickly steps in, reaching for the umbrella. "i'll handle this guys, you go enjoy your dinner."

you fume at that. 'oh he'll handle it? who the fuck does this guy think he is?'

you roll your eyes, pushing past your friends and heading for the door. you stand under the roof, crossing your arms in front of your chest as a cold chill blows past you. hyunjin and felix soon exit as well, wrapped tightly in their coats, hands entwined.

hyunjin steps towards you, pulling you in for a hug despite your protests. "be nice," he whispers, before planting a kiss on your cheek. you make a move to wipe it away, but hesitate when you see hyunjin pout.

"have a nice date." you mumble, watching as the pair huddles close under the umbrella, making their way to felix's car.

you hear the door open, and you hold your breath.

"let me walk you home." seungmin offers, his tone stern. this only ticks you off, wanting nothing more than to defy him despite his offer being in your best interest. your apartment is a good walk away, and the papers in your tote bag risk the chance of getting wet.

"i mean you- you live near my building, right?" he pleads, clicking his umbrella open. he waits patiently for you to respond, standing awkwardly by the sidewalk as you fight with your pride.

you nod, and thats all seungmin needs. he's by your side in an instant, holding the umbrella nearer to your side to ensure that not even an inch of you gets wet from the rain. his left side is already completely soaked, cringing at the feel of his cold hoodie sticking to his skin, but he ignores it. you set a fast pace, and his heart hurts at the though that it's probably because you can't stand to spend more time with him than you need to.

he notices you wince from the weight of your bag, taking a deep breath as you readjust the strap from falling off your shoulder.

"let me carry it," he's being bold, already reaching for the damn thing before you can say anything.

"i dont need any more favors." you snap, the first words you've directly said to him in nearly three years. he's glad you've at least acknowledged his existence now, but your words are sharp.

he lets it go, humming to let you know that he heard you. your pace quickens just a bit, eager to get home, out of the rain, and away from seungmin. your tote swings from the movement, getting caught on a nearby bush and very nearly pulling you back.

you lose your balance and slip, falling flat on your butt on the wet pavement. you try to brake your fall, scratching your palms in the process.

"oh my god, are you okay?" seungmin rushes down, still holding the umbrella over your head. he offers his hand to help you up, but you swat it away.

"i'm fine, alright? god, stop hovering!" you yell, pushing down on your scratched palms to help yourself up. you wince at the pain, brushing off tiny pebbles and bits of gravel from your open wound.

"y/n, you're bleeding." seungmin gawks, hand reaching out to touch yours. you quickly yank it out of his reach, almost as if you were hiding your palm from him.

"yea, thanks for the info." you mumble, trying your best to wipe away the mud that's splattered all over your jeans. seungmin moves quickly while you're preoccupied, crouching down to grab at your tote bag. he ignores your whines of protest, slinging it over his shoulder.

you let out a groan when he refuses to hand it back to you. "fine, whatever. suffer." you grumble, crossing your arms before walking away. seungmin quickly catches up to you, shielding you from the rain.

the walk home is painfully quiet. you're hyperaware of every movement he makes, every time he inhales, the way he clears his throat, as if he's about to say something before he changes his mind. all these emotions swirl angirly inside of you, most of them you cant even begin to comprehend.

because for some reason, you miss him. and it hits you like a truck when the sleeve of his hoodie grazes your elbow, the soft cloth reaching for you. it takes everything in you not to break down and grab for him, to hold him close and strangle him, to wrap your arms around him and hug him so tight he loses breath and dies of suffocation.

he smells the same, like the seungmin you remember who used to walk you home after band practice. the seungmin who held your hand in secret as you walked through the haunted house that one halloween. the seungmin who'd sing to you, alone in his room with his guitar on his lap.

your seungmin.

how could this stranger beside you be your seungmin?

how is it possible that the very same person who knows your deepest darkest secrets, your most embarrassing moments, your dreams and fears- is someone who doesn't know you at all?

seungmin stands stiff beside you as you reach the lobby of your apartment, shaking the little droplets of rain off the umbrella. he opens the door for you, urging you to enter before him.

"i'll have my bag back now, thanks." you say in monotone, eyes not even meeting his.

"let me carry it up." a bold request.

"i'm fine now, you know? im not some damsel in distress in need of saving." you mumble, standing your ground.

seungmin ignores you, already walking towards the elevator. he leaves it on hold, waiting a few seconds before you enter as well, grumbling under your breath.

once you reach your floor, you lead the way to your room, with seungmin trailing slowly behind you. he's shivering a little from the cold, the wet of his jacket only making the draft on the floor feel like ice against his skin. you notice, the little devil on your shoulder pleased at his suffering.

but there's another side of you that softens when you notice the way his teeth chatter, a shudder going down his whole body. god, you're gonna regret even opening your mouth-

"you can come in to warm up a little." you mumble, reaching into your coat pocket to fetch your keys.

seungmin merely blinks at you, unsure if he heard you correctly, or if his imagination was so strong that he managed to picture you saying the thing he so desperately wanted to hear.

but then you walk in, and you leave your door open. for him.

"oh, thanks." seungmin mutters awkwardly, reaching for the cup of tea you offer him. the warmth spreads from his fingertips to his palms, and he's genuinely grateful for the heat it provides. you only hum, grabbing your tote bag from the floor and setting it on the couch.

you pour yourself a cup, sitting directly opposite of the strange boy in your apartment. you blow away some of the steam that rises from the cup, eyes trained on the way the liquid ripples from the force of your breath.

seungmin opens his mouth to speak, but he cant seem to find the words to say what he wants to say. i'm sorry? no thats too lame. i miss you? fuck no, way too forward. how about-

"you're shivering." you point out, staring directly into seungmin's eyes.

his breath hitches. you're looking at him.

actually looking at him.

"oh, i- i didn't even notice." he lies. despite the fact that you turned your heater on, he's fucking freezing. his hoodie is heavy with rain and damp against his skin, sending shivers all the way up his arm and down his spine.

suddenly you stand, retreating into your room without a word. seungmin's confused, unsure if that's his cue that he's overstayed his welcome. but then you come back into the kitchen after a few seconds, holding a large blue hoodie in your arms.

his heart clenches when you unfurl it, revealing the old hoodie he'd given you a month before your graduation. he didnt even know you got it in the mail when he sent it. you werent even talking to him at that point. does that mean you'd gotten his letter too?

"well, i didnt wanna get rid of it, you know? would be a waste." you mumble. you toss it over to him, the cloth landing on his lap with a soft thud. he looks stupidly down at it, brain malfunctioning.

"you should change out of your sweater. you're wet. dripping all over my floor." you grumble, snatching seungmin's empty cup and setting it down on the counter behind him.

"you kept it?" seungmin whispers.

"like i said. didnt want it-"

"you kept it." seungmin turns to look at you.

his deep brown eyes are hopeful, crease in his brows giving away the myriad of emotions swirling deep in his stomach.

you stay silent, back turned towards him. you can feel the tears that pool behind your eyelids, threatening to fall as you hold yourself over the sink, turning your head completely away from seungmin. you hear the sound of fabric rustling, and your cheeks warm at the thought of him undressing in the middle of your kitchen.

the sound of wood scratching against your kitchen tiles is loud, the abruptness of seungmin standing up nearly sending the chair backwards.

"smells like you." he whispers. he cant trust his voice.

he takes a step towards you, your back still towards him.

"i think its time for you to go." you hiccup, a steady stream of tears flowing down your cheeks.

"look at me." seungmin begs, taking another step.

"you should go now, seungmin."

"look me in the eye when you tell me. then i will."

he's getting bold, standing right behind you, his chest pressing the back of your head. you whirl around, ready to yell at him, to scream at him, to slap him, to furl your hands into fists and beat against his chest.

but he's quicker, wrapping both his arms around your shoulders and pressing you close to him, tucking your head under his chin. he holds you like this for so long you figure its been hours. you stain the front of his chest with your tears, hands weakly wrapping around him, fingers curling into the fabric.

he still feels like seungmin.

your seungmin.

"you kept it. you got my letter too, didn't you sweetheart?" he whispers, as if afraid raising his voice would ruin the spell.

you sob violently against his chest, holding him tighter against you.

"i meant every single word," he squeezes you tightly, "i'm so sorry."

"you're an asshole, kim seungmin." you sob, shaking your head.

"i know, i know. i'm so sorry." he shushes you, smoothing down your hair, planting a soft kiss on the top of your head.

"do you know how much it hurts?" you sob, pulling away from him. "i see you almost everyday. you have the face of someone who knows every single thing about me, but you're a complete stranger to me." you sob into your hands, pouring your heart out to him.

"i know," he sniffles, wiping away the snot under your nose with his free hand.

"no, you dont. stop fucking saying that." you pull your face away from him, pushing his hand down. "you were my best friend and you- now its like i dont know you and-" you're hiccuping, heaving, out of breath as you break down.

"i'm sorry, sweetheart, okay? i'm so so sorry. i was so stupid,"

"well yea!" you yell, falling into him when he opens his arms up to you.

he chuckles dryly at that, holding you tightly against him, as if terrified you'd change your mind and kick him out of your home. and he cant bear to see it, the way you look up at him with tears in your eyes, bloodshot red and full of resentment. he wants to fix it so bad, misses the way you'd hold softness in your eyes reserved especially for him.

"i'll make it right," he promises, nuzzling his cheek against the top of your head. "i'll prove it to you, okay? i promise."

you sniffle, shaking your head. "i- i dont know,"

"hey, look at me." seungmin pulls you away from him, bending slightly so you're eye to eye. "i promise, i'll do everything i can to gain back your trust. i just miss you so much, y/n. i- i really fucked up and to this day it remains my greatest regret."

you stay quiet, eyes flickering between either of his. "even more than when you shaved your head that one summer?" you joke weakly.

seungmin can feel his heart pounding at the sight of your small smile. he thinks he sees your eyes twinkle. "yes, sweetheart. even more than that. i just... please. give me another chance. give me a chance to make it right with you, y/n."

you take a deep breath, trying to steady yourself. seungmin's steadily crying, wiping the tears away with the back of his hand as he looks at you, expectantly. you stay quiet for so long seungmin can hear the blood rushing all the way to his head, going dizzy with anticipation and fear.

"you'll have to buy me lots of gummies, you know?" you mumble, looking up at him.

fuck. he'd buy you all the gummies in the world if it meant you'd keep looking at him with those eyes.

the words on your screen have started to blur altogether, vision hazy as you mindlessly scroll through the hundreds of pages of readings and notes youve been reviewing for the past...... god, was there even a time you weren't studying? even the music playing through your headphones have lost its appeal, sounding more and more like radio static.

you jolt out of your trance at the sound of books slamming against the surface of your table, which shakes under the weight. you quickly pull your headphones off and look up at the intruder, who smiles sheepishly at you.

"sorry, did i wake you?" seungmin asks, pulling up a chair beside you.

"no, you saved me." you groan, stretching your whole body until your limbs start to vibrate.

seungmin only laughs, sinking deep into his chair. he takes his cap off and runs his fingers through his hair. he scoots a little closer to you, then bends the other way to retrieve a little brown paper bag.

"i brought you breakfast." he says, rolling his eyes at the way you pout at him.

"seungmin, you didnt!" you gasp, receiving the tall cup of iced coffee with eager hands.

"i did this for myself, actually." he claims, pulling out some warm bread to share with you. "dont want you grumpy all morning. what time did you come in? you look like shit. no offense."

you shrug, taking a long sip of the cold drink.

"wait, weren't you wearing that last night when i left? y/n.. dont- oh my god, dont tell me you spent the whole night here?"

you stare blankly back at him. "our final exam is in three days."

"do you plan on staying awake until then?" seungmin bites sarcastically, and you kick his chair.

"i have to atleast get a 97 on his exam or else i wont finish his class with high honors." you whine, running your fingers through your hair in frustration.

you're so much like him, seungmin thinks. he, too, is familiar with sacrificing his happiness for a perfect grade. except now he has to work just as hard as you just to pass. the thought leaves a bitter taste in his mouth.

"you have to get some sleep or you wont finish his class at all." he threatens, staring down at you.

you only frown, but you dont need that much convincing, as you're already closing your laptop shut, scooting your chair just that much closer to seungmin's so your arm grazes his.

"wake me up in thirty minutes." you grumble, linking your arm with his and resting your head on his shoulder. he raises it a little to grant you comfort, unbothered by the fact that his arm will inevitably start to tense and ache.

"sweet dreams," he hums, discreetly kissing the top of your head as he pretends to look at the empty chair next to you.

ten minutes pass, and you're already snoring. your fair falls in a mess in front of your face, and seungmin has to hold back from sweeping your hair away in fear that he'd accidentally wake you up. he cant help but feel his chest swell at the feeling of you leaning on him, he feels like a highschooler high with giddiness, trying hard not to vibrate in his seat.

screw the readings, he can barely keep you out of his head. this past month has been an absolute dream to him, spending every waking moment by your side. treating you to almost every single meal, keeping you company as you run your errands, crashing at yours to study and just goof around.

this is how he remembers you- full of life, playful, just a little mischievous. so positively alluring that seungmin feels himself falling in love with you. it hit him like a brick that night you passed out with papers strewn across your bed, your limbs tangling with his. he didnt sleep a wink that night, too busy studying your face. you looked so peaceful, he remembers, burying your face in the crook of his neck and holding him tightly in your sleep.

he looks down at you now, cant stop the smile from spreading across his face. he'll let you sleep for a little longer, he decides. he doesnt care if you get upset with him (you will), you deserve the rest. seungmin's about to finally clear his head of you and actually get some studying done when he locks eyes with a tall blonde from across the room.

god, of all the people.

"oh, hey! seungmin, right? felix's friend?" soobin says in a low voice as he approaches the table.

"yea, soobin right?" stupid fucking name.

"yea. hey- is that y/n?" he nods towards your sleeping figure.

ew. stop looking at her. "oh, yea. she passed out."

"damn, she's really studious, huh? ran into her late last night when she was here all alone." soobin sighs, frowning at you.

seungmin wants to puke at the thought of you spending time alone with soobin. he wants to ask him so many questions like- how long did you talk to her for? what did you guys talk about? how much can i pay you to leave her alone?

"yea, shes hardworking. i admire her for that." seungmin smiles fondly.

"oh... wait- are.. are you guys, like, a thing? or something?" soobin takes a step back and seungmin's breath hitches in his throat.

"cuz if you guys are, i can totally back off, you know?"

seungmin stays silent, weighing his options. he could lie and say you guys were dating, but if you found out, you'd probably hate him and ignore him for the rest of his life and he'd rather die than let that happen. on the other hand, if he tells the truth, soobin would obviously try to pursure you. and he knows you have a little crush on him too.

seungmin bites his lower lip, then shakes his head. "nah, we're just friends." seungmin can feel some bile rise in his throat. not for long, he thinks cockily.

"oh, cool cool. uhm, if you could do me a favor, man? just... i dunno ask her to go to the cafe again this week? maybe i'll work up the courage to ask her out or something." soobin chuckles, cheeks turning a deep red.

seungmin can only nod. finally soobin offers him a small smile and leaves. there's a heavy feeling in seungmin's stomach, almost as if he'd been punched in the gut. he cant even begin to imagine you dating someone else, in fear that he'd just break down right then and there.

its kinda pathetic, really. you're not even his yet and he's already thinking of all the ways he can get soobin to leave you alone. he wants to print a large sign that says "do not approach, angry guard dog will bite" over your head, just to keep everyone else away from you.

god, since when was he this possessive?

he spends the next forty minutes thinking of ways to get you to be his. and when you finally stir awake, the first thing that seungmin says is-

"we should stop going to felix's cafe."

obviously, you dont listen.

you go to felix's cafe anyways, except you're always alone. seungmin doesn't need to know where you go every thursday afternoon while he's in class, anyways. he never told you why he wanted you to stop coming here, but you have a hunch. a tall, blonde, stupidly handsome hunch.

"y/n!" soobin greets you warmly, leaning over the counter to get a better look at your face.

"hey, soob." your cheeks warm.

you know that nothing is going on between you and seungmin, but you can't help but feel guilty doing exactly the opposite of what he asked of you. but something's shifted the past few days you've been spending with seungmin, almost as if you're seeing each other in this new light. you push this thought to the back of your head like you always do, telling soobin your order and waiting for felix at your booth.

by the time soobin brings the food to you, your phone rings.

fuck. its seungmin.

"hello?"

"hey, my classes ended a little early today. where are you?"

"oh, uhm im-"

oh my god lie faster.

"yea?" you can hear him huffing, obviously walking around campus, probably looking for you.

"at the library." you spit, looking outside the window, frozen with paranoia. lying to him feels so so wrong.

"its wednesday, y/n. library's closed."

oh my fucking god, lie better.

"i went to meet felix." you finally admit, shrinking into your seat.

you hear seungmin sigh. "is he out already?"

"no," you mumble.

"so you're alone?"

you hum.

"im on my way."

he hangs up, and you let out a sigh.

finally, felix barges out from the kitchens and quickly clocks out, throwing his apron over his head and hanging it on the hook by the door. he smiles when he sees you, nearly leaping over the counter to get to you.

"hello, my dear y/n." felix hums, kissing you quickly on the cheek and settling on the booth opposite from you.

"hello, my dear lixie." you hum, pushing a plate of waffles in front of him. "for you, your usual."

felix groans with hunger, fixing his plate with a heavy load of syrup and a huge dollop of butter. "so, how are things? any important new updates this week?"

you shrug, taking a sip of your iced coffee. "nothing new, really..... except, i guess...."

felix hums, urging you to continue.

you let out a deep breath, shaking your head. "i think... i think something's going on between seungmin and i."

you bite the inside of your cheek at felix's reaction, mouth agape as he stares blankly at you. it takes him a moment to process before he finally swallows the food in his mouth and he lets out an evil giggle. "oh, this is... oh, hyunjin owes me so much money!"

"you prick!" you gasp, swatting at felix's arm. "you guys bet on us?"

"well, i mean, come on! it was sooo obvious, i mean, it was only a matter of time, you know?" felix shrugs, cutting up another piece of his waffle.

"no, i do not know!" you squeal, piercing the piece with your fork and stuffing it into your mouth, ignoring your friend's whines of protest. "you guys thought seungmin and i would end up together?"

"well yea, everyone with eyes thought so! come on, y/n. he's looked at you like a lovesick puppy since highschool." felix rolls his eyes. "you guys were always together, and he knew you better than all of us combined. not to mention how lifeless you both were the two years you werent talking. i mean seriously, it was like hanging out with a couple of zombies."

your cheeks warm. "but- im still not even sure of how he feels about me."

"wow. love does make you oblivious as fuck, or whatever they say." felix shakes his head, chugging down his vanilla milkshake before he suddenly remembers something.

"does that mean you're gonna let him help you grade the papers for extra credit?"

you freeze. "what?"

"yea, seungmin said he needs to convince you or else he'd fail, or something. you guys talked about it already, or?"

your breath falters, and your brows furrow. "seungmin's failing a class?"

felix swallows. he cant shake off the feeling that he said something he shouldnt have. but he could never keep a secret from you.

"well- yes. his prof said he needed to convince you to help him get extra credit."

"wait, when was this?" you ask, voice stern.

oh, felix is soooo in deep shit. "uhm, like the day you guys started talking again."

your heart drops to your ass. surely, thats not the whole reason why he was so desperate to talk to you again, right? but you cant shake away the feeling, remembering back to highschool when he'd done almost the exact same thing.

but he promised. he promised it'd be different this time, right?

"seungmin told you that he needed to convince me to let him grade some papers?" you clarify.

"yea."

"and what did you say?"

"i uhm- i told him to like, turn on his charm or something along those lines."

you scoff in disbelief.

felix is going to hell. "but, that was my advice before i knew it was you! i just... i know seungmin needed some help and he'd do anything to get a good grade so i figured he was extra desperate because he was borderline failing and i was just so shocked and-"

"felix, just stop talking." you mumble, leaning back against the booth.

felix only nods, wringing his hands in nervousness. he opens his mouth to speak, but you shoot him a glare. he falls silent again, nervously gnawing on his bottom lip.

your mind's racing, going 100 miles an hour as you go through every moment youve had with seungmin this past month. obviously, this favor is not the only reason he tried hard to convince you to talk to him again, right?

but theres a small voice inside of you, the one who remembers the harsh pain seungmin caused that's screaming, telling you to cut him off, shut him out before he can hurt you all over again.

by the time seungmin pulls open the glass door, you've made up your mind.

"he-"

"this is the last time i let you break my heart, kim seungmin." you say firmly, brushing past him.

seungmin can only stand, frozen. his heart drops to his stomach, head going fuzzy as his gaze lands on felix. he opens his mouth to say something, but he cant find the words.

"what did you say?" seungmin asks.

"im sorry, i didnt know, i thought-"

seungmin's rushing out, throwing the door wide open as he runs out into the street. he can feel his heart pumping as he pushes through crowds of people, racing towards you. he can hear his blood rushing, catching sight of your yellow sundress as you're pushing open your apartment building. seungmin's never been a runner, hell, he nearly failed PE in highschool when he was forced to run laps a whole semester. but right now? he feels like the fucking flash.

he yells for you, ignoring the stitch in his side as he manages to somewhat catch up to you. by the time he throws open the heavy metal door to your apartment complex, the elevator doors are closing, your eyes locking with his.

"fuck." seungmin heaves, bending down to rest his hands on his knees. he needs to reach you before you lock him out of your room. he knows how stubborn you can be, you could probably ignore his pleas and incessant knocking for days if you had to.

seungmin gags, shaking his limbs before he bolts up the stairs, taking two steps at a time, pushing his legs to work faster. the backpack on his shoulders is heavy but he could care less. he cant risk losing you again.

sweat flows freely from his forehead by the time he reaches your floor, and by some miracle, he catches you walking down the hall.

"y/n!" he heaves, sliding his bag off his shoulders and leaving it right there in the hall. "please-"

"go away, seungmin." your voice cracks, digging for your keys in your bag.

he shakes his head, jogging up to you before you can close the door in his face. he sticks his shoe in the closing gap, groaning when it gets stuck between your door and the frame.

"what the fuck?" you yell, backing up as seungmin forces his way into your apartment, closing the door behind him.

"no you- you have to hear me out." he's panting, vision going blurry. jesus christ, he was out of shape.

"you want to talk about it?" you challenge, shrugging your coat off and throwing it on the floor.

"yes." he heaves, leaning against the wall.

"okay, lets talk about it. is it true that you wanted to convince me to help you get extra credit?" your hands are crossed in front of you. seungmin's admittedly a little scared.

"yes, but-"

"but what? i wasnt supposed to find out?"

"no! that was before-"

"before what?" you take a step closer, crowding him in.

"before i realized i was in love with you!" seungmin yells, hiding his face in his hands.

you're silent, expression stoic. "you're sick." you whisper, unsure of yourself. your heart is racing, and you take a step back. "dont... dont say that."

"but its the truth!" seungmin's desperate know, tears welling in his eyes. it wasnt supposed to happen like this. he was supposed to take you out, confess his feelings for you properly, but now its all ruined and rushed and- oh, when he gets his hands on lee felix-

"the truth?" you scoff, shaking your head at him. "how am i supposed to believe you? with everything that... that's happened?"

"you're going to have to trust me." seungmin steps forward, hesitant. he can see the doubt in your eyes and it makes him sick. he'd run up 10 flights of stairs if it meant you'd never look at him like that again.

"trust me when i say that i was a fucking fool in highschool for hurting you, and i spend every day thinking about how if i could, i would go back in time to change everything." he takes another step forward, backing you against the door to your bedroom.

"that i wasted two and a half years of my life by not spending them with you, knowing that you were so near me, that i could easily walk up to you but i was too embarrassed, too scared you'd shut me out." seungmin's baring his soul out, but its too late to stop.

"that i thought about you every single day, thought about what could have been if i wasnt so stupid. that ive spent the last few months doing everything i can to prove to you that i would never ever hurt you like that ever again. but with you im just so stupid, i feel like im always doing the wrong things because youre all up in my head taking up all the space and i fucking love that i cant think about anything but you."

you can only stare up at him. you can see the way his gaze flickers away from you, too nervous to maintain eye contact. he reaches out to you, fingers hesitantly brushing against the back of your hand. testing. you pull away from his touch to wipe away the tear that's managed to slip away, clearing your throat. he tilts his head, hands settling firmly on your waist.

"i love you, y/n. please, you have to believe me."

he's waiting for you to say something, anything. he's never poured his heart out like that before, the silence eating away at him as he slowly spirals, overthinking every word he's said.

but then you relax in his hold, pressing your chest subtly against his. and he knows there's hope.

"are you really failing a class?" you whisper, and seungmin can only laugh.

"that's your concern?" he leans down, dragging the tip of his nose against your cheek. he inhales deeply, nuzzling against you.

"well, yes." you gently push him away by the shoulder, looking up at him. "i cant have my boyfriend failing any of his classes."

seungmin smiles, absolutely melting when you wrap your arms around his neck. "oh yea? does that mean you'll let me in on the extra credit?"

"you are on thin, thin ice, seungmin." you warn, reaching up to finally press your lips against his. seungmin absolutely melts, letting out a low groan at your taste. one hand on your waist, seungmin leans into you, reaching behind you to open your bedroom door. you gasp when you lose balance, recovering quickly when seungmin walks you backwards, never once pulling away from you until the back of your knees hit your bed.

you let out a squeal when you fall back, seungmin expertly finding his way in between your legs. "tell me you want me," seungmin commands in between kisses, hands roaming up and down your sides.

"i do. i want you." you breathe, pushing off seungmin's jacket.

"yea?" seungmin hums, pulling back to bunch up your dress until it sits just below your ribcage. he leans back, simply staring down at you with stars in his eyes.

"stop staring at me." you mumble shyly, turning your head to the side.

"dont want to," seungmin hums, quickly throwing his shirt off into a random corner of your room. "ill look at my girl as long as i like." he leans down, capturing your lips with his.

"your girl, hmm?" you hum, smiling as he kisses his way up your stomach, fingers gripping onto the hem of your dress. your breath hitches when his fingers brush against your under boob. he smiles against your skin, looking up at you.

"aren't- arent you going to take my dress off?" you whisper into the air, and seungmin stops his teasing kisses against your hip.

"well, i was going to but then.." he kisses over the fabric, planting a wet kiss in between your breasts before latching onto your neck for a playful bite. "then i thought about how i want to fuck you in it and then take you out to dinner after."

your cheeks grow red, lightly slapping his arm at his vulgarity. "doesnt that sound better, baby?" seungmin hums, playing with the hem of your underwear.

your breath goes shaky as seungmin continues to toy with you, pads of his fingers lightly pressing against your clit from over your underwear, providing the littlest bit of friction, but enough to drive you crazy.

"seungmin, please-"

"please, what?" he teases, hips pressing into your thigh. you can feel him through his sweats, hard and aching against you. he begins to grind against you, gentle enough to tease you and get him off at the same time.

"need you to touch me." you huff, frustrated.

"i am, baby." seungmin chuckles, pads of his fingers pressing against you firmly, trailing down until he teases your entrance, soiling the fabric of your underwear with how wet you are.

"you know what i mean," you whine.

seungmin only hums, lowering his sweats just enough to free his cock. he pulls your underwear to the side, exposing your cunt to the cold air of the room, making you shiver.

"you're so wet, baby. bet i could slide right in, huh?" seungmin teases you with his tip, tapping it firmly against your clit and trailing down to coat himself in you.

"god, just put it in, minnie." you sigh, grabbing at his shoulders.

"minnie?" seungmin smirks, nosing against your jaw. "i like that."

he finally presses in, slowly making sure you feel every inch of him. you wince a bit at the pain, and seungmin notices with a coo. he pulls your hands away from his shoulders to hold against your bed, fingers intertwining with yours.

"i'm sorry, does it hurt?" he coos, slowly pulling out to thrust back in.

"a little, its okay. kiss me."

seungmin obeys, leaning down to kiss you sweetly as he starts at an even pace. he's slow with it, stroking so deep you can feel him in your throat. it feels intimate this way, with his hands in yours, his chest pressed firmly against you. he pants into your mouth, kissing you when you start to moan too loudly.

"tell me you love me." seungmin sighs, resting his forehead against yours.

you nod, "i love you. love you minnie."

seungmin lets out a groan at that, pulling one hand away to sneak in between your bodies, tips of his fingers finding your clit. he starts to move them in circles, your high fast approaching.

"i'm gonna cum," you whine, squeezing his hand.

"cum with me, baby. please," he begs, holding you so tight against him you feel the air knocked out of you with every thrust. you cum with a whine of his name, fingers digging into the back of his hand. his hips stutter before he presses as deep as he can into you, groaning loudly as he mouths at your neck.

you're both sweaty and sticky, but seungmin pays no mind as he collapses completely on top of you, wrapping his limbs around you. he looks up at you when his breathing starts to even, a cheeky grin on his face.

"what," you laugh, pushing him away by the shoulder when he leans in to kiss you.

he loves the sound of your happiness, basking in it as he shifts closer to pull you into his side. you happily comply, ignoring the mess in between your legs in favor of cuddling up to your lover.

"i really do love you." seungmin reassures, and you roll your eyes.

"i love you too. really." you hum, kissing his shoulder. "now clean me up, and dont even think about falling asleep."

seungmin groans, rolling off your bed to reach for a towel to wet. "but we have plenty of time before dinner. we can nap!"

"no, i will nap." seungmin frowns, walking into your bathroom and turning the faucet on.

"and what do you expect me to do?" seungmin says once he returns to the room, eyebrows raised.

"you, will check all the papers left in my bag." seungmin only laughs, leaning down to wipe in between your thighs, careful to get every drop.

"then can we get dinner?" he asks, pout on his lips.

"yes. your treat."

"well, duh."

as you close your eyes and start to drift off to sleep, seungmin only watches, hunched over on your bedroom floor, hundreds of papers scattered in front of him. he prays he'll be able to get it together and pry his eyes away from you to actually get some work done.

he seriously doubts it.

taglist: comment if you want to be added or removed!

@pochamin22 @bee123sthings @ohnocent @hyunchannie017 @r1n4 @heluvschibi @kpop-obsessed-all-the-time @elizalabs3 @uknowme-not @bee123sthings @n034sy

#seung mong!#skz #stray kids #skz smut #skz fanfic #skz fluff #skz angst #seungmin x reader #seungmin smut #seungmin angst #seungmin fluff #skz imagine

2K notes · View notes

venusdews · 3 months ago

Text

sweet serendipity

zayne [黎深] + female reader

synopsis. you disrupt zayne's routine when you stumble into his bookstore. he'd be lying if he said he wouldn't want it to happen again.

genre & contents. romantic meet cute, shopkeeper!zayne, actress!reader, inspired by notting hill (ofc), yearning men (zayne), short n sweet wc ; 2.1k

author's note. i saw a post saying something about librarian zayne and thought wait… let's take that further…. also i just love notting hill and imagining zayne in glasses. enjoy <3

It’s a quiet morning for Zayne.

The sun was coming in delicately through his bookstore’s windows, at the same time it always did. A pale blue mug sits at the register, the one he used everyday to make his cup of coffee. Students from the nearby university were walking briskly past the shop to their 8 AM lectures. Soft piano ballads spilled from his computer into the small space.

Everything was the same.

Some may find it monotonous, this morning routine of his. But to Zayne, he wouldn’t ask for anything else. This is exactly how he liked it.

Zayne was sitting behind the register, ready to tally today’s inventory. In the opening hours of his quaint little bookstore, there was rarely another person with him. Except for his assistant, Yvonne, who came in earlier on the weekends. Customers usually start coming in later in the afternoon, so he used this time to focus on the upkeep his books demanded.

It was a sacred time, just for him.

He takes his blue-inked pen, just about to mark his clipboard when the bell above the door chimes.

Zayne stirs, surprised to hear the sound so early in the morning. He instinctively looks up, a ‘welcome in’ at the tip of his tongue.

But there was no one.

He watches as the door closes on its own, the only sign that he hadn’t just imagined it. His brows furrowing slightly, he stands up, scanning the bookshelves for any sign of life.

Nothing.

Was Zayne hearing things?

He sighs softly, walking around the counter. He needed to make sure he wasn’t going crazy.

He walks down the aisle furthest from the door, slowly peeking around the corner. Zayne doesn’t know why his heart is beating faster. Maybe he was slightly unsettled by the disturbance to his peaceful morning.

And then he sees you.

He stills at the sight, wondering if he’s seeing things now.

There was no way it was you.

Clad in a black jacket, you stand at the other end of the shop. A matching beret sits atop your head and you’re wearing sunglasses, but Zayne easily recognizes your features.

You take a book from the shelf, but you’re distracted. Eyes focused on the windows intensively.

Zayne doesn’t realize he’s walking towards you until he’s only a few feet away. Still, you’re unaware of his presence. He panics, blanking on his words as it seems you’ve left him unable to form a coherent sentence.

Wow, you smell good.

And you’re even prettier up close. Those cameras really didn’t do your beauty justice.

His mouth opens and closes, eyes darting around for something, anything, to distract him from how intoxicating you were.

They land on the book in your hand.

When You Are Dreaming: Part One

“That’s a good choice.” The words slip out before Zayne can stop them.

You jump, whipping your head to face… his chest. Your head tilts upwards, eyes trailing up to meet his. Zayne feels his ears burning, surely turning a bright pink now.

Confusion is clear on your face. “What?”

Your dulcet voice is like music to his ears.

Zayne adjusts the rectangle glasses on his nose, an nervous habit. He clears his throat, pointing to the book in your hands.

You look down, as if you had just become aware of the object in your hands. “Oh,” you whisper softly, more to yourself than him. “Are you a student?”

He can’t help the slight upwards tilt of his lips. “No, I read it for fun.”

“You read academic texts for fun?” It’s a genuine question despite the amused smile on your lips.

“I do.” he answers, unabashedly.

Your smile widens and you flip the book in your hands. Skimming your fingers over the spine, you look at him intensively through your sunglasses. Zayne can’t help the way his face flushes. “Part one, huh? Is the sequel any good?”

“The first one is always better. I think they overshot with a second one.”

You giggle, and Zayne briefly wonders what angel blessed him today.

“I’ll take it then.”

If someone had told him Linkon’s most beloved actress would be standing in front of him, taking his book suggestions, Zayne would have laughed in their face.

Yet, here you were looking at him like he was actually saying something of interest to you.

As he guides you to the register, a soft ‘oh no’ falls from your lips. He turns to you, finding a panicked expression on your face. Zayne follows your gaze, catching sight of the flurry of people holding cameras, looking around expectantly. They were just a few feet outside of the shop, any longer and they would definitely see you in here.

Ah, so that’s why you ran in here.

Your brows furrow cutely, as if you’re planning a grand escape in your head.

Zayne can’t help himself.

“You can… go through the back.”

He can see the way your eyes widen under your shades, not expecting his helping hand. Without another word, he motions you to follow him, through his office to the back door. Zayne holds the door open for you, and you don’t hesitate to step into the alley.

You turn to him, smiling brightly. “Thank you.”

He watches as you quickly walk down the alley and turn. He stands there for a bit longer than he’s like to admit. Maybe hoping to catch sight of you once again. But, a sense of disappointment washes over him as he closes the door. Walking back to his clipboard, he looks around his bookshop.

Everything was the same. As if you had never been there at all.

Zayne picks up his pen once again, only then realizing.

You left with the unpaid book.

And maybe a little more.

· · ─────── ·𖥸· ─────── · ·

Zayne is embarrassed to admit he finds himself looking for you in every person who walks into his store.

Everytime the bell rings, his head shoots up. And everytime it’s not you, his greetings become a little less enthusiastic.

He’s also embarrassed to admit he almost fell from the gliding ladder when he caught sight of a black beret.

It was not you.

Yvonne did not try to hide her giggle.

Zayne had kept his encounter with you a secret, knowing how much of a fan she was. And maybe, he wanted to keep the memory for his own safekeeping.

“Are you expecting someone?” Yvonne eyes Zayne suspiciously, wondering why her calm and collected boss was suddenly looking like a puppy missing its owner.

Zayne stops his writing, looking up from his notepad to Yvonne. She had stopped stocking books, hands on her hips.

“No,” he replies, curt. “Why do you ask?”

She tilts her head, as if to say I don’t believe you.

“Maybe because you keep looking at the door as if you are.”

He looks back to his notepad, suddenly realizing he’s been caught. It was upsetting enough to admit he hadn’t stopped thinking about you since you stood in his shop a week ago. But to have someone else point it out, that was just humiliating.

Not that he had been doing a good job of hiding it.

“You still have three more boxes in the back.”

Yvonne scoffs, rolling her eyes at his blatant misdirection. She shakes her head, but goes back to refilling the shelves.

Zayne walks away, suddenly feeling too hot. As if to mock him, the door chimes once again. Feeling self-conscious, he ignores it, walking into his office.

He also misses the way Yvonne gasps.

Zayne tries to cool himself down by some water, fanning himself with his notepad. What’s gotten into him? Why was he so stuck on you?

He tells himself that maybe he imagined it, that of course he would feel so enthralled by a movie star. Yeah, that’s all it was. He was just starstruck by you. Zayne should forget about it and stop hoping you’ll—

“Zayne!”

Yvonne’s voice takes him out of his spiraling thoughts.

He turns, coming face to face with a… very red Yvonne. She’s smiling, teeth and all, something he thinks he’s never seen since he’s met her. Her eyes are wide, a nervous twinkle as she stares at him.

“Did something happ—”

“Someone is here to see you,” she cuts him off, hands coming up to cover her mouth. It looks as if she’s trying to contain an explosion from going off.

Zayne’s eyes widen slightly.

It couldn’t be…?

Could it?

He adjusts his glasses, about to push past Yvonne. But, he stops in front of the mirror next to the door, adjusting his hair and collar. Just in case. Yvonne giggles like a schoolgirl as he exits his office.

Zayne swears his heart stops for a moment, because standing in his bookshop once again…

is you.

You, sunglasses and beret gone, gorgeous face bare for him to see. For him to see you completely. And, god, those eyes were just as mesmerizing as in the movies.

The sun seems to kiss you, cascading over you in a halo. You’re wearing the same jacket you wore before. And when you see him, you shoot him a blinding smile.

Straight to his heart.

It’s like you want him to collapse right then and there.

“Hi,” you say once he’s standing in front of you. Your hands are holding a book. The one you (technically) stole.

“Hi.” he says back, suddenly feeling out of breath.

“I wanted to return this to you. I know I kind of just ran out of here last time. I promise, I fully intended on paying…” you’re rocking on your feet, eyes darting to the side. Were you… nervous?

He finds delight in that thought.

“You don’t want it anymore?”

You laugh, looking down at the book in your hands. “To be honest, I don’t think I'll have time to read it…”

“And, I just wanted to buy it because you seemed to like it.” You look back up at him, a coy smile playing on your lips.

Was he delusional or were you… flirting?

Behind him, there’s a squeal. He looks back to see Yvonne, who quickly ducks into his office to pretend like she wasn’t just eavesdropping.

You laugh again, and Zayne thinks he could listen to it forever.

“So, anyway,” you start again, and he realizes he hasn’t said a thing. And he did want to, god he did, but he couldn’t seem to find the right words. Zayne was embarrassed to admit how many times he had played this scenario in his head. Yet, you hold the book out to him and he takes it, wordlessly, like an idiot.

“I just came by to drop it off.”

“Well, thank you.”

THANK YOU?

That’s it?

You’re right in front of him and all he can say is thank you?

Zayne feels like the biggest idiot in all of Linkon right now. Standing still and unable to speak to the girl who hasn't left his mind for a second. The girl people would kill to have even a second to speak to.

And he feels like you’re slipping right through his fingers.

You turn, not before flashing him that breathtaking smile of yours again. The type that leaves him wanting more. And all he can do is watch as you walk out of his bookshop, out of his life completely. Leaving nothing behind but the sweet smell of jasmine and cedar.

“Oh my god,” Yvonne is beside him now, leaning over the register counter, hands covering her face. “That is the worst fumble I have ever seen.”

Zayne flushes.

“She was literally right there! Linkon’s darling, coming back for you, and all you say is thank you?!” She tries to mimic his deep voice.

Well, when she says it like that…

“I…”

For the first time, Yvonne sees her stoic, cold boss become speechless.

Zayne stares at the book in his hands as if he is trying to bore holes into it. As if it was at fault for his failures. Sighing, he places the book on the register. What he’s been wishing for has passed him by and he has no one to blame but himself.

Maybe he just wasn’t meant to enter your world. He was just a random shopkeeper in this vast city and you, you were way above his level. What would Linkon’s beloved star actress even be doing with a humble man like himself?

Maybe you two were just ships in the night.

Zayne thinks he hears Yvonne continue to ramble, but he starts to examine the condition of the book. Making sure it was good to put back onto its shelf, where it truly belonged. He opens it, and his eyes widen.

A slip of paper, tucked in between the cover and the first page.

Your name in cursive lettering, a heart doodled at the end of it.

And your number.

416 notes · View notes

mlqueen89 · 1 month ago

Text

Seven | Teamwork

She's a fire sign And I don't really know what that means I'm a cold night And I wanna be close to the heat I don't want to get burned I don't want love like that But I can't go any further 'til I start coming back

Edge of the Earth by The Beeches

pairing: jake “hangman” seresin / ofc (top gun: maverick)

rating: 18+ (minors dni)

warnings/triggers: 🔥smut in overall series

word count: 13,095

summary: ellie plays by jake’s rules to get his help feedback. desperate times call for desperate measures.

looks like the cold front might be on its way out with ellie and jake!

this one was not beta read and i think i wrote a lot of it in a fugue state, high on Benylin (respiratory infections are no joke). so... enjoy? all joking aside, i've been super excited about this chapter. we’re about to get into it with these two!

long wait = long chapter!

❥ playlist ♡ masterlist ♡ taglist ♡ glossary of terms ♡ previous chapter ♡ next chapter ❥

Your destination is on the right.

The map assistant reported her arrival as her tires dropped off the road and into the gravel lot.

Truthfully, the place wasn’t much to look at: a squat, weathered building that looked like it served as a barn in a past life with a tattered and faded banner advertising The Best Damn BBQ Outside of Texas. She swore she’d driven this stretch of the freeway at least four times since she’d been back in California but had never managed to notice this place was here.

Jake was easy to spot.

Leaning against the side of a red pickup, she realized she’d never seen him in anything other than a flight suit, tan Navy issue uniform and... nothing.

Now, he wore a simple white t-shirt that hugged each muscle group and a pair of regular blue jeans. She noted the cowboy boots, with a raised brow.

“You’re really milking this, aren’t you?” Ellie called over as she crunched across the gravel toward him.

“Not sure I follow.” Jake smirked.

That fucker. He followed.

She rolled her eyes, adjusting the strap of the laptop bag on her shoulder.

He was really going to make her say it. Again.

Probably use the memory to pleasure himself later.

Not that she thought about that. Or him.

Except she did.

Explicitly.

She was shaking her head, an etch-a-sketch on her memory. “My asking for your help.”

Jake’s responding brilliant smile caught her somewhere in the lower abdomen, kicked up a cluster of fluttery things she quickly worked to swat away. Dandelion seeds in the wind.

“C’mon then,” he tipped his head toward the restaurant, “let’s get you your help, sweetheart.”

That was a Texan thing, wasn’t it? Sweetheart? Darlin’?

His hand hovered somewhere above her lower back as she stepped forward, the heat of his palm something she could feel where her shirt didn’t meet the hem of her jeans as he corralled her the rest of the way.

Ellie kept her head high as she stepped inside.

This was business.

Fixing the parameters to elevate the test results so she didn’t have to pack up her office in shame.

Business.

Fergus had finally found a spot on the shelf he liked, full sun. She’d finally settled into a rhythm of watering him semi-regularly. He’d grown into his pot with the plant slogan.

Did plants get traumatized from sudden moves to dark bedrooms where she’d undoubtedly wallow in self-pity if Stark voted to pull the plug?

The scent of slow-smoked meat and spice hit her immediately, warm and rich, curling in the air like an invitation.

The place was packed for a Wednesday night, filled with the low hum of conversation and the occasional clang of metal trays, ringing bells and order callouts. Red-checkered tablecloths covered the wooden tables, and faded photos of rodeos and football teams lined the barnboard wood walls.

Jake led the way, past a sign inviting patrons to seat themselves, weaving through the crowd with the ease of someone who had been here before. He picked a booth near the back, away from most of the noise, and waited for Ellie to sit before he slid in across from her.

Ellie set her laptop bag on the table, fingers already working at the zipper.

“Not even gonna take a minute to appreciate the ambiance?” Jake clicked his tongue, arms stretching across the back of the booth as he watched her.

She ignored the way his biceps flexed with the motion, focused instead on pulling out her laptop. “Ambiance doesn’t help me fix the parameters.”

Jake exhaled a slow breath, shaking his head in a way that was more amused than anything, like he expected as much from her. He reached for the laminated menu between them, and she swore she heard the stickiness of it as it separated from the table.

“You’re really somethin’, Rigby. You ever just, I dunno—relax?”

She did.

It was just unfortunate that the last time she’d relaxed was under him, and over him, on him and—

“My work relaxes me,” she shot back with a bit more bite that she’d intended.

His smirk that had started small deepened, but he didn’t look up from the menu. She hated that it made her feel so... exposed.

“Then I think you must be the most relaxed person in this entire state.”

Ellie leveled him with a look. “Seresin.”

He caught her eyes over the top of the menu, shiny under the dim pendant light hanging over the table.

“Rigby,” he mimicked as he signaled to a passing waitress. “Two sweet teas, please.”

She frowned. “Actually, I’m—”

“You’ll like it,” he interrupted, flipping the menu over to glance at the back side. “And if you don’t, well, that’s somethin’ I’ll just have to live with.”

Ellie exhaled sharply, drumming her fingers against the table. Her laptop sat, half out of the bag. “Fine. But once the drinks come, we talk about the adjustments.”

Jake hummed noncommittally, still scanning the menu.

He probably already knew the damn thing by heart and was just trying to make her squirm.

“Tell you what, we’ll get there. But first, let’s play a game.”

Ellie narrowed her eyes at him. “I want you to know I hate the sound of that.”

Still, he pressed on, undeterred. “It’s simple. You guess things about me, and I’ll guess things about you.”

“Or, and hear me out,” she parried dryly, nudging her laptop, “we could just get to work, like we said we would.”

Jake ignored her.

“I’ll go first, as a show of good faith.” He tucked the menu between the wall and the napkin holder, rested an elbow on the table, tilting his head. “You grew up somewhere... rainy, lots of trees. Northwest, I’d guess. Washington or Oregon?”

Ellie blinked, caught off guard.

Jake smirked, tipping his head, as if her silence prompted elaboration on his part. “You’ve got that rain-soaked, tree-hugger edge to you. Bet you were raised around evergreens and overpriced coffee.”

She huffed, but the corner of her mouth tugged up despite herself. “Oregon,” she admitted reluctantly. “West Linn.”

Jake looked pleased with himself. “Lots of trees, I bet.”

Ellie snorted. “Yeah. And rain.”

The waitress buzzed by, dropped off their drinks, and Ellie instinctively reached for hers, grateful for the temporary distraction. Jake wasn’t done.

“Mom still there?” he asked, stirring his tea with his straw. Ellie’s grip on the glass tightened, taking a moment before she swallowed carefully. “Tilly Rigby. And no. She moved around a lot for work.”

She left out the part where moving came with her dad’s work, too. That she was from Oregon, but that she’d spent most of her life on bases in California, one in Florida, briefly.

Jake nodded like he was filing the information away, carefully. “Siblings?”

“None.”

She didn’t need to tell him she’d always wanted one. Maybe a sister. Maybe someone to share clothes with. To talk to about boys. To commiserate living with her dad and surviving her mom’s sad attempts at casseroles. Tuna. Broccoli. Chicken.

He nodded. Took a deep sip of his own tea before he set it down. “And your dad?”

Ellie felt her stomach twist. Knot. Flip.

Jake’s eyes locked with hers across the table for a moment. She looked away. Lifted her tea, took a slow sip. Set it down. Swallowed, hard.

“Pass.”

Ms. Rigby, tell us about your childhood trauma.

Ms. Rigby, why don’t you want to talk about your dad?

Ms. Rigby, when was the last time you responded to any of his phone calls?

She’d long approached any question related to Rick Neven like a congresswoman dodging questions she didn’t have answers for.

Drink water.

Downplay.

Dodge.

Something flickered across Jake’s face, but where she expected he might, he didn’t push. Just sat back, drumming his fingers against the table, curious. In a beat, he nodded at her, “alright. Your turn.”

Ellie huffed, already regretting indulging him. She didn’t have much of a choice though, did she?

Fuck it. She was already well up the creek, sans paddle.

“Fine. You’re from Texas. Obviously.”

She answered the question before he asked it. She’d bet her first born on Jake being a Texan boy. Mostly because she’d read his file, partly because she felt he’d wear a Stetson unironically.

Considering him for a moment—his straight face, his posture—she tapped her finger against her lip before continuing. “Probably some tiny town in the middle of nowhere. Lots of cows.”

Jake’s lips cracked into a slow smirk. “You’d be right. Ten thousand people, give or take. Just as many cattle. One gas station, two bars, and a Friday night football obsession that borders on cult-like.”

Ellie tilted her head, elbow on the table, she propped up her chin on a fist. “I’d bet you were quarterback.”

Jake placed a hand over his heart, mocked a wince. “That hurts, Rigby.”

“So, not quarterback?”

“Oh, I was. But I don’t know I like how quick you were to assume.” He grinned. “Alright, one more. You think I’m an only child?”

Ellie studied him, the easy confidence, the natural charisma. He had a certain way of filling a room, but not in a way that demanded attention—more like someone who had learned how to stake his claim without overshadowing everyone else.

“Oh, definitely not,” she said finally, her tone was almost a laugh. “You don’t give off only-child energy. I bet you have a bunch of siblings.”

Nic was the middle child in a family of eight. She’d once chugged a Kings cup of mixed drinks and curdled Bailey’s to prove she could even though no one had said she couldn’t. Middle child energy was chaotic. A tell. A gremlin fed after midnight.

Jake’s grin turned knowing. “Four. One older brother, three younger sisters.”

Ellie sat back slightly, arms folded. “Middle child confirmed then. That explains a lot.”

Somewhere, a toddler squealed and someone guffawed, notes of a jazzed up “Happy Birthday” and a clapping call and response filling the silence in between.

Jake chuckled. “And what’s that supposed to mean?”

She shrugged. “Just that you probably got away with murder while your older brother took all the heat and your sisters had you wrapped around their fingers.”

Jake lifted his tea in a mock toast. “You’d be correct.”

Ellie shook her head, amused despite herself. “Alright. We played your game. Can we talk about the parameters now?”

Jake sighed, long-suffering but entertained. “Fine, Rigby. Let’s talk about your damn parameters.”

She reached for her bag, pulling out her laptop again, cracking open the screen, tracing her finger over the trackpad to wake it up. “I thought that’s what we were here for.”

On this outing that felt like a date but definitely wasn’t a date.

A not date.

Where he asked her about personal details.

Like a date.

Jake leaned forward, resting his elbows on the table, a smirk that had now become signature still in place. “You’re here to work. I’m here to pry into your personal life and eat.”

Ellie shot him a flat look. “At least you’re honest about it.”

Jake shrugged. “Figured I might as well be. Besides, what problem ever got solved on an empty stomach?”

“Lots, actually. Discount Mac and Cheese got me through grad school.”

Ellie had looked up the numbers, back when she was in college and the only thing she could afford were the cheapest loaves of bread and the deli meat near expiry, price reduced by 30%.

The search had been the first step in the decision-making process on the pros and cons of selling a less important organ to afford her tuition and more than a few days' worth of fresh produce at a time.

In some studies, hunger actually sharpened the thought process. At least that’s what she told herself when she ate leftover Mr. Noodles for breakfast from a chipped Disneyland mug, snagged from Nic’s collection.

“I know you didn’t just try to pitch me poverty an academic advantage...”

Ellie smirked as she sipped her sweet tea when she caught the way Jake was still looking at her—not mocking, not even smug this time. Just quietly amused. Maybe even... impressed?

Could she say that? Jake Seresin, pain in her ass, impressed by her?

He was still watching her, eyes flicking across her face when he leaned back and flagged down the waitress with a quick lift of his fingers.

“Ribs and brisket,” he said with easy confidence. “Extra sauce. Sweet tea.” He glanced at Ellie, a nod of his chin in her direction before she looked away, back to the glow of the screen. “And she’ll have—”

“Nothing,” Ellie said, without missing a beat, her fingers moving steadily as she jotted a note in the margins of her parameter matrix.

When the silence stretched and Ellie glanced up, the waitress was blinking at her, the nib of her pen paused on the notepad in her hand. Jake tilted his head. “You sure?”

“I’m working,” she said simply, looking down again to adjust a slider bar and frowning when the updated model didn’t sit quite right. “I’m not hungry.”

It wasn’t completely untrue. She’d had a granola bar and a yogurt earlier that morning. A single section of a tangerine she promptly forgot about and lost track of in the mess of papers scattered across her desk. The rest of a can of flavoured sparkling water she’d chugged before she realized it had lost its fizz.

She envisioned the empty fridge back at her place and momentarily thought about what she’d scrape together after this. That was a later problem.

Jake waited another beat, but didn’t push, instead handing off the menu with a grin and a “Thanks, darlin’,” before settling back in with that same relaxed energy. The same ease that felt as if they were just two friends out on a normal night—one of them elbows-deep in code.

It was another moment or two of silence before Jake spoke again.

“You should eat something.”

She didn’t answer, already dragging a new variable into the override logic chain.

“So, this—” she nudged the laptop toward Jake, her finger tapping the line of code nestled in between a data spike, “—is where you said it felt off. I widened the margin here,” she pointed, “and added a buffer. If you were flying it, I want to know if you’d feel a delay.”

Jake leaned closer to the screen, scrolled a bit and then, shrugged. “Might. But that’s better than it kicking in too soon.”

“Okay, good, exactly,” she said with a smile, reaching too quickly across the trackpad—where Jake’s fingers still rested—in her haste to note it before it slipped her mind.

Ellie pointedly ignored the way her stomach dipped when her fingers brushed his, and he didn’t move away in any hurry.

She swallowed, as carefully as she could manage, avoided eye contact.

What was this? A Bridgerton reenactment? She wasn’t Kate, he wasn’t Anthony.

She needed to get her head in the game, out of the clouds.

She needed to pull him out from under her skin—where he’d somehow wedged himself before she’d even noticed.

Not like a splinter, but like the ink of a tattoo—warm, alive, part of her now. So deeply woven in, she couldn’t tell where he ended, and she began.

It vexed her.

When the food arrived, Ellie was thankful for the distraction. As the waitress slid the overflowing plate in front of Jake, the smell hit the booth like a punch-smoked meat, spices, the sweetness of the cornbread.

To the very edges of the large plate, was a mountain of unapologetic southern comfort. Ellie, now hyper-focused on the adjustments, did her best to ignore the tiniest, traitorous twist of her stomach, the gurgle as it clenched around nothing.

Pizza. She’d order pizza when she was on her way home. She let the thought repeat until it was a mantra.

Pizza. Pepperoni and cheese with olives. And breadsticks. Also, with cheese. Lots of cheese.

“Still not gonna try any of this?” Jake waved a rib, sticky with BBQ sauce, toward the cornbread tower and the cliff of brisket, hanging dangerously over the edge of his plate.

Ellie gave a half-hearted shake of her head, but didn’t look away from the screen. “I’m fine, really.”

It was only when she saw him shift in her periphery, did she look up.

Across from her, Jake leaned forward slightly, lowering his voice like he was sharing a secret. “Norma’s gonna be real heartbroken if you don’t eat.”

She paused, blinking at him. “Who?”

“Owner,” he said, nodding toward the kitchen beyond a grey swinging door with a steamy, rounded window. “Sweet old lady. Spends all day making this stuff from scratch. You sit here working like her food isn’t worth looking up for, she’s gonna take that real personal.”

Ellie side-eyed him. “You’re laying it on thick, even for you.”

He shrugged. “Maybe. But if you make a woman named Norma cry, I’m not taking responsibility.”

A beat passed. The scent of brisket hung in the air. Ellie let out a quiet sigh, then—without ceremony, but maybe a little bit of theatrics—reached across the table and stole a piece of rib off his plate.

Jake grinned at her like he’d just won a bet he never voiced, his brow quirking up only once as he chewed.

She took a bite and her brows lifted—just slightly.

He didn’t say anything. Just waited.

After a second, she swallowed and flagged down the waitress as she passed by. “Can I actually get a plate of brisket?” she asked. “And some cornbread?”

“You got it.” The waitress smiled wide, tapping her pen on the pad in her hand before she turned back to the kitchen pass.

The low, satisfied whistle that spilled from him might as well have been a quick peel of laughter. She could see him holding it back as she resisted the urge to stick her thumb in her mouth to taste the last tang of the sauce.

“Look at you. Starting to make friends. Might have to get my eyes checked, too.”

Ellie glanced at him, her eyeroll already cued up. She carefully wiped her hands with a napkin she tugged from the dispenser. “Shut up.”

“Ya know, I would, but I think Norma just felt a warm breeze roll through her kitchen.”

Ellie was shaking her head when she turned her laptop back around, already refocused. “You’re kind of insufferable, you know that, right?”

“Some people’d call that charming,” he settled back as if the whole thing had unfolded exactly according to his plan. “Just don’t say I didn’t warn you: this is about to ruin every other barbeque place for you.”

They finished off the food slowly, conversation giving way to focus.

Ellie tapped through the last set of adjusted parameters on her laptop, double-checking her notes and locking in the final values according to Jake’s feedback.

Jake polished off the last of his brisket, picking up a cornbread crumb with one finger and popping it into his mouth with a look of deep satisfaction.

“That should be it,” Ellie closed the laptop with a soft click.

Jake leaned back with a pleased hum. “Not bad for a night’s work.”

When the bill came, Ellie reached for her wallet.

“I got—” Jake started, but she cut him off with a head shake.

“I’m paying for mine.”

He raised both hands in mock surrender. “Didn’t say a word.”

They stepped out into the warm night air, the neon sign above the restaurant humming softly in the darkening sky. Ellie slung her laptop bag over one shoulder, already talking as they made their way toward the lot.

“I’m actually kind of excited for the test runs on Friday. Might actually get through a test without you redlining it in under five minutes. I want to see how it holds up under real conditions—especially with the buffer extension. I think it might actually—”

She stopped mid-sentence when she realized she was alone, the sound of her feet on the gravel loud as she pivoted on the spot, halfway between the restaurant and her car.

Jake wasn’t next to her anymore.

She was halfway through her second scan of the parking lot when she saw him a few yards back, standing at a low iron gate, strings of fairy lights leading into the soft glow of a mini putt course, tucked away beside the restaurant. Beyond the fencing, more string lights hung overhead, giving a soft glow over brightly coloured obstacles—windmills, lighthouses, a small fake volcano—in the middle of the numbered course.

Jake was standing with his back to her, hand on the gate, already holding two putters. When he looked up, he tipped his head, calling her back. Then he watched her; one eyebrow raised like he was waiting to see which way she’d go. She could almost see the challenge in his eyes, even from distance.

Ellie stood frozen halfway between him and her car. Her keys were in her hand.

She could go.

She should go.

This was done—she had the data, the adjustments, Jake’s feedback; the night had served its purpose. He’d helped her like he’d promised.

Hopefully solving her Stark shaped, funding related problem in the process.

And yet... something in her refused to move forward, to close the distance between where she stood and her car door. Something in her hesitated to end the night.

Ellie let out a long sigh, turned and walked back to her car just long enough to stash her laptop bag in the trunk.

“This doesn’t have to be complicated,” she murmured, giving herself a quick moment, her head stuck under the open trunk. “Don’t make it complicated.”

When she stood, she shut the trunk with more force than she intended.

When she crunched across the lot, toward the low gate and the mini putt course beyond, Jake handed her the shorter putter with a grin. The putter with the green grip. She wasn’t about to admit that she found it endearing he kept the putter with the pink grip.

“No laptop?” he asked, clearly amused.

When she grabbed a ball from the tray sitting on the counter, she shrugged. “Thought I’d give my spine a break.”

Jake’s smirk deepened, the divots of his dimples ghosting his cheeks. “I figured I’d give you a lower-pressure shot to—what was it? Wipe the floor with me? You know, at a different game.”

Ellie arched her brow, unable to hold back the scoff. “Because pool didn’t go my way?”

“Exactly.” He winked at her, something easy and natural. She hated the way it made her heart pick up pace. “No stakes this time. Just fun. You know what that is, right?”

He opened the gate wide with a squeal of the hinges and she stepped past him, barely resisting the urge to roll her eyes—but not quite able to fight the small tug at the corner of her mouth. And when Jake’s hand found the small of her back again, guiding her toward the green felt loop-de-loop of the first hole, she didn’t stop him.

She ignored the part of her brain that told her this was nice.

The Astroturf on the third hole was damp under Ellie’s boots, still holding the day’s humidity.

Fake rocks cast soft, early evening shadows across the course. The sound of a fountain burbling near the pirate/Goonies themed hole competed with Jake’s commentary on her latest shot.

Which had gone... poorly.

Correction, it had gone horribly wrong.

Laughably disastrous in the way that meant her ball was now sitting off course, one stroke into a par 2 hole.

“That was—wow,” Jake drew out the word with mock awe.

He stepped up, dropped his ball on the starting point and looked up at her, his face set to the gloat lite setting. “Bold strategy. Let me guess, you thought you’d bank it off the cannon, over the skull, and then completely miss the hole. Iconic.”

Ellie rolled her eyes, waved him off like she had meant to send her ball on an unmanned reconnaissance mission to the fucking moon instead of the hole. In her peripheral, she could see it sitting in a patch of fake palm fronds, a nearby marooned pirate figurine mocking her on a deserted island.

“I was accounting for wind resistance.”

Obviously.

“On a low-lying course?”

“Simulated wind.” She waved at the straightaway piece of green leading up to the fiberglass ship hull. “This whole stretch could be considered a wind tunnel. Maybe you can’t feel it, but some of us are just more in tune.”

Jake smirked, straightening out of his putting stance before he casually turned, leaning on his putter like he had all night to watch her pretend she wasn’t trying to win. “Right. Very spiritual approach to mini golf. I respect it. Tell me, Ms. Cleo, what do the star signs say about my game? Does the Scorpio moon mean I’ll manifest a par on this hole?”

The glare she shot him didn’t hold the heat she wanted—her mouth twitched into the ghost of a smile.

She could say what she wanted about Jake Seresin, but undeniably, he had a way of poking at her that didn’t feel like a challenge to rise to.

It just... landed between them.

A little too easily.

He threw the line, she bit, and he tossed her back. She served; he volleyed.

He lined up his shot and sent the ball curving around the loop-de-loop and straight into the hole. He gave an exaggerated tip of an imaginary hat as it dropped in with the telltale plunk. “Now that was textbook.”

“Ok, Seresin,” Ellie scoffed, offering an exaggerated theatre clap, “try not to pull a muscle patting yourself on the back.”

“You’re not gonna blame wind resistance for that one too, are you?”

Ellie let out a quiet laugh under her breath as she retrieved her rogue ball from the palm tree grove, taking a minute to poke out her tongue at the grimacing pirate on the sandy island.

She didn’t know what the hell she was doing here—playing mini golf with Jake Seresin of all people—but there was something easy about the rhythm they’d fallen into.

They were orbiting each other, never too close, but never too far. Pulled back to each other time and time again by something too complicated to name.

He stayed quiet for a moment, watching her as she set up her shot. He was good at that, she’d noticed: knowing when to go quiet—when other pilots didn’t know, fundamentally, when to shut up. Like silence made them feel smaller, slower. Jake, though… made room with it.

Funny the things you learn about people when you look, Mav had always told her. Everyone’s secretly dying to tell you every little thing you need to know about them. You just have to see it when it happens.

Initially, she’d shoved Jake into that same category. The smart ass, cocky pilot who always felt the need to prove themselves. Show he was better. Tell he was quick and sharp and invincible without showing the work on the equation that brought him there. But now she saw it, possibly, maybe unlikely, but a flicker of something real beneath the shiny, reflective exterior.

“You’ve got a real instinct for flight paths,” he said lightly, neither here nor there. “For someone who doesn’t fly, anyway. That something you picked up from family, or just a natural gift?”

Ellie froze for half a beat—just enough to register that the question wasn’t really about mini putt or the tech. Her grip tightened on the putter, just slightly, before she bent to place her ball on the turf again.

“Guess I just pay attention; lots of extracurricular reading,” she said, tone cool but not frosty.

Another non-answer.

More non-engagement.

Maybe she could really consider a career in politics if her tech shuffled off this mortal coil.

She swung, sending the ball toward the paint chipped pirate ship and missed the hole again. “God, seriously?”

Jake made what sounded like a sympathetic noise. Ellie was thankful he didn’t push the question further. “Well, at least you can take comfort in the fact you’re still better at this than Bob.”

“Hey now, don’t drag Bob into this. He’s not here to defend himself.”

Bob. Her saviour from Teak, Bob.

The quiet, shy, WSO behind Phoenix’s strong instinctual knowing in the drivers’ seat.

The one who reminded her of the nerdy, careful, put-together, respectful guy Nic swore she was into in college, but Ellie suspected was a way to get back at her Omega Kapa ex. Justin? Or Chad? Maybe it was Austin...

If Ellie could go back, she’d take Phoenix and Bob over Teak and Lover in a fraction of a heartbeat.

“Exactly why it’s the best time to do it.”

She stepped forward to take her next, embarrassing attempt.

As she swung her putter, her mind buzzed, louder now.

Jake hadn’t said her dad. Hadn’t asked for specifics, but she didn’t like how close the question had skirted the truth.

When she finally sunk the ball, she was two over par and Jake was already scribbling on the scorecard. When he looked up, tucking the card and pencil away in his back pocket, he was grinning. “Don’t worry, Darlin’. You’ll get me back on the next hole.”

Before she could stop herself, Ellie raised her brow at him. “Bold of you to assume I don’t just sabotage your putter by the tenth hole, and you’re forced to forfeit.”

His grin widened, slow and amused, like she’d just said something deeply entertaining, like she’d proven a point he hadn’t shared aloud. “You know,” he said, stepping closer, “I think I’m starting to like how your brain works.”

She rolled her eyes but couldn’t help smiling, wide, genuine.

“I mean it,” Jake added, easy. The sound of his voice was just a low rumble that caught Ellie in the stomach. “Cutthroat. Competitive. Fiery. Could be dangerous in the right conditions.”

“Maybe these are the right conditions and the next time you flatter me,” Ellie paused for effect, “I aim for your kneecaps on my follow through swing.”

Jake let out a low, genuine laugh. “Just confirming what I suspected all along.”

She walked past him toward the next hole, letting her shoulder brush his just enough to be deliberate.

She didn’t look at him—didn’t need to. She could feel his eyes on her, could sense it in the heat on the back of her neck. This time, she leaned into it. She had him. His attention. She just wasn’t sure what she wanted to do with it yet.

In the very brief history of them, the emerging pattern had been simple: She ran. He chased. But standing still? Letting him catch up with her? She watched the shift—small, seismic—saw the ground tilt under his feet.

She excelled where she was underestimated, thrived in mystery.

“Careful, Seresin,” she threw it over her shoulder, an afterthought. “Some of us play dirty.”

Behind her, Jake’s voice followed, warm and thoroughly entertained. “Yeah, and some of us like it that way.”

The fourth hole had a quaint, over-the-top charm—paint-chipped posts holding up a miniature covered bridge, just wide enough for the ball to pass through if the angle was perfect.

A narrow footbridge arched over a thin stream beside it, leading to the back of the covered bridge. It was strung with fairy lights—probably prettier later at night

Ellie liked it more than she expected to. It reminded her of old road trips with her mom when she was younger, when her dad was away on deployment. Just her, her mom, a random city a few hours outside of wherever they’d been posted, mini putt and ice cream.

She didn’t mention that.

Instead, she observed.

Jake stood on the green, lining up his shot with exaggerated concentration, tongue tucked into the corner of his mouth like a kid.

She resisted the urge to laugh as he muttered something low to himself, maybe the ball. She watched as he took a few practice swings before he straightened out and tapped the ball.

It bumped the edge of the covered bridge and bounced straight back toward him.

This time, Ellie barked a laugh. “Beautiful form. Really elegant, Lieutenant.”

He let out a sigh and stepped aside, sweeping a hand dramatically toward the bridge as his ball rocked before it settled right back near his foot where it started. “By all means, hotshot. Show me how it’s done.”

“Gladly.”

Ellie stepped up with a smug little smile, cleared her throat, squared her stance, and knocked the ball with an efficient little tap of her putter.

No pretense. No ball whispering. No practice swings.

It sailed clean through the covered bridge, hit the back wall of the cup on the other side, and rimmed out.

Jake tried not to grin, but Ellie could see him losing the battle from the corner of her eye. “Oof. So close, Rigby.”

“Don’t even.” She pointed her putter at him like a warning. “I will absolutely unscrew your putter head and toss it in that stream.”

“God,” he muttered, clearly delighted as he replaced his ball on the green and knocked it through the drawbridge on his next shot, “you’re so competitive. It’s kind of adorable.”

She rolled her eyes but didn’t argue.

They crossed the footbridge, and Ellie glanced over at him, her pace falling in step with his. For a second, she studied the way the low lights caught on the edge of his jaw, softened the planes of his face.

It surprised her, how easy it felt—how not on guard she was when she was around him now.

Like tonight, with brisket and cornbread, he had dismantled her walls before she knew to throw them up. A trojan horse of meat and sweet bread.

Her next words were out without meaning to lend sound to them, barely a blip on the filter she usually maintained between her brain and her mouth, voice casual but sincere: “They tell me you’re the best.”

She anonymized it. Like she was reading it off a crumpled complaint card from a break room box.

Jake has a distinct asshole vibe.

When I asked why he was tired, he told me to “ask your mom.” My mother is a Christian woman.

Would not trust him with a Roomba, let alone a fighter jet.

She’d read his file, in greater detail than she might have liked. Objectively speaking, no one had to tell her he was the best.

Jake tilted his head, like he wasn’t sure if it was a compliment or a setup. “Yeah? Should I be asking who they are?”

“I mean, Hangman,” she said, one brow arched, pushing past the question like he hadn’t asked. “You don’t get a call sign like that for being mediocre.”

She stoked his ego, fed it the fuel it craved. She wanted to see how he burned it. What was left when he digested the compliment.

He let out a short laugh. “That’s debatable. Some would argue it’s for being a pain in the ass or for leaving my wingmen to sit in my wash. Ask Bradshaw, he’s got a few stories.”

Ellie shrugged.

Rooster had never spoken badly of Jake, but she knew he was hinting at things she never asked more about. When he told her how to handle Jake; how he gave Jake grace when all Ellie wanted to do was nail him to the wall over “flying like an asshole” after that first test flight.

“So, I guess the next, most obvious, question is… why’d you become a pilot? Was it a family thing, or just something you knew you’d be good at?”

Her eyes flicked up to him, studied the side of his face in the softness of the string lights, the curve of his jaw, the shadow of stubble. For once, she wasn’t trying to read him. She just wanted to know, know what his motivations were, what he chased when he flew like a bat out of hell.

Jake clicked his tongue, but didn’t answer right away. The question hung between them, carried lightly on the sound of water trickling beneath the footbridge. He looked ahead, then back at her, the usual smirk gentled into something closer to real.

He wiped his thumb across his bottom lip before he finally spoke, the words coming out on a dry chuckle. An inside joke, maybe. “Bit of both.”

Ellie watched the way he rolled the golf ball in his hand, casually. She didn’t interrupt, just kept pace with him steadily.

“Dad flew for a bit. Not the same kind of flying, but… I grew up around it. He wanted me to do something safer. Maybe take over the ranch. I didn’t listen. Couldn’t imagine herding cattle and never leaving Kerrville. Even then.”

There was no universe in which Ellie could imagine Jake Seresin being a “yes, sir” man, even in childhood. If she looked at him now, blurred her eyes just right, she could almost see a younger version of him, respectfully, telling his dad he’d fly, even if it killed him.

That ever present middle child energy probably helped.

Ellie nodded, quiet, considering, choosing her next words carefully. “Would’ve been weird if you had, I think.”

Jake smiled. “Yeah. Listening’s not really my strong suit.”

“No kidding.” She pointedly drew her eyes to him, from head to toe, before she glanced away, fighting the tug at her mouth. “I mean, I can’t imagine you in a t-shirt, jeans, cowboy boots and a Stetson, chewing on sweetgrass while you tend to the cows.”

His eyes were twinkling when he looked at her, the fairy lights illuminating the flecks of blue in the seafoam of his iris. “So, you admit you fantasize about me then, Rigby?” His brilliant smile was full now, highlighting laugh lines.

“I think I’ll take that to my grave if you don’t mind.”

They reached the next tee box, the ensuing quiet stretching into something that didn’t feel awkward or weighty—just there. Shared. Ellie wasn’t sure what had shifted between them or even when, but something had. And for once, she wasn’t in a rush to undo it, to fill the silence.

The sixth hole had a tricky setup—pure chaos disguised as kitsch.

A mini water tower teetered at the top of a small incline, rigged so water poured down the slope every few minutes after a bucket overhead filled and tipped. Timing the shot was half the battle; the other half was hoping the water didn’t catch your ball mid-roll and send it careening off course.

Jake stood off to the side, arms crossed, watching. Ellie took a minute, judging the cycle with narrowed eyes like she was timing a missile strike.

If she was here with her mom, Tilly would have started counting out loud, out of order, trying to distract her.

Ellie knew she didn’t get the competitive streak from Hollywood.

“You’ve got that look again,” Jake interrupted, halfway through her first count of the cycle, “the one that says you’re calculating trajectories in your head.”

“That’s because I am,” Ellie replied simply after she finished the count just as the bucket started to tip, unleashing the concentrated rush of water. “Don’t start acting like that’s not how this game should be played.”

Ten seconds to fill.

Five seconds to fully empty before it tipped back up to begin the cycle again.

“So, on the subject of trajectories...” Jake smirked, then nudged the conversation sideways, out to left field. “I gotta ask—how is it that you know Mav, anyway? You two seem pretty close.”

Ellie didn’t flinch, didn’t point out that his question had nothing to do with trajectories.

Quietly, her posture shifted, a touch more upright as she dropped the ball onto the felted green.

There was another cycle of fill and dump before she found the words, sussed out how she would twist her response just enough away from the truth. Avoid direct impact, minimize the damage.

“Met a while back,” she sighed, careful not to oversell the casual of it all, as her eyes shifted back to the water tower which had already spilled again. “We crossed paths on a project a few years ago.”

Jake hummed and Ellie knew from the sound of it: he wasn’t buying 100% of what she was selling. But he didn’t call her on it either. “Huh. Funny. I saved the guy’s life, and he still gives me grief. You? He talks to like a proud uncle.”

Ellie looked at him then, briefly sharp, until she trained her face to say less. When she was composed enough, she offered him a quiet shrug, “maybe he just likes me better.”

“That,” Jake smirked, running a hand through his hair, “I can’t argue with.”

The bucket gave its telltale groan, beginning its slow tip. Ellie waited—one beat, two—then tapped the ball just as the last splash hit the turf. The ball coasted easily up the incline, passed clean under the dripping tower, and curved into the hole. Clean. Simple. One stroke under par.

She kicked up her heel behind her like she was taking a victory lap and turned to face him, eyes shining.

“Eat it, Seresin.”

Jake let out a laugh, low and genuine, as she strode past him, head held high, to retrieve her ball. His eyes followed, his head already shaking. “I take it back, you’re kind of annoying.”

“You love it.”

“I didn’t say that.”

“No,” she said, tossing him a smug look over her shoulder. “But you’re thinking it.”

The truth was—she was enjoying this.

All of it.

The teasing. The game. The way Jake didn’t press too hard when she dodged his questions but let her know he knew she was dodging them.

For the first time in a long time, she felt oddly light. Almost stupidly at ease.

Like the air around her had thinned out just enough for her to float.

The tumor had to be growing. Burrowing into some critical part of her brain that managed caution and boundaries and all the sharp edges she usually kept between herself, and guys like him.

It felt like standing on the edge of something unknown and mysterious, but instead of cautious and careful, standing in a tourist trap full of fiberglass structures and novelty obstacles, she felt good.

She felt normal.

The ninth hole was absurd in the best way. A deep level of unserious in a way that almost made it art. Fiberglass and “get-along little doggy” energy in equal measure.

A miniature rodeo ring sat smack in the middle of the green, complete with a tiny corral, a few fake hay bales, and a wooden cutout of a cowboy frozen mid-buck atop a rearing bronco. The hole sat just beyond the ring, tucked behind one of the pinto’s painted hooves.

Somewhere within the setup, a tiny speaker played the occasional, tinny “Yeehaw!” on loop.

Ellie leaned on her putter, watching Jake line up his second shot.

He crouched with exaggerated focus, his lips pursed like this was a championship and not a fiberglass fantasy world behind a barbecue joint. She wondered if at any moment, he’d request pin-drop silence before he committed to a shot.

God, he was annoying. Annoying and annoyingly good at selling the whole golden-boy act. Did women really fall for this? Maybe Ellie couldn’t judge, since she, herself, had indeed... fallen for it. By her count (because Jake was hoarding the scorecard), they were neck and neck—Ellie had caught up after Jake lost a ball to the water hazard on the seventh hole, something she still hadn’t stopped teasing him about. His swing had been too aggressive, too showy, and now he was playing catch-up.

“Do you always fly like that,” she asked lightly, “or do you dial it down when you’re not trying to prove something?”

“You sound like my CO in Lemoore,” Jake laughed, quick, dry as he adjusted his stance. “I think he used the word ‘reckless’—that what you mean?”

“I mean loud. Fast. Show-offy.”

He glanced over his shoulder at her, grinning. “You say that like it’s a bad thing.”

Ellie shrugged, like it didn’t matter—but it did, a little. She wasn’t needling him. Not this time. She just wanted to know. And maybe it was because he’d been asking about her all night—or maybe because, in spite of herself, she liked hearing him talk about flying in his own words.

Jake tapped the ball. It skimmed through the narrow space between the bronco’s legs, hit the far edge of the ring, curved—

And missed the hole by half an inch.

He winced, muttered “unreal,” and dragged a hand through his hair.

Ellie bit back a grin. If she landed this one on par, she could pull ahead. Set the tone.

“It’s not not a bad thing,” she said, stepping forward.

Jake straightened. “I flew with this old-school Top Gun guy once—type who could land a bird on a carrier in a storm blindfolded. Real cowboy in the sky. Got me thinking I should try being more like that.”

Her smile dimmed—not because it wasn’t charming, but because of how he said it.

Cowboy in the sky. Her dad used to use that phrase. Reverent. Like flying wasn’t just a career—it was a calling.

It set off a twinge, something sharp in her chest. Her dad had been that kind of myth once—heroic, untouchable. Cool, confident. Wholly unbothered.

Until he wasn’t.

Jake didn’t look at her when he said it, but she felt the shape of it hanging between them. Like he’d thrown a line, waiting to see if she’d catch it.

She didn’t.

Instead, she looked down at her ball, focused on the paint-chipped bronco like it hadn’t just sucker-punched her chest. “Must’ve been something,” she said, light, practiced.

“He was,” Jake answered. “Last I heard, retired to Italy.”

The quiet between them stretched—not awkward, just there. Ellie stepped up to the tee, shook off the weight in her chest, and sank the hole in two.

When she turned, Jake was watching her with a grin that, for once, didn’t feel like a challenge. Just… appreciation.

“I think that means I’m ahead now.” She tipped her chin toward him, tone bone-dry. “So, eyes on the green, Seresin. Unless you’re planning to lose gracefully. Wouldn’t want you blaming your tragic mini putt downfall on me being distracting.”

Jake smirked, already strolling toward the next hole. “Barely ahead,” he tossed back. “And only because that damn water tower had it out for me.”

The eleventh hole was set on a fake cliffside with a little white-and-red lighthouse perched at the precipice.

The green wound its way up a spiraling path dotted with jagged fake rocks and a rotating beacon that clicked softly as it spun. The whole thing was dramatic and charmingly oversized, and somehow it still smelled faintly of sunscreen and plastic turf in the way an air freshener called “Hawaiian Breeze” smelled vaguely like hibiscus and sand.

Jake crouched beside his ball, squinting at the slope with an intensity that suggested he was planning a real approach vector. Ellie leaned lightly on her putter, watching him with a tilt of her head, the lighthouse’s sweeping light catching in her eyes for a beat before moving on.

She let the question come out quieter than the ones before, like it had snuck up on her as much as it did him.

“Have you ever seriously screwed up in the air?”

Jake froze—not visibly, not in a way most people would notice. But Ellie had spent enough time with him now to catch the barely-there pause, the flicker of something heavier sitting behind his eyes for just a fraction of a second when he looked up.

“Why?” he asked, looking up—casual on the surface but a little too measured underneath. “You got a theory going? Building a profile for all your test pilots?”

Ellie shrugged, trying not to overplay her own curiosity. “Just wondering. You carry yourself like you’ve never made a mistake in your life. Figured maybe I’d get to see the chink in the armor.”

Jake smiled faintly, but it didn’t reach his eyes this time. He stood, rolling the ball back and forth between his hands. “Yeah,” he said finally. “I have.”

That surprised her. Not the admission—just the ease of it, or the lack of resistance.

“Want to know what it was?” he added, looking at her now.

Ellie hesitated, then, she could feel herself nodding. “If you want to tell me.”

Jake tapped the ball once against his putter, thinking. “It was early on. Post–Top Gun, but not by much. I got cocky on a turn during an exercise with my home squadron. Pushed too hard trying to outfly the guy on my tail. Pulled too many Gs too fast, lost situational awareness. Came damn close to a G-LOC.” He exhaled through his nose. “Woke up to my backseater screaming, every damn alarm going off and the ocean way closer than it should’ve been.”

Ellie stared at him, eyebrows lifting. “Jesus.”

“Yeah.” He offered a weak smile. “They grounded me for a while. Made me sit with that one.”

That wasn’t the data she expected, but it was the kind she trusted more than numbers.

It was playing across her face as she frowned slightly. “That… wasn’t in your file.”

Jake shook his head before she could finish. “It wouldn’t have been. Internal incident, scrubbed from record. They wanted to protect the squadron. And me, probably.”

She didn’t say anything at first. Just let it hang there.

“Why tell me?” she asked softly.

Jake met her gaze, quiet for a moment before he replied. “Because I think you’re the kind of person who already knows everyone screws up. You just want to see if I’ll admit it.”

Ellie’s lips tugged up into something small. Not quite a smile, but close. “That wasn’t a test.”

He stepped up to take his shot. “Sure it wasn’t.”

Jake hit the ball—too hard at first, but it clipped the edge of one of the rocks and bounced into the spiraling path like he’d meant it to. It curled around the curve and slipped neatly into the cup, disappearing with a soft plink.

He turned and winked. “Still got it.”

She didn’t mean to notice the way his fingers curled around the putter, steady and loose like he wasn’t trying too hard—but of course she did. Just like she clocked the shift in his voice, low and easy, warm enough to slide under her skin if she let it.

Ellie rolled her eyes, but there was a flicker of warmth behind it. “That was definitely a fluke. No way you planned that.”

“Guess you’ll never know,” Jake said, handing her the ball from the tray, fingers brushing hers briefly. “Try not to choke under the pressure, Rigby.”

She stepped up, squared her stance. “You saying that out of concern, or just because you like watching me prove you wrong?”

Jake smiled. “Yes.”

She took the shot.

The twelfth hole had a medieval theme—naturally.

A miniature stone castle rose up from the green, complete with a foam moat and a slowly lowering drawbridge. At the top of the ramp, a tiny animatronic knight in gleaming plastic armor pivoted back and forth, halberd swinging lazily in timed arcs that could knock an off-angle ball clean off the course.

Ellie crouched near the tee, squinting at the layout, her ball balanced between her fingers. “If I can angle the shot just right off the left curve here,” she murmured, mostly to herself, “and time it so it slips past the knight’s swing while the drawbridge is dropping, the kinetic deflection might push it right into the center lane. Sort of like accounting for crosswind shear when you’re dealing with intersecting velocity vectors—” “Crosswind what now?” Jake asked, leaning on his putter beside her, lips twitching. She didn’t even look at him—just smirked. “You know exactly what a crosswind is, Seresin. I think you just like hearing me say it.”

“Guilty.” Jake grinned. “But come on, Rigby. You have to know how stupid hot it is when you talk like that.” She rolled her eyes but stepped up anyway, adjusted her grip, and sent the ball on a clean arc up the ramp.

It skimmed the inner curve, dodged the knight’s swing by a hair, and struck the descending drawbridge at just the right moment—bouncing off the edge and straight through the castle gate. A moment later, the satisfying clink of the ball dropping into the cup echoed through the turreted plastic.

Ellie straightened with a self-satisfied smile, but Jake was still watching her like she’d just solved cold fusion in front of him.

“What?” she asked, brushing a strand of hair behind her ear.

He leaned in slightly, eyes dancing. “I’m serious. Vectors. Wind shear. Real-time deflection. You just made physics sound like foreplay.”

Ellie blinked, caught off guard. Her ears flushed a little despite herself.

“Oh my God,” she muttered, turning away toward the next hole.

It was stupid, how one sentence could make her feel like a whiteboard, all her inner workings scrawled in bright marker. Unnervingly visible. Uncharacteristically loud. Unconditionally wanted.

Jake followed, chuckling under his breath. “I’m serious. That was like… NASA dirty talk.”

“Stop,” she warned, half-laughing now.

He leaned in as they walked. “Say ‘relative velocity’ just one more time.”

“I will hit you with this putter, Seresin.”

Jake clicked his tongue, “worth it.”

The fourteenth hole was bottlenecked.

A trio of teenagers in front of them were taking their sweet time with a windmill setup, laughing too loud and arguing over who cheated on the last hole.

Ellie didn’t mind the break in pace—her score was up, her swing had evened out, and Jake had just come back from the little refreshment shack with two cold bottles of beer.

He handed her one, condensation slick against her palm. She took it, twisted off the cap, and glanced up at him as he leaned casually against a weathered picnic table nearby—one foot braced on the bench, posture all confidence and sunset ease.

“So,” he said, voice easy but eyes trained on her with that laser-sharp Seresin curiosity, “be honest—was schooling hotshot pilots with that big brain of yours always the dream? Or was this just the backup plan after villainy school didn’t pan out?”

Ellie snorted into her beer. “Wow. That’s the line you’re going with tonight?”

He gave a one-shoulder shrug and a smirk. “Just trying to get a sense of the origin story, Rigby. Genius like yours doesn’t just show up one day.”

She didn’t answer right away. Just took a long pull from the bottle, the cold settled low in her chest, clear and sharp. Like it knew exactly where to land. A few feet away, the windmill’s blades spun lazily.

“I liked planes,” she said finally. “Figuring out how they worked, why they flew. The math made sense when nothing else did. My brain just… clicked with it.”

The coles notes version of it all. Easily processed. A nugget of truth buried beneath false flags.

Jake nodded, saying nothing.

“I didn’t think I’d end up in this lane. I thought I’d go into engineering—build better systems, maybe make flight less of a gamble. But then I sat in on a lecture once. Radar telemetry. Flight paths. It was like—” she shrugged. “Someone flipped a switch.”

She looked at him sidelong. He was actually listening. Not nodding out of politeness, not filling the silence just to say something—just there. Really there. Like he was waiting for her to say more without expecting it.

“I didn’t want to be in the air,” she added. “But I wanted to understand everything that happened up there. Every variable. Every edge-case. Every way to fix what breaks.”

Jake tipped his beer toward her. “Backup plan sounds like a hell of a plan A.”

Ellie smirked, tapping the neck of her bottle against his. “Villainy school would’ve hated my flair for precision.”

“Oh, absolutely. You’d have taken over the syllabus by week two.”

She laughed. For a second—just a beat—everything heavy fell away. Work. History. The tightrope between here and wherever her brain lived most days. It went quiet.

The windmill clicked as it rotated. That stupid little metronome of sound beneath it all that kept the moment whole, grounded.

“C’mon, Seresin,” she said, setting her beer down. “You’re up.”

Jake stepped to the tee, but not before tossing her a grin over his shoulder. “Try not to be too heartbroken when I reclaim my lead.”

Ellie leaned back against the table and took another sip, smiling into the bottle like it had said something funny.

The fifteenth hole was built like a mini airstrip—complete with faux runway lights embedded in the turf and a tiny control tower off to the side. The sun was getting lower, painting the whole place in a soft amber light that made it easier to forget what kind of day it had started as.

Ellie watched Jake crouch low to line up his shot, tongue caught lightly between his teeth in concentration.

She knew the second he saw her watching because his smirk made a reappearance.

“You always size people up this fast,” he asked, not looking away from the ball, “or am I just special?”

Ellie arched a brow, resting her putter against her leg. “You’re loud. You make everything a performance. You deflect like your life depends on it but you’re more observant than you let on.”

Jake straightened, blinking once, maybe surprised she answered seriously.

She gave him a crooked smile and added, “But yeah, sure. You’re also just special. Like a limited-edition action figure. With impulse control issues for an accessory.”

That pulled a laugh out of him—low and warm—and he held his hands up in surrender. “Guilty. But you’re not wrong.”

Ellie stepped up for her own shot, tapping the ball and watching it roll just past the hole. She groaned and sighed, “Figures. Too much force.”

Jake tilted his head. “Said the woman with surgical control over crosswind drag simulations.”

“The mini putt gods don’t respect science.”

Jake chuckled again, still watching her with that same amused, curious look. And Ellie could feel it creeping in—that uneasy ease. Like maybe she wasn’t just analyzing him. Maybe he was doing the same to her. And somehow, it didn’t feel like a threat.

The sixteenth hole had a safari theme—sort of.

At least, that was the assumption based on the patchy plastic grass, zebra-print fencing, and the giant purple hippo with its gaping mouth parked smack in the middle of the green. A sign above the obstacle read “Hungry for a Hole-in-One!” in uneven letters that looked like they’d been painted by a seven-year-old on a sugar high.

Ellie stood at the tee, eyeing the hippo like it didn’t belong.

“Okay,” she said, squinting. “If I bank left, past the tree stump, I can aim for the back wall and bounce clean into the mouth before it closes.”

Jake gave a low whistle, leaning on the numbered post for the course like it was a bar stool. “You always this strategic with children’s games?”

She didn’t look up. “It’s not strategy, it’s physics. That jaw’s on a three-second delay. You just have to time the angle and speed.”

He grinned. “You say that, but I’m not convinced you haven’t been out here practicing.”

Ellie rolled her eyes and adjusted her stance. “I’ve had better things to do than master hippo equations.”

She lined up and hit the ball. It banked exactly where she said it would, clipped the inside of the tree stump, hit the far wall, and—right on cue—slid neatly into the hippo’s mouth just before it chomped shut again. The sound of the ball dropping into the cup was deeply satisfying.

Jake let out a breath, watching her. “Seriously. Weaponize this brain of yours and you could take over the world.”

Ellie gave him a sidelong glance as she stepped away from the green. “What about you? Were you always this competitive, or is that a ‘growing up with sisters’ thing?”

Jake snorted, the sound short and unguarded. “Let’s just say, if you’ve never been ambushed with glitter and a curling iron, you haven’t known true psychological warfare.”

Ellie leaned on her own putter, expression softening just a touch. “Survival instincts, huh?”

“Exactly. I still twitch when I smell bubblegum-scented shampoo.”

She watched him set up, the corners of her mouth twitching. “Tell me you cried.”

“Oh, I wept,” Jake said without missing a beat. “It was a layered trauma. Glitter everywhere.”

She laughed—genuine and light—and something in Jake’s shoulders loosened at the sound.

He took the shot. It clacked against the stump, missed the bounce by a hair, and got caught in the hippo’s jaws just as they closed.

“Damn,” he muttered.

Ellie patted his shoulder as she passed him. “Guess survival instincts only get you so far.”

He looked back at her, smirking. “Pretty sure I’m still winning.”

“Not the hole-in-one race,” she said, breezy, smug, already walking like she had the crown in her back pocket.

Jake chuckled and fell into step beside her as they headed for the final hole, a lightness between them that hadn’t been there a week ago—something building, quiet and unmistakable.

The eighteenth hole looked like it had been slapped together as an afterthought—flat green, standard windmill, one rotating obstacle like a tired metaphor. Ellie eyed it with a touch of disappointment. After knights and jungle animals, this one felt like the designers had just given up. A copy and paste from a previous hole with slight change in colour.

She crouched anyway, reading the timing of the spinning blades, calculating the best window. One more clean putt and she’d have him by two strokes. Maybe three, if he got cocky and tried to overcompensate like he had on the hippo hole.

Jake’s voice drifted toward her, almost casual. “Can I ask you something?”

Ellie didn’t look up, eyes tracing the path she willed her ball to take. “You mean besides what wind drag, and hippos have in common?”

He let out a laugh behind her, and she caught the sound of his putter shifting on his shoulders. Her lips twitched before she could stop them.

“Yeah, besides that.”

She took her shot, letting the ball roll just short of the windmill, right on cue. Easy. Planned.

And then he asked it, calm, casual, like it didn’t weigh heavy between them.

“Why now?”

Two words.

Casual.

Her spine stiffened like he’d hit a pressure point she didn’t know she was guarding. When she looked at him again, he wasn’t watching her. It gave her the briefest of moments to recover.

Play dumb. It wouldn’t hold water—not with him—but maybe it’d buy her time to come up with a version that hurt less.

“What do you mean?”

“My help. Why ask now?” He clarified without lending words to what she knew he might have said instead. You know what I’m talking about, but I’ll spell it out anyway.

“What? Because you think I’m too proud to admit that you might be useful?” she replied, voice dry as usual, but she knew it didn’t land like she’d wanted it to.

She could tell by the way he was watching her. He wasn’t smirking. Wasn’t goading. Just... watching her. Still. Like maybe the silence might spill something if he held it long enough. Like she might incriminate herself.

She exhaled, a quiet, measured breath that didn’t quite ease the tightness in her chest, even when the air was out.

There were ten different versions of the truth she could offer. None, clean. None without underscoring the ticking clock. Each one sharper, messier, more real than the last.

Because if she told him the truth—that she was out of time, that Stark was already circling the slow dying of her tech like a buzzard waiting for the last breath....

It wouldn’t just be admitting she needed him.

It would be admitting she might have bet her whole career on the wrong damn play.

“Maybe I thought collaboration would be more productive than butting heads and snarking each other within an inch of our collective lives,” she shrugged, her voice even, as truthful as she could manage. “Radical, I know.”

There, she’d said it.

It lived now, between them.

Controlled. Mostly safe. A small, sliver of truth, wrapped in the comforting, hardened shell of reason.

“You could’ve asked Rooster,” he said too fast, like he’d practiced the line in the event of that response from her. Ellie almost heard the edge of something in his voice, like he was hoping she hadn’t asked because she was desperate, out of options.

It was brief, the static between radio stations as it scanned for a stronger signal.

Ellie scoffed before she could stop herself, brow raised as she turned her gaze on him. “I could still ask Rooster if you’re bored.”

The corner of his mouth tugged, but his eyes… they were still on her, sharp, yet warm. There was something behind his gaze—something he wasn’t saying. Like he didn’t quite buy her answer. Like he felt the edges of a shift he didn’t fully understand yet.

“Didn’t say I was bored,” he said, stepping a little closer. “I’m just trying to figure out if this is about the tech… or something else.”

The question landed hard—low in her stomach, coiled and tight like something waiting to escape.

She didn’t flinch. Didn’t blink.

Just turned back to the green, like she could outmaneuver the heat of it by focusing on spin and angles. On anything else. In the quiet, she tapped the ball like it was the easiest thing in the world. Straight through. Past the spinning arms. Right into the cup. Par for the hole.

Don Quixote had nothing on her.

“Guess you’ll have to keep showing up to find out, Hangman,” she called over her shoulder, already walking away.

But even as she put distance between them, her heart didn’t settle. It thudded with every step—louder than it should have.

Jake had a talent for asking questions that sounded like banter but felt like a scalpel. Sharp in the hidden context, a tool meant to cut to the heart of it. She’d dodged most of them, an acrobat twisting and arching through hoops, walking across a tightrope.

She hadn’t lied. Not exactly. Yet, this question felt... different.

She yes, while she hadn’t lied, she hadn’t told him what changed, either.

Jake was still tallying the scores on the faded little card as they rounded the final bend of the course, the neon lights from the last hole buzzing faintly above them.

Ellie leaned in with narrowed eyes, trying to sneak a peek, but he turned just in time, raising the scorecard high above his head.

“Come on, Seresin,” she said, standing on her toes to swipe at it. “Take your loss like a man. No shame in it.”

Jake smirked, one arm stretched up high, the other resting lazily at his side. “That’s assuming I did lose. Bold of you.”

Ellie rolled her eyes and made another grab for it, still half-laughing.

“You’re so bad at this. Just admit it. You’ll feel a lot better. Say the words: ‘Ellie, you’re superior in every way and I should’ve trained harder for this mini putt showdown which I instigated.’”

“You practiced that speech?”

She could feel his chest rumble under her palm with a low laugh.

“Rehearsed it in the mirror,” she deadpanned, stretching again, her fingers just grazing the edge of the card. “Now hand it over. I just want to see it. Maybe frame it. Hang it over my bed.”

She was so focused on grabbing it, she didn’t notice how far forward she’d leaned—until her foot slipped off the curb and the world tilted.

Jake caught her. Quick. Solid. Arms firm around her waist.

For a second, they were just... there. Pressed together. A breath from tumbling into the water hazard.

“Whoa there, sweetheart,” he murmured, voice edged with a smile. “You trying to find an excuse to touch me, or just that desperate for a win?”

She blinked up at him, breath catching. Flushed. Flustered. Her brain still catching up to the heat curling low in her stomach.

He held her like a secret. Like a maybe. Like something neither of them was supposed to want—but did.

Her mind stalled around the response, caught between too many variables. Before she could recalibrate, Jake’s gaze dipped to the scorecard still dangling from his fingers.

And she saw it—the decision flicker behind his eyes.

A beat later, with a smirk, he let the slip of paper flutter from his hand.

Right into the stream.

“Oops,” he said, not even pretending it was anything but intentional.

Ellie stared at the little rectangle bobbing gently in the slow current. “Did you seriously just erase the only proof that I crushed you at mini putt?”

Jake tilted his head, mock thoughtful. Shrugged. “Guess we’ll never know. Life’s full of unanswered questions.”

She narrowed her eyes, lips twitching. “You’re the worst kind of sore loser.”

Jake chuckled, brushing invisible dust from her shoulder. “This was low-stakes, Rigby. Just a warm-up.”

She crossed her arms. “So, I’m off the hook then. Pool’s cancelled out.”

“Not even close.”

“And the favour?”

He was shaking his head at her, an ‘ah ah ah’ kind of dismissal, but the spark in his eye betrayed any seriousness it was meant to impart.

“I’ll be a gentleman about it,” he was already gesturing toward the parking lot. “Walk you to your car. Consolation prize.”

Ellie scoffed but followed. “Consolation prizes are for the people who lose, Seresin.”

Jake grinned, falling into step beside her. “I know. Never said who it was for.”

The walk to the car stretched longer than it had any right to—gravel crunching underfoot, night air clinging like a second skin. Everything felt slowed down. Suspended.

Ellie still felt the buzz in her chest.

The electricity of the game.

A flutter of lightness off Jake volleying banter with her like it was muscle memory. Pushing the boundaries, toeing the edge.

Her cheeks ached from smiling. Her heart was nowhere close to baseline, humming with an excitement that she hadn’t remembered feeling in a long time.

The feeling of the perfect moment in a rom-com.

The stomach drop of a poetic line delivered in a romance book. She kept talking—half to fill the space, half because if she didn’t, she might think too hard about the way this all felt dangerously close to real.

“If we reroute that second input loop and isolate the signal, I think we can cut the drag time by at least 20%. Maybe more if we calibrate it right.”

Jake hummed, low and impressed. “Look at you. Already halfway to solving tomorrow.”

“It’s a good problem,” she shrugged, trying to play it off casual—but she was trying not to beam like an idiot. “I like the puzzle of it.”

They stopped at her car, haloed in the gold spill of the lot’s overhead light. She reached for her keys—still mid-thought—when his hand lifted, fingers brushing her cheek.

She froze.

It was barely a touch. Just enough. Just too much.

Her heart was already hammering, hummingbird wild, at the base of her throat and when she looked up, he was there.

“It’s just a—uh—” he started, the beginning of an excuse, as his thumb passed over her cheek bone.

She was dangerously aware of how the palm of his hand hovered close enough to cup her cheek. His fingers ghosted her jawline.

Close. Why was he so close?

The space between them tightened, thinned to a breath, the rustle of his adjusted stance reported in the gravel below his feet.

His gaze dropped to her mouth, a flicker of intention as she hummed, acknowledging that he’d started to say something.

She leaned in. Or maybe he did. Or maybe the earth tilted on its axis, and she just felt it.

The anticipation curled low, her breath hitched just slightly, the warmth of his lips so incredibly close to hers now. She could smell the sweet, hoppy scent of the beer he’d had earlier, the subtle clean smell of his cologne. Not overwhelming, just there.

She was consumed by him, every other thought silenced as her eyes fluttered shut—reflexive, stupid, hopeful.

Then—

Click.

She felt her car door open behind her with a soft mechanical thump and when the coolness of a breeze touched her lips, the moment collapsed in on itself.

A smash of piano keys out of tune.

Ellie’s eyes snapped open.

Jake was already stepping back, his hand snaking back from behind her where he’d tugged the door handle and slipping into his pockets.

Cool.

Calm.

And Ellie? Not even remotely recalibrated.

Her chest felt like an echo chamber, all out of rhythm. Her brain scrambled to reroute like a corrupted nav system—spinning options, redistributing resources, and yet none of it made sense.

Her stomach lurched, her limbs lagged, her whole body still buffering for a kiss that never came.

For the first time tonight, she felt off-balance. Adjusting for a condition she hadn’t calculated. Failing the reboot.

“Get home safe, Rigby,” he murmured. Soft. Steady. Knife-twist gentle.

The door stood open like a boundary. A line in the sand. An out.

She got in. Settled into the seat as the old leather groaned. Because what the hell else was she supposed to do?

Her hands gripped the wheel, but her brain was still outside—tilted toward something that didn’t land. Her pulse was wrong. Her mouth still buzzed like her lips had been kissed and then left on read.

Because it wasn’t a date. It wasn’t.

But it had felt like one. Every joke. Every brush of his arm. Every second he didn’t kiss her. It cracked something open—and now she was driving away with it bleeding and raw and stupidly there.

She hadn’t said thank you. For the help. For the chance to remember there was more to life than base, home, repeat. For making her laugh like it wasn’t a survival skill.

She hadn’t said “don’t stop” when he pulled away. She could have. But that would mean that she wanted him. That would mean admitting that he lived under her skin in a way that unsettled her.

So, she started the car and just drove.

In the rearview, Jake stood beneath the halo of a single light—hands tucked in his pockets, watching her go.

A ghost of an almost. A silhouette of might’ve been.

The drive home felt like it happened underwater.

Ellie’s hands were on the wheel, eyes on the road ahead, but her mind was back in the parking lot.

Her body remembered: his hand near her face, his voice low and warm, the way he looked at her like he was waiting. Wanting.

She missed a left turn entirely and had to loop back through the next light. At a red, her foot hovered just a beat too long before the green blinked her back into the present.

She should’ve been running through the updated parameters, thinking through the way his patch suggestions could reroute the input lag and stabilize the outputs. It was a good lead. A great one, even. Maybe even fantastic enough to buy her Stark’s vote of confidence at the Board meeting.

But she couldn’t stop replaying the moment her eyes had closed.

She hadn’t meant to lean in. Or close her eyes. Or want. It wasn’t calculated or controlled—it was instinct. Trust. Hope.

She couldn’t bring herself to fully commit it to a mistake, for once...

By the time she reached her place, the chill of the late-night air had seeped into her. Still, a part of her was warm. Light. Untethered.

She climbed the stairs, her bag sliding down her shoulder as she reached the top. Voices filtered from the living room—Nic, full of laughter, spinning in a dress as Yan sat on the couch, an open bag of crunchy Cheetos nestled in the space between her crossed legs.

“Too much shoulder?”

“No, Coronado demands shoulder,” Yan punctuated her words with the crunch of an orange puff snack, “it’s on point. Rooster's not going to be able to keep in in his pants.”

“What if I wore my hair up?”

“Uhm—You have to wear it up—”

Ellie floated past the scene, barely registering more than the words wedding and Coronado.

Her eyes flicked to the dresses hanging off the back of the couch, glimmering with sequins and soft silk. Usually, she’d linger, toss out a sarcastic comment or ask Nic if the bridal party came with air traffic control and insurance to land those sleeves.

Not tonight.

She slipped down the hall, her steps quiet, and closed her door behind her like sealing herself off from gravity.

She went through the motions—face washed, teeth brushed, hair tied up. Her thoughts never quite left him. She remembered the way his eyes had locked with hers like a magnet and held. The quiet confidence of someone who could pull you in without ever raising his voice.

When she crawled into bed, the sheets were cool against her legs, the room dimly lit from the streetlamp beyond her window. Her phone buzzed once with a message, maybe Nic, maybe nothing. She didn’t check.

Her last thought before sleep took her was of him. Standing in front of her, brushing her cheek like she was made of something he didn’t want to damage.

Jake Seresin had gotten under her skin.

And worse—she liked it.

a/n: literally just so excited for these next few chapters. finally getting into the meat and potatoes of what makes these two tick is the best part.

if you love this series, reblog, comment, like!

tags: @hookslove1592 @mrsevans90 @avengersfan25 @jbennsquared @dempy

@obsessed-fan-alert @djs8891 @lunatygerqueen @khouse712 @alipap3

@yuckosworld @marvelouslyme96 @luckyladycreator2 @lovelylndskies @cardi-bre91

@whatislovevavy @qutequeersstuff @tgmreader @writergirl28 @literal-tv-menace

@queenslandlover-93 @fantasyfootballchampion @marrianena @dizzybee03 @justjess2025

@malindacath @b8211na @dreamysiren89 @shawnsblue

@kmc1989

@anglophileforlife