#lily x jake

[missmaywemeetagain]

A Million Little Heartaches: Pandora's Box 💔💫❤️‍🔥

A/N: Hi, my darlin's! I was feeling a little hesitant about posting my first non-EP fic, but I got over myself lol. This one is a bit of an experiment as it's not told in chronological order, and we'll see if I continue it based on inspiration and interest. Please let me know your thoughts! As always, they are so appreciated and what helps keep me motivated a lot of the time, especially as I'm trying new things. I really hope you enjoy it and can't wait to hear what you think. 💗

ALSO, I'm not sure if tumblr has changed its algorithm or what, but I know I'm not seeing people's posts in my feed like I used to. Turn on notifications for me to not miss anything and if you like this, it would be super helpful if you reblog this post! Thank you babies! 💗

Key Tropes: Angst, right person(s)-wrong time, star-crossed lovers, slow burn kinda? friends to enemies to friends to lovers?(LOL), forbidden love, second chance love

💥 Head's up! My first Scarf Universe exclusive (Red Scarf) is set to come out THIS WEEK for my Patreons! It's utterly filthy and indulgent, so if you are interested, you can join my Patreon community HERE to get access! 💥

A Million Little Heartaches

Part 1: Pandora’s Box

March 2026

I’ve curled my legs up under me in an oversized armchair, staring aimlessly at the fire. My empty wine glass is precariously balanced in my hand as I am hypnotized by the flames. Liam’s angry outburst shocked everyone, and his words still ring like poison in my ears:

You abandoned me.

I run through all the things I could’ve said in response instead of just standing there speechless as he ripped me into pieces in front of everybody.

Namely, you made your choice, Liam. And it wasn’t me.

It was never me.

Good ole Lily, forever the consolation prize, I muse, shaking my head.

There’s a hollow feeling in my heart that hasn’t been there for a long, long time.

“Mind if I join you?” Jake’s rumbling voice startles me out of my staring contest with the fire.

Oh god, now? Seriously? is what I’m thinking, but I manage a cordial nod instead, setting my empty glass on the side table next to me.

He sits in the chair facing mine. A glance over reminds me he’s a man now, not a boy, the firelight hitting the weathered but not unattractive lines on what used to be a baby face. The peach fuzz which had tickled my cheek so long ago is now a short, dark beard on a sharper, less rounded jaw. His once sandy hair has darkened some and is peppered with grey. He has aged well.

I can’t imagine how he must be looking at me after all these years, at the changes he must see. I know I’m not the girl I was. I look back at the fire.

“Are you okay?” he asks after a moment of silence.

I roll my eyes over to him and huff a bitter laugh. “Does it matter?”

I shouldn’t have said it like that—Liam’s freak out wasn’t Jake’s fault—but everything feels so fucking raw that I don’t have the wherewithal for a filter.

“It always has,” he says quietly.

The words hang there between us, heavy. There’s a poignancy and deeper meaning to them that slaps me out of my pity party.

“Excuse me?” I breathe out, blinking. My heart starts racing, like a hummingbird trapped in my ribcage.

He doesn’t get to say my feelings have always mattered. Not him. Not the guy who dragged me to hell and back because he was too much of a coward to let me down easy. Not the one who I spent nearly six years trying desperately to know and wishing for him to know me, too. Who I tried, only somewhat successfully, to forge a friendship with after it seemed all between us was well and truly done.

Jake shifts uncomfortably in his seat, looking at the fire before he finds what he needs there to bring himself to look back at me.

He only knows a fraction of what he put me through, or at least I think he does. He was ever the master at shutting me out, so it’s always been hard to know what he’s thinking or feeling without having to pry it out of him with a crowbar.

His voice echoes in my head, a long-forgotten memory: I guess I’m just the kind of person who hides my feelings.

An understatement.

This makes it a surprise when he looks straight at me with those warm brown eyes that used to melt me into the floor and says, “Your feelings have always mattered.”

Maybe it’s the wine, or the blowup with Liam, but my filter disappears completely. There’s a latent, hot anger that boils to the surface.

“You’ve got to be kidding me. You, of all people, think my feelings have always mattered?” I throw back at him, scoffing.

He looks as though I’ve slapped him, and if I wasn’t so upset, I might try to backtrack. But I spent six years of my adolescence trying to shield him from my feelings, and as an adult, I don’t have time for that shit anymore.

“I suppose I deserve that,” he recovers, looking back at the fire.

I’m surprised, to say the least. It’s not as though we hadn’t talked about it back in the day, at least somewhat, but I never let him know just how deeply he hurt me. I never told him about the panic attacks, the intense depressions, or the manic feelings I’d get from just a morsel of attention from him. No, I’d buried all that for the sake of our “friendship” or whatever it was.

Part of me knows it’s stupid to try and rehash things that we put to rest so long ago. I shouldn’t hold it against him—we were just teenagers—but it wasn’t until my twenties that I finally grasped just how much Jake fucked me up. He made me think that if you love someone enough, they can treat you however they want and it doesn’t matter, and if it’s “meant to be” then someone can string you along indefinitely without consequence. I’d been so convinced we were these star-crossed lovers that had such a deep thread of connection that we’d someday figure it out. But someday never came.

Liam had. Liam pulled me from the ashes of my heartbreak and showed me real love. Or so I’d hoped. I’d hoped so much that I’d ignored and excused all the similarities between the way he and Jake treated me. But he had loved me and risked it all for me at one time. I mattered to him, to a fault.

But with Jake, I’m never sure I mattered. I always felt on thin ice, or at least that’s how I remember it. But memory warps over time. Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe I’ve been wrong about all of it.

God, he still has me running circles around myself.

“Yeah, you do deserve it, a little,” is what I finally settle on, but it comes out gentler than I want it to.

He gives me a familiar sardonic half-smile.

Ah, there he is, the little shit. It was a look that twenty years ago would set my heart a-flutter on a good day and made me want to throttle him on a bad one. Some things never change.

Another thing that hasn’t changed is my need to shove him past his comfort zone with all my thoughts and feelings.

“Sometimes, I’m still not sure I mattered to you at all.” The words catch in my throat, giving away more than I want to.

His eyes snap back to mine. “How can you say that?” he asks with a surprising level of hurt in his voice.

I’m taken aback. “Jake, I don��t think you entirely understand the way you…” I stop myself and shake my head.

“The way I what? Say it,” he challenges, uncharacteristically.

I take a deep breath. “The way you broke my heart completely. How I spent months—no, years—trying to figure out what I had done that was so bad that you didn’t have or couldn’t really admit you had feelings for me, or why I was so repulsive you couldn’t bear to be with me. You had me so tied in knots I could hardly breathe.”

“Lily, you were never—” he starts, shaking his head, but I don’t listen, plowing right through whatever he thinks he needs to say.

“And then Liam came into the picture and helped me heal, and still I was so desperate for your approval, for us to be friends. But you always, always kept me at arm’s length. I could never figure any of it out. I still wonder if it was all one-sided and I was just a crazy little girl who manufactured this epic love story in her head,” I ramble out, shaking my head.

I’m saying too much, I know I am, but what the fuck does it matter now, after all this time? I have no need to impress him anymore.

   He shutters down, and it’s so entirely familiar that I have to laugh. “That. Right there,” I point, “is the same thing you did to me 27 years ago. You could never let me in, could you? As much as I hoped you would, as close as I swear I got sometimes, this brick wall is what made me question everything about us. It always has.”

His eyes widen as he’s called out so viciously, his hands tensing then releasing the arms on the chair. I let him sit in it for a moment before I drop the last bombshell, the one I’m sure will ruin the precarious balance between us:

“You were my first love, Jake, and I was so in love with you it hurt. God, I was so convinced we were connected in some timeless, deep, soulmates kind of way. And sometimes you did things that seemed to confirm that, but then you’d turn around and…well, I tried so hard to understand why you didn’t feel it, too. But I was young and stupid and obsessed, I guess,” I laugh, looking into the fire. “I finally just had to accept I was never gonna figure you out or understand why you didn’t love me back.”

He’s quiet for a long moment and I’m almost afraid he’s going to get up and walk away.

“Sorry, I guess old habits die hard. Here I am, still blasting you with all my feelings, 25-plus-years later,” I chuckle. “No wonder you never wanted to be with m—”

“You’ve got it all wrong,” he interrupts.

My head snaps back to him. “What?”

“I never meant to hurt you like that. I never meant to drive you to…Liam,” he says, with a frustrated bitterness in his tone that surprises me.

“Okay…?” I’m not sure where this is going, but my heart kicks up again.

“I told you back then I liked you,” he says blatantly, as if it were ever that simple between us.

I can’t help but laugh. “Did you, really? You told me in different ways how you were ‘gonna ask me out, but…’. And there was always a ‘but.’ And it was never in the present tense. I heard from other people that you liked me, sure, but you never really told me. Not in a way that felt like I wasn’t forcing something out of you that you were ashamed of or just telling me to save face. And it was always me who came to you. Always. You had a thousand chances and never followed through. We never even kissed, Jake! You kissed everyone but me. What was I supposed to think?”

“I-I-I…damn it, Lily,” he growls. “I couldn’t.”

 “Excuse me? You very much ‘could,’ you just didn’t want to. And that’s fine, you never owed it to me to reciprocate my feelings. Just don’t pretend—”

“Of course, I had feelings for you!” he yells.

I’m stunned into silence.

“I had feelings for you since we were 12! You were the first girl I ever really thought of in that way and I had no idea how to deal with it. And the moment you showed any interest in me I panicked and pushed you away. And I regretted it after and thought I’d ruined everything, but you came back, and I-I-I did it again. And again. Because my feelings for you scared the shit out of me.”

My heart is jackhammering now. I can barely breathe. “Why?”

“You were special. I couldn’t—I couldn’t ruin that…or you.”

“That doesn’t make any sense! You didn’t want to ‘ruin me’ so you broke my heart, over and over?”

“I didn’t deserve you. You were way too good for me and way out of my league.”

Flabbergasted, I blink at him. The pure insanity of this conversation has me whirling.

“But you kept flirting with me anyway, leading me on? You’d hug me, hold my hand…Lord, you even snuggled me and popped a fucking boner against me at that party freshman year…” I babble.

A blush floods his cheeks. “I was only 15, I-I-I didn’t know what I was doing.”

“You knew enough to fuck Talia.”

He looks like I’ve struck him again, but I can see in his eyes he knows I’m right. Talia would forever be a sore spot between us.

“I was young. And dumb.”

“No shit. And it doesn’t track. You did the same with Tina, Heather, and pretty much any other girl who showed the slightest bit of interest in you. Everyone except me.”

“I know. I was wrong. I was in a…bad place.”

“I practically handed myself to you on a platter and you humiliated me. How do you think it felt that I was the only one you never…you just kept me dangling on a string,” I say, shaking with anger.

“I know,” he whispers, “I’m sorry, I just couldn’t…”

“Sure,” I shake my head and look away. I don’t know why I care so much. I shouldn’t. This is all ancient history, and maybe it is Liam’s doing for sucking me back into the past tonight, but for some reason it all feels like it happened yesterday.

“I knew it was wrong, that I was treating you badly, a-a-and that’s why I found God. I wanted to be better…for you.”

Something cracks inside of me at the gesture. It doesn’t make any sense—why would he do that for me? My breath starts to falter a bit.

I remember he had changed dramatically mid-sophomore year, turning into a nicer, happier, and kinder version of himself. He’d stopped going after every girl in sight and wasn’t blatantly ignoring me anymore. We’d become friends again. I’d thought he was swept up in wanting to hang with the cooler, older Christian kids in the group, bowing to a weird form of peer pressure, just as I had done.

Of course, my “conversion” had not stuck after everything that happened later, but that’s beside the point.

Slowly, pieces start falling into place. Things I’d never considered.  

“You didn’t. You did it for…me?” I say breathlessly. “That’s a pretty drastic thing for a 16-year-old to do…”

He nods.

A shiver runs down my spine.

“Why…why would you do something like that for me?” I hold my breath and quell the trembling of my hands by clasping them together.

In the heavy pause, it feels like all the air gets sucked out of the room, and everything else around us warps and stops.

“Because I was completely in love with you.”

My heart stops. “What?” I whisper.

This can’t be real.

But his eyes are as open and pleading as I’ve ever seen them, begging me to finally understand what he couldn’t impart all those years ago.

“Then why didn’t you tell me?” I manage to choke out.

A pained look crosses his face. “I was too late.”

It’s like I’m 16 again, the way my heart is ready to explode while simultaneously being yanked from my chest. The air whooshes out of my lungs and I can’t bring myself to speak. All I can do is look over at him with questioning eyes.

“Me being such an asshole pushed you straight into his arms and by the time I came to my senses, it was too late. You’d fallen for him, even though he was with someone else,” he says bitterly.

He is not wrong. The whole reason Liam and I became friends in the first place was he listened to my heartbreak over Jake.

“So, I tried to be your friend instead. That was what you wanted, right? I thought maybe I could get closer to you and change your mind, talk some sense into you.”

I find my voice. “What are you even talking about? Liam and I were very much not together that spring and summer because of Melissa. You had the perfect chance, but you started dating Tiffany right when school got out.”

His jaw sets, clenches. “Oh, come on. It was beyond obvious you weren’t over him. So, yeah, when Tiffany showed interest, I gave it a chance. But I couldn’t stop thinking about you. You probably don’t remember how I messaged you all the time. How our conversations got longer a-a-and deeper. How I begged you to call me.”

Vague memories flash back to me. “I did call you. And I definitely would’ve remembered you telling me this!” I shake my head.

He has no idea how this revelation would have changed everything. God, I can’t breathe.

            “I tried to feel you out that fall, but you were pretty focused on Liam.”

            Mind racing, I try to remember how it all went down. My attraction to Liam had been all-consuming, made worse by the way we desperately tried to keep our hands off each other when Melissa left for college. We weren’t officially together, but it was obvious to anyone with eyes that we were mad about each other. Between that, the play, and keeping my grades up, things were intense that fall, to say the least. But there had been some weird moments with Jake that I’d tried to brush off as friendly at the time, but maybe they weren’t.

            “Friendsgiving.” It pops into my head suddenly, and I look at him with wide eyes. “I couldn’t figure it out—you went out of your way to take me home that night, then you were so teasing and flirty. We sat in my driveway for like half an hour. You couldn’t keep your hands off me—tickling me and putting your arm around me. I thought it was strange…but you were with Tiffany. I convinced myself I was imagining it.”

            It starts to dawn on me that perhaps my instincts had been right this whole damn time.

            I ramble as I recall more, “You were so obsessed about Mick having to kiss me for the play. We talked about how weird it would be if you had to understudy and it was us who had to kiss instead.”

            Jake looks at me sheepishly. “I wanted to kiss you so badly.”

            “God, why didn’t you?!”

            “You were in love with Liam!”

            “You are still such an idiot. Did you not hear anything I’ve said to you? If you’d kissed me, it wouldn’t have mattered. You were always there in the back of my mind. It was always you.” My hands are trembling at the admission, at how easily I would’ve folded if he had come for me.

            His eyes narrow, almost incredulously, as if he can’t believe it.

            “That’s all I ever wanted, Jake—for you to care enough to show me, or tell me, or anything at all! To fight for me…for us. But you never had the balls to do it, and that’s why we never happened. Not because of Liam. Not because I didn’t feel the same way. Because of you,” I say, voice shaking as hard as my hands.

            I’m coming apart at the seams, unravelling for the second time tonight because of men who never truly understood me or put me first. Refusing to cry in front of Jake and let him know just how much he’d changed with his inaction, I stand too quickly, wobbling on my feet.

            Jake jumps up to steady me, one hand at my forearm and the other at my waist, touching me for the first time in over 20 years. My stupid body responds with a jolt of electricity now just as it did then, like a phantom limb come to life. Logic tells me to pull away.

I don’t.

            He steps closer. “I’m sorry,” he whispers into my hair, “I feel like all I’ve ever done is hurt you, and I hate myself for it.”

            Oh, god. His proximity is dizzying, a reminder of moments long gone. A whiff of cologne. The way his thumb gently rubs the dip of my waist through my dress. The not-so-subtle way he lures me in closer.

            I don’t understand. How is it after the decades of life that have occurred, after having my heart swell and break and swell again with different types of love, that this man still can send me reeling?

            And he’s right—all he’s ever done is hurt me and tie me in knots. Being near him is like being edged in the most painful of ways because there is never any payoff. He had seen to that.

            There is something inherently cruel in the fate of it all. How the moment I had moved on all those years ago, the moment I released my hope of being with him and found another, that was when he figured his shit out. The worst part used to be feeling like he’d never felt the same about me, but knowing now that he loved me somehow makes everything ache even worse than it did before.

            Tears sting the corners of my eyes, even though I promised myself long ago I’d never shed another tear over Jake. I hate he will forever be the one that got away. The one who I’d never felt closure with, like a scab that crusts over but won’t heal underneath. As stupid as it sounds, there has been a part of me since the moment he so sweetly helped me solve a math problem in the 7th grade that has unwillingly left a piece of my heart in his hands ever since, no matter how many others there have been to take his place in between.

            And I hate him for that. I hate him even more now that I know I was always right about us from the start, about the thread of connection that bound us to each other almost 30 years ago.

“Does it even bother you? The ‘what could have been?’ Did it cross your mind that maybe everything would be different if you’d just said something? Or did you just forget about me, about all of it?” I whisper angrily.

God knows, I haven’t.

Furious and frazzled, I press my hands into his chest to push away. It’s a terrible move because his large hand covers mine, pinning it to him. He’s warm through his dress shirt and his heart beats wildly under my palm. My eyes fly up to meet his.

“I think about it all the time. More than I should. But God works in mysterious ways,” he says, as if that explains it all.

I roll my eyes. Another wonderful excuse. “I guess he does,” I add sarcastically.  Extricating myself from him, I immediately feel clearer, but part of me wants nothing more to feel his touch on me again. I shake the feeling off.

I had abandoned religion and the guilt and bigotry that came along with it the moment I got to college, when I realized just how much it had fucked my young brain up. Not shockingly, the religious friends who’d taken such offense when I’d gotten together with Liam were the same ones who quickly fell out of my life once they realized I wasn’t going to tow the line. Jake had only dug his heels in deeper into his religion after that, with Tiffany and his cookie-cutter perfect family and church going ways, and now it crosses my mind that it’s all because of me.

Don’t be stupid.

He’s waiting on me to say something. It takes me a moment to absorb the fact that he admitted thinking about me more than he should. This good and pious Christian man was thinking about me when he should have been thinking about his wife.

But I am in no place to judge. Not about this.

I want to know what salacious thoughts have run through his mind about me, but I can’t bring myself to ask. Part of me wants to utterly ruin him in all the ways I couldn’t when we were teenagers. A heat gathers low in my belly at the thought, at his nearness.

Romantic and physical chemistry is no joke, I realize. It’s like my pheromones were preprogrammed by the universe to be attracted to his, and by the cautiously heated look he’s giving me now, I’m wondering if it’s always been the same for him.

One of my biggest regrets about us, since the beginning, was the question that if we had even just kissed once and got it over with, would it have broken the tension between us like a summer rainstorm breaks the heat? Would we have gotten it out of our system and figured out if whatever chemistry we had was real or just something we’d worked up in our imaginations?

But it’s too late for that. The past can’t be changed. Now the ‘what if’s’ that plagued me for all these years hurt worse than before, knowing that with one stupid admission or one kiss all those years ago, we could have had it all. Maybe we would have been the high school sweethearts who got married and annoy our 2.5 kids with stories about what an idiot their dad was until he’d finally told me how he felt.

There would’ve been no me-and-Liam, or him leaving me because the world had gone to shit. I wouldn’t have met my husband. All of it, an entire life I’ll never know, flashes before my eyes and nearly brings me to my knees.

And while I don’t subscribe to his God, I do think the universe puts things in our path. But what was the point of all this, then—of us never being the “us” we both know we wanted it to be? I just don’t see why this thing can’t seem to die and fade into the ether. He’s like a bad penny I can’t shake.

At least with Liam, there was closure. We had loved and dated and all of the milestones that go with that. Knowing Jake loved me doesn’t make me truly feel any better, other than the fact I know I wasn’t a delusional, lovesick teenager.

But he loved a version of me that’s grown up into someone different, just as I begrudgingly loved a version of him that I’d made up in my head to be better than he was.

I’ve been quiet too long. “Why?” It pops out of my mouth unwillingly. “Why do you still think of me?”

“Do you still think of me?” I expect him to shirk away from the question, but he flips it on me so fast I have whiplash.

I close my mouth, my eyes darting away, answering his question.

He nods. “Then you know.”

Does that mean he replays fuzzy memories of interlocking his fingers with mine or pulling me too close in a dance? He sees the stolen, meaningful glances in his mind’s eye? He thinks about the multitude of chances he had to press his lips to mine but didn’t and what may have happened if it had gone farther than that? He thinks of how if he and I became a “we” it would’ve completely altered the course of our lives?

I have trouble thinking he ponders any of that.

But if he loved me like he says he did…

The hollow ache in my heart is back with a vengeance, erasing all hope I had at getting out of here relatively unscathed.

“Maybe we were just destined to hurt each other. Maybe we’ve always been bad for each other,” I say indignantly instead of voicing all the other thoughts buzzing in my head. But it feels true, nonetheless.

I watch him shake his head rather vehemently. He opens his mouth to speak, but I beat him to the punch.

“But too bad we never had the chance to find out for sure,” I add with venom. After this, I don’t think I’ll ever stop feeling like he stole that chance from me.

We were babies. Give the guy a break, a tiny voice in the back of my head chimes in.

            Unfortunately, I’m a little too emotionally wrecked to let a silly thing like logic get me back on track and remind me I’m a goddamned adult.

            Star-crossed lovers aren’t real. “Meant to be” isn’t real. Threads of fate tying us together in inexplicable ways aren’t real. What’s real is hormones and youth and cowardice and terrible timing. What’s real are jobs and spouses and children.

            Then why can’t I shake the feeling that this isn’t even close to being the end for us? It makes no sense.

            It never has.

            I grab my purse. Furious and regretful, I can’t be around him anymore, which is made evident by the fact that I want to stay so badly, even if it means my heart is bleeding out in front of him. But I have more self-respect now than I had when I was 16, and I certainly am not going to cry in front of him.

            “Goodbye Jake. I hope your life is everything you want it to be. Give Tiffany my best.” It’s a dig, to be sure. We both know Tiffany wants nothing to do with me, and now I finally know why. I turn and walk away, quickly, escaping my past down the darkened hallway towards the bathrooms.

            “Lily, wait,” he commands from behind me, catching up and grabbing my hand. Shocked at his tone of voice and forwardness, I have no choice to spin back to him. His eyes are blazing.

            “What? What is there left to say?” I say, my voice cracking with emotion. “That one of my biggest regrets is that we never made this work, this—this silly pseudo-romance from our teens? That I hate how much this matters to me, even now, even though I haven’t seen you in years?”

            He advances, his eyes never leaving mine, and a small huff escapes my lips as my back hits the wall. It’s hard not to notice he’s broader and taller than he used to be as his body comes so close to pressing against mine. Every one of my nerves sparks to attention at his sudden proximity, a buzzing static electricity.

His hand clasps my neck, the rough pad of his thumb trailing along my jaw. I have no choice but to keep looking up at him, into those darkened brown eyes.

“What are you doing?” I whisper.

Shock precedes a pool of fire low in my belly when he boldly brings his thumb to the center of my lips and slowly drags it down. My lips part and a small moan escapes them. I’m vaguely aware of my purse hitting the floor with a thunk.

“What I should’ve done a long time ago,” he says definitively. His warm breath tickles my cheek where his mouth hovers too close to mine.

As my body fully kicks into overdrive, I’m reminded of what I’ve always known: I’m incapable of resisting Jake Lawson. One last rational thought pushes through the fire that is rapidly consuming me.

“This is a bad idea,” I pant, my eyes scanning his face.

“A terrible one,” he agrees, and when he nods, his nose brushes against mine.

I expect a crash of lips and teeth, but instead his soft lips brush mine tantalizingly, dragging in a way that sends an explosion of heat through my chest. The warmth of our breath mingles, and I can’t stop the way my hands instinctively reach for the lapels of his jacket. His hand on my neck pulls me closer and when our lips finally press together in earnest, oh, god, it’s everything I’d ever hoped it would be.

Instead of breaking away, we are pulled into each other by some unknown force that makes my entire body tingle from head to toe. Jake deepens the kiss, and I turn as pliable as putty in his arms, wondering how it is possible that we went this damn long without doing this. His fingers tighten in my hair, eliciting a groan as his mouth opens and his tongue persuasively brushes against my lips. Granting permission, I open to him further and our tongues roll gingerly against each other.

Something ignites in me that hasn’t in a long, long time. It’s a blast of desire and truth so strong it threatens to undo me. It’s different than pure passion—there’s a yearning, a need, a rightness lacing every touch between us. And based on the way he clings to me now, I have no doubt he feels it, too, this sense of fate that we were always destined to end up here.

Every instinct I have wants to feed the fire that is swirling in my belly, but the last thread of rationality left in me reminds me that I shouldn’t let this go too far. It has gone too far already. I force myself to pull away, which is like prying two strong magnets off each other. I can’t move more than an inch, just enough to separate our lips. I’m too dizzy with the smell of him and what must be a lack of oxygen. Or maybe it’s because my entire world feels upended.

His forehead rests on mine, his thumb caressing the hollow of my throat. “Shit,” he sighs out with a shudder, his breath tickling my face as he struggles to control himself.

For once in my life, I have no doubt of what he’s feeling. The way he says that one word tells me he is every bit as blindsided, connected, and aroused as I am. But it’s more than just that. A tether of knowing has tightened between us. It’s so overwhelming I feel like I might cry.

As we stand pressed close together in this dark hallway, I don’t think either of us truly expected it to feel like this. Like everything that’s been wrong between us was because we resisted this bond, a power that feels beyond anything I could have imagined. In mere moments, we’ve confirmed what both of us have inherently known but tried to ignore for almost three decades.

That’s when I realize we’ve opened Pandora’s box. We can never go back.

“Jake…” I choke, trying to get the words out, but they won’t come.

“I know,” he responds solemnly, and I have no doubt he has come to the same conclusion as I have:

We are in deep trouble.

*

taglist

@sassanoe @re3kin @thella @suspiciousmidge @hiddlepiddlediddlewiddle @carolinesbookworld @juggernort @aesthetic-lyss @stitchattacks @donnamarie23 

@lacyluver @littlebitofgreen @paigevis @bugg06 @xhannahbananax03 @artlover8992

@18lkpeters @frozenhuntress67 @girlblogger2002 @kendralavon7 @misspresley @elv1s-is-pretty 

@be-my-ally @whositmcwhatsit @vintageshanny @ellie-24 @thatbanditqueen @powerofelvis @from-memphis-with-love

@precious-little-scoundrel @stylespresleyhearted @prompted-wordsmith @crash-and-cure @elvisgf @ohjustpeachy1 @lookingforrainbows @fic-over-cannon @godlypresley @ab4eva @whatstruthgottodowithit @elvisabutler @ amydarcimarie @idontwanttoputanything  @callieselvisobsessed @captainamerica1235-blog  @xenaspace3-blog 

[letters2won]

what i think it would be like being on facetime with niki :( MY BBY

[yourgalgremlin]

The Marauders 🤝 Brooklyn 99:

[aceheexx]

Hi It’s Me - Jake Sim

One - Morning After

Parings: sim jake x female reader

Genre: fwb to lovers!au, humor, smut, social media au

Synopsis: y/n works at the local applebees. jake works at the 711 across the street. y/n wants more than sex, jake just wants to be 21 and have fun. but why does y/n have to keep making him think of more? suddenly jake starts spending more time with y/n and y/n is confused on what he really wants. too bad they can’t just communicate their emotions like adults.

< previous - masterlist - next >

A/N: hey babies!! Ahh I’m so excited to start this story with you. I really hope you enjoy it and join me on this journey through my first ever smau. It’s gonna be a learning experience but I’m so happy to be going through it with such an amazing community. I truly hope you enjoy it! ❤️ ❤️ thank you!! -Noa (@aceheexx)

[swiftsgirlfriend]

‘𝐓𝐈𝐒 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐃𝐀𝐌𝐍 𝐒𝐄𝐀𝐒𝐎𝐍

──────────────────────

──────────────────────

ɴᴏᴛᴇꜱ ᴀɴᴅ ᴡᴀʀɴɪɴɢꜱ:i started writing this at the beginning of this month but i never ended up finishing it so i thought i would post it anyway as a wip. one last holiday post before i become obsessed with summer ig! jake seresin x reader, no use of y/n

──────────────────────

Texas is big on Christmas. Jake is very much reminded of this as he drives through his hometown.

It seems that the smaller the towns get, the more the people love to celebrate. That certainly rings true when he thinks about the cities he’s lived in, how big they were, and much Christmas seemed to go unappreciated in them.

This is why Jake is very excited to be returning home for Christmas for the first time in years.

For a couple years now, he hasn’t had the opportunity to come back for the holidays. Always deployed, on a mission or forced to spend it with a girlfriend’s family.

However, this year, no mission, no deployment, no girlfriend. And now, he’s here, being reminded of just how much he himself he loves Christmas.

As an aviator, Jake is stone cold. Frigid, unforgiving, known to leave people hanging - hence his callsign. Despite how he acts as a pilot wherever he is stationed, coming back to Austin, brings back the old him. The sweet Jake. The family-man Jake, who loves his mother and sisters. The Jake that is still in love with you. Though, the more he thinks about it, the more he thinks he’s always at least a little bit in love with you.

You were Jake’s first love. His high-school sweetheart. Although you were young when you were together, it felt like so much more than just puppy love. It was more than that. Anyone could see it. You were infatuated with eachother. Until, Jake left for college. And you didn’t.

Unlike Jake, you weren’t restless. Unlike Jake, you hadn’t been aching to leave town, and move on to something ‘bigger’. Unlike Jake, you were content where you were. It was the hamartia that destroyed your relationship from the inside out.

So you broke up, both of you knowing deep down that long-distance would never work.

When Jake came back for holidays during college, you would always find your way back into each-others arms, each-others beds. You never put a label on it, but it still ripped both of your hearts out when he left again, again.

But now, it’s been years since he’s seen you. As he gets closer to his home, his mind falls down a rabbit-hole, of you. He knows you still live here, through the grapevine. He wonders if you still hang with the girls you did in high-school. He wonders if you still live with your parents. He wonders if you miss him, like he misses you.

Suddenly, he turns a corner, and the familiar, old house that he grew up in comes into vision. It is already clad in colourful lights and copious amounts of Christmas-themed decor. He smiles to himself and parks the car.

He swings his car door open and is engulfed by the harsh, Texan winter. Should’ve brought a hat, he thinks to himself, as he walks to the boot, to retrieve his suitcase. He slams the boot shut, almost as a pre-warning to his family to get ready, Jake has arrived! He knows, just mere feet away, his mother and sisters are scrambling to tidy up the last remnants of wrapping paper, toys, and all the other delightful messes that come with family, kids and Christmas.

His boots trudge through the thick snow as he makes his way to the front door. He notices the wreath, obviously made by his nieces and nephews. His heart breaks a little bit when he is reminded of how long its been since he’d seen them last. He hadn’t even been here for his youngest-older sister, Lucy’s, first child’s birth.

He knocks on the front door, with all the strength he can muster whilst being so cold, and immediately the heavy door swings open, and Jake is greeted with the faces of everyone he loves. However, he can’t look at them long, as he is soon swept inside and into a bone-crushing hug. From everyone, at the same time it seemed.

He hears a chorus of ‘Oh Jake, we’ve missed you’ and ‘It’s been so long’ and ‘Hi Uncle Jakes!’ and his heart swells about 10 sizes. He feels a bit like the Grinch right about now.

His bags are swiftly snatched from his arms by his sisters, and he is lead into the kitchen by his mother. In his house, being the man never meant being in charge, necessarily.

He takes a minute to revel in the scent of homeliness. The scent of something always baking. The scent of the pine tree. The scent of fresh linen and moth balls from the old sweaters dug out for Winter.

“Oh Jakey…” his mother began, as he sat down at the kitchen island. “It’s been so long baby.”

“I know momma.” His southern twang creeping back. “I’m sorry. But I’m here now. So let’s play catch-up.” There was bound to be a plethora of situations he’d missed out on.

“Well… obviously Lucy had her baby. Baby Charlotte is upstairs sleeping now, you can meet her later. What else… Oh Your father got a job at the market, it’s much better on his back, he’ll be home soon. Leonard’s son, Tom, finally divorced that gold digger. Always knew she was no good.”

Jake chuckles, remembering his mother’s long-term distaste for Tom’s now ex-wife.

“Anything else?” Really, he just wants to know how you are.

“Nothing important, just small-town drama really.”

“So nothing’s changed?”

“I don’t suppose it ever will.”

Some nights, when he gets homesick and can’t sleep, Jake struggles to remember why he left. Right now, surrounded by the beauty of the country, his family, the cosiness, he was struggling to remember why he left. That snapped him back. Nothing will ever change here. Maybe when he was a kid, that was good. Simplicity. Consistency. But the older he got, the more he longed for something more. Maybe the town had always been small, and he was only just noticing, maybe the town had shrunk over time, most likely it was Jake who changed, who got bigger, and found himself desperately trying to keep fitting in with the town, like trying to fit into an old t-shirt.

Usually, from around the age of 16, when he had sleepless nights, trying to find a way to fit in, trying to fathom reasons to stay, he had you, cuddled up next to him, to ground him in the moment, to keep his head screwed on. And when he was 18, and told you he was leaving, and that he wanted, needed, you to come with him, he’d lost that. Because you’d said no.

“Cookie?” His mother offered, ripping away from his gut-wrenching thoughts.

“Sure.”

──────────────────────

(top gun) ᴍᴜᴛᴜᴀʟꜱ

@sebsxphia @roosterbruiser @roosterforme @teacupsandtopgun @hangmans-wingman @mak-32 @southpawbitch @notroosterbradshaw @floydsglasses @sunlightmurdock @its-dee-lovely @tongue-like-a-razor

[purpledusty]

I had nothing to do and had internet access, so i made a chart of my Resident Evil family headcanon. For me they are a big "found family" (they not actually found family i think but ╮⁠(⁠.⁠ ⁠❛⁠ ⁠ᴗ⁠ ⁠❛⁠.⁠)⁠╭)

Red – Romantic couple

Pink – Platonic couple

Yellow – biological siblings

Orange – siblings of consideration (you know, when has no blood or family relation)

Blue – biological kids

Purple – adopted kids

Cyan – son/daughter of consideration (you know, when has no blood or family relation)

[certifiednatelover]

C.STURNIOLO MASTERLIST

SMUT:☾

FLUFF:⛈

ANGST:☆

ALL OF THE ABOVE:♡

HEADCANNONS:

sub!chris☾

Dom!chris(coming soon...)☾

caregiver!chris(coming soon...)⛈

little!chris(coming soon...)⛈

dealer!chris(coming soon...)☾⛈

&BURN⛈

SERIES:

Seeing stars pt1 pt2☾⛈

Forever(coming soon...)☆☾

A surprise(coming soon...)⛈

ONE SHOTS:

Obsessed

Yours truly, R.A.Y.Č.E.K☆🍓𖦹🍒𖦹☆

COMMENT IF U WANNA BE ON THE TAGLIST!!

[potpourri-of-ecclecticism]

- I think it’s great that you have a five-year plan. - Me too. - Cheers to five-year plans. - To five-year plans.

LOOK BOTH WAYS (2022) dir. Wanuri Kahiu

[rachemchul]

“And the truth is, I’d rather be here for you than anywhere else in the world for me.”

[bamnamuu]

3. odd lookin feller

warnings: swearing, mentions for funerals

prev / next

authors note: will jake and y/n ever have a real conversation?!!??! i love these weirdos

Synopsis: Y/N and her friends all wind up working at the same amusement park for the entire summer. It just so happens that her longtime crush, Jake Sim, is working at the same park with his friends. Unfortunately for Jake, his ex-girlfriend Yoona has planned to make her way back into his life, so his friends bring up the idea of having a fake girlfriend so that Yoona will leave him alone, and his eyes just so happen to land on the girl in the ticketing booth.

tag list (open) 🏷️ @mrchweeee

[missmaywemeetagain]

Who wants a peek at my angsty little star-crossed lovers fic A Million Little Heartaches (non-EP) this weekend?? 💔💫❤️‍🔥

A Million Little Heartaches- Ever-practical Lily is excited to see her old high school friends at their reunion, but she doesn't bargain for the way old wounds are ripped open when she sees Jake, the boy who broke her heart time and again, and Liam, the boy who healed her and who's heart she broke in return. For better or worse, they shaped how she loved and wanted to be loved, setting her life off on a particular path. Things come to light that make her question everything she knows about the past, and plagued by 'what if's', she could throw her carefully cultivated future into chaos if she digs any deeper into the dangerous feelings that arise.

This one is a bit of an experiment as it's not told in chronological order (ala @precious-little-scoundrel 's Sarge and Lil' Mama series), and we'll see if I continue it based on inspiration and interest!

Key Tropes: Angst, right person(s)-wrong time, star-crossed lovers, slow burn kinda? friends to enemies to friends to lovers?(LOL), forbidden love, second chance love?

Want to read it sooner?? Click HERE!

Why support me on Patreon? 💗 You'll get awesome benefits, like early access, exclusive stories (Scarf Universe, anyone?), my upcoming blog, and news/snippets of my novels AND you get to support your one of your favorite authors for the price of a coffee or ebook a month! Please consider joining our community! 💫

Patrons are seriously a huge help towards reaching my dreams to be a successful, professional writer while still being able to get content like this out to you on a regular basis! 💗

[jseobsky]

Enhypen confessing to you !!

pairings: idol!enhypen x reader ; pronouns: she/her ; genre: fluff ; w/c: 1,7k ; warnings: cute fluff, annoying (lovingly) niki, a whole lot of embarrassing moments, not really writing formal korean words like “hyung”, swearing

a/n: first time posting kinda nervous- also can I be your bf >>>> can you be my gf 

Heeseung: 

hee thought he was ready, but oh boy was he wrong. after liking you for like about A WHOLE LOT OF MONTHS he was determined to confess to you today. he asked you to meet him and the other enhypen’s boys (he was there by himself) at this beautiful park. you walked in where you were supposed to meet them, only to find heeseung alone with a single rose standing in front of you. he was so mesmerized, and anxious that, even when you stood in front of him and waved your hand after not receiving any response, he still wasn’t answering. you turn around, trying to find where the other boys could be, only for hee to think you were running away from him. he grabs you, and while stumbling with his words he says:

“u-uh I know this is like weird but could I be your girlfriend? I mean can you be my boyfriend? I mean can you b-” you cut him off by laughing, grab the rose that was now placed in front of your face and answered: “sure, how does your song say? oh, I’ll be your boyfriend” 

keep reading down below !!

Jay:

jay is probably the only actually not afraid to confess person out of all the enha boys. he had a whole idea ready for next week, all he needed was some flowers, some soup, some led lights, and a tiger. you met jay one week before his confession plan to just chill during his and yours free day at his dorm. “jay, in a scale from one to ten how much do you love me?” said niki. “bold of you to assume the answer is bigger than zero, why?” “soooo you won’t make me something to eat right?” niki said while pulling back and forth jay’s shirt. jay looked down moved his head no and stood up. “no, but if I theoretically made you something to eat what would you want?” “a sandwich” jay nodded walking to the kitchen, you followed after him. there was something about watching jay do ordinary things that just filled you with adoration. and jay, when turning around with the sandwich on a plate, saw your eyes, he just knew he had to be yours. 

“go out with me” “what?” you replied. “go out with e I’ll treat you well” you smiled big. “sur-” “WHERE’S MY SANDWICH?!” 

Jake:

jake, like jay, didn’t plan to confess to you when he did. well he didn’t think of confessing to you at all. he really denied his feelings up until the last moment, istg. you were out walking with him and layla, just a cool cute sunny day. you were waiting on the line of an ice cream stand when layla saw something that she just *had* to go check. you both agreed for you to wait on the line while jake, and the cute dog went to check it out. after around 5 minutes the two dogs- I mean jake and layla were coming back just to find you awkwardly talking with another guy. “so yeah, I was just wondering since you are so cute why don’t we go on a date?” before you could even answer, jake was already next to you grabbing his ice cream. 

“babe, thanks for waiting!!” he said with a big smile placing his free hand around your waist making you blush. the other guy immediately left. “bro, don’t you hate when it takes another guy for a guy to leave someone, like bitch I rejected you twice, like we live in a society-” you look back at jake “don’t you agree?” “babe…” he whispers. “did you say something?” “it just- it feels so nice to call you babe” “oh oka-” “fuck it, let’s make it official, can I call you babe while being your boyfriend?”

Sunghoon:

it’s easy to say that you and sunghoon aren’t on the best terms as of right now. after heeseung mentioned to hoon how you liked him. sunghoon has been ignoring you. however now both of you have to cooperate for this new collab stage. with you awkwardly not knowing what to say, and hoon trying his best to erase all contact with you, enhypen and your group are having a hard time dealing with the both of you. 

“heeseung, could you please tell sunghoon that he is raising the opposite arm that he should be raising?” you said. “uh-” “heeseung, could you please tell yn that I’m not raising the wrong arm, and that she’s just being annoying?” sunghoon replied. “uh-” heeseung started talking once again but he was cut. “heeseung, could you please tell sunghoon that I’m not the one being annoying but he is bcs he’s been ignoring e for no reason” “uh-” “heeseung, could you please tell yn that I’m not doing it for any reason, and that if she was me she would do the same?” you turned towards him and started walking. “oh so now there’s a really amazing reason why that I wouldn’t understand.” “yes!” “then why wouldn’t you tell me, you’ve been ignoring me for no reason, you’ve been mean to me, you literally told jay to tell me to not talk to you for the rest of my life, and now there’s apparently a good reason?” “yes!” “then what it is park sunghoon because I swear to god I’m going cra-” “it’s because I love you!” 

… 

silence was spread to the whole roo and let’s just say you, and hoon had a lot of things to talk about 

Sunoo:

sunoo my love, the only one whose plan went according to plan and actually worked </3 he had a simple plan: meet you at a restaurant, come back to the dorm to watch a movie, confess after the movie. 

after a cute restaurant, totally not date, you and sunoo arrived at the dorms. seeing that not everyone was in position, aka everywhere but the living room, he sweetly told you to wait on the sofa and set the movie he picked. after making sure you sat down still with a smile on his face, he stopped smiling and started glaring at everyone, going to any and every member that crossed his path and urging them to move up to their rooms. everytime you looked at him, he would smile at you. 

“why aren’t you in position, this has to be perfect” mumbled sunoo towards jungwon. “I trusted you the most” he glared while moving the leader towards his room. he briefly looked back at you and, seeing that you were looking at him, he smiled big: “I’m coming give me a sec” he looked back at jungwon and his smile was gone “get out of that room in less than two hours and you’re dead” after making sure all the members were out of their sight. he went back to the living room and watched the movie with you, slowly getting closer and closer. When the credits rolled he looked over at you praying you weren’t sleeping. luckily for him, you weren’t. “that was good, I had fun today thank you” you smiled at him. “look, yn, there’s something I’ve been meaning to tell you. you’ve been such a good friend, and, I guess I couldn’t hold it anymore but like. I just. I. I like you. will you go out with me?”

Jungwon:

poor boy wrote a whole ass speech and everything. that’s actually how you found out. jungwon spent like a whole two weeks memorizing these three pages long script to confess to you. and today was the day. you were chilling on his room both working on different things. “hey won, I need to sharpen this pencil you got a trash can?” “sure it’s here, oh shit it’s full, you can go to the kitchen’s one” “sure sure” you walked towards the kitchen when sunghoon suddenly stopped you with a smirk. “hey yn” “yep?” “have you read this?” he showed you a stack of three din a4 papers written both sides with tiny font with your name on it. you shook your head. “well I think you should” hoon gave you the papers. you started reading: “dear, yn. it’s like when I was a child, when the little flowers would bloom in a million colours, and leave their temporal mark on earth. [...] even when I have to practice daily, even when I can’t meet you often, even when I remember that you freaked out when I asked if we could be friends with me being an idol, you were always there, so yeah, I quite literally wrote 3 thousand words and a speech that lasts over 20 minutes.” you started hearing jungwon’s voice “but in the end all I wanted to ask you is if I could be your boyfriend” you turned around to see jungwon staring at you. “you were taking a long while so I came to see what’s up, so what do you say?”

Niki:

for niki it was all or nothing. after like 10 failed attempts that include: asking you out at the arcade, asking you out with flowers, asking you out with a ring pop, and even asking you out with a letter. he was TIRED of you thinking it was a friendly joke proposal. so after another failed attempt after HE let you win in mario kart, he stood up in front of you, and with an annoyed face he said: “look, I thought jake was obvious, but YOU?! girl, I swear to god if you think one more time that my attempts to confess you to are a joke, I ain’t talking to you anymore” “what?” you replied. “I like you, I don’t know how many more times I have to say this, I, like, you. and I want you, and I, to be more than friends” after hearing that you started laughing. he was about to hit you with a pillow when you started speaking “I know, I literally accepted your first confession, don’t you remember? we’ve literally been dating for almost a month now. I thought you were trying to joke with the rest of the confessions” you kept laughing but you realized he had a neutral face now covered in blush “oh god please don’t tell me you don’t remember” you kept laughing “I’ve even been accepting all your other confessions. what did you think that ‘sure, babe’ meant?!” he got even more flustered. 

masterlist ✿

[do-it-for-the-fandom]

Pebbles

Fluffuly #3

He smoothed his thumb across the flat surface of the pebble in his hand. 

"Five," he said confidently. "And you owe me a kiss."

She laughed. "No way! Eight and I owe you a kiss," she countered.

"Okay, deal."

He stepped up to the edge of the lake, leant back and then pitched the stone toward the water.

They both watched as it skimmed the surface; bouncing once, twice, three times before sinking.

"Hmm, tough luck," she teased as she skipped toward him. She held out another pebble. "Six."

"And a kiss?"

She rolled her eyes before confirming. "And a kiss."

He flicked the stone and her jaw dropped in disbelief as she watched it bounce again and again - five, six, seven times - before sinking.

He turned back to face her, grin beaming brighter than ever before. 

She clicked her tongue as she shook her head. "You cheat," she accused.

"Nuh-uh."

"You pretended to be bad at this! You tricked me!"

He shrugged. "You didn't set any rules, I figured it was anything goes."

She shook her head disapprovingly, but her smile only brightened. 

"You're shameless," she said, taking a step closer to him. 

He took a step closer, too, almost closing the distance between them. His hands reached out for her, rested on her waist.

"Can't blame a guy for going after what he wants, right?"

He pulled her closer and she placed her hands on his chest, running her fingertip along the v-notch stitching of his sweater.

"I guess not."

She smiled and brought her hand up to cup his face, pulling him in for a slow, tender and loving kiss. She took her time, savoured the moment as his hands explored.

"Eww!" 

They pulled away from each other and turned in the direction of the three familiar voices. Lily, Jake and Reece stood atop the crest of the small hill behind the lake, giggling at their parent's 'icky' display of affection.

"Sorry," Alexis called out as she led her siblings down the slight slope. "The boys were ready to come find you. And Lily wants to show you the dance routine we've been working on."

"That's okay," Kate said with a smile. "We were just about to head back, anyway."

"Daddy, me and 'Lexis baked cookies!" Jake said excitedly as Castle lifted the boy onto his shoulders. 

Reece tugged on Kate's hand. "And we made robots out of cereal boxes!"

"Wow, they've sure kept you busy!" Castle mused; part amused, part apologetic.

Alexis nodded.

"Yeah, if you guys are going to keep sneaking off to make out, I'm going to have to start charging," she joked... kind of. 

I know nothing about stone skipping. I tried once as a kid... my stone sunk immediately and I was too ashamed to ever try again (they make it look so easy in the movies). So I feel like seven skips is pretty impressive. If it's not, please just humour me. 😂😂Thanks.

[aceheexx]

Hi It’s Me

jake sim x reader

warnings: smut, angst, sexual content, cursing, alcohol consumption, use of elicit drugs

'hi its me, your best friend, here to remind you he's not worth it.'

y/n and jake have been hooking up for months and her roommate, a socially awkward kirby loving heeseung, is so sick of them. y/n wants more than sex, jake just wants to be 21 and have fun. but why does y/n have to keep making him think of more. work, friends, family and all that follows. who knows what they'll do.

coming soon december 2023

[swiftsgirlfriend]

≛ ¡𝐉𝐀𝐊𝐄 𝐒𝐄𝐑𝐄𝐒𝐈𝐍 𝐌𝐋𝐈𝐒𝐓!

“ʟᴀᴅɪᴇꜱ ᴀɴᴅ ɢᴇɴᴛʟᴇᴍᴀɴ,

ᴛʜɪꜱ ɪꜱ ʏᴏᴜʀ ꜱᴀᴠɪᴏʀ ꜱᴘᴇᴀᴋɪɴɢ”

──────────────────────

──────────────────────

≛ ᴏɴᴇꜱʜᴏᴛꜱ

≛ ‘ᴛɪꜱ ᴛʜᴇ ᴅᴀᴍɴ ꜱᴇᴀꜱᴏɴ…you and jake are highschool sweethearts, seemingly soulmates. however when jake decides to leave your small hometown for college, and you decide to stay, you break up. now that jake is returning for the first time since finishing college, he finds it difficult not to think about the time you shared.

──────────────────────