Are You in Love With a Notion? (Diamond Chaney) - Ortega
summary: Ellie wakes up in the Lake District with a hangover, an engagement ring, and her best friend in her bed. It’s not quite Vegas, but it’s still a cataclysmic mess.
a/n: this one goes out to the anon that came to my inbox with the concept “diamond chaney but they impulsively get married one night and have to deal with the consequences later”. it was too good to just headcanon for so it’s now a fully-fledged fic. it’s complete and utter silly nonsense and it’s by no means the most groundbreaking writing in the world, but it is FUN! hope u all enjoy and pls enjoy my continued campaign for u all to board the diamond chaney clown bus xo
(do people still use snapchat? fuck knows, but i needed it for plot purposes. if u like u can pretend this is set in 2016.)
***
Ellie wakes up feeling like a bat has shat in her head.
It feels as if her pulse is contained entirely within her cranium given the way it’s throbbing, and every time she blinks it’s as if each of her eyelashes weigh twenty kilogrammes. She momentarily wonders where she is before the heavy cream drapes and the shiny glass-topped bedside table come into focus and she remembers she’s in the hotel room. A’whora had wanted to splash out for her birthday (“you only turn a quarter of a century old once, ladies!”) and no expense was spared since she’d got that promotion a few months back. She’d covered the difference for any of the girls who wouldn’t have been able to afford to go away and Ellie was thankful for her friend’s kindhearted and generous nature. After all, she’s not the kind of girl who would say no to a treat, and she’ll return the favour as soon as her salon takes off.
(And it will take off. She didn’t study business for nothing.)
But the room right now, even with its four-poster bed and the cosy sheets and the four soft pillows, is providing absolutely no respite from the fact that Ellie is hanging out of her arse. Throwing her arm over her eyes as she squeezes them shut, she gives a small, self-indulgent sob of anguish and suffering.
And as she rolls from her side onto her back, she becomes aware of the fact that she’s not alone in the bed.
The dread and fear that grips her heart reminds her of when she went on school camp in Primary 7 and had to jump into one of those freezing cold plunge pools.
She keeps her arm over her eyes for a few more seconds to allow herself to work up the mental stability she needs to face whoever’s at her side. Maybe it’s a dream. Maybe this has all been in her mind and in a moment she’s going to wake up hangover-free with her bed blissfully empty.
Ellie brings her arm down from her eyelids and, without knowing what possesses her (aside from the copious amounts of alcohol that remain in her bloodstream), bites down gently on her arm in lieu of pinching herself.
She can confirm she is still very much awake.
It’s not that a one-night-stand is beyond her; she would even go as far as to say that at one point both she and A’whora were infamous for it back at uni, and she’s admittedly glad that “Dirty Diamond” just isn’t as catchy as “A’whora” and therefore that particular nickname hasn’t stuck with her into adult life like it has for her friend. No, what she’s surprised at herself for is the fact she’s brought someone back at her big age. She hasn’t had a random hookup for a while now, and the fact she can’t remember it is even worse.
She presses the hand that’s under the duvet against her thigh and her heart almost gives out with relief at the fact she can feel clothes. She can’t have gone too far, then. This is okay. This is salvageable. As she runs her fingers over the hem of whatever the fuck she’s wearing, realisation slowly dawns on her that it’s her pink playsuit from the night before.
Ellie genuinely can’t tell if the situation is better because she’s not naked, or worse because she’s still in her clothes from last night.
Her pulse skyrockets again, however, as an arm gently thuds over her waist through the duvet and the person, whoever the hell they even are, snuggles into her side contentedly. Only…it all feels too weirdly familiar for Ellie’s liking. The body beside her, the closeness, even the rise and fall of the breathing is all that of someone she feels like she knows.
Lifting her arm off her eyes and to her forehead, opening them, and finally ripping the plaster off to see who’s by her side, Ellie doesn’t know whether to be relieved or slightly horrified.
A purple velvet jumpsuit with a belt to tie her in at the waist that’s coming undone. Black and purple painted nails. Endless waves of thick lilac hair that are fanned out in tendrils across the white pillowslip. An entire face of perfectly painted makeup that’s still clinging on from the night before.
It’s Lawrence. She’s waking up beside her best friend. This is fine. This is totally normal. They’ve shared a bed countless times before back at uni, and it’s not something Ellie’s ever been adverse to- quite the opposite in fact, she thinks, as her stomach does a flip.
Something still feels off, though.
And then, as Ellie brings her hand down from her forehead and something bumps against it, it hits her- physically and metaphorically- all at once.
The ring Lawrence always wears; her pride and joy, her grandmother’s ring. The one that looks like the heart of the ocean on her finger, a huge blue diamond surrounded by eight small platinum ones. The ring Lawrence guards with her life and would only take off if it was physically tasered off her. The ring that could single-handedly obliterate Lawrence’s entire student debt and probably Ellie’s too if she was feeling generous enough.
The ring- that ring- is currently sitting on the fourth finger of Ellie’s left hand. As if it’s an engagement ring.
“Lawrence,” Ellie says without thinking. Her voice is croaky and too-loud in the silence of the room, but Lawrence still takes a while to stir beside her. She pulls Ellie close with the arm that’s round her, nuzzles her face into her arm. Usually the feeling wouldn’t be an unwelcome one, but just now Ellie’s got bigger problems. She hisses again. “Lawrence, wake up.”
“I’m not shagging you, Ruth Davidson, you wee Tory,” Lawrence’s sleep-coated voice comes from beside her, and Ellie finally draws back, reaches behind her and takes the pillow out from under her head to thump her with.
“For fuck’s sake! Lawrence, wake up! We’re in the shit here!”
As Lawrence finally blinks slowly, Ellie watches her go through the seven stages of grief far more rapidly than she’s just done. She feels like an idiot for the way her heart dips in disappointment when Lawrence shuffles back from her and draws her arm away self-consciously. She mumbles, grumpy and tired. “Ellie, I’m not alive.”
“Yes you are, drama queen.”
“No I’m fucking not. I feel how Prince Philip looks,” she groans in despair, obviously as hungover as Ellie is. She screws her face up and rubs her eyes, in turn smearing her makeup over her cheekbones. “Why am I even here?”
“I don’t know. Maybe we shagged,” Ellie says dryly, before holding the back of her hand up to Lawrence’s face. “Main question is, why the hell do I have this?”
Lawrence’s eyes grow wide in recognition before she groans and thumps her head back against the pillow. “How did you even…? Aw, I don’t know, Ellie, I’m too hungover to be mad about it. Just gies it back before you breathe and lose it or some shite.”
“But why is it…you know. Why is it here?” Ellie asks insistently, pressing her hand against her friend’s face in a deliberately annoying way. Lawrence grabs her wrist and forces it away from her face to get a proper look, and Ellie can see the cogs turn in her head before her face blanches at the implication.
Appearing to try and collect herself, Lawrence frowns, batting Ellie’s arm away. “You were probably getting hit on by some reprobate forty year old man in a suit so I’ll have let you pretend to be married to me. You should be honoured, really, it’s the closest you’ll get to perfection.”
“Piss off,” Ellie rolls her eyes as Lawrence gives a sleepy chuckle. She fiddles with the ring on her finger. It’s a little too small, and taking it off is proving difficult. Combined with the underlying stress of something still not being right, though, and it’s not enough to make Ellie’s dread dissipate.
“Can you remember any of last night?” she asks Lawrence, who’s scrabbling around on the bedside table for her phone.
“Nothing. You?”
“Neither,” Ellie rubs her temples with her fingers as if trying to massage the hangover out of her brain. No such luck.
“A’whora will be worse than us, then, won’t she? Because the last thing I remember is her and Tayce necking the prosecco at pres- oh, shit,” Lawrence has successfully retrieved her phone, and as she cuts herself off she’s frowning at it as if it’s committed a crime against her. “She’s calling just now, actually.”
Ellie already knows A’whora will be perfectly fresh and put together even before Lawrence swipes her phone across the screen to accept the facetime call, and so seeing her looking exactly that plus her girlfriend beside her looking the exact same just makes Ellie want to die even more.
A’whora’s smile is smug on her face as she smirks at them through the phone. “How are you two lovebirds doing this morning?”
Her words are like cold water down Ellie’s spine, and from the way Lawrence’s expression has changed too it seems she’s not the only one. She’s wondering what A’whora’s trying to imply with her joke and really, really hoping it’s just an innocent barb with no meaning behind it. Ellie can’t speak, but Lawrence gets there before her anyway. “What?”
“The married couple! The newlyweds! The babas!” Tayce jumps in, way too energetic and excited and making Ellie feel more hungover just looking at her.
Her words, though, aren’t helping her growing need to spew all over the hotel room floor. “What are you talking about?”
A’whora’s jaw drops open, and she barely conceals a laugh. “Oh my God. What do you remember?”
Ellie doesn’t want to give either of them the satisfaction of admitting that the answer’s nothing, but Lawrence is talking before she can get a chance. “Neither of us can remember anything. All I know is that I woke up in bed with this slut and she’s tried to steal my gran’s ring off me to…fuck knows, pretend she’s married to me. She wishes.”
“Lawrence,” Tayce starts, barely audible from giggling. “You two are married. You got married last night.”
What the fuck.
How can they be married? It’s not possible. Ellie tries to think but she can’t conjure up any clear thoughts. She feels the same smack of dread and fear that she felt when she went on that motorcycle rollercoaster at Flamingo Land two summers ago. Lawrence had been by her side then, too, her hand over Ellie’s white-knuckled one and reeling off ridiculous jokes to try and calm her down. She hates rollercoasters, and this one doesn’t seem like it’s going to be over anytime soon.
Lawrence doesn’t seem fazed. “You’re on the wind-up. Els, don’t give them the satisfaction, they’re taking the piss.”
“We’re not!” Tayce gasps, affronted, and A’whora is protesting adamantly too. “There was a wedding party in the bar last night and the pair of you kept moaning about how single you were and how you’d never find love.”
Lawrence narrows her eyes at her through the camera, offended. Ellie is inclined to feel the same.
“And the pair of you eventually decided you were just going to marry each other. Bimini mentioned they’re an ordained minister, so then you both insisted they married the pair of you in the hotel bar.”
“Get so far to fuck,” Lawrence snorts derisively, but it’s still not helping Ellie’s rising, terrified heart rate. “We’re meanty believe this, aye? Why in the fuck would I ever agree to marrying this wee cow, as if I would lower myself!?”
Ouch. Ellie scowls, screws her face up as she tears her eyes away from the screen and looks at Lawrence pointedly. “Thanks babes, love you too.”
“But you know what I mean!” Lawrence sort-of-not-really apologises. “Right, then, I’ll bite. If we got married, how did we get to the registry office? What registry office is open at eleven at night on a Saturday?”
A’whora shrugs all blasé. “There’s one in the hotel, we just went there. Caught it just before it closed, I think.”
Ellie narrows her eyes. She wants to believe it’s a joke, so she attempts to pick a hole in the story. “If we were that drunk, though, they wouldn’t have married us? Surely? I mean it’s not Vegas, A’whora, it’s the fucking Lake District.”
“Oh no, baby, the registrar said they get couples turning up drunk all the time! And obviously myself, A’whora and Bimini were much more sober than you, so we were the responsible adults. Or bridesmaids, I guess. We were that classy level of prosecco tipsy, you pair were on the vodka lemonades by eight last night,” Tayce explains.
As the story unfolds, Ellie feels more and more nauseous. She wants to crawl up into a ball like a dead woodlouse. Surely not. Surely not.
“Wedding dresses,” Lawrence says argumentatively. “We didn’t have wedding dresses. It would’ve been so obvious we were taking the piss.”
“Oh, neither of you would stop going on about how the colour scheme was pink and purple! Matching pink and purple playsuits! Which I see you’re still wearing, you absolute hounds,” Tayce wrinkles her nose in distaste.
Everything seems to be adding up to a ridiculously clear and yet blurry degree, and Ellie can’t in any way cope with the magnitude of the situation. She throws her arms over her face and curls up into the foetal position with a groan of self-pity. Through the duvet, she feels Lawrence whack her.
“Ellie, shut up! It’s so obviously a joke,” she insists, and Ellie can hear the roll of her eyes. A’whora and Tayce are cackling down the phone like two little Wizard of Oz witches and Ellie’s never identified more with Dorothy in her life.
“Well, believe us or don’t believe us, still doesn’t change the fact you got hitched,” A’whora says lightly. “I mean, you’ll have the marriage certificate to prove it. You had it last night, it’ll be in your room somewhere.”
Ellie pops her head out from under the duvet in horror. Her voice comes out as a horrified squeak. “Marriage certificate?”
A’whora shrugs. “Yeah! If you don’t believe us then maybe you’ll believe a piece of paper.”
“The marriage certificate that doesn’t exist. Aye, nae bother,” Lawrence says, still clearly disdainful of the story. “You coming to breakfast or what?”
“Oh, babe! Been there, done that! We got up at seven, showered, dressed, makeup, breakfast, and we’ve been out for a walk. Get on our level,” Tayce flicks her hair. Ellie fleetingly loathes her.
Lawrence rubs her forehead with her free hand, clearly headachey. “Well I’m starving, so I’m not hanging around to be wound up by the fuckin’ lesbian Prank Patrol any longer. Time’s check out?”
“You’ve got til half twelve. I got us a late one, figured we’d all need it.”
As Lawrence promises to see the other two later and hangs up, Ellie can’t speak. She’s still in shock at the potential truth from last night; that they actually got married. To each other. Over the years, Ellie’s invented made-up scenarios in her head that involve various things: telling Lawrence how she feels, kissing Lawrence, Lawrence asking her on a date. None of them have involved marriage. She’s never even thought to think that far ahead, but now it’s a reality it doesn’t seem like the Disney-princess dream she’s always expected it to be.
It actually feels sort of like a nightmare.
A thud from a pillow brings her back to reality. “Ellie!”
Ellie looks at her friend, who’s managed to crawl off the bed and is standing beside it, looking expectantly at her. Ellie blinks in bewilderment, rubs her eyes before she speaks. “What?”
“I’m gonna go shower and get changed and then we can go down to breakfast? I’ll come back and knock in about fifteen minutes?”
Ellie can’t believe she’s so calm. Sitting up in bed and feeling her head sting again, she looks pointedly at Lawrence. “You’re not in any way bothered about the story the girls just told us? The fact we might have got married?”
Lawrence snorts. “Oh, Ellie, please. You’re so gullible I swear to God someone could tell you Davina McCall’s the new Pope and you’d just nod and accept it.”
“But the marriage certificate, though? The ring? Which, by the way, won’t come off,” Ellie tugs on it again, trying not to panic when it doesn’t budge.
“There won’t be a marriage certificate! You said it, it’s the UK, it’s not Vegas. There’s a reason shotgun weddings aren’t a thing here. You honestly think we could just rock up to a registry office and get married?”
Ellie falls silent. She should feel reassured, but she doesn’t.
“I’m away to scrub the first ten layers of alcohol sweat out of my pores, awrite? You better be ready by the time I’m back.”
Lawrence leaves and Ellie is left on her own with her thoughts, which all seem to ricochet off her brain and pummel it to a husk, making her hangover worse. She still searches lazily for the fabled marriage certificate in between showering and getting ready, looking fruitlessly under discarded clothes on the floor and under furniture. Lawrence is right- she knows Lawrence is right- but there’s still a part of Ellie’s mind that’s niggling away with a what if on a loop.
By the time Lawrence knocks on her door again, Ellie is back not knowing what to think. She finds herself frantically babbling to her on the way down to the hotel restaurant in the lift, but her friend won’t entertain it.
“You’re too easy to prank. How can you believe them, it’s obviously a bam up!”
“Well, it could’ve happened! They brought it up before we even said we couldn’t remember anything, right? I mean, why else would you give me your ring? You barely trust me to hold your phone for two seconds to take a picture,” Ellie runs a hand through her hair, which she didn’t wash and is still in its big curls from the night before.
“Aye! Because you dropped it in the road when we went out for Jazz’s birthday!”
“That was two years ago! And I paid for the screen repairs!” Ellie cries in indignation, but the memory still makes her blush. She grows quiet again before her mind takes her back to the apparent events of last night. “The story makes sense.”
“The story does not make sense!” Lawrence sighs, agitated. “What proof do we have? You’re wearing my ring and our pals have told us the plot of a Hangover film? Honestly, hen, if we got married last night I’ll buy you an Uber back to Dundee.”
As they reach the dining room, the pair of them stop dead in the entranceway. Because there in the middle, almost as if it’s framed, is a table for two surrounded by inflatable red heart-shaped balloons, covered in red sparkly confetti, with champagne flutes and roses and polished silverware.
“What time’s my Uber booked for, then?” Ellie deadpans sarcastically. She doesn’t know why she’s making a joke. She isn’t in a joking mood. She’s nothing short of horrified.
“Calm down. That won’t be for us. A’whora said there was a wedding party last night, remember? It’ll be for them,” Lawrence reassures her, but Ellie doesn’t miss the distinct lack of self-assuredness to her voice that had been there before.
A waiter approaches them and asks for their name. Lawrence speaks (because Ellie can’t quite manage), and in return the waiter fixes them with a bright smile.
“Ladies, on behalf of us all at the Old England, we would like to wish you many congratulations and happiness on this most special occasion. Please, follow me,” he reels off before walking in the direction of the over-the-top, Valentine’s Day-style photoshoot set-up that is apparently where they’re having breakfast.
Ellie is going to be sick.
“You’ve got to be fucking joking,” Lawrence whispers all in one breath, before sleepwalking towards their table and sitting down with a tight smile of thanks to the eager waiter. As Ellie sits in the chair opposite, she notices the affectionate smiles from couples at other tables and feels her face flush with hot embarrassment. The waiter disappears with a promise to be back for their order soon, and the pair of them are left sitting in stunned silence.
“Lawrence,” Ellie says first. Her gaze is stuck on the table, shocked and stunned.
“Don’t,” Lawrence replies. When Ellie finally looks at her she’s sitting with her eyes squeezed shut, her face a picture of strained concentration.
“What are you doing? You look constipated.”
“I’m trying to wake up from this abject fucking nightmare,” Lawrence says through gritted teeth.
Even though Lawrence is right- it is a nightmare, it’s a bad, terrible dream- it doesn’t stop the way her words feel ever-so-slightly like a blow to the crush Ellie’s harboured for an embarrassingly long length of time. She can’t think about that, though. There are bigger issues at stake here. Like the fact they’re married.
“Do you believe me now? Why the hell would the hotel do all this if we didn’t get married in their registry office the night before?”
“It’ll be…” Lawrence begins, trying to explain it away then putting her head in her hands when she realises she’s at a loss. “Fuck, I don’t know. We need A’whora or Tayce down here to talk it through with us. Or Bimini. If it’s A’whora and Tayce’s prank then they might not be in on it.”
“They had to go back to London early for a shoot, remember? They’ll have already left,” Ellie reminds Lawrence, and her face falls in dismay.
The waiter returns holding a bottle of champagne and Ellie watches Lawrence turn over her flute with a little aggressive thud and doesn’t say when until the bubbles climb to the very top of the glass. They both order pastries, Ellie’s appetite completely gone and Lawrence’s appearing to be the same.
Ellie narrows her eyes at Lawrence as she watches her glug the bubbles down. “How the hell can you be drinking at a time like this? Are you not hungover?”
“I am hungover, yes. But I need to be drunk to deal with this situation. So I’m hoping this’ll at least take the edge off a bit,” she says dryly. Ellie rolls her eyes.
“Being drunk got us into this situation, it’s not gonna get us out of it,” she sighs helplessly, realising too late that she sounds too much like her Mum. Lawrence responds appropriately; shaking her head at her moodily and staring off into the distance as she keeps sipping from her glass.
Ellie cups her cheeks, thanks the waiter weakly as he puts down a tray of pastries in front of the two of them. She tries to go over the events of last night in her head but draws a blank every time. According to A’whora and Tayce they’ll have been at the bar, decided to get married…Bimini had married them, somehow and somewhere, and they’d gone to the registrar…then they’d presumably got even more drunk and had a dance, and then…
How had Lawrence ended up in her room? Unless they’d…no. They’d both still had their clothes on from the night before.
But that wouldn’t have stopped them making out.
“Oh, God,” Ellie groans, unable to hold in the regret and the constant pain of her headache. Lawrence shoots her a funny look. Ellie’s loath to explain herself. The idea that the first kiss she’s shared with Lawrence has been messy, drunk, and one she can’t even remember is one that makes her feel stupid amounts of disappointed, but she’s not exactly going to share that with her friend.
“Loz, what if we did something last night?”
“What, aside from get married?” Lawrence talks through a mouthful of croissant. Then, as realisation dawns, her chewing stops. “Oh.”
There’s an awkward silence as they both stare at each other.
“Nah,” Lawrence finally shrugs as she resumes eating. “Because we both still had our clothes from last night on when we woke up?”
“Yeah, but we still could’ve kissed,” Ellie pulls a face, the words feeling too awkward and childish as they come out of her mouth. Lawrence seems to hesitate for a second before smirking across the table at her.
“Aye right. As if I’d ever let you near enough to me for that to happen.”
“Rich from the girl who was wrapped around me when I woke up,” Ellie quirks an eyebrow at her, and it’s Lawrence’s turn to fall silent.
Breakfast doesn’t last long. Between their hangovers and the fact that they’re both trying to make sense of the whole crazy situation neither of them can eat much, and they’re dragging themselves back to their rooms before too long. They continue to discuss everything, purely because there’s not much else they can talk about when the prospect of them being married is hanging over their heads like the world’s heaviest cloud. This time, though, it’s Lawrence who’s doing most of the nervous talking.
“I’m sure it’s easily explained away. They probably just got our table confused with the wedding party’s from yesterday. That’ll be what it is. Just some big coincidence. There’s a reasonable explanation to it all. Have you got that fuckin’ ring off your finger yet?!”
“I’m working on it,” Ellie grumbles. The best she’s managed is getting it halfway to her first knuckle before realising it was cutting the blood circulation off even more and she could get it no higher, so she’d immediately pushed it back down again.
She hears herself huff with annoyance. All she wants to do is sleep but they have to somehow deal with this first, and it’s more inconvenient than she’d ever hoped her first marriage (her only marriage) would be. Thinking for a second, she gives a little gasp as she has an idea. “Why don’t we just go down to the registry office and ask?”
Lawrence stops walking, fixes Ellie with a look as if she’s sprouted another head. “Have you lost the bloody place?! You want to go up to the registrar and go, ‘sorry to bother you, but can you please tell us if we’re married or not?’ We’d get sectioned!”
Ellie thinks that, even though it sounds as if it’s the easiest course of action, Lawrence is probably right.
“Besides,” Lawrence continues. “If there’s the possibility that we did rock up three sheets to the wind last night, I don’t particularly wanty show my face there again.”
“Right,” Ellie agrees. She bites her lip as she reaches the door to her room and puts her key card in. Lawrence waits beside her, a mutual understanding that she’s coming in to continue the conversation.
Ellie supposes she’s her wife now, so it makes sense.
“Who could we phone to confirm it, then? The government?”
Lawrence pinches the bridge of her nose in exasperation. “Ellie, you did not just ask me if we could phone the gov-”
“Oh my fucking God.”
Ellie cuts Lawrence off without thinking, and upon seeing the inside of the room Lawrence is rendered speechless too. There’s more balloons, ones without weights that cover the ceiling over the bed. The bed itself and the floor surrounding it is covered in rose petals, and on top of the pristinely made duvet there’s a box of chocolates and two bathrobes origami-d into swans.
Lawrence is the first to march into the room. She snatches up a small note that’s sitting on top of the chocolate box, unfolds it and reads aloud. “Congratulations to the happy couple, we wish you both a long and happy marriage. From all the staff at the Old England hotel. Fuck me, this canny be real.”
Ellie lets the door swing shut, walks over to the bed and sits on its edge precariously. An idea occurs to her as she retrieves her phone from her pocket. “Here. Check your phone. Messages, photos. There might be clues.”
She doesn’t look up to see if Lawrence is nodding or not, but she assumes she’s following her suggestion. Ellie is busy with her camera roll (where there’s nothing, and the last photo is a terrible, blurry, unflattering selfie of her and Tayce) when Lawrence gives a hum of recognition.
“I got a snapchat from you at one in the morning.”
Ellie cranes her neck. “What does it say?”
Lawrence, oddly, is keeping the phone out of her view. She’s quiet before she brings the phone back into Ellie’s line of vision, and the picture, whatever it was, is gone. “Just a drunk selfie. Nothing that could give us any clues.”
The pair of them are quiet as Lawrence taps against her phone screen. Ellie reflects. They’ve been in the shit like this together before: when they were eighteen and both their phones died before Lawrence’s Mum could pick them up from T in the Park and they got yelled at the whole way home when she’d eventually found them both, when they’d been stopped by the police because Lawrence had carried a traffic cone through the City Centre and tried to put it on top of the existing one on the Duke of Wellington statue. But this is a whole different level of shit.
Through it all, though, Lawrence has always been there with a joke and a laugh and reassurance for Ellie that things are never as bad as they seem. She always has this panicky way of staying positive, delivering comforting words through a voice that’s shaky with her own anxiety. Ellie always helps her in return when she needs it, has done for years: she’s usually good at staying calm, she’s chatty and can talk Lawrence through anything, and she’ll always reach out to take her hand or be there with a hug and a reminder that as long as Lawrence has got her, she’s never on her own. They’ve always seemed to take turns being each others’ anchors, and their friendship is a weird sort of pendulum of support. Today, however, they’re both blindly stumbling through their own process of coming to terms with this situation, and Ellie supposes neither or them are being much of a help to each other. She wishes she could be more helpful, because she cares about her friend so much.
Too much for it to be explained away as a friendship.
“What are you looking up?” Ellie asks as Lawrence lies back on the bed with a thud, eyes still glued to her phone. Craning her neck, Ellie can see she’s typed how to get divorced into Google.
“Why are there no ordained divorce lawyers?” Lawrence mutters under her breath. “We can get married in a hotel bar but we can’t get divorced in a hotel room? What kind of fucking bullshit is this?”
Ellie lies back too. It’s not lost on her how close together their heads are. “Why are you trying to get us divorced? We might not even be married. I still think we should phone up the government.”
“Nicola Sturgeon’s got bigger fish to fry, babes, there’s an election in May.”
“Not the government, obviously,” Ellie rolls her eyes, scrolls her own phone absent-mindedly. She’d look something up to try and help but she’s at a loss. “Like…the offices! The records of marriage and stuff. They’ll have a department for this sort of thing, won’t they?”
“Will we even be on the system if our marriage is less than twenty-four hours old?” Lawrence wonders out loud. “And if we got married here, would we be registered in England, then? Aw fuck, so many questions and not a single answer.”
Ellie frowns to herself as she thinks. “What if we do have to get divorced? Will we need a lawyer? I don’t have that kind of money, Lawrie, and neither do you.”
Lawrence hums in worried agreement, and Ellie presses her lips together. It’s weird dealing with all of this when there’s a crush at play. In amongst frantically trying to figure everything out and clarify it all, a tiny part of Ellie wonders…would it really be so bad to be married to Lawrence? There’s not really an excuse for them not to date now. It’s really the perfect way of ruining the friendship she’s been so worried about ruining for the past few years; it’s not awkward to say she has feelings for her literal wife, she supposes. But every time those thoughts rest in her brain for a few seconds, Ellie forces herself to chase them away- because really, hen, are you insane? The sheer scale of the situation isn’t lost on her, she knows they have to figure it out somehow and mop this mess up. But pretending would be nice, and safe, and far, far away from this alcohol-soaked bubble of horror she appears to have woken up in.
It’s out before she knows it, though. “What if we just stayed married? If we are. If we just stayed married until we could afford to get divorced?”
“Jesus Christ, Ellie,” Lawrence drops her phone onto the bed, covering her eyes with her hands in resigned exhaustion.
“No, think about it! There must be loads of benefits to getting married,” Ellie explains, feeling as if she has to justify the ridiculous thought now. “You get, um. I think you get extra money from the government?”
“The tories have never given out extra money. To anyone,” Lawrence glares at her.
(Ellie knows it’s not what she should be taking from this, but it occurs to her that the way Lawrence has done her eyeliner today makes her eyes look really pretty.)
“Oh! Here, it says you get tax breaks if you get married. It would be good to not have to pay council tax for a bit,” Ellie says, looking up from her phone where she’s just googled what are the benefits of getting married UK.
Lawrence pauses beside her. When she speaks, she sounds contemplative. “Well, you’d be taking my last name, because am I fuck taking yours.”
Ellie gives a choked noise of indignation. “Fuck off, I’ve got the best last name out of the two of us! Diamond?”
“It’s the last name of a porn star! I’m not living my daily life like that!”
“So you want me to go by Ellie Chaney? A name that rhymes? Like a character from Balamory?”
“You already dress like a fuckin’ character from a kids’ TV show, it wouldn’t be that far-fetched,” Lawrence starts giggling, and Ellie can only fix her with an unimpressed pout. “Nah, this wouldn’t work, Els. We’re already arguing and it’s only been one day. We couldn’t stay married. Besides, I’ve got fucking standards, you know? I could so do better than you.”
It’s silly, Ellie knows, but the last comment from Lawrence stings more than it should. It’s got nothing to do with the concept of the two of them actually being married, but more the fact that Lawrence has basically just rubbished any hopes that Ellie’s ever had of maybe-someday-oneday them breaking out of their little bubble of friendship and trying to be anything more. She’s always done it; that’s Lawrence’s way, to shit on Ellie, to gently bully her, but Ellie has always known there’s no malice behind it. Except today it all hits differently, it hits a sore spot that she’s too tired of trying to keep hidden.
“Sorry that being married to me is such a disgusting prospect,” Ellie snaps without realising, turning over on the bed and standing up so she doesn’t have to see Lawrence’s reaction to the comment she already regrets.
“When did I say that?” Lawrence fires back, and Ellie can tell she’s confused by her reaction.
“We need to find this fucking marriage certificate,” Ellie ignores her, opening the drawers of the bedside table even though she sort of knows it’s a futile endeavour since she’s already searched.
Lawrence pushes, though, never one to back down from a confrontation. “Why are you suddenly raging at me, what am I meant to have done?”
“You don’t have to act like you got landed with the booby prize on a game show, Lawrence, I’m still your friend. There’s worse people to be stuck with,” Ellie continues as she crosses the room to look in the drawers of the dressing table, hating the way she sounds like a petulant child but being unable to help the way her words just seem to be coming out.
There’s a silence that hangs in the air like fog, and then Lawrence’s voice comes again. It’s softer, a comforting note to it that makes Ellie’s heart lift cruelly. “Ellie.”
Ellie opens the wardrobe doors, realising too late what a ridiculous place to look it is but committing to the idea anyway. She’s still way too hungover to cope with any of this, and the prospect of an argument with Lawrence, especially over this, isn’t one she’s able to face. Accepting she’s not going to find the certificate, she sighs and walks back over to the bed. As she sits on its edge and keeps her back to her friend she fiddles with the ring on her finger, and it finally, mercifully, slides off.
Lawrence’s voice is stripped of all its aggression and incredulity from before as she speaks again. This time she’s quiet and sincere. “Ellie. What’s this really about?”
Before Ellie can consider the gravity of the question or indeed contemplate how to word an answer, Lawrence’s phone vibrates against the bedcovers. Neither of them speak as she reaches up to grab it, but when A’whora’s name flashes up on screen again they share a look of weary exhaustion, neither of them wanting to face their friend’s smug expression.
A’whora’s smiling cheekily as Lawrence answers the call. “How’re the young lovers doing after their breakfast, then?”
Lawrence’s nostrils flare. “I’m not even going to dignify that with an answer.”
“So all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, then. Just calling to see if you liked the wedding presents.”
Ellie feels like a crumbling sandcastle as she rolls onto her side next to Lawrence and looks at A’whora through the screen. “What?”
“The decorations at breakfast! The ones in your room! Just thought they’d really add to the atmosphere,” she smirks, unable to keep from laughing.
More confused than ever, Ellie frowns in bewilderment. “But that was from…the hotel did that?”
“No, I did that. I just phoned down and got them to set it up. They still had a bunch of wedding shit left over from that pair that got married last night. It wasn’t cheap, but it was worth it to give the pair of you the romantic equivalent of everyone singing happy birthday to you at a restaurant,” A’whora explains, still giggly.
Ellie and Lawrence are silent as they stare at their friend through the phone. A’whora seems perturbed, then narrows her eyes at them before she speaks again.
“You two didn’t actually…believe you got married, did you? I thought you knew it was a bullshit prank.”
Before she can register Lawrence’s reaction, Ellie’s mouth drops open in shock. She grabs the phone from Lawrence’s hands and yells at A’whora as if she’s in front of her and not in her own room down the corridor. “A’whora! I am going to fucking kill you!”
A’whora’s laugh comes through the phone like a crackly screech, and Ellie doesn’t miss the unimpressed look from Lawrence at having been unable to style out the fact they’d both been duped. Ellie can’t even let that bother her, though, because she’s too busy tripping over herself to retell to A’whora their rollercoaster of a thought process from this morning.
Lawrence shakes her head beside her, loath to admit she’d been fooled too. “I didn’t believe it for a second. She’s talking out her arse.”
Ellie cries out, affronted. “You were telling me I had to take your last name not even five minutes ago!”
A’whora has to wipe tears from her eyes by the time the pair of them have told her the whole story. “Oh my God, guys. This has been the best birthday present of the weekend. I actually think I’m gonna wee myself. Fuck!”
“I can’t believe you told us we got married and we just…believed you!”
“Well, no, you did get married,” A’whora says.
With this revelation, it crosses Ellie’s mind to lock herself in the hotel sauna until she’s cooked through. “What in the name of God-”
As she continues to speak though, A’whora clarifies. “Or at least, you said you both wanted to marry each other. That conversation did take place. Bimini started joking they were an ordained minister. They showed you their provisional drivers’ license and told you it was a minister’s license. You were both so drunk you believed it.”
“Christ in a wheelie bin,” Lawrence groans.
“But you’re not actually married married. It was just pretend. And hey! We had fun. You should do it for real some day,” A’whora cackles.
If she was in the room with her, Ellie would slap her.
They finish the call with the promise to be packed and ready to meet to check out at half twelve, and when Lawrence locks her phone the pair of them laugh softly about the idiots they’d both been. Ellie is glad A’whora phoned. The conversation that had been taking place prior had been about to go down a route she hadn’t wanted it to, and she’s glad there’s no reason for it to be brought up again. She can go back to keeping her crush on her friend a secret, never to be unearthed.
“I should probably go and start getting packed, then,” Lawrence says decisively, getting up from the bed and making to leave. Ellie remembers what she put on the bedside table, and reaches out to pick it up as she tells Lawrence to wait.
As Lawrence turns around, Ellie holds out her grandmother’s ring, feeling a little awkward as she does so. “Here. Since we’re not married anymore. It came off in the end.”
Lawrence looks a little sheepish as she accepts it with a soft thanks. She gives it a little smile, then shoots the same one at Ellie. “Thank fuck for that.”
There isn’t any malice to her words. If Ellie was being hopeful she’d maybe even say there was regret.
Lawrence leaves and she can’t shake the little niggling feeling of sadness that embeds itself under a synapse in her brain.
***
The cold air that comes with the beginning of Autumn is welcome to Ellie as she sits and waits on Tayce to bring the car round. She’s not quite fully recovered from her hangover, but packing, checking out and getting a can of Monster from a vending machine in the lobby has done wonders for her mood. There’s also the fact that she doesn’t have a potential marriage to consider, so that’s good. That’s a relief.
A crunch of gravel behind her makes her turn around, and seeing Lawrence wrapped up in her black hoodie makes Ellie feel mixed emotions. She feels silly for getting so caught up in the whole idea of them having been married, the way she’d panicked and immediately thought it was all real, taking A’whora and Tayce’s comments at face value. She’s embarrassed at how she’d taken it all so seriously, and most of all she’s embarrassed that Lawrence was there for every reaction.
“Hey,” she greets her, already feeling a blush grow on her face. “You recovered?”
“Just about, yeah,” Lawrence laughs softly. She gestures to the mango loco that’s in Ellie’s hand. “Can see you’re clearly feeling loads better.”
Ellie matches her laugh, raises the can up in a solo cheers. As she drops her arm again, she sighs a little.
“Listen, Lawrence, sorry about…this morning. Immediately panicking and getting so worked up and intense with it all. I was just hangy and emotional and I had the fear…you know what it’s like.”
“It’s no problem. Don’t worry,” Lawrence brushes her off. Her expression is troubled though, as if there’s something else she wants to say. The unspoken words are loud and stifling, and then Lawrence finally meets her gaze with a nervous one of her own. “Well, marriage didn’t really work for us. But…d’you think drinks would be better?”
Ellie’s heart is going to give out. She can’t cope with the events of the day at all. She can already feel her pulse speeding up with hope so she frowns at Lawrence slightly, clarifying like a child tugging the string of a balloon to bring it back to earth. “Drinks?”
“Yeah, like,” Lawrence shrugs, looks to the ground bashfully. “For a date. If you want.”
All at once it’s as if her blood has just suddenly exploded in her veins. It feels like Ellie is on some sort of other-worldly come-up as she blinks at her friend, her friend she’s had a crush on since fuck-even-knows-when, and is stunned into silence.
“The snapchat you sent me last night,” Lawrence continues, scrolling her phone and holding the screen out for Ellie to see. “I’ve felt like that too for a while now.”
Ellie is cringing as she reads the white text against the black screen- a screenshot of her message sent to Lawrence at one in the morning, which reads “so glad whe’re marrrued for rwal vc ive reallt luked you for ages and i quitr fancg u a lot acfually x"
“How did you even manage to read what that says,” Ellie screws her face up, failing to address the bigger picture.
Lawrence smiles, a little hint of a twinkle to her eyes that makes Ellie’s heart thump. “I knew what you meant.”
There’s a small pause where Ellie blushes and looks to the ground, handing Lawrence her phone back. Lawrence uses the silence to keep talking.
“I know I like to rip the piss sometimes, and I know I can take it too far. But today all of that was about…verbalising everything I thought you were feeling about me. Trying to reassure you that I wasn’t interested in you because I thought that’s what you wanted. Once I started I just…didn’t stop, I guess. Damage control, you know? I’m sorry, Ellie,” she reels off quietly. She’s not hiding behind any jokes and she’s not making fun of Ellie and she’s not making fun of herself. It’s honest and simple and raw and everything Ellie’s wanted.
She scuffs some gravel with her shoe. “You feel the same, then?”
Lawrence presses her lips together. Ellie can tell she’s nervous. “Yeah. I do.”
“I do? Is that some kind of sick joke?!” Ellie laughs, and as Lawrence joins in she suddenly hesitates. “Wait. This isn’t a joke, is it?”
“Well, I’ve had enough fucking pranks for one day and I’m pretty sure you have too.”
The pair of them share a laugh, and as Tayce’s car appears from round at the hotel car park, Ellie fixes Lawrence with a smile.
“Drinks sound good.”
Tayce and A’whora appear from the car and pop the boot open, and Lawrence and Ellie try and fail to bite back the smiles they’re shooting each other as they carry their suitcases over, a mutual agreement that they’ll talk more about their plans when they don’t have their nosy and shit-stirring friend and her equally nosy and shit-stirring girlfriend with them on their way to drop them off at the train station.
It’s not quite a shotgun wedding, and it’s not quite a marriage in Vegas. But a date and a drink with the friend she’s hidden her feelings from for too many years is a good place to start.
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Debut || Roger Taylor x fem!Reader
summary || you’re twenty years old, a full-time uni student, and you’re living out of home. money is tight. so, naturally, you decide to sell your virginity to the highest bidder. when you get an offer from some guy in his mid-thirties, you put on your nicest dress and head on over. but there’s a problem: he has no idea who you are, or why you’ve turned up at his house at nine o’clock at night. maybe things aren’t going to be as simple as you’d hoped. modern day au.
rating || explicit, with fluff dotted throughout. 18+ only. do not read if you are under eighteen. the age gap between reader and roger is sixteen years.
word count || about 17.7k.
author’s notes || welcome one and all to my very first fic on this blog! i pictured roger circa ‘85 (specifically live aid) for this fic. this fic is also dedicated to my friend and fellow mid-thirties-Roger enthusiast Jennifer @mrfahrenhcit (i couldn’t find a way to work in everything you asked, but i’ve saved some of them for the next roger fic that’s in the works). fun fact: this is the first reader fic where i’ve used ‘Y/N’. some people have said they’d had issues with this post being extremely slow to load, or the app has crashed - i think it’s just bc it’s so long, and i apologise for the inconvenience. [i am a proud member of the anti-cross-tagging club.]
masterlist
You don’t think you’ve ever felt more nervous before in your entire life. You’ve wiped your sweaty palms on your dress ten times in the past two minutes, and your heart hasn’t stopped racing from the moment you woke up this morning.
What are you doing? Seriously, what the fuck are you doing?
Well, that’s the thing. You know exactly what the fuck you’re doing.
You aren’t doing it out of embarrassment, or anything to do with pride. You don’t feel pressured, not by anyone, not even by society, fuck society, but you saw some dumb article about it – it was hardly even an article, just gossip – and it gave you the idea, and then you were doing some research about it, just for the money, it’s just for the money, you’ve been living out of home for two years now and life’s still kicking you in the ass, so why wouldn’t you do it for money, if you could? And you can. So you went onto some website and snooped around to check for at least some sign of legitimacy, and then, well, you were making an account, and you made an account, and uploaded some photos that you never thought you’d upload to the Internet, and, a couple weeks later, you found out that someone had chosen you. Chosen you.
And now here you are.
On your way to a strange man’s house.
To lose your virginity to him.
Because he’s paid for it.
Well, he’s paid half. The other half comes… after.
And you’re not nervous about the actual sex part, you suppose, but more about the fact that you’re going to a stranger’s house for sex. Does that make you a sex worker? Could you call someone who played guitar in one gig and got paid for it, but never got paid for it again, a musician?
Probably. But maybe that isn’t the best comparison.
You don’t know much about this guy. Just his address, his name, his age – thirty-six, could be worse, to be fair – and that he’s obviously got plenty of cash to spare. And he’s definitely not the sort of guy you want to have around. Seeing as, y’know, he’s paid a twenty-year-old virgin to have sex with him.
The Uber pulls up to a stop in front of a house. It’s dark outside, almost nine in the evening, so the house is hard to make out, but it’s quite a nice place, very white-picket-fence. Something out of a magazine catalogue about the suburbs. You thank your Uber driver and grab your oversized handbag, climbing out of the car.
You close the door behind you.
The Uber drives off.
And you’re alone on the sidewalk.
You hoist the handbag onto your shoulder. It’s got a couple of things you think you’ll need – condoms, lube, two change of clothes depending on what this guy is after. You think you look more than nice enough in your heels and tight, black dress, but just in case.
You glance at your phone, double-checking the address. You send a quick message to your best friend Justine: at the house. will keep u updated.
She’s the only one who knows; and she only knows because you figured that at least someone should know, if something goes wrong.
Good God, you’re hoping nothing goes wrong. Not in that way. Not in any way, really.
And again, you’re back to asking yourself what the fuck you’re doing.
You take a deep breath, and start heading up the front path.
Your hands are shaking by the time you reach the front step, but you force yourself to raise a fist and rap your knuckles on the door. The automatic porch light is yellow, and you can’t help but feel irked by how unflattering it is.
You can hear movement inside the house. A part of you is searching for the sound of kids, although God forbid there’s any to be heard. But a guy like this… Well, your first conclusion is that he’s looking for an affair.
You really don’t want to be some kind of mistress. But, you suppose, this is really just a business transaction, so you’re free of at least most of the guilt, right? All of it, if you actually have no idea if he’s married.
Please don’t mention your wife, you pray. Don’t implicate me or whatever.
Finally, the door opens, and you feel like you’re about to throw up your heart onto your feet. But you push it down, and drink in the man in front of you.
If you weren’t sure before if he was a dad, now it’s unmistakable. He’s slim, and reasonably tall – not remarkably so, but still tall – and he’s dressed in loose jeans and a blue flannel that he has rolled up to his elbows. His hair is blond, sort of shaggy, sort of spiky, like he spends his time running his hands through it. You idly wonder what it’d feel like in your hands. Guess you’ll find out soon enough.
But the thing that really knocks your socks off is the big blue eyes that blink at you, framed by eyelashes that you’d kill to have yourself. Those eyes flash down to your outfit, and then back up at your face.
Okay. Maybe this whole thing won’t be that bad at all.
You give him your most winning smile. “Hi,” you say in a way that you hope is both alluring and professional.
He blinks at you again. “Hi,” he says, his eyes wide. His gaze flits up and down your body, like he’s trying to compute what he’s seeing in front of him. “Um, hello. What, uh– Can I help you?”
His voice is soft, softer than you were expecting. Gentle, almost.
You lick your lips and shift your feet. “I’m, ah, Mandy. Are you Roger? Taylor?” Your name is fake, of course. You’re not sure about his. Not that it matters.
“Yes, that’s me,” Roger says. He scratches the back of his head. “Uh, I’m sorry, you’re, um, lovely, but I don’t think I know you.”
Huh. Odd. Is this a foreplay thing? “We have an appointment. You booked me two weeks ago, and you gave me this date and this time,” you prompt unsurely.
Roger’s brow crumples. “An… appointment?”
You feel your face starting to heat up. You almost ask if you have the right address, but no, you already know that he’s Roger Taylor, he’s the one who booked, so you must have it right. “Yeah,” you say. “You, um…” You lower your voice a touch. “You already paid in advance. This is pretty much a done deal, but I’m just here to fulfil my end of the bargain. And then, of course, you’ll have to pay me the other half.”
Roger’s starting to look a little pale now, and you’re not quite sure what to do with that. His eyes dart down to your outfit and back up to your face. “Pay you?” he says. “I’ve– what? I’ve paid you? What did I pay you? When?”
Now you’re both embarrassed, and confused, and well, this isn’t something you’d pictured going wrong.
You suddenly feel very exposed in your tight dress and heels.
“Uh.” You scratch behind your ear. “Like, I don’t know what to tell you. You’ve booked me, and I’m here. And it wasn’t a small sum of money, so I doubt you’d want to…”
Roger’s mouth opens, and then closes, and opens again. “Oh, shit, hang on,” he says, his voice flat, “did I… Was this all booked and arranged two weeks ago on the Friday night?”
“Yes,” you say. “Why?”
Roger sighs heavily, and rubs his eyes. “Oh, shit,” he moans. “For God’s…” He raises his head, and sighs again. “Look, um, Mandy, there’s been a big misunderstanding. I, um, went through a divorce, er, relatively recently, a few months ago, and I’ve been doing a bit of wallowing, I guess you could say, and my friends tried to cheer me up a fortnight ago on Friday by bringing round a few bottles of very nice whiskey and gin. I don’t remember a lot of that night, but, now that you mention it, I have some vague memory of my friends trying to get me to, you know, ‘move on’, and, um, I think they might have looked up… people online.”
Your ears are really burning now. “Oh,” you say.
“That’s what this is, isn’t it?” Roger adds. “You’re a…”
“Not really,” you blurt. “Kind of. It– oh, man.” You bite your bottom lip, hesitating, not quite sure how much to reveal about the situation. “Okay, I’ll be honest. Yes, I’m… from a website. But I’m not – this isn’t a living, or a side gig, or whatever. Not that it would matter if I was, because there’s nothing wrong with…” You shake your head. Stay on track. “It’s just a one-off. You paid me to… to take my virginity.”
You swear you can see Roger’s soul leaving his body in that moment. “You– I what?”
You shrug helplessly.
Roger takes a step back, pressing a hand to his forehead. “Jesus Christ,” he mutters. “Jesus Christ.”
“I’m sorry for the confusion,” you say, and your stomach sinks further when a realisation comes to you. “I…” You swallow. Your mouth is dry. “I’m really sorry, but I can’t – The money you gave me. I’ve done this to help pay bills and rent and everything, and it’s already been used. A chunk of it, anyway. I can’t refund you. I’m really sorry.”
“No, God, don’t apologise,” Roger says. “You weren’t to know.” He shakes his head. “Fucking dickheads, the lot of them.” He looks to you, and warily inspects your face. “How old did you say you were?” His voice is small, like he’s scared of the answer.
“Twenty,” you reply, and his shoulders sag in relief.
“Thank God,” he says. “I mean, still, you’re so young, but at least you’re…”
“An adult?”
He nods, grimacing sheepishly. “I really am being honest when I say I don’t remember much of that night. My mates aren’t those sorts of people, but, well, who knows what they’d try to pull when they’re pissed.”
“No, it’s fine,” you say. “I look young for my age. But I am twenty.”
“No, I believe you,” Roger says quickly. “I’m not… No.”
You wipe your palms on your dress again. What now? Do you just go home? That wasn’t the cheapest Uber ride you’ve ever had. You were kind of relying on that extra money.
Roger seems equally at loss. “You– Did you have to travel far?”
“Not that far,” you say. “Forty minutes-ish.”
“Fuck,” Roger says. He puts his hands on his hips, and then drops them again. “What time is it? It’s nearly nine, isn’t it?”
“Yeah, about nine.”
“It’s late. You should be getting home.”
Your heart sinks. Wow. Okay. This is really just over like that. “Um, yeah, I guess,” you say. You take half a step back. “I’m really sorry about the– the, um, whole mix-up thing. And sorry about your divorce.”
Great. Real smooth.
“Thanks,” Roger says. He hesitates, and you’re about to turn and head back down the driveway, when he says, “How are you getting home? Did you drive?”
“Uh, no,” you say. “Uber.”
“Uber? God, no, sod that,” Roger says. “Let me…” He fumbles for something in his back pocket, but comes up empty. “Let me pay for it. I don’t– Can I pay you for it?”
“It’s all right,” you reassure him. “You’ve already given me– it’s okay.”
“No, please, I insist,” he says. “Should I– cash? I can give you cash. Or… transfer…” He rolls his eyes at himself, those pretty blue eyes that shouldn’t belong to a man his age, but somehow suit him perfectly. “God,” he mutters. “I usually have things more together than this, I promise. I’ve just been caught beyond off-guard.”
“Sorry,” you say again.
“It’s not your fault, really, I don’t– How could I blame you? You had no idea. I am going to murder my friends.” He sighs, rubbing his temple. “Um. Okay. I’ve paid you before, haven’t I, if you got the deposit? How did I do it? I can just do it that way again.”
“You transferred it to me,” you say. You shift in your heels. Your feet are starting to ache.
“Let’s do it that way again, then,” Roger says. “I’ll just get my phone, sorry.”
“It’s okay, really,” you say yet again, stopping him. “Don’t bother. I’ll– It’ll take me two minutes and then I can be on my way home.”
Roger hovers, and then says, “Can I– Did you want to wait inside? Or out on the steps? Could I get you some water, at least?”
You hesitate. “Um–”
“I’m not trying to do anything,” Roger blurts, and then he shakes his head. “Now it sounds like I am trying to do something. I’m not. Really. If you want, you can just wait here and I’ll go inside and leave you alone.”
You glance at your phone. You haven’t ordered the Uber yet, but you are pretty thirsty. You look back up to Roger. “Well, I already had it in my head that I was coming here to sleep with you, so I’m not really concerned about you trying anything,” you say. “Some water sounds nice, actually.”
Roger laughs. Like his voice, it’s unexpectedly soft, and it makes you smile.
“Um. Yes,” he says, glancing at his feet. “Well. Um, come on in, then.”
You head back up the path, and Roger steps aside to let you in.
You slip past him. He smells good.
His house, on the inside, is just as white-picket-fence as it is on the outside. Not the tidiest, but you suppose he wasn’t expecting company.
He seems to notice the slight mess the same moment you do, and he hurriedly darts forward to tidy up.
“Sorry,” he says.
“No, don’t worry about it,” you say.
He bends down to grab an empty beer bottle from where it sits on the floor next to the couch. Nice ass.
Not that it matters. You aren’t sleeping with him anymore. But, to be fair, you are only human. Just because you’re no longer ordering doesn’t mean you can’t admire the menu.
“I, uh, wasn’t expecting any guests, obviously,” Roger adds, half-jokingly.
You chuckle, and adjust your dress. Roger’s eyes flash down to your hands, then to your chest where you’ve pulled the dress down a little further in your adjustment, and then he quickly looks away, running his hand along his jaw.
“Uh, um,” he says. “Water? Um– take a seat, by the way. Feel free to sit…” He gestures vaguely around him. “Sit anywhere. Anywhere you like.”
“Um, okay,” you say, and hesitate, before awkwardly perching on his couch.
“Sorry, did you say you wanted water?” Roger says.
“If you wouldn’t mind,” you say.
“Yeah, of course,” Roger says, and then disappears into the kitchen.
You breathe in a lungful of air and slowly let it out. Wow. Talk about an unexpected evening.
You take out your phone and message Justine. boy do I have a story to tell u.
She’s online, and she replies immediately. fuck what’s happened?? everything alright??
You bite your lip, considering how to reply. yeah I’m fine. the guy is super easy on the eyes, but there’s been a mix up and basically I am remaining firmly in the virgin zone for the foreseeable future lol.
You backspace and try again. yeah I’m fine. long story short I’m coming home. tell u about it when I get there.
is he ugly?? Justine replies, and you can’t help but smile in amusement.
oh no, that’s not the issue even a little bit, you reply.
“I’m assuming tap water is fine?” Roger says, reappearing with a glass of water, making you jump slightly and flip your phone face-down on your leg, as if he could somehow see the screen from across the room. “Sorry, I should’ve asked. I don’t really have anything else.”
“No, no, tap water is fine, thank you,” you say, and he hands the glass to you.
You take a sip.
Roger glances away, seemingly looking for something to do or something to say, as if the answer is written in the walls. He chews on his thumbnail.
Your mind scrambles to find something to say, but it feels like trying to eat soup with a fork.
“Is everything all right?” Roger asks suddenly, looking to you. “I know this is probably completely inappropriate, but… Well, paying for someone to…”
Your stomach sinks with embarrassment. “Oh,” you say. “Um. Yeah. Yeah, everything’s fine. Just – could do with the money.”
“Of course, yeah,” Roger says hurriedly, nodding. “You’re at uni?”
“Yeah. And living out of home, so.”
“Right. Yeah, of course, I should’ve guessed. Sorry, that was…”
“No, it’s fine,” you say with a reassuring smile. You chuckle. “I’m sorry for disrupting your evening like this.”
“No, no, it…” Roger smiles, and you feel every trace of oxygen leave your lungs, because wow, he’s attractive. “It’s a welcomed interruption, actually.”
“It is?”
“Well, all I had planned was to watch something shit on Netflix and drink beer,” Roger says, screwing up his nose. “Not exactly exciting.”
“Oh, don’t let me stop you,” you say. “Sounds like they were big plans.”
Roger laughs, and your heart thuds against your ribcage. “The sort of plans that sound much nicer when you have company, I think.” He pauses. “Not that– not that I’m expecting you to–” He sighs, running a hand through his hair, making it stick up. “I’m sorry,” he says. “Really, I’m not usually this… awkward.”
“You don’t have to apologise,” you say, shaking your head.
“I used to be a real ladies’ man, you know,” Roger says. “Back in the day. Before my wi– my ex-wife. And the kids.”
“Sure,” you say, drawling sarcastically.
Roger laughs again, a little surprised, but amused. “I was!” he insists. “I was picking up women left and right.”
“I believe you,” you say lightly.
Roger grins, and you have to take a steadying breath. “You’ve got a tongue on you, haven’t you?” he says delightedly.
“So it’s been said.”
It comes out more suggestive than you’d intended. Roger takes a moment to drink you in, and then he bites his bottom lip, looking away, one hand sliding into the back pocket of his jeans, the other one slipping under his shirt, massaging his shoulder.
Your stomach flips and jumps. You take a sip of water.
“You sure you’ve never been with anyone before?” Roger says.
You snort. “That’s a pretty rude question, don’t you think?”
Roger smiles sheepishly. “You’re right. Sorry. I wasn’t thinking.”
You take another sip of water, and then say, “I haven’t slept with anyone, no. I think I’d know if I had.”
“Right,” Roger says mildly, nodding.
You narrow your eyes at him. “What?”
“Nothing, I didn’t say anything.”
“You’re thinking very loudly. Is there something wrong with me not having slept with anyone?”
“No,” Roger says, his eyes widening. “No, shit, that’s not what I was trying to say. It– you just seem… I’m just surprised. That someone like you…”
You adjust your dress again. Roger’s eyes drop to your breasts again, and back up to your face. “What do you mean by that?” you ask, trying not to preen.
Roger ponders over his answer for a while. “You just seem to… know what you want.”
“Oh, you think so?”
“Yeah,” Roger says noncommittally.
His eyes find yours, and they stay there. Your heart is racing in your chest now, making your blood feel warm. You’ve been attracted to plenty of people before, but this is really something else.
Roger clears his throat, breaking away, and you surreptitiously squeeze your thighs together.
Your phone buzzes on your thigh. It’s Justine. so he’s hot?
“Is that your Uber?” Roger asks. If you aren’t mistaken, he sounds almost disappointed.
Your cheeks grow hot. “Oh, um, I haven’t actually… I forgot to call it.”
“Oh,” Roger says. A tinge of relief? “Well, no rush.”
“It’s just my friend checking up on me,” you add.
“That’s good of them.”
“Yeah. Well, actually, she was checking up on me before. Now she’s just–” You open and close your mouth a few times, but decide to be honest. “Uh, she’s just, um, asking about you.”
Roger quirks an eyebrow, and it’s so hot that you have to look away. “About me?”
Your phone buzzes again. are you on ur way home now?
“Uh,” you say, and quickly type out, not yet.
“What have you told her?” Roger asks, playfully curious.
You put your phone down, and take a breath, smoothing your hands down your legs, thinking carefully of how to answer. “Just that you seem nice.”
“Nice?” Roger says.
“And you’re… Well.” You smirk. “I’m sure you’ve seen yourself in the mirror. No point in boosting your ego too much.”
Roger steps forward, drawn to you by an invisible string. “I don’t think I understand,” he says faux-innocently.
“I’m sorry, weren’t you just saying a minute ago that you were pulling girls left and right?” you say, cocking your head.
“Oh, yeah, when I was twenty,” Roger says. “Not talking about now.”
“Have you tried?”
Roger pauses, slightly taken aback by this, and his eyes roll to the ceiling as he thinks, blowing hair out of his cheeks. “You may have a point there.”
“And I suppose that’s why these friends of yours contacted me?”
“You… may have a point there,” Roger says again.
You nod to yourself. “I don’t see why they couldn’t have just taken you to a pub and set you up with someone there. It’d have been a lot cheaper.”
“They’ve, um…” Roger cards his hand through his hair. “They’ve tried that, actually.” He hesitates, and then walks over to you, sitting down on the armchair near you. “They’ve taken me out a couple of times.”
“And you’ve struck out?” you ask.
Roger chuckles. “No. I – well, like you said, I suppose I haven’t really tried. I didn’t want to.”
“Too soon?”
“No, it’s not that. It’s…” Roger pulls a face. “I don’t know. Haven’t felt like it, really. Maybe it was too soon. Or maybe the thought of having to try to chat someone up just seemed like so much effort.”
“Surely it wouldn’t be much effort for you.”
Roger meets your eyes again, and he smiles slowly, running his tongue along his teeth. “Oh yeah?”
Your phone vibrates. The way Roger’s looking at you makes you wish it was something else vibrating that you could put to good use alone in your room.
Roger’s eyes flick down to the phone, and back up to your face. “That your friend again?”
You hesitate, and then flip the phone over. hellooooo????? wtf is going on????
“Yeah,” you say, and put the phone down beside you.
“You going to answer it?”
“In a minute.”
You smooth your hands down your thighs. Roger watches like a hawk.
Your hands slide back up your thighs.
He swallows.
You smile.
“You, um, you ever…” Roger tears his eyes away from your thighs to look at your face. “Have– have you ever had a boyfriend? Or girlfriend?”
“Yeah,” you say casually. “Not for a long while, though. And nothing too serious. Nothing as full-on as marriage.”
Roger laughs, but it comes out sounding a bit strangled. “Yeah. That’s all right, though. That doesn’t matter.”
Your phone buzzes.
You ignore it.
“I never got around to… all of that,” you explain. “Y’know. Fucking.”
Roger’s face goes slack. “Uh–”
“I wasn’t waiting for anyone special,” you continue. Your blood feels electrified under his gaze. “Just never quite got there.”
“Never quite–?”
You hum. “That’s misleading. I’ve made out with plenty of people, but that’s all. Some over-the-clothes action. Basically nothing, really.”
Roger looks like he’s struggling to breathe. “Uh-huh.”
“You probably find that hard to imagine,” you say with a wry smile. “Having kids and all. How old were you your first time?”
Roger blinks, and takes a moment to reply. “Uh, I was sixteen.”
You laugh. “God, I can’t even picture…” You frown, and shake your head. “It’s hard to picture what it’d be like, you know? The reality of it? You can watch as much porn as you like – and I’ve watched plenty, mind you – but, like, I know that it’s not real. Not realistic, anyway. I’ve spent what feels like ages just trying to picture what is actually is like, but it’s impossible for me to know.”
“It’s good,” Roger says, and it comes out in a rush, and he looks surprised at himself.
You feel a thrill go through you. “Good?”
“Yeah,” Roger says. “Everyone says your first time isn’t good, but that’s only if your partner doesn’t know what they’re doing. And it’s nice when you have an idea of what you’re doing, too, but that comes with time. And if you have a good teacher.” He rakes his hand through his hair again. “But when the chemistry is right, and the mood is right, it’s… good.”
“That’s descriptive,” you murmur sarcastically.
Roger huffs a laugh. “What do you want, a detailed explanation? Graphs and illustrations?”
“A demonstration would be nice.”
Shit. Oh, shit. Shit shit shit. Why the fuck did you say that?
Your eyes are wide, and you open and close your mouth a few times. “Uh.”
Roger looks as surprised as you feel. “Oh,” he says. “Um. Wow. Is– is this part of the…”
You blink. “Part of the…?”
“The whole…” He gestures vaguely. “…thing. You being paid to…”
“Did I just make a complete idiot of myself as part of my attempt to woo you as a kind-of sex worker?” you ask. You can’t help but laugh, shaking your head. “Nope. No. That was all me. Just being a dumbass.” You groan, covering your face. “I’m sorry,” you say from behind your hands. “This is so embarrassing.” This whole night has been nothing but a huge embarrassment. You can’t wait to go home and forget about it, thanks to an unhealthy dose of alcohol.
“I’m sorry,” Roger says.
You lower your hands. “For what?”
“For – I don’t know. I just felt I needed to apologise.”
You snort. “You don’t have to apologise for me very clumsily and awkwardly and horribly trying to flirt with you, Roger.” You roll your eyes at yourself. “You’re probably used to seeing that all the time.”
“Again, not for a very long time,” Roger says. “But I know what horrible and awkward flirting looks like, and… that wasn’t it.”
“But clumsy, though, right?” you say, screwing up your nose.
Roger chuckles. “Maybe. But that’s all right.” He shifts in his seat. “I was just as clumsy.”
You wave a hand, and reach for your phone. It’s high time you called your Uber. And reply to Justine. “You weren’t flirting with me.”
You re-read the messages from Justine you’re yet to reply to.
so hes hot?
are you on ur way home now?
hellooooo????? wtf is going on????
Then the new one, from a few minutes ago: for the love of god can u please reply to me. something. anything. I’ll take a solid thumbs-up.
So you send a thumbs-up.
When you look up, Roger is staring at you, and you realise he hasn’t spoken since you did.
You’ve well and truly crossed a line somewhere. You can’t blame him for wanting you out. “I’m sorry,” you say. “I’m just – my friend. I’ll get the Uber now. Sorry it’s taken me so long.”
“Don’t,” Roger says.
You pause. “Don’t what?”
“Don’t order the Uber.”
Your stomach bubbles. “Wh– No?”
“Not yet, at least,” Roger says. He leans forward, resting his elbows on his knees. “You think I wasn’t flirting with you?”
“Why would you be?” you respond automatically.
“Why would…” Roger shakes his head. “Why wouldn’t I be?”
“Because I’m a random twenty-year-old woman who’s just shown up at your door on a Tuesday night dressed like this talking about how you paid to take my virginity,” you say bluntly. “Which is more than a little off-putting.”
“Well, all right, I’ll give you that,” Roger says. “But here I am, still trying to clumsily flirt with you nonetheless.”
You break out into a smile, a bashful one, and duck your head. “Oh.”
“Oh,” Roger repeats, a touch playfully.
You glance up at him. He’s smiling at you, pleased with your reaction, and the thought of kissing him flashes through your mind, and you’ve suddenly never wanted anything more. You purse your lips, looking at your hands again, fiddling with your phone, flipping it around and around in your grip.
“Mandy,” he says gently, and you’re puzzled for a moment before you remember –
“That’s, um, not my real name,” you tell him with an awkward chuckle. But you really like how he said it all the same.
Roger looks so embarrassed that you can’t help but laugh. “Here I was, trying to be all suave, and now I look like an idiot,” he says.
You shake your head. “You don’t. You didn’t know.”
“I should’ve guessed you weren’t using your real name.”
“No, it’s fine,” you giggle.
“Well, am I allowed to know your real name? So I can try again?”
You hesitate.
“Unless you don’t want to,” Roger says quickly. “That’s fine. Security, and all. Stranger danger.”
You laugh again. “Stranger danger? I’m in your house.”
“I could be a stalker. You don’t know that.”
Fuck, you’re attracted to him. “Dork,” you say with a roll of your eyes.
Roger chuckles, his eyes sparkling.
“It’s [Y/N],” you add.
“[Y/N],” he repeats, and your breath catches ever so slightly. He pauses, and then comes to sit beside you on the couch, and holds out his hand. “Nice to meet you, [Y/N],” he says. “I’m Roger.”
You giggle, and take his hand, shaking it. “Nice to meet you, Roger.”
He’s so close now. He smells amazing, and his hand is warm, and his eyes are so blue, and his lips–
You realise you’ve been staring at his mouth, your hand still in his, and you glance back up at his eyes before quickly taking your hand back, looking away.
You tuck your hair behind your ear, clearing your throat. You’re barely aware of your own body – only his, and how close it is to yours. Like there’s a force between the two of you, connecting you. When he swallows and moves his hand back to his own lap, you can feel it as if it’s your own.
“Do you, um…” Roger takes a breath in, and you feel your chest, your lungs, buzz. “Tell me about yourself a bit.”
“Me?” you say, looking to him. Oh, wow, he really is close. Fucking hell, you want him.
“Yeah,” he says, smiling. “What do you do for fun? Stuff like that?”
You lick your lips, and his eyes dart to the movement. “Um, well, I…” You absentmindedly adjust your dress, and it catches his eye again. “I’m at uni, in my second year. It’s all right. Pretty stressful, obviously, but I like it well enough. I live with two of my friends. I, um… I like… dogs.”
Roger laughs.
This is so stupid, you realise. You both clearly want each other.
You shake your head. “Stupid,” you mutter.
Roger frowns. “What’s stupid?”
“This,” you say. You gesture between the two of you for emphasis. “This.”
“Oh,” Roger says. He shifts away from you. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable.”
You huff. “You’re not.”
“Then what–”
“Kiss me,” you cut in.
Roger stops. “Kiss you?”
“Yes,” you say, keeping your gaze steady on his. “You’re too damn difficult to resist. So kiss me.”
Roger hesitates.
You raise your eyebrows. “Unless you don’t want to?”
“No, I – I do,” he says. “I just…”
“What?”
“I feel like the circumstances… I don’t want you to think I’m just doing this because I’ve paid you to…”
“I don’t think that,” you say. “And I don’t want your money; this is way beyond that now. I’m not trying to trick you into sleeping with me so I can force you to pay me. I just know chemistry when I see it.”
Roger chuckles. “I was right,” he says. “You know exactly what you want.”
You steel your nerves. “Yeah,” you say with a shrug of your shoulders. “And I want you.”
Roger swallows. “But you don’t even know me.”
“Nope.”
“And you’re in my house.”
“Yep.”
“And I’m so much older than you.”
“That’s right.”
“And you’re…”
“I’m a virgin,” you finish, nodding. “I know. But for the love of God, Roger, if you don’t kiss me right now, I’m going to scream.”
Roger exhales, shakes his head minutely, and then says, “God fucking damn it,” and leans in to kiss you.
You immediately shift to press closer towards him, one hand coming to rest against his chest. He kisses you earnestly, but gently, like he’s nervous. Nervous about making you feel pressured, you can safely assume.
But that’s not what you’re about. You pull back, and, before he can say anything, you climb on top of him, straddling his waist, and kiss him again, more deeply than before. He breaks away just far enough to whisper, “Holy shit,” and then ducks his head to kiss down your throat. You tilt your head to give him more room, one hand against his chest and the other raking through his hair. His hands, rough and warm, smooth up your thighs, and your breath catches. They stop just under the hem of the dress, and a soft whine slips from your throat.
Roger moans in response. “Jesus Christ.”
You reach down and grab at his wrists, urging his hands to go further up the dress. “Touch me,” you pant.
He draws back, and you look down at him, at his slightly flushed cheeks and his ruffled hair, and you want him naked, right now. “I don’t want you to feel like you have to do anything you don’t want to,” he says. “We can just make out, that’s absolutely fine. Just because of… the whole… arrangement…”
“Roger,” you say slowly, “I’m only going to say this once, because I don’t want to have to repeat myself.”
He nods, swallowing.
You cup his face in your hands, boring your eyes into his. “I want you to fuck me. Tonight. Right now.”
Roger takes a shaky breath. “Are you–”
“What did I just say?” you cut in. “Not repeating it.”
Roger smiles, laughing breathlessly. “Bloody hell.”
You smirk. “I’ll take that as a compliment.”
“Oh, it most certainly is one, believe me.”
You lean in to kiss him, and his hands, thank the Lord, slide further up your thighs. You start unbuttoning his shirt, blindly, fumbling a little, and your kisses grow more eager.
You’ve kissed a number of people in your time. Not a whole lot, but a few. And Roger really takes the damn cake.
When his shirt is fully unbuttoned, untucked from his jeans, you move your lips down his neck, and he moans, letting his head roll back, his hands shifting to grab your ass, pulling you against him. You can feel the tent in his jeans, and, beyond thrilled, you grind against it, loving how a bolt of arousal shoots through you. Roger’s grip on you tightens, and when you nip at his skin, he spits out, “Fuck.”
You rock your hips against him again, and he laughs again. “God, it’s been too long.”
You hum, nipping his throat again and soothing it with your tongue. “How long is too long?”
“Months. Lost count. Ah, fuck.”
You pull back, giving him a look, and he lifts his head to meet your eyes. “Try twenty years,” you say dryly.
Roger shakes his head. “Can’t even imagine.” He kisses you, just once, and then murmurs against your lips, “I promise I’ll make this good for you.”
You shiver. “I’m sure you will.”
“I mean it.” He kisses you again, and then sits back, his hands sliding back to your thighs and squeezing them gently. “I want this to be good for you. If I’m going to be your first, I want you to enjoy it. So you have to tell me if I’m doing something you don’t like, yeah?”
You nod. “Yeah.”
“I don’t care what it is we’re doing – you can tell me to stop at literally any point, and I will, no questions asked.”
You nod. “I know, I know.”
Roger chuckles. “You just really want to get things going, don’t you?”
“Yes.” You press your lips to his, and, now that you both know where things lie between you, you’re both eager to get to the next step. The kisses quickly become more feverish, hotter, deeper. Roger’s hands go to the back of your dress, working the zipper down your spine, and you shudder at the feeling of it. When he’s done, you sit back to yank it over your head, dropping it the floor behind you.
Roger’s eyes drink you in, his mouth hanging open. “Whoa.”
You flush under his gaze. You know you look good – you’d worn your push-up bra and matching lace underwear for a reason – but it’s still a rush to get a reaction like that.
“Bedroom?” Roger says, his voice a touch weak, and you nod, leaning in to steal one last kiss before climbing off him, taking his hand and pulling him to his feet. He groans slightly as he does so, and you giggle.
“I know, I know, I’m old,” he says.
“No, I like it,” you say, tugging him closer to you and hooking a finger of your other hand through a belt loop on his jeans. “Dad noises.”
Roger shakes his head, his hands coming to rest on your waist, and you lean into the touch. “Don’t say that,” he grumbles. “Makes me feel even older.”
“You’re not old,” you say, rolling your eyes. “You’re not even forty.”
Roger laughs. “Ah, yes, a real spring chicken.”
“Can you stop whining and fuck me already? I’m gonna be forty by the time we get to it.”
Roger snorts. “Cheeky.” He leans in to kiss you, and you curl your arms around his neck, pressing into him.
When you break apart, you take Roger’s hand again, and he leads you to his bedroom, both of you stumbling slightly in the dark house. You’re only in your underwear, but you’re still wearing your heels, and you feel like you’re in some kind of Victoria Secret ad.
Roger keeps glancing back at you, his eyes sweeping your body, and he’s so distracted he almost runs into a wall at one point, and you have to tug on his arm to pull him out of the way, laughing as you do so. He retaliates by pushing you up against the wall and kissing you senseless, his thigh slotted between yours. You’re lightheaded and unbelievably turned on by the time he breaks away again, and it feels like a lifetime before you reach his bedroom.
Roger switches on the light.
The double bed is unmade, but the room itself is fairly tidy, just a pair of shoes and a shirt on the floor. The whole room screams tax-paying adult, and you’re reminded again that the man you’re about to sleep with is, in fact, a proper adult. Not like you, an adult by the loosest terms imaginable, but a fully-grown man with children and a mortgage and a career, probably. A completely different world to yours.
But none of that will matter when you’re both naked.
He closes the door behind him, and then you’re pouncing on him, pushing his shirt off his shoulders and all but tearing his belt off. His hands are tight on your hips, and when you undo his belt and the button and fly on his jeans, he pants, “Bed, bed, go sit on the bed.”
You do as you’re told, sitting on the edge of the bed and crossing one knee over the other, taking the opportunity to quickly tie your hair back out of your face while and Roger fumbles with the rest of his clothes, kicking off his shoes and pulling off his socks and jeans. You can tell that he would’ve been thin as a twig back in the day, and you’d easily call him slender even now, but his body is soft, the sign of a father who’s spent more time taking care of the kids and having a beer in the evenings to wind down than going to the gym. It suits him, looks good on him. You’re certainly a big fan.
Soon, he’s down to nothing but his boxer-briefs. His boxer-briefs, which are neon green.
You break out into a grin, and Roger looks down at them, sighing. “Of all the fucking pairs I could’ve put on today,” he mutters.
“They’re pretty great,” you say, and you make sure you have Roger’s full attention before you uncross your legs, spreading your knees wide, leaning back on your hands, “but I’m more interested in what’s underneath them.”
From the look on Roger’s face, you’d guess his legs are about to give out from under him. “You’re gonna fucking kill me,” he huffs, and he hurries over.
Grinning, you scramble backwards on the bed, lying down, and he crawls after you, over you, and his kiss is bruising.
Your hands are shaking now – with excitement and with nerves, a lot of nerves – but you ignore that, and worm your fingers inside his underwear, wrapping your hand around him and giving him a tug.
He jerks, and you have a moment of panic where you think you’ve done the wrong thing, but then he kisses you with more fervour, so you do it again. This time, his hand finds yours, gently guiding you away.
“Did I do something wrong?” you ask.
Roger looks confused for a moment, and then says, “God, no. I just don’t want to get too worked up before we get to, y’know, the main event.”
“Oh,” you say, smiling in relief.
“You really have no experience at all, do you?” Roger says, sounding almost disbelieving.
“That’s what I’ve been saying,” you say. “It hasn’t all been some elaborate ruse to get into your pants. Literally all I have is some vague, theoretical ideas on how this works. And I know the mechanics. But that’s it. So you’re gonna have to be patient with me.”
“That’s fine by me,” Roger says. He chuckles. “It’ll make everything I do seem much more magical than it really is.”
“Sure,” you say mock-condescendingly.
Roger laughs, and he looks so wonderful when he’s laughing that you can’t help but smile, your hand reaching up to comb through his hair.
He notices the look in your eye, your smile, and he smiles back in a way that makes your stomach squirm and your fingers and toes tingle.
He kisses you, and the squirming in your stomach grows into full-blown butterflies, big Amazonian ones, and you begin to have an inkling that, oh no, this could be bad. This could be very bad indeed.
It’s probably nothing. He’s just hot, and nice, and funny, so you’re excited to have sex with him. That’s it. You’re a duckling that’s imprinted on its mother. Except you’re a human, and Roger’s the first person you’re having sex with, not your mother.
Not the best analogy you’ve come up with. You can’t blame yourself, though – the way Roger’s kissing you is turning your brain into mush.
He presses a kiss to just under your ear, and then kisses all the way down your throat, and you tilt your head back. “Feels so good,” you murmur.
You can feel Roger smile against your skin.
He keeps going, kissing the hollow at the base of your throat, further down still, and you bite your bottom lip. He presses a kiss to the top of your right breast, and then looks up at you. “Can I take your bra off?”
You nod eagerly, and he moves back so you can sit up. “Oh, I’ve still got my shoes on,” you said.
“I’ve noticed,” Roger says, and you chuckle.
“As super sexy as they are, I do wanna take them off,” you say.
Roger ducks forward to drop a kiss to your neck, and the butterflies are back, and you can feel your cheeks going pink. You want to hide your face, but Roger’s right there, and you can’t look away from his eyes. “How about you take your bra off,” he says, “and I’ll get your shoes.”
“You don’t have to take my shoes off for me,” you say.
“Well, I want to,” he says simply, and shuffles down, climbing off the bed. He gestures for you to shift forward, and you do, until your feet are hanging off the bed, your knees hooked over the edge. Roger gets onto his knees – he makes a dad noise as he does so, and you giggle again – and fiddles with the buckle on one of your shoes.
You take a moment to watch him, biting your lip, smiling, and then reach behind you and unhook your bra, slipping it from your shoulders.
He doesn’t look up right away, and you’re thankful for a moment to get your head around the fact that you’ve never been completely topless in front of anyone before. You’re self-conscious about the grooves the bra has dug into your skin, about the way your breasts look without the aid of the push-up, and you almost go to cross your arms over yourself, but then Roger glances up, and his hands go still. “Bloody hell,” he breathes. “You’re gorgeous.”
You tuck your hair behind your ear. “Thanks,” you say in a small voice, unsure how else to respond.
Roger shakes his head, and focuses back on the shoe, making quick work of it and easing it off your foot, setting it down beside him. He moves onto the other shoe. “Talk about winning the fuckin’ lottery,” he says.
“I could say the same,” you say.
Roger stops again, looking to you, and then smiles, looking back to the shoe. His ears have gone red.
He takes the second shoe off and places it beside the first, then presses light kisses to the inside of your knee. He moves further up your leg, up your thigh, and you realise you’re holding your breath. His arms are curled around underneath your legs.
Roger looks up at you, his thick eyelashes making him look almost angelic. “Is this all right?” he says. “If I…?”
He’s asking if he can eat you out. Oh, God, he’s asking if he can eat you out. He wants to put his mouth and tongue there, and maybe his fingers, too, and no one’s ever done that before.
You nod eagerly. Maybe a little too eagerly, as Roger laughs.
You feel your stomach cave in on itself in embarrassment. “Actually, no thanks,” you say, trying to pull your legs back. “Changed my mind.”
“No, no, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to laugh,” Roger says, still chuckling. He coaxes your legs back to where they were, and kisses your thigh. “It was just the look on your face.”
“You’re doing a terrible job of wooing me,” you say, aiming for resolute and chastising, but it comes out sounding more weedy and humiliated.
“I’m sorry,” Roger says again, and his hands stroke your legs soothingly. “I am. I didn’t mean to make you feel embarrassed.” He smiles, a glint in his eye, and you’re momentarily left breathless. “Can I… make it up to you?”
You can’t help but smile back, rolling your eyes. “Wow. Cheesy.”
“Thank you,” Roger says. “I’m going to be honest, as fun as this banter is, my knees aren’t going to last forever.”
You splutter a laugh. “Yes, yes, okay, yes please.”
Roger surges up off the floor to press a firm kiss to your lips, and you take a moment to wonder just how dodgy his knees really are if he can do something like that, or whether he was just looking for a convenient segue into getting your underwear off. You’re not fussed either way.
Roger kisses your collarbone, and then pulls back, hooking his fingers into your underwear. “Lift your hips up for me, love?”
The pet name makes heat pool between your legs. Oh, Jesus.
“Mm-hm,” you say, hoping it sounds more nonchalant to him than it does to your own ears, and lie back to lift your hips, and he slides your underwear down your legs and drops them near your shoes.
You expect him to go back to his knees straight away, but he holds himself above you, kissing you, deep and slow, making you whimper into his mouth. One hand holds himself up, and the other one massages your hip, his thumb kneading your skin. Relaxing you, you realise. You let yourself get lost in the kiss, and you’re only partially aware when Roger’s hand moves from your hip to your thigh, brushing over your skin.
You’re extremely aware, however, when his fingers stroke through your folds for the first time.
Despite yourself, you jump, and Roger murmurs, “Sorry,” but you shake your head to dismiss his concerns, and pull him in again.
For a few moments it’s strange, feeling someone’s else hand there, and you’re very conscious of how wet you are, and you wonder if it’s something you should be embarrassed about, but then Roger circles your clit, and suddenly all your worries seem very far away.
��It feels… good. Really fucking good. Roger’s fingers are rougher than yours, but they’re clearly experienced in how they move.
You push your hips up against Roger’s hand, wanting more, and Roger complies, his fingers moving just a touch more roughly, and he ducks his head to nuzzle at your throat, kissing it, nipping lightly.
“Oh, God,” you moan to the ceiling, overwhelmed already, and you almost laugh at how surprised you sound. Your hand grips Roger’s hair, and you hope it’s not too hard, but you couldn’t let go if you tried.
Then Roger’s hand is gone, and you let out a choked sound at the sudden stop. You try to gather your thoughts to ask why, but then Roger is kissing down your body. Oh, man, you think, unable to conjure up anything else, and Roger chuckles, and you realise you said it out loud, but you don’t have time to be embarrassed, as Roger takes one of your nipples into his mouth, his tongue swirling around it, his teeth tugging at it, and you gasp.
“I’ve never… That’s new,” you say weakly, hissing when Roger runs the flat of his tongue over your nipple.
Roger pulls off to ask, “Do you like it?”
“Yeah,” you say. “Yeah, uh-huh.”
“Good.” He goes back to his task, and you arch off the bed slightly.
“So good,” you breathe. Roger switches to the other nipple, and you moan appreciatively.
Eventually, both to your dismay and your excitement, he draws away, and presses a single kiss to the space between your breasts. “You’re fucking stunning,” he says, and then he moves back to climb off the bed, setting himself between your thighs.
You struggle to wrap your head around it. How he could be making you feel this good, and then still compliment you, as if you’ve done anything to deserve it?
Roger doesn’t waste time talking now. He kisses the inside of your thigh, and then he dives straight in, his tongue nudging your clit as it pushes through your folds. You suck in a sharp gasp, your hand gripping his hair tightly. Your other hand flails, grappling at the sheets as he starts to find a rhythm. You wind up pressing the back of it to your mouth, trying to muffle the sounds you’re making, trying to gather some sort of control, because right now you feel like you’re falling head-first off a cliff, and Roger has complete power over how you land.
He does something with his mouth – you couldn’t tell for the life of you what it is – and your hips buck against your will. “Sorry,” you blurt out, and it comes out broken and breathless.
Roger just adjusts one of his arms, bracing it across your hips, holding you down, and you moan. His other hand joins his mouth, sliding a finger into you. “Oh, fuck,” you whisper, and then your hand returns to its position, keeping you somewhat quieter.
It doesn’t take long before Roger’s working in a second finger, pumping them in and out of you, and the sound of it is so obscene that it makes your face go bright red. You’re climbing towards an orgasm, frighteningly quickly, and when a third finger squeezes in beside the first two, you very nearly come, but the sting of the stretch is enough to keep it at bay.
But then your body relaxes around the three fingers, and Roger crooks them just so and sucks on your clit, and you move your hand away from your mouth to say in a rush, “I’m– I’m so close, I’m gonna come, fuck, ah, shit,” and then–
Then Roger is gone, his fingers and mouth are gone, and you’re left teetering on the brink of an orgasm, feeling like the air has been punched out of you.
“Wh– Roger?” you say, your head a mess. You prop yourself up on your elbows to see Roger still between your legs, but instead he’s massaging your thighs with his thumbs, dropping light kisses to your soft skin.
He smiles up at you, his nose and chin glistening. “Thought we could try something.”
You shake your head to try to clear it. “But I was just about to…”
You can still feel the urge. Another minute, and you’ll be there. But the longer you wait, the more the feeling fades. It makes you want to punch a wall.
Roger hums. “I know. That’s the point.”
You frown, trying to wrap your head around it. “You… don’t want me to?”
“Not yet.”
It finally clicks. “You’re gonna do that to me a couple more times before you make me come, aren’t you?”
Roger’s smile widens into a grin. “That’s the plan. If you’re on board.”
“I’m on board,” you say. “As long as when I do come, it blows my fucking mind.”
“That’s really the point of it, love.” Roger keeps eye contact with you as he leans forward to press a kiss to your core, and you shudder. “And move your hand away from your mouth. You don’t have to be quiet. The more sounds you make, the better.”
“When am I gonna get my hands on you?” you ask. “I’ve barely even touched your dick yet.”
Roger huffs a laugh, and you can feel his breath against you. “We’re getting there,” he says easily. “Good things come to those who wait.”
“Ugh, that’s such a dad thing to say,” you bemoan, lying back down.
Roger laughs again, and then his mouth and hands return to where you so desperately need them. You suck in air through your teeth. “Fuck, Roger.”
Roger moans, and you jerk at the sensation.
He brings you to the edge once more, and, even though you don’t tell him when you’re about to come, he knows, and leaves you hanging once again. So close, so close, but not close enough.
You feel like crying. Or kicking him in the face.
You moan helplessly, slinging an arm over your eyes, your legs trembling as Roger smiles against your thigh – you can feel it. A smug smile that makes your blood boil and your core throb even more than it already is.
Then his fingers push into you for a third time, and his tongue licks through you, but this time it’s slow, painfully slow, not enough to make you come but enough to keep your head lost in the clouds, enough to make your stomach clench and twist, desperately searching for something. It’s enough to make you grind your teeth together. “God, fuck, I need to come,” you sob against the palm of your hand, your thighs trying to clench around Roger’s ears, but his arm is in the way, keeping your hips still.
His tongue drags against your clit, steady and unhurried, and the gasping whine that rips itself from your throat is piercing to your ears. Not even your hand could muffle it.
“There we go,” Roger says, and does it again.
You squirm. “Roger, fuck, please, I wanna come so bad.”
Roger’s fingers still move in and out of you at a leisurely pace, but he uses his mouth to say, “You wanna come?”
“Yes,” you say miserably. “Please, I need to.”
His thumb presses against your clit, and you bite your bottom lip, your body twisting.
“Christ,” Roger breathes. “That’s a fucking sight.”
“Fuck me,” you beg. “Anything, just please.”
Roger takes his hand away, standing and wiping his face on the back of his hand, and you swear. He kicks off his boxer-briefs. His cock is hard and red, swollen, leaking. You sit up and zero in on it like it’s a four-course meal and you haven’t eaten in days. You scramble off the bed, dropping to your knees in front of him.
“Fucking hell,” he says, clearly not expecting you to do that.
“Can I suck you off?” you ask desperately, resisting the urge to just shove your mouth around his dick without further preamble. “I’ll do a good job, I promise. Just tell me what to do. I’m a fast learner.” You curl your fist around him, sucking the head into your mouth.
Roger makes a strangled sound, his hips bucking slightly. “Wait, wait, wait,” he says quickly, guiding your head away with a hand on your head.
You pull back, but keep your hand where it is. “Just fuck my mouth,” you say, gazing up at him. “I dunno how that works, but I can keep it open.” You do so, sticking your tongue out, silently begging with your eyes.
Roger chuckles softly to himself, running a hand through his hair. “You’re gonna make me come just from running your mouth like that.”
You open your mouth wider.
“Or from just doing that,” Roger says. He pries your hand away from his dick, using it to pull you to your feet.
He kisses you, a hungry kiss, a you’re doing so well kiss, and it makes you preen. “But I want to fuck you,” he says. “I’ve had my dick sucked before; you’ve never been fucked.”
“I’ve never sucked a dick before, either, though,” you reason.
“Well, hit me up next time you’re in the neighbourhood,” Roger jokes. Before you can reply, he kisses you again, and you drink him in greedily, palming at his cock until his kisses grow sloppy, messy, more teeth and tongue, and he has to snatch your wrist. “Let me get inside you first,” he growls. “Good God.”
“I like it when you’re bossy,” you say, teasingly.
Roger hums, his eyes dark. “You need that attitude fucked right out of you.”
“Do it,” you say fervently, grinning in delight when he grabs your other wrist as well to stop you from touching him. “Do it, do it, do it. Fuck it right out me. I need it. Never had anyone try to fuck anything out of me before.”
Roger shudders. “Jesus.”
You half-heartedly try to tug your wrists back, but he holds them tightly. “Fuck me till I can’t walk,” you say. “Come on.”
Roger takes a breath, and then lets your wrists go. “Bed. Now.”
You scramble to obey, clenching your thighs together at the sight of Roger. He looks wrecked already, his hair a mess, his skin flushed, his eyes glassy, his lips red. He goes to his bedside table and digs out a bottle of lube and some condoms. “Maybe should check the date on these,” he mutters to himself, and squints at the packets in his hands. After a few moments of peering at them, he sighs in frustration, and reaches for the pair of glasses on the table that you hadn’t noticed before. He slips them on, and then nods at the packets. “They’re fine.”
He goes to take the glasses off, but you say, “Wait, show me.”
He turns to you. “Show you what?”
Fuck, he looks gorgeous in those glasses. They’re large, round ones, with delicate silver frames, and you make a soft sound. “Oh, wow.”
“I know, they’re horrendous,” Roger says, taking off the glasses and setting them down. “My eyesight’s always been shite, but I can’t stand wearing the bloody things.”
“No, you look great,” you say. “So great, in fact, that I need you to get the condom on so you can fuck me literally right now.”
Roger raises his eyebrows. “You what?”
“I’m dying here, Roger,” you say loudly, smacking the bed beside you. “You look hot as fuck in those glasses, and I’m so insanely horny that I’m about to explode. I need your dick in me right now.”
Roger grins, and rips open the condom packet. “All right. Jeez.”
“Let me do it,” you say, crawling over to him and taking the condom from him.
“You’ve ever done it before?” he asks.
“Not since we had to at school when I was, like, fifteen.” You do it carefully, to the best of your memory. Your mouth waters being so close to his cock. “Is this right?”
“Yeah, perfect,” Roger says. “You look incredible, by the way.”
You look up at Roger, and the butterflies return. You’re left momentarily speechless, but it doesn’t matter, because Roger leans down and kisses you. His hand rests against your collarbones, and you get another idea in your head. You rise up into a kneel, keeping his lips on yours, and then you take his hand, pressing it against your throat: a silent invitation.
Roger moans into your mouth, and applies some pressure, just a bit, testing the waters.
It makes your core ache, and you kiss him harder, so he presses harder in return. His palm is warm against your throat, and you keep one hand loosely around his wrist, the other hand in his hair, as it is wont to do.
You end up lying back on the bed, Roger pressing his hand against your throat as you gasp and squirm.
“You like this, don’t you?” Roger says, fingers on his other hand dipping into your folds. “Fuck, feel how wet you are.”
You nod desperately. Your mouth is hanging open, and your head is starting to swim.
“Is that all for me, love?”
You whimper, nodding again. You can hear your heartbeat in your ears.
Roger lets go of your throat, and you gasp, your eyes wide. “More,” you say immediately. “More. Fuck me like that.”
Roger smiles, keeping his palm against your throat, but brushes his thumb across your skin. His other hand curls around your knee. “Your enthusiasm is… mind-blowing,” he says with a chuckle, “but just take a moment, yeah? You’re all over the shop. Slow down a bit.”
“I don’t wanna slow down,” you protest, grabbing onto his forearm.
“We’ve got time, love. It doesn’t have to be over so quickly.”
“You can’t tease me like that, almost make me come, like, three times, and then tell me to slow down,” you say. “I need you, Roger. Christ, I need you. Show me what it’s like, show me how good my first time can be.”
Roger’s pupils are blown wide, and he lets out a shaky breath. He swallows. “Spread your legs.”
You grin, and do so. Roger lets go of your throat and leans over you on all fours to kiss you briefly. “I’m not choking you while I fuck you,” he says. “I want you to feel all of it, not have your head somewhere else.”
You nod vigorously.
Roger reaches for the lube. You hold out your hand, and he raises an eyebrow at you, but pours some into your hand. You reach forward and slide your fist up and down his cock, spreading the lube. He groans and shudders, and then he says, “That’s enough, that’s enough, I want to fuck you.”
You take your hand away, wiping the lube on the sheets, Roger surges forward to capture your lips with his, and you feel the head of his cock nudging at your entrance. A shot of adrenaline explodes within you.
“Tell me if it hurts, okay?” Roger says, and you nod.
Then, slowly, he pushes into you, just an inch or two. You gasp at the stretch, gripping onto his arms, your mouth wide.
Roger stills, and nuzzles at your throat. “You okay?”
“Mm-hm,” you say, biting your lip. “Keep… Keep going.”
He does, rocking in shallowly, just going a little further each time. He’s panting against your neck, and you can feel your sweat pricking your skin. You can’t help but admire Roger’s back, the way the muscles move.
It feels good. Once you get over the initial shock to the system of having something that size inside you, you realise why you were so excited to get to this in the first place.
“I’m good,” you say, nails absentmindedly scratching the back of his neck. “It– It doesn’t hurt or anything.”
“You sure?” Roger asks, kissing your neck softly.
You can’t help but laugh. “Roger, for the love of all things holy, fuck me.”
He doesn’t need another invitation. He slams into you, and your eyes go wide, a tiny sound of surprise leaping out of you.
“Sorry,” Roger says, raising his head to kiss you in apology.
“Don’t fucking apologise, it feels good,” you say back. “Come on, come on.”
Roger laughs, and kisses you. You can feel his laughter against your lips, feel the way his smile changes the shape of his mouth, and that dangerously warm feeling in the pit of your stomach returns.
You could get used to this. Get used to Roger laughing against your lips as he’s buried inside you. Get used to teasing him, to turning him on, to rolling around in his bed.
As soon as the thoughts creep into your mind, you banish them. That’s not happening, you tell yourself harshly. This is a one-and-done deal. You can’t develop feelings for a man you’ve only met once. A man who is, by the way, in case you’ve forgotten, sixteen years older than you.
Then Roger pulls out halfway and drives back into you, and all you can think about is his dick.
Your hand goes back to your mouth, just like before, keeping yourself quiet as you moan and whimper. Your ankles hook over the small of Roger’s back.
But then Roger pauses, sitting up, and he unwraps your legs from around him and pushes one of your knees flat on the bed, keeping you spread out wide. “Hands away from your mouth, love,” he says. “Let me hear you. It’s okay, you can let go.”
Your face burns, and you cover it with both of your hands. It’s too big of an ask. You’ve never felt more vulnerable. “Roger…”
“[Y/N].”
You lower your hands. He’s watching you, his blue eyes burning with desire, but they’re soft, too. Understanding.
“Keep your eyes on me,” he says. “Hold onto the sheets, yeah? Can you do that for me?”
You nod, and, with no small amount of effort, let your arms go by your sides, your fists wrapping in the sheets.
Roger smiles. “You’re amazing.”
You turn your head away, overwhelmed.
“Eyes on me. Hey.”
You look back at him. Exposed. You’re exposed, in every sense of the word.
Roger braces himself on the bed beside your ribs, and, keeping one hand on your knee, holding it down, he starts fucking into you again, hard and deep.
The sound you make could best be described as a mewl, and it’s a sound you’ve never heard yourself make before. Your hands tighten in the sheets, fighting the urge to cover your face again. Roger’s eyes are still on yours, and it’s too much, you want to look away, but you can’t.
“So good for me,” Roger pants. “Fuck. God, you’re incredible.”
You whine. “Roger.”
“That’s it, love. Say my name.”
He thrusts into you at just the right angle, making your back arch. “Roger.”
Roger groans, and he lets go of your knee to circle his fingers around your clit. You gasp, your eyes finally breaking away from his to look to the ceiling, feeling yourself climbing rapidly for the fourth time that night.
“Let me come, let me come, please,” you beg, your arms straining as your fists pull on the sheets.
Roger leans forward again to kiss you, a mess of heavy breathing and tongues and lips brushing. You let go of the sheets to clutch onto him, pawing at his shoulders and back and hips, unable to settle on where you want to hold him.
One hand inevitably slides into his hair, and you grip onto it, tugging it hard. Roger’s rhythm stutters, and he groans out your name.
His fingers feel so fucking good, and, doubled with the way he’s stretched you out, tripled with how he edged you before, you just know how hard you’re going to come. You can feel it building deeper within you than you’ve ever felt before, like an impending tsunami.
Roger readjusts, sitting back again, his brow furrowed as he searches for just the right spot to hit you.
When he does, you cry out. “Right there, right there, fuck.”
Your hands scrabble for purchase, and one finds your own hair, burying itself, and you don’t pull, but you keep a firm grip on it, the slight pain being the only thing keeping you from losing yourself entirely. Your other hand finds the same spot as before in the sheets, and you sob, screwing your eyes shut.
“You close?” Roger asks, and you nod.
“Say it out loud, love.”
“Yes, I’m so close, I’m so close,” you gasp. You’re almost there, you can feel it, only inches away, moments away.
“Open your eyes, come on.”
You do, and meet his gaze. “Roger,” you whimper.
“You gonna come for me?”
“Y-yeah.”
“I wanna hear it, yeah? Wanna see you. See you come undone on my cock.”
And that’s the final nail in the coffin. You orgasm pulses through you, so hard that you convulse, and you wail, blurting out Roger’s name, clenching down on him. Your blood roars in your ears, and you’ve never come so hard in your life.
Roger moans out, “Fuck,” and then pumps once, twice more, and then comes, groaning your name, a shudder ripping through him.
When he comes back to himself, blinking his big blue eyes at you, you can’t help but think he looks otherworldly. His face, pink, shines with sweat, as does his whole body. Locks of hair stick to his forehead, his temples. His mouth hangs open, and his chest heaves, and maybe it’s the ten-out-of-ten orgasm you just had, but in that moment, you kinda want to marry him.
He takes the hand you’ve tangled in the sheets, and presses a kiss to your wrist. Your heart just about explodes. “You all right?”
You splutter. “All right? The fuck’s that meant to mean?”
Roger smiles, massaging the palm of your hand with his thumb. “I mean, are you hurting anywhere?”
My heart hurts from you being all hot and perfect and stupidly romantic, you think. “No,” you say. “I’m just fine.”
He pulls out of you, carefully, and it does nothing but reignite a spark of arousal within you. Then he collapses onto the bed beside you with an unmistakable dad noise, and takes off the spent condom, tying it off and tossing it into the rubbish bin beside his bed. When that’s done, he wastes no time in rolling onto his side and pulling you in for a kiss. You hum happily, shifting closer to him, not even caring about the sweat and how wet you are all over your inner thighs.
When he breaks away, he says, “So. How do you feel?”
“Like I just had the biggest orgasm of my life,” you say.
Roger chuckles. “I meant now that you’re, y’know…”
It clicks. “Now I’ve lost my virginity?” you say playfully. “Had my sexual debut? I’ve become a woman?”
“Not that any of it matters, of course,” Roger adds. “But it’s still… It can be a big thing.”
You give him a soft kiss. “Yeah, it doesn’t matter,” you say. “Virginity is nothing but a social construct and all of that.”
“Of course,” Roger reiterates.
“But I feel… happy.” You hope your grin isn’t as cheesy as it feels. “It’s nice to not have to… worry about it anymore, I suppose? I don’t know if I was really worrying about it before, but it… I don’t know.” You shrug. “I just had a really good time. That’s all that matters.”
“Good.” Roger’s hand goes to your hip, squeezing it. “I’m glad.”
“Did…” You lick your lips. “Did you have a good time?”
“Did I have a good time?” Roger repeats, almost aghast. “Are you joking?”
“Even though I had no idea what I was doing?”
“You’re a natural.”
You laugh. Your stomach squirms – both because of those ridiculous maybe-almost-could-be feelings, and because, even though you know in your mind that the whole sex part of the evening is over, your body certainly isn’t ready to throw in the towel just yet.
Your thighs clench together, but you do your best to hide how it feels. You don’t want to be greedy.
Roger feels your thighs move under his hand, though, and he looks to you questioningly. “Are you still–”
“No, no, I’m fine,” you say lightly, shaking your head. “I was just moving around.”
Roger pauses, and then says, “All right.” He kisses you, and then takes a moment to gather his energy before he sits up. “I’ll get us some water.” He turns to you, pointing a finger at you, as if something just occurred to him. “You should go pee.”
Your eyes widen, and you nod. “Oh, yes, good thinking.”
“Bathroom’s just there,” he says, gesturing across the room at the closed door.
“You have an en suite?”
“Well, yeah. Much easier when there’s kids around.” His face falls a little. “Not that I’ve had the kids here very often recently, but uh…”
“I’m sorry,” you say.
He shakes his head. “Sorry. It’s fine. Great way to bring down the mood, eh?” He leans down again to kiss you, and then stands up, stretching. “Be back in a mo’.”
You watch him, your gaze hawk-like, as he pulls on his neon-green underwear and disappears out the door, raking his hand through his hair as he goes.
Your thighs clench together again, and you whimper.
You try to push it aside, and slide off the bed to go the bathroom, pulling on your underwear as you go. You don’t exactly feel like putting your push-up bra back on, but you don’t want to just lounge around completely naked. Would it be too presumptuous to put on Roger’s shirt?
You bite your lip, considering, and then decide to just bite the bullet, slipping it on and buttoning it up. It’s comfy, and smells like him; you understand why women in movies do it now. You do have to call bullshit on wearing a man’s shirt like a short, cute dress though – it’s more just like a long shirt, and you’re glad you’ve chosen to put on underwear.
It feels odd to pee in a stranger’s house – even odder that it’s an en suite – but you’re thankful that you get a moment to properly gather yourself in private, instead of while being surrounded by the smell of sex.
It’s when you’re washing your hands that you finally get a look at yourself in the mirror. Your mouth drops open in horror.
You look like a fucking mess. Your foundation is patchy where you get oily and where you’ve sweated it off, and there’s a slight ring of smudged mascara under your eyes – honestly, you’re thankful that it’s not worse, and that your setting spray did at least something. Your hair, though, is the worst of it all. You look like you’ve been dragged through a bush backwards.
“Oh, shit,” you whisper to yourself. What can you do? You don’t have any make-up with you to try to fix the problems, but you can’t exactly take it off, either. You have no way to fix your hair. You untie it from the ponytail it was in and try to smooth it out, but it doesn’t really do much, so you tie it back up again, but it’s a shitty ponytail, so you untie it and try again. Then you try a third time, and give up, settling on the disaster that it is, and grab a tissue, blotting at your make-up.
You sigh, staring at your reflection. Well, fuck. What the fuck are you meant to do? How the hell can you go back into the bedroom, knowing you look like this?
“[Y/N]?” Roger calls. “You all right in there, love?”
You shiver. God, the way he says the word ‘love’. The way he says your name.
You clear your throat. “Um, yeah, I’m– I’m fine. Just…” You can’t say you’re still peeing. Oh, fuck, what if he thinks you’re taking a shit or something? “I’m just fixing up my make-up.”
“I think there might still be some make-up wipes in a drawer somewhere, if you want to have a look,” Roger says. “Maybe they’re no good anymore, I’m not sure.”
You have a dig around, and find a packet. It’s already been opened, quite a while ago by the looks of it. Must be Roger’s ex-wife’s.
The thought of that sits weirdly with you, but you’re not quite sure why. Almost like you feel like you’re intruding, maybe. You certainly don’t feel like you belong here, in this bougie, nice house.
You sigh again, and pull out a handful of make-up wipes, seeing if there’s any that still hold any moisture. One in the middle has a little bit, so you carefully run it under your eyes, and lightly tap it over your forehead and down your neck to soothe your skin, fixing up any problem areas as best you can without it being too obvious that you’ve just wiped off the make-up.
The end result is fine. Not good, and certainly not great, but… yeah. Fine.
You throw the make-up wipes into the bin, take a deep breath, and exit the bathroom.
Roger’s on his phone, and he looks up when he hears the door open. His face goes slack when he sees you. “You’re wearing my shirt?”
“Isn’t that what girls are meant to do after sex?” you joke.
“I just haven’t seen, um, anyone do that in… in a long time,” he says, somewhat stilted, and he glances down at his hands. He quickly turns his eyes back to you. “It looks good. Really good.”
“Thank you,” you say, and pad over to the bedside table near him, where he has two glasses of water waiting. “Which one’s mine?”
“On the left.” Roger sets his phone down and watches you as you take a sip of water.
He’s close to you, and, like before you kissed for the first time, you’re hyperaware of every movement. But he barely moves, just waits for you.
When you put the water down, you hesitate. You want to climb on top of him, kiss him, feeling his arms around you again, but is that too much? Does he want you to go? Are you overstaying your welcome?
“You all right?” he asks gently.
You nod. “Um, yeah,” you say, and take a step back. “You probably, um, have work or something tomorrow, so I should go.”
You don’t miss the way Roger’s face falls a bit. “Oh, you want to go?”
No. “Well, it– I don’t want to impose…”
“If you want to go, then I’ll order an Uber for you,” Roger says. “But don’t feel like you have to go if you don’t want to.”
The Amazonian butterflies are back yet again. “I…”
“Because – and correct me if I’m wrong,” Roger says, reaching out and tugging on his shirt, pulling you closer, and you go without any resistance, “but I think you were telling a bit of a fib before, when you said you were… what did you say? Just moving around?”
You press your lips together as Roger guides you between his legs, and he tilts his head back to gaze up at you. He smiles at the look on your face. “Am I right?”
You can feel your face heating up again. “No,” you mumble unconvincingly, hiding your smile behind your hand.
“No hands over mouths,” Roger murmurs, reaching up and taking yours. “You don’t have to hide.”
Fuck. Oh, fuck. His voice sounds like a warm fireplace feels, and you barely even know him, but you’ve never felt safer, more comfortable, around a man. You can’t pretend now – you’re really starting to like him.
Roger raises his eyebrows at you, just a touch, searching your face. “So? Am I right?”
“It’s fine,” you say, shaking your head. “I’m fine, really. You’ve done plenty, I… I can’t ask for more.”
Roger hums, and presses a kiss to your palm before letting your hand go. “All right, okay,” he says. “I was wrong, I see. Can I at least tell you what I’d do to you if I had been right?”
You breathe in shakily, and nod once.
The corner of Roger’s mouth quirks up. “Well,” he says slowly, “first I’d kiss you, of course. And, as hot as you look wearing nothing but my shirt and your knickers, I’d undress you again. Get you lying down on your back, all spread out for me. I’d kiss you some more. Then I think I’d choke you, because you seem to like that a lot, yeah?”
You nod, hypnotised.
Roger nods as well. “Right. And then, while I was holding you down by your throat–”
You gulp.
“–I’d get my other hand, and I’d–”
“Okay, yes, you were right,” you blurt out, and grab his face, ducking down to kiss him desperately. He kisses you with just as much hunger, and nudges you a few steps back, giving him enough room so he can stand up and start unbuttoning the shirt. As soon as he’s done, your shrug it from your shoulders, and Roger pulls you closer by your ass. One hand moves to cup your jaw, his tongue pressing against yours. It doesn’t take long before the hand shifts to your throat, and you whimper softly, urging him to tighten his grip.
He does, and the feeling of it goes straight to your core. Your hands clutch at him frantically.
He lets go of your throat, and you suck in a gasp, then latch onto his neck, kissing and nipping and sucking at his skin, licking off the salty traces of sweat.
“Careful, love, careful,” he says shakily. “I can’t turn up to work looking like I’ve been attacked by a vacuum.”
You huff, but soften your kisses. He moans under his breath, and you don’t think you’ve ever heard anything hotter.
Soon, you break away, and crawl back onto the bed, and he follows you, positioning himself on all fours above you to kiss you deeply, his knee slotting into between your thighs. He presses it against your core, and you instinctively grind against it, shuddering when it fires an electric shock of arousal through your system. Roger shifts, readjusting his balance so he can bring his hand back to your throat, and you welcome it. You grind against his leg again.
It’s when you have to stop kissing him, your brain going into overdrive trying to force you to focus on breathing, you have to breathe, that Roger sits back, moving his leg out of the way and replacing it with his other hand.
“Fuck, Roger,” you gasp, twitching under his grip, your hands vice-like on his forearm. Your eyes slide closed, revelling in the way your head swims, the way your body fights to suck as much oxygen as it can into your lungs. You’re still so wet from before, still so stretched out, that Roger slides two fingers into you at the same time with ease, and you let out a stuttering moan, bucking your hips into his hand. His fingers swirl around your clit, hitting it in just the right way, and within minutes you’re almost there.
“Most people think the best part about getting choked is the actual ‘getting choked’ part,” Roger says out of the blue, and you frown, trying to follow, opening your eyes.
“Hear me out,” Roger says casually, pushing his fingers back into you and flicking your clit with his thumb, and you whine. “Are you close, love?”
You nod.
Roger hums. “You look so good like this. Does it feel good?”
You nod again. “Mm-hm.”
“Yeah, looks like it does. Looks like you enjoy it.”
“Ah, Roger, please.”
“It’s all right, love, I’ve got you.” Roger’s fingers quicken their pace, and you make a sound, squirming.
“As I was saying,” Roger continues, “people think the best part of getting choked is actually getting choked. But it’s not. The best part of it is actually being let go. Do you want to see?”
You nod, barely even listening to what he’s saying. You’re too close to coming to pay attention.
And then Roger lets go of your throat at the same time he brushes your clit, and a rush of oxygen flows into your lungs, a rush of blood flows back to your head, and your orgasm slams into you, and the world seems so much brighter in that moment. “Oh, fuck, fuck,” you gasp, your back arching, your eyes wide.
It feels like it goes on for a lifetime, although perhaps that’s just your mind trying to sort itself out. When you do finally start to come down from your high, you realise you’re shaking, and Roger is grinning at you. You blink at him owlishly.
“Wh– Huh?” you breathe, your heart racing, and Roger laughs.
“So you’re alive, then,” he teases, and leans down to kiss you.
You grab onto him, kissing him soundly, and roll the both of you over, so you’re straddling him. You just stay like that, just making out, letting the frenzied kisses lull themselves into something slower, something calmer. Just kissing for the sake of it. Roger’s hands stroke up and down your back, and you could almost fall asleep like this.
Speaking of falling asleep – you have to break away, hiding your yawn by tucking your face into his chest. Roger hums, and you can feel it vibrating against your body. You smile. “Sorry,” you mumble.
“Can hardly blame you,” Roger says, his voice low. “It’s late.”
You let yourself slump against him, a moment of pure self-indulgence, and then roll to the side, dumping yourself onto the bed. You groan, unable to stop yourself from instinctively shifting into a more comfortable position for sleeping, your arm beneath your head like a pillow, your eyes closing.
“I’m sorry,” you say again, muffled by your arm. “I’ll leave in a minute.”
Roger says nothing, and you feel your stomach coil in guilt. God, he wanted you to leave fifteen minutes ago, didn’t he? He was just too polite to say anything. And then you pressured him into making you come again, because you were too selfish to know when enough was enough. Great, fucking great, you’ve fucked it all up, and you’re a huge piece of shit, and you–
“Did you want to stay the night?” Roger asks tentatively.
Your eyes fly open, and you shift up onto your elbow. “What?” you say. “Stay?”
Roger glances away from you. “It– It was just a suggestion,” he says. “Just an idea, I don’t know. I, um – it’s just late, and I don’t want you travelling all that way on your own. You can, obviously, if you want to, that’s up to you, I just…”
You’re hardly even listening. You’re still struggling to drink in the first thing he said. “You want me to stay?” you ask.
Roger looks to you, and bites his bottom lip. “If– Well, if you want to, then, um, yes, I’d like you to. But only if you want to.”
You beam, and your heart triples in size. “Um, yes. I’d like to.”
Roger smiles back. “Good. Great. That’s–” He clears his throat. “Did you want to have a shower?”
“I think so,” you say with a laugh. “I’m…” You went to say I’m so disgusting right now, but you don’t want to fuck up your now-sleepover before it’s even properly begun. “Yes please.”
“Well, you know where the bathroom is,” Roger says, nodding towards the en suite. “There’s a spare toothbrush in the drawer, if I remember correctly. I’ll get you a towel.”
“You’re not coming into the shower with me?” you ask coyly.
Roger blinks, and you laugh.
“Oh,” he says. “You were joking.”
“I wasn’t,” you say. “You just made me laugh.”
Roger swoops down to steal a kiss, and you don’t let him leave, pushing up into him, stealing a few kisses back.
“Let me get you a towel,” he says, and then climbs off the bed and pads out of the room.
You bite on your finger to stop yourself from making some stupid giggle, or maybe a dumb squealing sound like a little girl. He asked you to stay the night. He wants you to stay the night.
Oh, shit, you realise, your finger dropping from your mouth. Justine. You never told her what was happening.
Where’s your phone? In the living room. Spitting out a curse, you pull on your underwear and Roger’s shirt again, and hurry out. You run into Roger, arms full of sheets, in the hallway. “Hey, is everything all right?” he says. “What did you forget?”
“I never told my roommate I wasn’t coming home,” you say. “Last she heard, I was about to book an Uber.”
Roger’s eyes go a little wider. “Shit, whoops. Yeah, go tell her.”
You shoot him a smile, and scurry off to the living room. Your phone is on the couch, and you snatch it up. Wow, shit, it is late. You’re glad you only have an afternoon lecture tomorrow.
Thankfully, just one message from Justine, from about half an hour ago. hey, haven’t heard from u in a while. just send me a message when u get this ok? xx
You respond. fuck sorry, left my phone in the other room. I have SO MUCH to tell u omg, but in a nutshell uhh we ended up sleeping together, it was fucking amazing, and now he’s asked me to stay over, so ill see u at uni tomorrow maybe? if not then at home xx
You keep your phone in hand, and head back to Roger’s room. He’s started cleaning up in the minute you were gone, stripping the bed. Fresh sheets sit on the floor. “What’s this?” you ask.
“I’m making the bed,” Roger says simply, tugging a pillow from its case. “I’m too old to be sleeping on sheets I’ve just had sex on. Let me tell you, it makes a difference. And the sheets were due for a change, anyway.”
You step forward. “Well, let me help.”
“Don’t be silly, jump in the shower.”
“Don’t tell me what to do.” You set your phone down beside his on the bedside table, and together the two of you help remake his bed.
Roger chases you into the shower then, and says he’s going to tidy up the room a little more before he joins you. “I’m on a roll now,” he says, picking up your shoes from where you kicked them aside during the bed-making. “Can’t stop, won’t stop.”
You take the make-up wipes. The door is about halfway open, and you can hear Roger moving around, hear when he trips over something and hisses out a curse, making you smile.
The make-up wipe freezes in the air near your eye. You can’t very well have a shower and go to bed without taking your make-up off – it does not make even a vague semblance of a pretty picture – but this is… way more intimate than you were expecting. Why didn’t you think of this when you agreed to stay over? Roger’s going to see you without your make-up on, with your hair tied up in a bun. He’s going to see you in the morning, all bleary-eyed and disgusting. Fuck, morning breath. You have the spare clothes you brought that you can change into tomorrow, but no extra underwear. Nothing to wear tonight. It’s a miracle that Roger even has a spare toothbrush. What time does he get up for work? Will he expect you to leave before he wakes up?
Are you a one-night-stand? Is that what this is? Are you asked to stay the night if you’re nothing but a one-night-stand, or does the fact that he asked you mean something else?
“Is your roommate all right?” Roger asks, coming to the door, leaning against the doorjamb. “No freak-outs?”
You lower the make-up wipe. “Um, no. It’s all fine, I think.”
“Have you found the toothbrush?”
“No, I haven’t checked yet.”
Roger moves around you, pulling open the drawer and rummaging through. “Ah, here it is. Still in the packet! How good am I?”
You smile as he presents it to you like it’s a medal of honour. “Thanks.”
“Sorry about the make-up wipes,” Roger says. “They’re not great.” He huffs, and then leans against the edge of the sink, rubbing his hands down his face. “I’m sorry,” he says again. “I’m… I’m actually really nervous.”
Your eyebrows shoot up. “Nervous?” you repeat. “About what?”
“About… you staying over,” he confesses. “It’s been, I don’t know, ten years since I’ve had anyone new sleep over. My brain is suddenly filled with every annoying thing I do when I sleep. And I look awful in the mornings, let me tell you. If you think I look bad now, just you wait.”
“Who says I think you look bad now?” you say. “I thought I made it perfectly clear that I think you’re a hot piece of ass, Roger.”
Roger splutters, flustered, and you grin.
“I move around a lot,” he says. “When I sleep. So be prepared to cop an elbow to the face.”
“Don’t you worry, I’m a heavy sleeper,” you say. “And I move around, too.”
“I run hot,” Roger adds. “I’m like a space heater. And sometimes I talk in my sleep, but only when I’m really stressed about something, like work. I can be really very clingy.”
“I run cold,” you say with a shrug. “So clingy suits me fine.”
Roger pauses, staring at you, like he wasn’t expecting an answer like that. Then he snaps out of it, glancing away. “Sorry,” he says for a third time.
“Don’t apologise,” you say, shaking your head. “You don’t have to. I’m nervous, too. Like, really fucking nervous. I’m– I’m too nervous to even take my make-up off.”
Roger’s eyes search your face. “I won’t care what you look like,” he says gently. “I’m sorry that you feel nervous about taking it off. But it won’t matter, I promise.”
“Just wait and see,” you joke in a sing-song voice.
Roger is silent for a few moments, and then he says, “Well, I hope you’re ready. I’m going to kiss the bloody daylight out of you when you take it off.”
You don’t know how to respond. “You don’t have to do that.”
“I’m going to. I’m going to do whatever it takes to make sure you don’t feel uncomfortable without make-up on. And if that means I have to keep kissing you all night as a reminder that it doesn’t matter what you look like without make-up, then that’s a sacrifice I’m willing to make.”
You duck your head, making a disgruntled sound. Why does he have to say cute shit like that? Why must he make you suffer?
Roger pushes the packet of make-up wipes a little closer to you, waggles his eyebrows at you, making you giggle, and then reaches across you for his toothbrush.
You start wiping off your make-up.
Roger waits until you’ve finished taking it off, until you’ve brushed your teeth, until you’re well and truly left without anything to do, and then he cups your face in his hands and does exactly what he promised he’d do.
One steamy make-out session and one far-too-long shower later, you’re sitting on the newly-made bed, wrapping in a towel, the strands of hair that slipped loose from your bun sticking to your neck and temples. You’re watching Roger pull on a pair of underwear and rifle through his chest of drawers. He pulls out a huge shirt, clearly worn and well-loved, and turns to you, holding it out. “I went on a day trip once to Brighton,” he says. “We were out to a pub and I spilled red wine all over my shirt. Had to buy a new one. Sent one of my mates to get it for me and he came back with this. Hence why I have a shirt about five sizes too big for me.”
“You didn’t have to explain,” you say with a chuckle, taking it from him.
“I feel like I did,” Roger says. “I, um, usually use it as a sleep shirt when I travel.”
You slip it on, and then stand up, letting your towel drop to the floor. The shirt is long enough to cover everything, but you’re not about to bend down any time soon.
You glance over at your underwear, where they’re in a pile near the door. Should you put them back on?
“Please don’t,” Roger blurts.
You look to him. “Huh?”
His face goes red. “Um. I just– I– You– I saw you look over there, and–” He rubs his hand along his jaw. “I, um…” He looks to the ceiling, and says it in a rush. “I’m sorry this sounds awful but I saw you looking over at your knickers and I don’t want you to put them on because you look really hot wearing my shirt and the thought of you wearing nothing underneath makes my brain explode.”
“You’re one to talk,” you say, “standing in front of me in nothing but a pair of boxers like that doesn’t make my brain explode.”
Roger’s eyes flick towards yours, and he breaks out into a smile, and then laughs. “I guess we’re even, then.”
“We’ll be truly even when I see you wearing my clothes,” you say teasingly.
Roger steps in close, his hands coming to your waist. “I don’t think your dress would fit properly, love.”
“I’ll have to come better prepared next time,” you say, and Roger hums, leaning in to give you a kiss.
Next time. Next time. You said ‘next time’. Talk about presumptuous. Christ! What is wrong with you?
You break away. “Not that I think there’ll be a next time,” you say quickly. No. Bad phrasing. “I don’t want to assume there’ll be a next time.” Still bad. “I don’t want you to think that I think there has to be a next time.” Even worse. “I don’t want you to feel obliged to have a next time if you don’t want there to be.” Better. Not great, but passable.
“I want a next time,” Roger says. “If you want one.”
“I do,” you say, God, far too eager. “I’d really like there to be a next time.”
“Me too,” Roger says.
You press into him for another kiss, and then, finally, the two of you make it to bed.
Once you’re under the covers, you almost fall asleep immediately. You didn’t realise how exhausted you are. Roger reaches over and switches off the light, and then wraps an arm around your stomach, his front against your spine.
You allow yourself to smile freely in the dark, even as your eyes close and you drift off to sleep.
~~~
“I’m… I’m going to send you the rest of the payment,” Roger says. He’s dressed for work, just in a white dress shirt and black slacks, and you’d been admiring him and enjoying the coffee he’d made you after you’d gotten out of the shower. It’s early – too early, for both of you.
But now your stomach drops, and you lower your mug of coffee from your lips. “You are?”
“Yes,” Roger says.
“You don’t have to,” you say. “I said it last night, I don’t care about the money.”
“I know,” Roger says. “But it’s still right. You started this whole thing to help pay the bills, and it’s not your fault that there was that whole mix-up. You don’t deserve to miss out on getting the money you’ve rightfully earned.”
“You don’t deserve to fork out that much money because of that whole mix-up,” you say. “You’ve already paid half of it. And it’s– it’s quite a fair bit, Roger.”
“I can afford to pay it,” Roger says. “I’m living more than comfortably. Giving you the money you’ve earned would just mean that I can’t, I don’t know, travel overseas this year.” He raises his eyebrows a touch. “Well, now that I might not have to be paying for three kids as well, maybe I’ll still be able to afford to go.” He shakes his head. “That’s beside the… My point is, I can afford it. And you deserve it.”
You don’t know what to say. “Roger…”
“Just let me,” he says earnestly. “Please. I want to.”
You open and close your mouth a few times. God, you’d be mad to turn down the money. But it doesn’t feel right. Does it? You don’t even know what to think.
You glance down at your mug. “All right,” you say quietly, so much so that you’re not even sure if he can hear you. But you can’t bring yourself to speak any louder. “Thank you, Roger.”
“Hey.”
You look up at him, and he smiles. “You can pay me back by letting me take you out to dinner.”
Your face immediately grows hot. “Suave motherfucker,” you say, and he laughs.
“I still have a few tricks up my sleeve,” he says playfully.
Your stomach squeezes. “Sure,” you say. “But I’m paying.”
Roger snorts. “Not bloody likely.”
“I’ll fight you for the cheque, don’t think I won’t.”
“Maybe I’ll just sneakily pay for it before you’ve even realised.”
You narrow your eyes at him. “Can we settle on going Dutch?”
Roger sips his coffee. “All right,” he says eventually.
“Good.”
He takes out his phone, holding it out to you. “Text me some time during this week,” he says. “About where you want to go. Or just text me if you want to say hi. Or call me. Y’know, whatever.”
You tilt your head to the side as you take his phone. “That wasn’t quite as suave, I have admit.”
Roger sighs. “Damn.”
You laugh, and send a quick text to yourself, then slide the phone back to him.
He seems extremely pleased, but he takes a casual drink from his coffee like he’s trying to hide it, and you can’t help but think it’s horribly cute.
He shoots a glance at you, and sees you grinning at him, and his cheeks turn pink, and he clears his throat, turning away to the sink to rinse his mug out.
~~~
You’re at uni, half-asleep, shuffling back to the bus stop after your never-ending lecture, when Justine barrels into you, grabbing your elbow so tightly that you yelp. “What the fuck happened last night?” she exclaims.
You don’t know why it hadn’t been awkward this morning. Apart from the money conversation. There had still been some nervousness, on your part anyway, but Roger had been too focused on getting ready for work to let any uncomfortable silences hang. You have to admit that it had been nice to wake up with someone’s arm around you, and you had been quietly delighted to see Roger fussing over the faint bruises on his neck, pulling up his shirt collar and adjusting his tie to try to cover them. After you’d both gotten ready for the day, he’d dropped you at the nearest bus stop. “And I will text you,” he’d said seriously. “Don’t think I won’t.”
“Good,” you’d said. “I’ll be waiting for it. Three days is the general rule, right?”
Roger had groaned. “Don’t make me wait three days.”
You had chuckled. “I’m not making you do anything.” You’d hesitated, and then said, “Is it weird if I kiss you before I go?”
Roger had taken a breath. “I… wouldn’t say so, no.”
So you’d leant in and kissed him, and he’d kissed you back, and you’d wanted to keep kissing him, but a car had pulled up behind you and honked, so you’d drawn back, whispered, “Bye,” and gotten out of the car.
Once you’d figured out how to get home, you’d crashed, sleeping until your alarm had woken you up again for your lecture.
“Stuff,” you say to Justine.
“Stuff?” Justine squawks. “Don’t give me that shit. You have to tell me literally everything, or I’m going to kill you. Come on.” She loops her arm through yours, and starts towing you towards the bus stop.
Your phone buzzes, and you pull it out of your pocket.
I know it hasn’t been three days, but it’s been more than three hours. Is that enough time, do you think?
You smile, reply, I think so, yeah, then quickly pocket the phone before Justine can sneak a glance as Amazonian butterflies flutter around in your stomach.
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